PSYC 251 final exam

correlation

The association between two variables When variables are strongly correlated, knowing a child's score on either variable allows accurate prediction of the child's score on the other.

Gender-role intensification

refers to heightened concerns with adhering to traditional gender roles. Factors associated with adolescence, such as concerns with romantic attractiveness or conventional beliefs regarding adult gender roles, may intensify some youths' adherence to traditional gender roles

16 weeks

the fetus is capable of intense kicks, although the mother feels them only as a mild "flutter."

4 stages of cognitive development

the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage

interest filter

"Is this information interesting?"

spanking

80% kindergarden parents report spanking on occasion 27% report spanking within the past week

Bloom, Rocissano, and Hood (1976)

Age of 21 months to 36 months, Bloom, Rocissano, and Hood (1976) found that the proportion of children's utterances that were on the same topic and added new information to what an adult had just said more than doubled (from around 20% to more than 40%).

identity versus identity confusion

As they begin to approach adulthood, adolescents must begin to develop a sense of personal identity that incorporates numerous aspects of self, including their values, their belief systems, their goals for the future, and, for some, their sexual identity.

umbilical cord

Blood vessels running from the placenta to the embryo and back again are contained in the umbilical cord

secure base

Bowlby replaced the psycho- analytic notion of a "needy, dependent infant" with the idea of a "competence-motivated infant" who uses his or her primary caregiver as a secure base

Gatekeeping and Coaching

Other dimensions of parent-child interactions may influence children's competencies in peer relationships

Biological Influences

Some researchers interested in biological influences on development consider possible ways that gender differences in behavior may have emerged during the course of human evolution

lobes

can be characterized in terms of the general behavioral categories with which they are associated

neurotransmitters

chemicals involved in communication among brain cells. Variations among children in these genes are associated with variations in the quality of performance on tasks that require effortful attention

comprehension monitoring

differentiates good readers from poor ones at all ages from 1st grade through adulthood.

Myelination

enhances executive function, contributing to the ability to resist distractions

11-weeks old

fetus clearly shows the heart, which has achieved its basic adult structure. You can also see the developing spine and ribs, as well as the major divisions of the brain.

The simplest such view holds that there are two types of intelligence

fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence

the superordinate level

general one

Three of the most important of children's constructive processes, according to Piaget

generating hypotheses, performing experiments, and drawing conclusions from their observations

categorical perception

has been established by studying people's response to speech sounds

Elkind (1967)

has labeled as the adolescent's belief in an imaginary audience. According to Elkind, because adolescents are so concerned with their own appearance and behavior, they assume that everyone else is, too.

Carol Dweck and collegues

have found that some children (and adults) believe that intelligence is a fixed entity.

nature and nurture

heredity and environment—work in concert to influence both the ways in which you are like other people and the ways in which you are unique When scientists first began to investigate the contributions of heredity and environment to development, they generally emphasized one factor or the other as the prime influence— heredity or environment, nature or nurture

habituation

involves a decrease in response to repeated or continued stimulation If you shake a rattle beside an infant's head, the baby will likely turn toward it. At the same time, the infant's heart rate may slow momentarily, indicating interest.

syntactic development

learning how words and morphemes are combined

28th week

marks the point at which the brain and lungs are sufficiently developed that a fetus born at this time would have a chance of surviving on its own, without medical intervention

Personal judgments

pertain to actions in which individual preferences are the main consideration

Social conventional judgments

pertain to customs or regulations intended to ensure social coordination and social organization, such as choices about modes of dress, table manners, and forms of greeting (e.g., using "Sir" when addressing a male teacher).

gender-essentialist statements:

remarks about males' and females' activities and characteristics phrased in language that implies they are inherent to the group as a whole

piaget (1932/1965)

suggested that because of this relative equality, children tend to be more open and spontaneous with peers when expressing their ideas and beliefs than they are with adults. As Piaget noted, children often accept adults' beliefs and rules on the basis of mere obedience rather than on the basis of understanding or agreement

human languages are generative:

through the use of the finite set of words and morphemes in their native vocabulary, individuals can create an infinite number of sentences and express an infinite number of ideas

gender-role flexibility

whereby adolescents may reject traditional gender roles as social conventions and pursue a flexible range of attitudes and interests

interrater reliability

type of consistency, indicates how much agreement there is in the observations of different raters who witness the same behavior

phenotype

the observable expression of the genotype, including both body characteristics and behavior

overlapping-waves theory

children actually use a variety of approaches to solve this and other problems

mental model

cognitive processes used to represent a situation or sequence of events

adoptive twin study

compares identical twins who grew up together versus identical twins who were separated shortly after birth and raised apart.

assertion

refers to one's attempts to exert influence over the environment, whereas

mother's

Mothers are more likely to provide physical care and emotional support than are fathers • Mothers, on the other hand, were likelier to play more reserved games with their children (e.g., peekaboo), to read to them, and to join them in play with toys indoors Indeed, both mothers and fathers in some cultures simply play less with their children than American parents do

Social Inequalities

Another area of concern centers on the possibility that socio- economic inequalities will be exacerbated by the "digital divide"—that is, unequal access to and use of computers as a function of SES. Most children have some degree of access to computers at school, but there are great differences between low- SES and high-SES families in terms of the likelihood that computers are available in their homes. Furthermore, higher-SES families are more likely to have newer, more powerful computers and to have more than one of them.

symbolic representation

Forming such personal symbols is common among 3- to 5-year-olds. It is one of the ways in which they exercise their emerging capacity for symbolic representation—the use of one object to stand for another

independent variable

The experience that children in the experimental group receive, and that children in the control group do not receive

neural tube

The folds at the top of the groove move together and fuse, creating the neural tube (Figure 2.5). One end of the neural tube will swell and develop into the brain, and the rest will become the spinal cord.

risk taking

A third personality trait associated with average gender differences during child- hood is risk taking. There is a small average difference across studies indicating that boys are more likely than girls to engage in many types of risky behavior

18 weeks

fetus is clearly sucking its thumb, in much the same way it will as a newborn

Mill

pointed out that most of Galton's eminent men were members of well-to-do families.

occipital lobe

primarily involved in processing visual information.

syntax

refers to the permissible combinations of words from different categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.). the order in which words can appear in a sentence is crucial

crossing over

some of the chromosomes that parents pass on to their offspring are constituted differently from their own.

fetal behaviour

the normal formation of organs and muscles depends on fetal activity, and the fetus rehearses the behavioral repertoire it will need at birth

The downside of experience-expectant plasticity

it is accompanied by vulnerability. If for some reason the experience that the developing brain is "expecting" for fine-tuning its circuits does not occur, whether because of inadequate stimulation or impaired sensory receptors, development may be compromised.

corpus callosum

a dense tract of nerve fibers that connect them

parenting styles

As you undoubtedly recognize from your own experience, parents in different families exhibit quite different parenting styles, that is, parenting behaviors and attitudes that set the emotional climate of parent-child interactions

Qualities of the Child

Children contribute greatly to their own intellectual development, through their genetic endowment, through the reactions they elicit from other people, and through their choice of environments.

School and neighborhood

Children's and adolescents' self-esteem can also be affected by their school and neighborhood environments. The effect of the school environment is most apparent in the decline in self-esteem that is associated with the transition from elementary school to junior high In addition, the transition to junior high forces students to enter a new group of peers and to go from the top of one school's pecking order to the bottom of another's. Especially in poor, overcrowded, urban schools, young adolescents often do not receive the attention, support, and friendship they need to do well and to feel good about themselves That children's self-esteem can be affected by their neighborhood is suggested by the evidence that living in poverty in an urban environment, especially in violent neighborhoods, is associated with lower self-esteem among adolescents in the United States

Characteristics associated with Sociometric status

From early childhood through adolescence, attractive children are much more likely to be popular, and are less likely to be victimized by peers, than are children who are unattractive Athleticism is also related to high peer status, albeit more strongly for boys than for girls

ethnic identity

In the context of identity formation, however, the two concepts are, for practical purposes, quite similar. Thus, for the present discussion, we will use the term ethnic identity to refer to the degree to which an individual has a sense of belonging to an ethnic or racial group and associates his or her thinking, feelings, and behavior with membership in that ethnic or racial group

The Process of Language Acquisition

Infants start out paying attention to what people say or sign, and they know a great deal about language long before their first linguistic productions.

intelligence

Intelligence is notoriously difficult to define, but this has not kept people from trying

Socialization of Aggression and Antisocial Behaviour

Many people, including some legislators and judges, feel that the development of aggression can be traced back to socialization in the home. Although it is unclear to what degree poor parenting and chaotic homes, in and of themselves, may account for children's antisocial behavior, it is clear that they comprise several factors that can promote such behavior

Ainsworth's Research

Mary Ainsworth, who began working with John Bowlby in 1950, provided empirical support for Bowlby's theory, extending it in important ways and bringing the concept of the primary caregiver as a secure base to the fore.

The Development of Memory

Memory plays a role in all cognitive developmental theories, but it is especially central to information-processing theories. Most such theories distinguish among working memory, long-term memory, and executive functions

entity theory

Older children's cognitions about themselves and their abilities follow a similar pattern but involve more complex concepts and reasoning than those of younger children. Some have what Dweck and her colleagues (Cain & Dweck, 1995; Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Leggett, 1988) refer to as an entity theory of intelligence Thus, when they experience failure (as everyone does some of the time), they think they are not very smart and that there is nothing they can do about it. They feel helpless

Spatial Skills

On average, boys tend to perform better than girls do in some aspects of visual-spatial processing Gender differences are most pronounced on tasks that involve mental rotation of a complex geometric figure in order to decide whether it matches another figure presented in a different orientation the conclusion that more males than females have superior spatial ability depends on the particular type of spatial ability

direction of causation problem

a correlation does not indicate which variable is the cause and which variable is the effect

Status in the peer group

Rejection by peers is associated with a range of developmental outcomes for children, such as dropping out of school and problem behaviors, and these relations can hold independent of any effects of having, or not having, close friends

These efforts have focused on three types of capabilities:

basic processes, strategies, and content knowledge

regulator genes

The activation or inactivation of one gene is always part of a chain of genetic events. When one gene is switched on, it causes another gene to turn on or off, which has an impact on the status of yet other genes. Thus, genes never function in isolation External factors can affect the switching on and off of genes. A dramatic example is the effect of thalidomide on limb development The fact that regulator genes can repeatedly switch other genes on and off in different patterns means that a given gene can function multiple times in multiple places during development.

cerebral hemispheres

The cortex is divided into two separate halves

taste

The fetus can detect these flavors, and likes some better than others. Indeed, the fetus has a sweet tooth. The first evidence of fetal taste preferences came from a medical study performed more than 60 years ago And, in fact, tests of the mothers' urine showed that the fetuses ingested more amniotic fluid when it had been sweetened, demonstrating that taste sensitivity and flavor preferences exist before birth

death

The fourth developmental process is something you would not normally think of as developmental at all—death.

treatment of depression

The most common treatment for depression in youth is drug therapy, but recent concerns have been raised about the possibility that antidepressants may increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior for some adolescents An alternative therapy that has been shown to reduce adolescents' depressive symptoms to some degree involves programs designed to promote optimistic thinking and teach positive approaches to solving personal problems

Physical Growth: Prenatal Development Through Adolescence

The most dramatic of these, of course, is the emergence of male or female genitalia. Thereafter, the differences that occur between males and females are relatively subtle—until the onset of puberty

concerns about children's exposure to media

The nature and amount of children's media exposure have aroused a variety of concerns, ranging from the possible effects of media violence and pornography to those of isolation and inactivity.

identical twin

They result from a splitting in half of the inner cell mass, and thus they both have exactly the same genetic makeup

What is Special About Peer Relationships?

Thus, in contrast to their status in most of their other relationships, especially those with adults, children are relatively equal in terms of power when they interact with their peers In the preschool and school years, peers are an important source of companionship and assistance with problems and tasks

Finally, behavior geneticists compare the resulting correlations to see if they are

(1) higher for more closely related individuals than for less closely related people, and (2) higher for individuals who share the same environment than for individuals who do not

Cognitive Abilities and Academic Achievement

Although average gender differences have been reported for certain aspects of mental functioning, the amount of difference between girls' and boys' averages on achievement and test performance measures is usually small Thus, the overlap between the two distributions is large, with girls as well as boys scoring at the top and the bottom of the range.

incremental/mastery pattern

An incremental/mastery pattern is reinforced by focusing on children's effort, praising them for a good effort ("You really worked hard on that," "I like the way you kept at it") and criticizing them for an inadequate one ("Next time you need to put in some more work," "I think you can do better if you try harder").

Time

even infants in their first half-year have a rudimentary sense of time, including perception of both the order and the duration of events

External validity

in contrast, refers to the ability to generalize research findings beyond the particulars of the research in question. Studies of child development are almost never intended to apply only to the particular children and research methods involved in a given study.

enactive experience

occurs when children learn to guide their behavior by taking into account the reactions their past behavior has evoked in others

identity achievement

that is, an integration of various aspects of the self into a coherent whole that is stable over time and across events

imaginary audience

the belief, stemming from adolescent egocentrism, that everyone else is focused on the adolescent's appearance and behavior

cerebral cortex

the surface of which is shown in Figure 3.7, is considered the "most human part of the human brain" The cortex plays a primary role in a wide variety of mental functions, from seeing and hearing to reading, writing, and doing arithmetic and to feeling compassion and communicating with others

comprehension

which refers to understanding what others say (or sign or write)

central properties of piaget's stage theory

1. Qualitative change 2. broad applicability 3. brief transitions 4. invariant sequence

Erikson's theory of identity formation

According to Erikson, adolescents who fail to attain identity achievement can experience one of several negative outcomes. One such outcome is identity confusion

narratives

5-year-olds produce narratives descriptions of past events that have the form of a story

Self-esteem

A key element of self-concept is self-esteem, or one's overall evaluation of the self and the feelings engendered by that evaluation (Crocker, 2001). Self-esteem is important because it is related to how satisfied people are with their lives and their overall outlook. Individuals with high self-esteem tend to feel good about themselves and hopeful in general, whereas individuals with low self-esteem tend to feel worthless and hopeless Low self-esteem also predicts certain problems in adulthood, including mental health problems, substance abuse and dependence, criminal behavior, weak economic prospects, and low levels of satisfaction with life and with relationships However, it is not entirely clear if low self-esteem actually causes such problems or if both are due to a third factor. For instance, low self-esteem in children is often associated with their parents' having such characteristics as low education, low income, and teenage maternity, as well as a history of alcohol or illicit drug use and criminal behavior. It should also be noted that high self-esteem, especially if not based on positive self-attributes, may have costs for children and youths The combination of high self-esteem and narcissism—grandiose views of the self, inflated feelings of superiority and entitlement, and exploitative interpersonal attitudes—has been associated with especially high levels of aggression in young adolescents

genitalia

All human fetuses, regardless of the genes they carry, can develop either male or female genitalia. The presence or absence of androgens, a class of hormones that includes testosterone, causes development to proceed one way or the other. If androgens are present, male sex organs develop; if they are absent, female genitalia develop.

Other cultural influences

Although gender differences in aggression have been observed in all cultures, cultural norms also play an important role in determining the levels of aggression that are observed in boys and girls. Douglas Fry (1988) studied rural communities in the mountains of Mexico and found that the levels of childhood aggression that were considered normal varied widely from one area to another. The community context must also be considered in relation to the emergence of differential rates of aggression among U.S. youth. Levels of violence are high in many U.S. communities, particularly in inner-city areas where an estimated 40% to 60% of children have witnessed violent crimes within the previous year When children are exposed to violence in their homes and communities, boys and girls both experience an increased risk of emotional and behavioral problems and show an increase in aggressive behaviors. However, boys are more likely than girls to be exposed to the highest levels of violence, and the average impact of exposure is also greater for boys than for girls

Nonlinguistic Symbols and Development

Although language is our preeminent symbol system, humans have invented a wealth of other kinds of symbols to communicate with one another. Virtually any- thing can serve as a symbol so long as someone intends it to stand for something other than itself Symbolic proficiency involves both the mastery of the symbolic creations of others and the creation of new symbolic representations

fetal experience

Although the uterus and the amniotic fluid buffer the fetus from much of the stimulation impinging on the mother, research has made it clear that the fetus experiences an abundance of sensory stimulation

Physical inactivity

Another concern has to do with the fact that a child who is glued to a screen is not outside playing or otherwise engaging in robust physical activity. In addition, the thousands of TV commercials with which children are bombarded every year (at an advertiser cost of billions of dollars per year) consist largely of advertisements for sugary cereals, candy, and fast-food restaurants.

Language Development

By 5 years of age, most children have mastered the basic structure of their native language or languages their sentences are as grammatically correct as those produced by the average college student. This is a remarkable achievement

chronosystem

Finally, Bronfenbrenner's model also has a temporal dimension, which he has referred to as the chronosystem. In any given society, beliefs, values, customs, technologies, and social circumstances change over time, with consequences for children's development. In addition, the impact of environmental events depends on another chronological variable—the age of the child Another important aspect of the temporal dimension, which we have noted on several occasions, is the fact that as children get older, they take an increasingly active role in their own development, making their own decisions about their friends, activities, and environments.

Basic Features of Freud's Theory

Freud proposed that children pass through a series of universal developmental stages. According to Freud, in each successive stage, psychic energy becomes focused in different erogenous zones Freud believed that in each stage, children encounter conflicts related to a particular erogenous zone, and he maintained that their success or failure in resolving these conflicts affects their development throughout life

Strategies

From age 4 or 5 years, when most children begin to learn arithmetic, they use a variety of problem-solving strategies. The most common initial strategies are counting from 1 and retrival When children begin to do arithmetic on a daily basis, in kindergarten or first grade, they add several new strategies. Children continue to use the ear- lier developing strategies as well; most 1st-graders use three or more strategies to add single-digit numbers Just as children's choices among word-identification strategies are highly adaptive, so are their choices among arithmetic strategies ( Even 4-year- olds choose in sensible ways, usually solving easy problems such as 2 + 2 quickly and accurately by using retrieval and usually solving harder problems such as 5 + 2 less quickly but still accurately by counting from 1 The learning process seems to be the same as with the corresponding shift toward visually based retrieval in reading. The more often children generate the correct answer to a problem, regardless of the strategy they use to generate it, the more often they will be able to retrieve that answer, thereby avoiding the need to use slower counting strategie

Peer status as a predictor of risk

Having an undesirable peer status has been associated with a variety of short-term and long-term risks and negative outcomes for children, including inferior academic performance, loneliness, delinquency, and poor adjustment.

three-stratum theory of intelligence

How can these competing perspectives on intelligence be reconciled? After studying intelligence for more than half a century, John B. Carroll (1993, 2005) proposed a grand integration: the three-stratum theory of intelligence General intelligence influences all moderately general abilities, and both general intelligence and the moderately general abilities influence the specific processes. Carroll's comprehensive analysis of the research literature indicated that all three levels of analysis that we have discussed in this section are necessary to account for the totality of facts about intelligence. Thus, for the question "Is intelligence a single trait, a few abilities, or many processes?" the correct answer seems to be "All of the above."

goodness of fit

However, how children ultimately adjust depends not only on their temperament but also on how well their temperament fits with the particular environment they are in—what is often called goodness of fit. On the basis of their data, Chess and Thomas (1990) argued, for example, that children with difficult temperaments have better adjustment if they receive parenting that is supportive and consistent rather than punitive, rejecting, or inconsistent.

Custody of Children after divorce

In 2009, roughly 82% of children living with one divorced parent were living with their mother When parents cooperate with each other and keep the children's best interests in mind, children are unlikely to feel caught in the middle (Maccoby et al., 1993). Unfortunately, mutually helpful parenting is not the norm (Bretherton & Page, 2004): researchers have found that once parents have been separated for a while, most either engage in conflict or do not deal much with each other

View of Children's Nature

In contrast to Freud's emphasis on the role of internal forces and subjective experience, most learning theorists have emphasized the role of external factors in shaping personality and social behavior

the pervasive effects of poverty

In many of our discussions throughout this book, we focus on a number of factors that affect the development of children living in poverty. the multiple-risk model in Chapter 2. First, it is the accumulated exposure to multiple environmental risk factors that is crucial (G. W. Evans, 2004). A child whose parents are neglectful might cope reasonably well, but doing so would be more difficult if the child also goes to a poor-quality school in a dangerous neighborhood. Second, as discussed in Chapters 10 and 11, individual children differ with respect to how susceptible they are to environmental influences, both positive and negative

Experiencing time

In one study, 3-month-olds were presented a series of interesting photos, first on their left, then on their right, then on their left, and so on. Within 20 seconds, they began to look to the side where each new photo was to appear even before the photo was presented Infants also have an approximate sense of the durations of events. In one study, 4-month-olds saw periods of light and darkness alternate every 5 seconds for eight cycles, at which point the pattern was broken by the light's failing to appear. Within half a second of the break, infants' heart rates decelerated, a change that is characteristic of increased attention. Infants also can discriminate between longer and shorter durations. The ratio of the durations, rather than differences in their absolute length, is critical for these discriminations Children, like adults, are subject to certain illusions about time, in part because of the role attention plays in time perception. When 8-year-olds' attention is focused on the passage of time (for example, when they expect a prize at the end of a 2-minute interval), they perceive the duration as longer than the same interval when they are not anticipating a prize.

Behaviour genetic research design

In order to examine genetic and environmental contributions to a given trait or characteristic, behavior geneticists first measure that trait in people who vary in terms of genetic relatedness

Children and the Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Awful

In terms of the bioecological model, media are situated in the exosystem, but they are subject to influences from the chronosystem, as indicated earlier; from the macrosystem (including cultural values and government policies); from other elements in the exosystem (such as economic pressures); and from the microsystem (such as parental monitoring). Most notably, watching Sesame Street was associated with increases in young children's vocabulary and helped prepare them for school entry, with some positive effects persisting even through children now spend more time involved in using screen media than in any other activity besides sleeping. Media usage is increasing at an incredible rate; 8- to 18-year-olds upped their average screen time by more than an hour just in the past 5 years, from an average of 6 hours 21 minutes in 2005 to 7 hours 38 minutes in 2010

deferred imitation

In the last half-year of the sensorimotor stage (ages 18 to 24 months), according to Piaget, infants become able to form enduring mental representations. The first sign of this new capability is deferred imitation, that is, the repetition of other people's behavior minutes, hours, or even days after it occurred.

androgens

In the study of gender development, much attention has been paid to the possible effects of androgens, a class of steroid hormones that includes testosterone during normal prenatal development, the presence of androgens leads to the formation of male genitalia in genetic males; in their absence, female genitalia are formed in genetic females. Androgens can also have organizing or activating influences on the nervous system

individual

Individual differences in reading ability tend to be stable over time. Children who have relatively advanced reading skills when they enter kindergarten tend to be better readers through elementary, middle, and high school Studies of adoptive and nonadoptive siblings and of monozygotic and dizygotic twins indicate that these continuities of individual differences reflect both shared genes and shared environments

maternal factors-age

Infants born to girls 15 years or younger are three to four times more likely to die before their first birthday than are those born to mothers who are between 23 and 29 A different age-related cause for concern has to do with the increasing age of first-time mothers. In recent decades, many women have chosen to wait until their 30s or 40s to have children. At the same time, techniques to treat infertility have continued to improve, increasing the likelihood of conception for older parents. Older mothers are at greater risk for many negative outcomes for themselves and their fetus, including fetal chromosomal abnormalities (see Chapter 3) and birth complications.

The Growth of a Theory of Mind

Infants' and preschoolers' naïve psychology, together with their strong interest in other people, provides the foundation for a theory of mind, an organized understanding of how mental processes such as intentions, desires, beliefs, perceptions, and emotions influence behavior. One important component of such a theory of mind—understanding the connection between other people's desires and their actions—emerges by the end of the first year

occupational hazards

Many women have jobs that bring them into contact with a variety of environmental elements that are potentially hazardous to prenatal development. Employers and employees alike are grappling with how best to protect pregnant women from potential teratogens without subjecting them to job discrimination.

Self-esteem in minority children

Minority children in the United States generally are more likely than majority (European American) children to live in "undesirable," impoverished neighbor- hoods and to be subjected to prejudice from both adults and peers, which can undermine children's self-esteem Less is known about the self-esteem of Latino and other minority children. Because of the poverty and prejudice that many Latino Americans experience, one might expect their self-esteem to be consistently much lower than that of European Americans at all ages, and it is, at least through elementary school. Beginning in adolescence, however, the difference becomes much smaller this change may be due to the fact that Latino (e.g., Mexican American) parents encourage their children's identification with the family and with the larger ethnic group (Parke & Buriel, 2006), which can provide a buffer against some of the negative effects that poverty and prejudice often have on self- esteem. Other minority groups in the United States show different patterns of self- esteem. Asian American children, for instance, report higher self-esteem in elementary school than do European Americans and African Americans, but by high school their reported self-esteem is lower than that of European Americans Although discrimination can have a negative effect on adolescents' self-esteem, how minority children and adolescents think about themselves is influenced much more strongly by acceptance from their family, neighbors, and friends than by reactions from strangers and the society at large (Galliher, Jones, & Dahl, 2011; Seaton, Yip, & Sellers, 2009). Thus, minority-group parents can help their children develop high self-esteem and a sense of well-being by instilling them with pride in their culture and by being generally supportive

First sentences

Most children begin to combine words into simple sentences by the end of their second year. However, in another example of comprehension preceding production, young children know something about word combinations well before they produce any. Yet when the infants heard the sentence "She's kissing the keys" or "She's kissing the ball," they looked preferentially at the appropriate scene. Many children continue to produce one- and two-word utterances for some time, whereas others quickly move on to sentences consisting of three or more words. The length of children's utterances increases in part because they begin to systematically incorporate some of the elements that were missing from their telegraphic speech. Once children are capable of producing four-word sentences, typically at around 21⁄2 years of age, they begin to produce complex sentences containing more than one clause

7th graders study

Much of the research on this question has been carried out in the domain of math education. In an important study conducted in the New York City public schools, Dweck and her colleagues found that 7th-graders with an incremental theory of intelligence showed an upward trajectory in math scores over the next 2 years, while the scores of 7th-graders with a fixed theory of intelligence remained flat Students in this group were taught an incremental theory of intelligence based on some of the same concepts from basic neuroscience that you read about in Chapter 3: the brain is plastic and always changing; learning forges new connections among synapses; and so on. Another important issue is whether these two types of internal views—entity theories and incremental theories—have implications for children's development in domains beyond intelligence and academic achievement. Assuming that this is the case, then learning to take a more incremental view should diminish their tendency to make hostile attributions. And indeed, this is the case: when the experimenters used an intervention (which included a brief introduction to neuroscience concepts, as described in the previous paragraph, but nothing about hostile intent) to shift adolescents' perspectives away from the fixed-entity view and closer to the incremental view, there was a reduction in the participants' hostile attributions. Unfortunately, doing something that might seem purely positive— praising a child for being good at something—can actually undermine the child's motivation for improvement.

pretend play

One early milestone in the development of play is the emergence, at around 18 months of age make-believe activities in which children create new symbolic relations.

Does security of attachment have long-term effects?

One explanation for this may be that children with a secure attachment are more likely to develop positive and constructive internal working models of attachment • In contrast, insecure/avoidant children, whose parents tend to be nonresponsive to their signals of need and distress, are likely to learn to inhibit emotional expressiveness and to not seek comfort from other people Consistent with these patterns, children who were securely attached in infancy or early childhood later seem to have closer, more harmonious relationships with peers than do children who were insecurely attached Finally, secure attachment in infancy even predicts positive peer and romantic relationships and emotional health in adolescence and early adulthood Having either one secure attachment or secure attachments with both parents was associated with low levels of problem behaviors (Kochanska & Kim, 2013). However, it is not clear yet if having one secure attachment buffers against other types of negative outcomes, such as internalizing problems (e.g., anxiety, depression) or problems in interpersonal relations. Clearly, then, children's security of attachment is related to their later psychological, social, and cognitive functioning. However, experts disagree on the meaning of this relationship. Empirical findings support both perspectives to some degree. One study reported that even if children functioned poorly during the preschool years, those who had a secure attachment and adapted well during infancy and toddlerhood were more socially and emotionally competent in middle childhood than were their peers who had been insecurely attached However, although there is often considerable stability in attachment security, there is also evidence that children's security of attachment can change somewhat as their environment changes—for example, with the onset or termination of stress and conflict in the home or a pronounced shift in the mother's typical behavior with the child (L. M. Forbes et al., 2007) or in her sensitivity

Acquisition of Academic Skills: Reading, Writing, and Mathematics

One important goal to which children apply their intelligence is learning the skills and concepts taught at school. Because these skills and concepts are necessary for normal intellectual development in modern societies, because they are central to success in adulthood, and because they can be difficult to master, children spend more than 2000 days in school from 1st through 12th grade

Several themes have been especially prominent in research on conceptual development

One is nature and nurture: children's concepts reflect the interaction between their specific experiences and their biological predispositions to process information in particular ways. Another recurring theme is the active child: from infancy onward, many of children's concepts reflect their active attempts to make sense of the world. A third major theme is how change occurs: researchers who study conceptual development attempt to understand not only what concepts children form but also the processes by which they form them. A fourth is the sociocultural context: the concepts we form are influenced by the society in which we live. Nativists argue that infants are born with some sense of fundamental concepts, such as time, space, number, causality, and the human mind, or with specialized learning mechanisms that allow them to acquire rudimentary understanding of these concepts unusually quickly and easily

Influences on identity formation

One key factor is the approach parents take with their offspring. Adolescents who experience warmth and support from parents tend to have a more mature identity and less identity confusion Youths who are subject to parental psychological control tend to explore in breadth and are lower in making commitment to an identity. Adolescents are also more likely to explore identity options rather than go into foreclosure if they have at least one parent who encourages in them both a sense of connection with the parent and a striving for autonomy and individuality Identity formation is also influenced by both the larger social context and the historical context The historical context plays a role in identity formation as well, because of the changes it brings about in identity options over time. Until a few decades ago, for instance, most adolescent girls focused their search for identity on the goal of marriage and family.

children's social adjustment

One of the reasons for researchers' deep interest in temperament is that it plays an important role in determining children's social adjustment. Consequently, it is not surprising that differences in aspects of temperament such as anger/irritability, positive emotion, and the ability to inhibit behavior—aspects reflected in the difference between difficult and easy temperament—have been associated with differences in children's social competence and maladjustment These researchers found that participants who were negative and unregulated as young children tended as adolescents or young adults to have more problems with adjustment, such as not getting along with others, than did peers with different temperaments. They also tended to have few people from whom they could get social support and were prone to negative emotions like anxiety. At age 32, they had poorer physical health and personal resources, greater substance dependence, more criminal offenses, and more problems with gambling It is important to note, however, that aspects of temperament like negative emotionality may not always be associated with children's negative outcomes such as having problem behaviors and poor social relationships.

the nature of young children's groups

One striking feature of these first peer groups is the early emergence of status patterns within them, with some children being more dominant and central to group activities than are others

Parental Beliefs

Parents of socially competent children think about parenting and their children somewhat differently than do parents of children who have low social competence. They also tend to believe that when their children dis- play inappropriate or maladaptive behavior with a peer (e.g., aggression, hostility, social withdrawal), it is because of the circumstances of the specific situation, such as a provocation by the peer or a mutual misunderstanding. In other words, they tend to believe that their children "were born that way."

Theoretical Approaches to gender development

Researchers variously point to the influences of biological, cognitive-motivational, and cultural factors on gender development. First, biological differences between females and males—including the influence of sex hormones and brain structure differences—may partly account for average gender differences in some behaviors. Second, cognition and motivation—learning gender-typed roles through observation and practice—can shape children's gender development. Finally, cultural factors, including the relative status of women and men in society, may shape children's gender development

neuroscience approaches

Researchers who take a neuroscience approach focus on testing whether and how hormones and brain functioning relate to variations in gender development •z during normal prenatal development, the presence of androgens leads to the formation of male genitalia in genetic males; in their absence, female genitalia are formed in genetic females.

Speech Perception

The basis for this very early learning is prosody Speech perception also involves distinguishing among the speech sounds that make a difference in a given language. To learn English, for example, one must distinguish between bat and pat, dill and kill, Ben and bed

dependent variable

The behavior that is hypothesized to be affected by exposure to the independent variable

experience-dependent plasticity

The brain is also sculpted by idiosyncratic experience through what Greenough calls experience-dependent plasticity. Much of the research on experience-dependent plasticity has been focused on nonhuman animals, whose environments can be readily manipulated. Highly specific effects of experience on brain structure also occur. In other words, after years of practice, more cortical cells were devoted to receiving input from and controlling the fingers that manipulate the strings of the instruments. After the training, not only did the children show marked improvement in their reading ability, but fMRI imaging revealed increased activity in their left-brain areas that was similar to the activity in the brains of good readers.

category heiarchies

The category hierarchies that young children form often include three of the main levels in Table 7.1: the superordinate level, the subordinate level, and the basic level Thus, they typically form categories of medium generality, such as "tree," before they form more general categories such as "plant" or more specific ones such as "oak."

Central Developmental Issues

The central theme of most relevance to social cognitive theories is the active child. Another prominent theme is individual differences, particularly in the comparisons that are often drawn between the thinking and behavior of males and females, aggressive and nonaggressive children, and so on. The issue of continuity/ discontinuity is important in some prominent stage theories that emphasize age-related qualitative changes in how children think about the social world. Information-processing theories, on the other hand, stress continuity in the processes involved in social reasoning Selman's stage theory of role taking; the second type is represented by Dodge's information-processing theory of social problem solving and by Dweck's attributional account of academic achievement.

The Self-conscious Emotions: embarrassment,

The emergence of self-conscious emotions is also fostered by children's growing sense of what adults and society expect of them and their acceptance of these external standards At about 15 to 24 months of age, some children start to show embarrassment when they are made the center of attention. Asked to show off an ability or a new piece of clothing, for example, they lower their eyes, hang their head, blush, or hide their face in their hands

microsystem

The first level in which the child is embedded is the microsystem—the activities, roles, and relationships in which the child directly participates over time. The microsystem becomes richer and more complex as the child grows older and interacts increasingly often with peers, teachers, and others in settings such as school, neighborhood, organized sports, arts, clubs, religious activities, and so on. Bronfenbrenner stresses the bidirectional nature of all relationships within the microsystem.

emergence of pride

The first signs of pride are evident in children's smiling glances at others when they have successfully met a challenge or achieved something new, like taking their first step • Children express more pride, for example, when they succeed on difficult tasks than they do when they succeed on easy ones

Influence of the Immediate Environment

The influence of nurture on the development of intelligence begins with a child's immediate environment of families and schools.

sociometric status

The information from these procedures is used to calculate the children's sociometric status, or peer acceptance—that is, the degree to which the children are liked or disliked by their peers as a group. The most commonly used sociometric system classifies children into one of five groups: popular, rejected, neglected, average, or controversial

Shared and Nonshared Family Environments

The phrase "family intellectual environment" is often taken to mean characteristics that are the same for all children within the family: the parents' emphasis on education, the number of books in the house, the frequency of intellectual discussions around the dinner table, and so on.

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development

This theory holds that between birth and adolescence, children go through four stages of cognitive growth, each characterized by distinct intellectual abilities and ways of understanding the world 2- to 5-year-olds are in a stage of development in which they can focus on only one aspect of an event, or one type of information, at a time. By age 7, children enter a different stage, in which they can simultaneously focus on and coordinate two or more aspects of an event and can do so on many different tasks.

test-retest reliability

This type of reliability is attained when measures of a child's performance on the same test, administered under the same conditions, are similar on two or more occasions

Development of Spatial Concepts in Blind and Visually impaired people

Thus, when 3-month-olds are brought into a totally dark room in which nothing can be seen, they use sounds emitted by nearby objects to identify the objects' spatial locations and reach for them Although infants can use their auditory sense, among other senses, to form spatial representations, visual experience during infancy does play an important role in spatial development Despite their extensive visual experience after the corrective surgery, most of these people could not use visual information to represent space as well as other people can; problems remained, especially with representations of faces, even 20 years after the surgery On tasks involving the representation of very small spaces, such as being guided in drawing two sides of a triangle on a piece of paper and then being asked to complete the triangle by drawing the third side themselves, children who are born blind perform as well as sighted children who are blindfolded Thus, although some spatial skills seem to require early visual experience, many blind people develop impressive senses of space without ever see- ing the world.

Motivators of development

To a greater extent than any of the other theories except Piaget's, dynamic-systems theories emphasize that from infancy onward This motivation to explore and learn is clearly apparent in the fact that children persist in practicing new skills even when they possess well- practiced skills that are more efficient. Thus, toddlers persist in their first unsteady efforts to walk, despite the fact that crawling would get them where they want to go more quickly and without the risk of falling Dynamic-systems theorists have emphasized that observing other people, imitating their actions, and attracting their attention are all potent motivators of development

Central development issues

Two developmental issues that are especially prominent in dynamic-systems theories are how the cognitive system organizes itself and how it changes

bioecological model

Urie Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model of human development differentiates among interconnected systems, from the microsystem (the immediate environment) to the macrosystem (the culture), that influence children's development over time A fundamental feature of the macrosystem is its opportunity structure Opportunities for members of a cultural community can vary depending on gender, income, and other factors and are reflected by the dominant adult roles within that cultural community. Thus, traditional gender-typing practices perpetuate as well as reflect the existing opportunity structures for women and men in a particular community at a particular time in history

socioeconomic status (SES)

a measure of social class that is based on income and education

teratogens

a vast array of environmental agents have the potential to harm the fetus. The resulting damage ranges from relatively mild and easily corrected problems to fetal death. The effects of teratogens can also vary according to individual differences in genetic susceptibility (probably in both the mother and the fetus) Finally, identifying teratogens is further complicated by the existence of sleeper effects, in which the impact of a given agent may not be apparent for many years. An enormous number of potential teratogens have been identified, but we will focus only on some of the most common ones, emphasizing in particular those that are re- lated to the behavior of the pregnant woman.

darwin

argued that the facial expressions for certain basic emotional states are innate to the species—and therefore similar across all peoples—and are found even in very young babies.

aggression

behavior aimed at harming others (Parke & Slaby, 1983), and it is behavior that emerges quite early.

4-7 belief of living things

believe that animals are the only living things soon realize that plants also move in ways that promote their survival

gender stability:

children come to realize that gender remains the same over time

twin-study design

compares the correlations for identical (monozygotic, or MZ) twins with those for same-sex fraternal (dizygotic, or DZ) twins For twins who grow up together, the degree of similarity of the environment is generally assumed to be equal. Both types of twins shared the same womb, were born at the same time, have lived in the same family and community, and are always the same age when tested. Thus, with different levels of genetic similarity and essentially equal environmental similarity, the difference be- tween the correlations for the two types of twins is treated as an index of the importance of genetic factors

synaptogenesis

each neuron forms synapses with thousands of others, resulting in the formation of the trillions of connections referred to earlier. As with myelination, the differential timing of synapse generation across areas of the brain likely contributes to the developmental timing of the onset of various abilities and behaviors.

category hierarchies

forming category hierarchies—that is, categories organized according to set-subset relations—helps children make finer distinctions among the objects within each category.

Scarr (1992)

identified four factors that can lead children from a single family (as well as children from different families) to turn out very different from one another: -Genetic differences -Differences in treatment by parents and others -Differences in reactions to similar experiences -Different choices of environments

personal fable

in which adolescents overly differentiate their feelings from those of others and come to regard themselves, and especially their feelings, as unique and special

altruistic motives

initially include empathy or sympathy for others and, at later ages, the desire to act in ways consistent with one's own conscience and moral principles

Working Memory

involves actively attending to, gathering, maintaining, storing, and processing information Working memory is limited in both its capacity (the amount of information that it can store) and in the length of time it can retain information without updating activities. For example, a child might be able to remember a sequence of five dig- its but not six, and might be able to remember them for 5 or 10 seconds without repeating them but not for a longer time. However, the capacity and speed of operation of working memory increase greatly over the course of childhood and adolescence

Evolutionary psychology theory

is a popular approach, but a number of its proposals regarding gender differences are controversial. Some biologists and psychologists argue that many of evolutionary psychology theory's claims about sex differences in personality traits cannot be tested

fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD)

marital drinking can result in this comprises a continuum of alcohol-related birth defects. Babies born to alcoholic women often exhibit a condition known as fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) Many children who were prenatally exposed to alcohol and show similar but fewer symptoms are diagnosed with fetal alcohol effects (FAE)

gender schemas

mental representations incorporating everything the child knows about gender. Gender schemas include memories of one's own experiences with males and females, gender stereotypes transmitted directly by adults and peers ("boys don't cry," "girls play with dolls"), and messages conveyed indirectly through the media.

vicarious reinforcement

observing someone else receiving a reward or a punishment

Emmy Werner

prenatal care from physicians, observational work at home and school, standardized testing administered and personality tests at 10 and 18, and interviewed them at 18 and 30 for personal development Prenatal complications more likely to have physical complications, mental illnesses, and learning difficulties Those in middle-income families who experienced prenatal complications were almost as advanced as their peers By 10, prenatal complications only affected those who grew up in poor conditions However, one-third of such at-risk children showed impressive resilience, growing up into young adults who, in the words of Werner

Newport (1990)

proposed an intriguing hypothesis to explain these results and, more generally, to explain why children are usually better language learners than adults. According to her "less is more" hypothesis, perceptual and memory limitations cause young children to extract and store smaller chunks of the language than adults do.

Freud's psychoanalytic theory

proposed that biological drives, especially sexual ones, are a crucial influence on development

Two techniques are crucial to experimental designs:

random assignment of participants to groups, and experimental control

gender-typed and cross-gender-typed

refer, respectively, to behaviors associated with a given person's gender and to behaviors associated with the gender other than that of a given person. For example, playing with dolls is gender-typed for girls and cross-gender-typed for boys.

Ingroup bias

refers to the tendency to evaluate individuals and characteristics associated with the ingroup as superior to those associated with the outgroup. For example, Kimberly Powlishta (1995) observed that children showed same-gender favoritism when rating peers on like-ability and favorable traits

nurture

refers to the wide range of environments, both physical and social, that influence our development, including the womb in which we spend the prenatal period, the homes in which we grow up, the schools that we attend, the broader communities in which we live, and the many people with whom we interact.

fraternal twin

result when two eggs happen to be released from the ovary into the fallopian tube and both are fertilized

Johnson and Newport (1989)

tested the English proficiency of Chinese and Korean immigrants to the United States who had begun learning English either as children or as adults. The results, shown in Figure 6.1, reveal that knowledge of key aspects of English grammar was related to the age at which these individuals began learning English, but not to the length of their exposure to the language. The most proficient were those who had begun learning English before the age of 7.

SES and Development

the SES of their families has profound effects on children's development. In the microsystem, children are affected by the nature of their family's housing and their neighborhood, and in the mesosystem, by the condition of their school and the quality of their teachers. Exosystem influences include the nature of the parents' employment or lack of employment. Macrosystem factors include the government policies that affect employment opportunities and establish programs like Project Head Start geared to low-income families. Chronosystem factors also come into play with respect to changes over time in the kind and number of jobs that are available

self-discipline

the ability to inhibit actions, follow rules, and avoid impulsive reactions—is more predictive of changes in report card grades between 5th and 9th grades than is IQ score, though IQ score is more predictive of changes in achievement test scores over the same period

cognitive development

the development of thinking and reasoning

dose-response relation

the greater the fetus's exposure to a potential teratogen, the more likely it is that the fetus will suffer damage and the more severe any damage is likely to be. One reason is that environmental risk factors frequently occur in combination, making it difficult to separate out their effects. For families living in urban poverty, for example, it is hard to tease apart the effects of poor maternal diet, exposure to airborne pollution, inadequate prenatal care, and psychological stress resulting from underemployment, single parenthood, and living in crime-ridden neighborhoods.

task analysis

the identification of goals the obstacles that prevent their immediate realization, the prior knowledge and information in the environment relevant to them, and the potential processing strategies for overcoming the obstacles and attaining the goals Such task analysis helps information-processing researchers understand and predict children's behavior and allows them to rigorously test precise hypotheses regarding how development occurs A second distinctive feature of information-processing analysis is an emphasis on thinking as an activity that occurs over time. Often, a single simple behavior, such as the initial request of Klahr's daughter that he open the basement door, reflects an extended sequence of rapid mental operations.

relation 3: Child's environment--child's phenotype

the impact of the environment on the child's phenotype the child's observable characteristics result from the interaction between environmental factors and the child's genetic makeup.

egocentric spatial representations

the locations of objects are coded relative to the infants' position at the time of the coding. Egocentric spatial representation during infancy is not absolute, however. If toys are hidden adjacent to a distinctive landmark, such as a tower, infants usually find the toy despite changes in their own position

arborization

the main change in dendrites an enormous increase in the size and complexity of the dendritic "tree" that results from growth, branching, and the formation of spines on the branches

subordinate level

the very specific one

essentialism

the view that living things have an essence inside them that makes them what they are

sroufe (1979, 1995)

there are three basic affect systems—joy/pleasure, anger/frustration, and wariness/fear—and these systems undergo developmental change from primitive to more advanced forms during the early years of life. In Sroufe's view, such changes are largely due to infants' expanding social experiences and their increasing ability to understand them.

Prosocial Behaviour

there is some developmental consistency in children's readiness to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as sharing, helping, and comforting In fact, children who, like Sara, share spontaneously with peers tend to be more concerned with others' needs throughout childhood and adolescence and even in early adulthood. As young adults, they reported that they felt responsible for the welfare of others and that they usually tried to suppress aggression toward others when angered. This view of themselves was supported by friends, who rated them as more sympathetic than study participants who engaged in less spontaneous prosocial behavior in preschool

A-not-B error

these initial representations of objects are fragile, however, as reflected in the A-not-B error. In this error, once 8- to 12-month-olds have reached for and found a hidden object several times in one place (location A), when they see the object hidden at a different place (location B) and are prevented from immediately searching for it, they tend to reach where they initially found the object (location A)

gender identity

they categorize themselves either as a girl or a boy

synaptic pruning

this pruning occurs at different times in different areas of the brain

pragmatic development

to use factors such as the context and the speaker's emotional tone to read between the lines and to learn how to hold a conversation. Acquiring an understanding of how language is typically used

control group

treated identically except that they are not presented with the experience of interest or are presented with a different experience that is expected to have less effect on the variables being tested

Information-processing theorists

try to explain both the processes that make memory as good as it is at each age and the limitations that prevent it from being better.

family-study design

used for assessing genetic and environmental influences is the adoption study. In this approach, researchers examine whether adopted children's scores on a given measure are correlated more highly with those of their biological parents and siblings or with those of their adoptive parents and siblings

locke

viewed the child as a tabula rasa, or blank slate, whose development largely reflects the nurture provided by the child's parents and the broader society.

prosocial behaviour

voluntary behavior intended to benefit another, such as helping, sharing, and comforting of others.

Thalidomide

was prescribed to treat morning sickness (among other things), and was considered to be so safe that it was sold over the counter. At the time, it was believed that such medications would not cross the placental barrier pregnant women who took this new, presumably safe sedative gave birth to babies with major limb deformities; some babies were born with no arms and with flipper-like hands growing out of their shoulders. Taking thalidomide either before the limbs started to develop or after they were basically formed had no harmful effect. Because a substantial number of pregnancies are unplanned, sexually active people of childbearing age need to be aware of behaviors that could compromise the health of a child they might conceive.

erikson and bowlby

who argued that children's sense of self is grounded in the quality of their relationships with others

adolescence

• During late childhood and adolescence, as children increasingly develop an understanding that norms about gender roles are social conventions, they may nevertheless endorse the conventions. Thus, adolescents may believe it is legitimate to exclude cross-gender peers from their peer group, because they feel that to include them would be violating the group's gender norms and social conventions This trend is likely due to a combination of experiencing increased sexism and having an increased awareness of sexism

Central Developmental Issues

• Three of our seven themes—continuity/discontinuity, individual differences, and nature and nurture—play prominent roles in psychoanalytic theory. • The interaction of nature and nurture arises in terms of Freud and Erikson's emphasis on the biological underpinnings of developmental stages and how they interact with the child's experience.

cell migration

A second major process, which occurs during the embryonic period, is cell migration, the movement of newly formed cells away from their point of origin

development of effortful attention

involves voluntary control of one's emotions and thoughts Studies of the brain activity of people performing tasks that require control of thoughts and emotions show that connections are especially active between the anterior cingulate, a brain structure involved in setting and attending to goals, and the limbic area, a part of the brain that plays a large role in emotional reactions

clinical interview

is especially useful for obtaining in-depth information about an individual child

structured interview

is especially useful when the goal is to collect self-reports on the same topics from everyone being studied

zygote

now has a full complement of human genetic material, half from the mother and half from the father

cross-cultural comparisons

often reveal that practices that are rare or nonexistent in one's own culture are common in other cultures

rousseau

parents and society should give children maximum freedom from the beginning

structured observation

researchers design a situation that will elicit behavior that is relevant to a hypothesis and then observe how different children behave in that situation

Ethological and evolutionary theories

• view children as inheritors of genetically based abilities and predispositions. The bioecological model stresses the effects of context on development, but it also emphasizes the child's active role in selecting and influencing those contexts

depression

Major bouts of depression are much more common in adolescence than in childhood, although a small percentage of preschoolers exhibit depressive symptoms that predict problems with depression in the school years Prior to adolescence, a child's chance of experiencing a period of major depression is less than 3%, but between ages 12 and 17, this figure increases to more than 4% for boys and more than 12% for girls

sensitive period

Many teratogens cause damage only if they are present during a sensitive period in prenatal development. The major organ systems are most vulnerable to damage at the time when their basic structures are being formed

Explanations for gender differences in Cognitive Abilities and achievement

Researchers have variously pointed to biological, cognitive-motivational, and cultural factors in relation to gender-related variations in cognitive abilities and achievement. We now examine each possible area of influence.

Sibling Relationships

Siblings influence one another's development and the functioning of the larger family system in many ways, both positive and negative. Low-quality sibling relationships also are associated with higher lev- els of siblings' depression, anxiety, and social withdrawal In addition, sibling aggression and conflict rather than closeness are related to children's lack of self-regulation (Padilla-Walker, Harper, & Jensen, 2010) and risky sexual behavior (S. M. McHale, Bissell, & Kim, 2009), as well as externalizing problems Siblings' relationships tend to be less hostile and more supportive, for example, when their parents are warm and accepting of them

continuous

Some scientists envision children's development as a continuous process of small changes, like that of a pine tree growing taller and taller

In the troubled families, interactions often fell into a vicious cycle in which

The child acted in a hostile or aggressive manner, for example, by defying a parent's request to clean up his or her room. The parent reacted angrily, for example, by shouting at the child to obey. The child escalated the level of hostility, for example, by yelling back. The parent ratcheted up the aggression even further, perhaps by spanking the child.

Putting words together

The degree to which children develop syntax, and the speed with which they do it, is what most distinguishes their language abilities from those of nonhuman primates

interviews

The most obvious way to collect data about children is to go straight to the source and ask the children themselves about their lives

chromosomes

The nucleus of every cell in the body contains chromosomes, long threadlike molecules made up of two twisted strands of DNA

adrenarche

The onset of sexual attraction correlates with the maturation of the adrenal glands, which are the major source of sex steroids other than the testes and ovaries. This stage has been termed adrenarche, although the child's body does not yet show any outside signs of maturation.

Grammar: A tool for building new words and sentences

The power of language derives from the mastery of these regularities, which allows individuals to produce and understand language beyond the specific words and sentences to which they have been exposed. In English, nouns are made plural by adding-s, and verbs are put into the past tense by adding-ed, with some notable exceptions (e.g., men, went). Young children recognize these formations and are able to generalize them to novel words. Since the children had never heard the word wug before, their ability to produce the correct plural form for this totally novel word demonstrated that they could generalize beyond the other plurals they had previously heard. The results of this study are taken as evidence that the participants understood how English pluralization works. Evidence for generalization also comes from the way children treat irregular cases.

Peer influence

The social norms and activities traditionally practiced within children's gender-segregated peer groups foster different interpersonal goals in girls and boys. The impact of same-gender peer norms was implicated in Leaper and Smith's (2004) meta-analysis in which it was found that gender differences in communication were more likely to be detected in studies of same-gender interactions than in mixed-gender interactions.

Prenatal development

Their presence, normally triggered by the Y chromosome in genetic males 6 to 8 weeks after conception, stimulates the formation of male external organs and internal reproductive structures; their absence results in the formation of female genital structures. In genetic females, this can lead to the formation of masculinized genitals Research suggests that prenatal exposure to androgens may influence the organization of the nervous system, and these effects may be partly related to some average gender differences in behavior seen at later ages.

word segmentation

They then have to figure out where the words start and end. Remarkably, they begin the process of word segmentation during the second half of the first year. As soon as the infant turns to look at the light, an auditory stimulus is played through the speaker, and it continues as long as the infant is looking in that direction. The length of time the infant spends looking at the light—and hence listening to the sound— provides a measure of the degree to which the infant is attracted to that sound. Infants in this study were tested on repetitions of words that had been presented in the sentences (such as cup) or words that had not (such as bike). By 8 months of age, English-learning infants expect stressed syllables to begin words and can use this information to pull words out of fluent speech

relational aggression

This association between aggression and perceived popularity, although seen to some degree even in preschool (Vaughn et al., 2003), is quite strong in early adolescence; indeed, high-status individuals, particularly girls, are likely to engage in relational aggression, such as excluding others from the group, withholding friendship to inflict harm, and spreading rumors to ruin a peer's reputation

maternal emotional state

This view is now supported by research suggesting that maternal stress can have negative consequences for development In a study that involved more than 7000 pregnant women and their infants, maternal anxiety and depression during pregnancy were assessed. The higher the level of distress the pregnant women reported, the higher the incidence of behavior problems in their children at 4 years of age—including hyperactivity and inattention in boys, conduct problems in girls, and emotional problems in both boys and girls Like other types of teratogens, it is difficult to tease apart the specific effects of maternal stress from other factors that often co-occur with stress increased popularity of prenatal yoga and meditation classes may point to ways in which pregnancy- related stress may be reduced, with potential benefits for both mother and fetus.

The Child as an Influence on Parenting

Thus, individual differences in children contribute to the parenting they receive, which, in turn, contributes to differences among children in their behavior and personalities.

Prosocial Moral Judgement

To determine how children resolve these dilemmas, researchers present children with stories in which the characters must choose between helping someone or meeting their own needs. These dilemmas are called prosocial moral dilemmas and concern prosocial behavior On these tests, children and adolescents use five levels of prosocial moral reasoning, delineated by Eisenberg (1986), that resemble Kohlberg's stages preschoolers also often mention other people's physical needs, which suggests that some preschoolers are concerned about other people's welfare In addition, in elementary school, children increasingly express concern about social approval and acting in a manner that is considered "good" by other people and society In late childhood and adolescence, children's judgments begin to be based, in varying degrees, on explicit perspective taking and morally relevant affect such as sympathy, guilt, and positive feelings due to the real or imagined consequences of performing beneficial actions children from different cultures do vary somewhat in their prosocial moral reasoning. For example, stereotypic and internalized reasoning were not clearly different factors for Brazilian older adolescents and adults, whereas the two types of reasoning were somewhat more different for similar groups in the United States Moreover, older children (and adults) in some traditional societies in Papua New Guinea exhibit higher-level reasoning less often than do people of the same age in Western cultures. In nearly all cultures, reasoning that reflects the needs of others and global concepts of good and bad behavior emerges at somewhat younger ages on prosocial dilemmas than on Kohlberg's moral dilemmas

behavior geneticists try to tease apart genetic and environmental contributions to the differences observed among a population of people or other animals. Two premises underlie this endeavor:

To the extent that genetic factors are important for a given trait or behavior, individuals who are genotypically similar should be phenotypically similar. In other words, behavior patterns should "run in families": children should be more similar to their parents and siblings than to second- or third-degree rel- atives or unrelated individuals. To the extent that shared environmental factors are important, individuals who were reared together should be more similar than people who were reared apart.

Conceptual understanding of arithmetic

Understanding why some arithmetic procedures are appropriate and others inappropriate poses a major challenge for many children, even those who have memorized the correct procedure The most common incorrect approach is to add all the numbers to the left of the equal sign, which in the above problem sum to 12, and to assume that this sum is the answer to the problem. In many cases, children's hand gestures reveal that they have somewhat better understanding of mathematical equality than is revealed by their answers or explanations. For example, on the problem 3 + 4+ 5 = __ + 5, children often answer "12" and explain that they solved the problem by adding 3 + 4 + 5, but during their explanation, they point to all four numbers rather than just to the three preceding the equal sign.

systematic desensitization

Watson's work on classical conditioning laid the foundation for treatment procedures that are based on the opposite process—the deconditioning, or elimination, of fear. A student of Watson's (M. C. Jones, 1924) treated 2-year-old Peter, who was deathly afraid of white rabbits This approach, now known as systematic desensitization, is still widely used to rid people of fears and phobias of everything from dogs to dentists.

Infant-directed Speech

We have no doubt that you could, even if the stranger was speaking an unfamiliar language. The reason is that in virtually all cultures, adults adopt a distinctive mode of speech when talking to babies and very young children The current term, infant-directed speech (IDS), recognizes the fact that this style of speech is used by both males and females, including parents and nonparents alike. Indeed, even young children adopt it when talking to babies

overextension

What young children want to talk about quickly outstrips the number of words in their limited vocabularies, so they make the words they do know perform double duty. One way they do this is through overextension—using a word in a broader context than is appropriate, as when children use dog for any four-legged animal, daddy for any man, moon for a dishwasher dial, or hot for any reflective metal

Causal Reasoning during the Preschool period

When 4-year-olds see a potential cause produce an effect inconsistently, they infer that some variable that they cannot see must cause the effect; when the same effect occurs consistently, they do not infer that a hidden variable was important. Preschoolers' emerging understanding that events must have causes also seems to influence their reactions to magic tricks. Most 3- and 4-year-olds fail to see the point of such tricks; they grasp that something strange has happened but do not find the "magic" humorous or actively try to figure out what caused the strange outcome

pragmatic cues

When confronted with novel words, children also exploit a variety of pragmatic cues to their meaning by paying attention to the social contexts in which the words are used. Another pragmatic cue that children use to draw inferences about a word's meaning is intentionality (Tomasello, 2007). The degree to which preschool children take a speaker's intention into account is shown by the fact that if an adult's labeling of an object conflicts with their knowledge of that object, they will nevertheless accept the label if the adult clearly used it intentionally ( Jaswal, 2004). When an experimenter simply used the label "dog" in referring to a picture of a catlike animal, preschool children were reluctant to extend the label to other catlike stimuli

hostile attributional bias

a general expectation that others are antagonistic to them This bias leads such children to search for evidence of hostile intent on the part of the peer in the above scenario and to attribute to the peer a desire to harm them

standard deviation (SD),

a measure of the variability of scores within a distribution.

internal working model of attachment

a mental representation of the self, of attachment figures, and of relationships in general. This internal working model is based on the young child's discovering the extent to which his or her caregiver could be depended on to satisfy the child's needs and provide a sense of security.

Gregor Mendel

a nineteenth- century Austrian monk who observed distinct patterns of inheritance in the pea plants that he cross-bred in his monastery garden

Transgender:

a person whose gender identity does not match the person's genetic sex; includes individuals who identify either with the other sex, with both sexes, or with neither sex

parental-investment theory

a primary source of motivation for parents to make such sacrifice is the drive to perpetuate their genes in the human gene pool, which can happen only if their offspring survive long enough to pass those genes on to the next generation. Parental-investment theory also points to a potential dark side of the evolutionary picture—the so-called Cinderella effect—which refers to the fact that rates of child maltreatment are considerably higher for stepparents than for biological parents.

display rules

a social group's informal norms about when, where, and how much one should show emotions and when and where displays of emotion should be suppressed or masked

embryonic stem cells

all of the embryo's cells

Greater connectivity among brain regions

also increases processing capacity and speed by increasing the efficiency of communication among brain areas

hypotheses

as educated guesses, rather than as truth

variables

attributes that vary across individuals and situations, such as age, sex, activity level, socioeconomic status, particular experiences, and so on.

self-conscious emotions

because they relate to our sense of self and our consciousness of others' reactions to us.

The profound developments that Piaget described as occurring during infancy call attention to a general principle:

children's thinking grows especially rapidly in the first few years

Noam Chomsky (1959)

countered Skinner by pointing out some of the reasons why language cannot be learned through the processes of reinforcement and punishment Chomsky's account, which has been central to the development of the modern discipline of linguistics, is consistent with the fact that, despite many surface differences, the underlying structures of the world's languages are fundamentally similar. His strongly nativist account also provides an explanation for why most children learn language with exceptional rapidity, while nonhumans (who presumably lack a Universal Grammar) do not.

incremental theory

. This theory, like Diane's view of intelligence, is rooted in the idea that intelligence can grow as a function of experience. Children who hold an incremental theory of intelligence believe that academic success is achievable through effort and persistence

Amanda Woodward (1998)

6-month- old infants saw a hand repeatedly reach toward one of two objects sit- ting side by side in a display (see Figure 5.18). The question was whether the infants interpreted the reaching behavior as directed toward a particular object. They did, as shown by their looking longer when the hand went to the new object (in the old place) than when it reached for the old object it had reached to before. Thus, the infants apparently interpreted the reaching behavior as directed toward a particular object.

View of Children's Nature

Although Vygotsky and Piaget were contemporaries, much of Vygotsky's most important work was largely unknown outside Russia until the 1970s. Its appearance created a stir, in part because Vygotsky's view of children's nature was so different from Piaget's.

Individual Differences in Emotion and Its regulation

Although the overall development of emotions and self-regulatory capabilities is roughly similar for most children, there also are very large individual differences in children's emotional functioning. Moreover, children differ in their timidity, in their expression of positive emotion, and in the ways they deal with their emotions. The differences among children in their emotionality and regulation of emotion almost certainly have a basis in heredity. For example, identical twins are more similar to each other in these aspects of their emotion and regulation than are fraternal twins. However, environmental stressors, including factors as diverse as negative parenting and instability in an adopted child's placement, are related to problems children may have with self-regulation and the expression of emotion.

naïve psychology

Although the understanding of oneself and others varies greatly from individual to individual, just about everybody has a commonsense level of psychological understanding. This naïve psychology is crucial to normal human functioning and is a major part of what makes us people.

Alcohol and substance abuse

As in the case of aggression, adolescents who abuse alcohol or drugs tend to have friends who do so also On the one hand, there is some evidence that adolescents tend to select friends who are similar to themselves in terms of drinking and the use of drugs, and this may be especially true for those youths who are highly susceptible to peer pressure Youths who are highly susceptible to the influence of their close friends seem particularly vulnerable to any pressure from them to use drugs and alcohol (Allen, Porter, & McFarland, 2006), and, as in the case of aggression, this is especially the case if those friends have high status in the peer group Yet another factor in the association between adolescents' abuse of drugs and alcohol and that of their friends is their genetic makeup. Youths with similar genetically based temperamental characteristics such as risk-taking may be drawn both to one another and to alcohol or drugs The extent to which friends' use of drugs and alcohol may put adolescents at risk for use themselves seems to depend, in part, on the nature of the child-parent relationship. If the adolescent's parents are authoritative in their parenting— monitoring their child's behavior and setting firm limits, but also being warm and receptive to the adolescent's viewpoint

conforming to expectations

At about 9 to 12 months of age, children start to show awareness of adults' demands and begin to regulate themselves accordingly In the second year of life, children also show increases in the ability to inhibit their motor behavior when asked to do so—such as slowing down their walking or not touching certain attractive objects. As a result, children are increasingly able to conform to adults' expectations, such as not hurting others when angry and staying seated at school when they would much prefer to get up and talk or play with classmates

the first five stages, which focus on development in infancy, childhood, and adolescence:

Basic Trust Versus Mistrust (the first year). Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt (ages 1 to 31⁄2). Initiative Versus Guilt (ages 4 to 6) Industry Versus Inferiority (age 6 to puberty) Identity Versus Role Confusion (adolescence to early adulthood)

temperament

Because infants differ so much in their emotional reactivity, even from birth, it is commonly assumed that children are born with different emotional characteristics. Differences in various aspects of children's emotional reactivity that tend to emerge early in life are labeled as dimensions of temperament Although characteristics of temperament have generally been thought to be evident fairly early in life, there is now evidence that some may not emerge until childhood or adolescence and may change considerably at different ages

Very Early Casual Reasoning

By 6 months of age, infants perceive causal connections among some physical events

syntactic bootstrapping

Children also use the grammatical structure of whole sentences to figure out meaning

A Human Environment

Children must also be exposed to other people using language—any language, signed or spoken Intriguingly, newborns also prefer nonhuman primate (rhesus macaque) vocalizations to nonspeech sounds, and show no preference for speech over macaque vocalizations until 3 months of age

Milestones in Gender Development

Developmental psychologists have identified general patterns that tend to occur over the course of children's gender development. these changes begin during prenatal development, when sexual differentiation occurs

theories of social cognition

Developmental theories of social cognition have to do with children's ability to think and reason about their own and other people's thoughts, feelings, motives, and behaviors. The complexity of children's thinking and reasoning about the social world is related to, and limited by, the complexity of their thought processes in general. After all, the same mind that solves arithmetic and conservation problems also solves problems having to do with making friends and resolving moral dilemmas

personality traits

During childhood, average gender differences appear in some personality traits, including activity level, self-regulation, and risk-taking

Reasoning about time

During middle childhood, children become increasingly proficient at reasoning about time. Children as young as 5 years can sometimes make such logical inferences about time, but only in simple, straightforward situations. For instance, when told that two dolls fell asleep at the same time and that one doll awoke before the other, 5-year-olds reason correctly that the doll that awoke later also slept longer Piaget's (1969) observations of performance on this task were part of what led him to conclude that children in the preoperational stage often center on a single dimension and ignore other, more relevant ones.

freud's theory of psychosexual development Erik Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, and Lawrence Kohlberg's theory of moral development

Each of these stage theories proposes that children of a given age show broad similarities across many situations and that children of different ages tend to behave very differently

Erikson's Theory of Psychosocial Development

Erikson accepted the basic elements of Freud's theory but incorporated social factors into it, including cultural influences and contemporary issues, such as juvenile delinquency, changing sexual roles, and the generation gap. Erikson proposed eight age-related stages of development that span infancy to old age. Each of Erikson's stages is characterized by a specific crisis, or set of develop- mental issues, that the individual must resolve.

invariant sequence

Everyone progresses through the stages in the same order without skipping any of them

study on fetus and carrot juice

Experiences in the womb can lead to long-lasting taste preferences. In one study, pregnant women were asked to drink carrot juice four days a week for three weeks near the end of their pregnancy When tested at around 51⁄2 months of age, their babies reacted more positively to cereal prepared with carrot juice than to the same cereal prepared with water. This finding reveals a persistent effect of prenatal learning

fathers interaction with children

Fathers' participation in child care differs from mothers' not only in amount but also in kind. In contrast, fathers in modern industrialized cultures spend a greater proportion of their available time playing with their children than do mothers, both in infancy and childhood, and the type of play they engage in differs from mothers' play as well

Three properties of naïve psychological concepts are noteworthy

First, many of them refer to invisible mental states. No one can see a desire or a belief or other psychological concepts such as a perception or a memory. Second, psychological concepts are linked to one another in cause- effect relations. The third noteworthy property of these naïve psychological con- cepts is that they develop surprisingly early in life.

temperament examples

For example, incentive motivation—the vigor and rate of responding to anticipated rewards—seems to become stronger in early adolescence, which may account for reduced self-regulation in regard to rewarding but risky activities (e.g., the use of drugs and alcohol), and then drops after adolescence.

The possible costs of friendships

Friends who have behavioral problems may exert a detrimental influence, contributing to the likelihood of a child's or adolescent's engaging in violence, drug use, or other negative behaviors

Later Development

From 5 or 6 years of age on, children continue to develop language skills, although with less dramatic accomplishments. One consequence of schoolchildren's more reflective language skills is their in- creasing appreciation of the multiple meanings of words, which is responsible for the emergence of the endless series of puns, riddles, and jokes with which they delight themselves and torture their parents (Ely & McCabe, 1994). They also are able to learn the meaning of new words simply from hearing them defined (Pressley, Levin, & McDaniel, 1987), a factor that helps their comprehension vocabulary expand—from the 10,000 words that the average 6-year-old knows to the 40,000 words estimated for 5th graders (Anglin, 1993) to the average college- student vocabulary that has been estimated to be as high as 150,000 words

activity level

Higher average activity levels are seen among boys than among girls during child- hood. The effect size is medium, which means that there is a meaningful average difference (although there is also much overlap between the two genders).

human hereditary

Humans normally have a total of 46 chromosomes in the nucleus of each cell, except egg and sperm cells With one exception—the sex chromosomes—the two members of each chromosome pair are of the same general size and shape Furthermore, each chromosome pair carries, usually at corresponding locations, genes of the same type—that is, sequences of DNA that are relevant to the same traits

Stepparenting

In 2009, 5.6 million children in the United States were living with a stepparent investigators have found some general patterns in the adjustments that are required of both children and adults when a remarriage occurs

divorce

In 2012, 5.4 million U.S. children lived with only their divorced mother, 1.3 million children lived only with their divorced father, and several million others lived in reconstituted families

knowledge of Living things

In a study of the first 50 words used by children, the two terms other than "mama" and "dada" that were used by the greatest number of children were "dog" and "cat" By the time children are 4 or 5 years old, their fascination with living things translates into an impressive amount of knowledge about them, including knowledge of observable biological processes such as growth, and unobservable bio- logical processes such as inheritance, illness, and healing Thus, when Kelemen and DiYanni (2005) asked 6- to 10-year-olds why the first monkey came to exist, the children often referred to how monkeys serve human purposes, such as "The manager of the zoo-place wanted some" and "So then we had somebody to climb trees." most 5-year-olds believe that plants are not alive, and some believe that the moon and mountains are alive In contrast, other investigators believe that by age 5 years, children understand the essential characteristics of living things and what separates them from nonliving things but are just confused on a few points A third view is that young children simultaneously possess both mature and immature biological understanding

studys of depression

In a study of youths making the transition to middle school, for instance, those who felt that they had little control over their success in school and who demonstrated little investment in school were especially likely to show an increase in depressive symptoms if they also experienced the transition as stressful. In addition, the combination of family difficulties (e.g., separation from parents) in early childhood and high levels of interpersonal stress later on may increase youths' vulnerability to depression, perhaps because early stress can affect the child's ability to adapt physiologically years later

temperament

In childhood, the first five of these dimensions are particularly important in classifying children's temperament and predicting their behavior. In addition, there is some evidence that a dimension referred to as agreeableness/adaptability may be another important aspect of temperament Agreeableness involves exhibiting positive emotions and behaviors toward others (e.g., getting along with others and caring about them versus being aggressive and manipulative), as well as the tendency to affiliate with others. Adaptability involves being able to adjust to specific conditions, including the needs and desires of others.

incremental/mastery orientation

In contrast, the self-esteem of children with an incremental/mastery orientation is based more on their own effort and learning and not on how others evaluate them.

fluid vs crystallized intelligence

distinction between fluid and crystallized intelligence is supported by the fact that tests of each type of intelligence correlate more highly with each other than they do with tests of the other type Thus, children who do well on one test of fluid intelligence tend to do well on other tests of fluid intelligence but not necessarily on tests of crystallized intelligence. The brain areas most active in the two types of intelligence also differ: the prefrontal cortex usually is especially active on measures of fluid intelligence but tends to be much less active in measures of crystallized intelligence

identity in adolescence

In his view, the challenge is as follows: "From among all possible and imaginable relations, [the person] must make a series of ever-narrowing selections of personal, occupational, sexual, and ideological commitments"

separation anxiety

distress due to separation from the parent who is the child's primary caregiver. However, the degree to which children exhibit such distress varies with the context. For example, infants show much less distress when they crawl or walk away from a parent than when the parent does the departing

Controversial children

In some ways, the most intriguing group of children are controversial children, who, as indicated, are liked by numerous peers and disliked by numerous others. Controversial children tend to have characteristics of both popular and rejected children

Evolutionary Approaches

evolutionary theory proposes that certain characteristics that facilitate survival and the transmission of genes to succeeding generations have been favored over the course of human evolution. there are different views regarding the proposal that females and males evolved different behavioral dispositions. Two examples are evolutionary psychology theory and biosocial theory

Early Word Recognition

Infants begin associating highly familiar words with their highly familiar referents surprisingly early on. Infants gradually come to understand the meaning of less frequently heard words, with the pace of their vocabulary-building varying greatly from one child to another

Influence of Society

Intellectual development is influenced not only by characteristics of children, their families, and their schools but also by broader characteristics of the societies within which children develop

Effects of friendships on psychological functioning and behaviour over time

having close, reciprocated friendships in elementary school has been linked to a variety of positive psychological and behavioral outcomes for children, not only during the school years but also years later in early adulthood

meiosis

how gametes produce a special type of cell division in which the eggs and sperm receive only one member from each of the 23 chromosome pairs contained in all other cells of the body This reduction to 23 chromosomes in each gamete is necessary for reproduction, because the union of egg and sperm must contain the normal amount of genetic material (23 pairs of chromosomes)

intermittent reinforcement

if the reward for a behavior is totally withdrawn following intermittent reinforcement, the behavior persists longer than it would if it had previously been consistently reinforced.

The prefrontal cortex (Figure 4.8) plays a particularly important role in this cognitive control. Three major types of executive functions are

inhibiting tempting actions that would be counterproductive; enhancing working memory through use of strategies, such as repeating a phone number that would otherwise be forgotten; and being cognitively flexible, for example, taking someone else's perspective in an argument despite its differing from one's own

amniotic sac

key element of this support system a membrane filled with a clear, watery fluid in which the fetus floats. The amniotic fluid operates as a protective buffer for the developing fetus, providing it with a relatively even temperature and cushioning it against jolting.

meta-linguistic knowledge

knowledge about language and its properties

phonemic awareness

knowledge of the individual sounds within words.

Organizing influences

occur when certain sex-linked hormones affect brain differentiation and organization during prenatal development or at puberty. For example, sex-related differences in prenatal androgens may influence the organization and functioning of the nervous system; in turn, this may be related to later average gender differences in certain play preferences

gametes

or germ cells, are unique not only in their function but also in the fact that each one contains only half the genetic material found in other cells.

The Developmental Process stages

oral stage anal stage phallic stage latency period genital stage

gender typing

refers broadly to the process of gender socialization and development.

experimental control

refers to the ability of the researcher to determine the specific ex- periences that children in each group encounter dur- ing the study

vygotsky (1978)

suggested that children learn new skills and develop their cognitive capacities in peer interactions. However, unlike Piaget, Vygotsky highlighted the role of cooperation between peers.

achievement motivation

that is, in whether they are motivated by learning goals, seeking to im- prove their competence and master new material, or by performance goals, seeking to receive positive assessments of their competence or to avoid negative assessments.

bilingualism

the ability to use two languages

opportunity structure

the economic resources it offers and people's understanding of those resources

bidirectionality

the idea that parents and their children are mutually affected by one another's characteristics and behaviors

cultural tools

the innumerable products of human ingenuity that sociocultural theorists refer to as cultural tools: symbol systems, artifacts, skills, values, and so on

5 1/2 week old fetus

the nose, mouth, and palate are be- ginning to differentiate into separate structures

Attachment theory

theory based on John Bowlby's work that posits that children are biologically predisposed to develop attachments to caregivers as a means of increasing the chances of their own survival

gender schema filter

"Is this information relevant for my gender?"

body image

For example, in some cultures, the increase in body fat that girls experience in adolescence may be related to gender differences in body image—how an individual perceives and feels about his or her physical appearance.

subitizing

Haith and Benson (1998) proposed that infants rely on subitizing, a perceptual process by which adults and children can look at one, two, or three objects and almost immediately form a mental image of how many objects there are

General intelligence

The average IQ scores of girls and boys are virtually identical proportionally more boys' than girls' scores fall at both the lower and the upper range of scores

The Functions of Friendship

The most important of these, noted by Piaget, Vygotsky, and others, are emotional support and the validation of one's own thoughts, feelings, and worth, as well as opportunities for the development of important social and cognitive skills

sociocultural context

The sociocultural context is another prominent theme and features research that examines differences in language acquisition across cultures and communities.

exosystem

The third level of social context, the exosystem, comprises settings that children may not directly be a part of but that can still influence their development. Parents' enjoyment or dislike of their work can affect the emotional relationships within the family

cross-situational word learning

Through this process of cross-situational word learning, even infants can narrow down the possible meanings of new words (e.g., L. Smith & Yu, 2008; Vouloumanos & Werker, 2009).

reciprocated best friends

a friendship in which two children view each other as best or close friends

Sensitive Periods

a key element in experience-expectant plasticity is timing. the extreme deprivation that the Romanian orphans suffered early in life, when children normally experience a wealth of social and other environmental stimulation, is considered by some to be an example of a sensitive-period effect

script

a set of actions or events that occurs repeatedly.

Internal validity

refers to whether effects observed within experiments can be attributed with confidence to the factor that the researcher is testing

phonological development

the mastery of the sound system of their language.

modularity hypothesis

which proposes that the human brain contains an innate, self-contained language module that is separate from other aspects of cognitive functioning (Fodor, 1983). The idea of specialized mental modules is not limited to language.

typical pattern of development envisioned by the overlapping-waves approach

with strategy 1 representing the simplest strategy, and strategy 5, the most advanced. This model has been shown to accurately characterize children's problem solving in a wide range of contexts, including arithmetic, time-telling, reading, spell- ing, scientific experimentation, biological understanding, tool use, and recall from memory

children in courtroom

100,000 children testify legal cases per year, 40%+ of sexual-abuse cases are under 5, and amost 40% of substantiated sexual-abuse cases involve children under 7 to make sure reliable testimony is provided from children

The components of Language

All human languages are similarly complex Children must acquire all of these facets of their native language. The enormous benefit that emerges from this combinatorial process is generativity Thus, the first step in children's language learning is phonological development the second component in language acquisition is semantic development The third component in language learning, then, is syntactic development Finally, a full understanding of the interaction with the stranger would necessitate having some knowledge of the cultural rules and contextual variations for using language.

encoding

Another basic process the representation in memory of specific features of objects and events People encode information that draws their attention or that they consider relevant, but they fail to encode a great deal of other information.

play preference of toys

Another example of human behavior to which an ethological perspective has been applied is the existence of differences in the play preferences of males and females The standard accounts for these differences, which come from social learning and social cognitive theories, maintain that children (especially boys) are encouraged by their parents to play with "gender-appropriate" toys, and they do so because they want to be like others of their own sex.

Age of the Child

Compared with older children and adolescents, younger children may have more trouble understanding the causes and consequences of divorce. Although older children and adolescents are better able to understand a divorce than are younger children, they are nonetheless particularly at risk for problems with adjustment, including poor academic achievement and negative relationships with their parents most likely because the opportunities to get into trouble are amplified when there is only one parent—who most likely is at work during the day—to monitor the child's activity. One possible explanation for this is that young adolescents' struggles with the issues of autonomy and sexuality are heightened by the presence of a new parent who has authority to control them and is a sexual partner of their biological parent

Nativists use three main arguments to support the idea that people have a biology module

During earlier periods of our evolution, it was crucial for human survival that children learn quickly about animals and plants. Children throughout the world are fascinated by plants and animals and learn about them quickly and easily. Children throughout the world organize information about plants and animals in very similar ways (in terms of growth, reproduction, inheritance, illness, and healing).

Do very young children have friends?

Even 12- to 18-month-olds seem to select and prefer some children over others, touching them, smiling at them, and engaging in positive interactions with them more than they do with other peers Starting at around 20 months of age, children also increasingly initiate more interactions with some children than with others and contribute more when playing games with those children By age 3 to 7 years, it is not uncommon for children to have "best friends" who retain that status over at least several months' time

Preventing Child Abuse

However, one very promising intervention program was developed from research financed by federal funding agencies at the macrosystem level and is carried out at the microsystem level.

cerebral lateralization

For the most part, sensory input from one side of the body goes to the opposite side of the brain, and the motor areas of the cortex control movements of the opposite side of the body. The left and right hemispheres of the brain communicate with each other primarily by way of the corpus callosum, a dense tract of nerve fibers that connect them. The two hemispheres are specialized for different modes of processing, a phenomenon referred to as cerebral lateralization.

What is required for Language?

Full-fledged language is achieved only by humans

brain development

Fundamental to all aspects of behavioral development is the development of the central nervous system and especially the brain

effect size

Therefore, besides knowing whether a group difference on some attribute is statistically significant—that is, unlikely to be caused by chance—it is important to consider both the magnitude of difference between two groups' averages and the amount of overlap in their distributions.

object substitution

They often engage in object substitution, ignoring many of a play object's characteristics so that they can pretend that it is something else.

meta-analysis

To infer overall patterns, scientists use a statistical technique known as meta-analysis to summarize the average effect size and statistical significance across studies.

attachment

an emotional bond with a specific person that is enduring across space and time. Usually, attachments are discussed in regard to the relation between infants and specific caregivers, although they can also occur in adulthood

identity confusion

an incomplete and sometimes incoherent sense of self that may cause the adolescent to feel lost, isolated, and depressed. Erikson suggested that some form of identity confusion is very common in adolescence and that it generally lasts for a relatively short time, although, according to Erikson, it sometimes persists and turns into a more severe psychological disturbance.

Sommerville, Woodward, and Needham (2005)

established that infants' understanding of the goal-directed nature of another's actions is related to their own experience achieving a goal. Further understanding of intentionality is revealed by studies showing that older infants even attribute intentions and goals to inanimate entities if the objects seem to "behave" like humans Thus, they seemed to be following the blob's "gaze," just as they would do with a human partner, assuming that the person had turned to look at something. They did not behave this way when the blob's initial behavior was not contingently related to their own.

parietal lobe

is important for spatial processing. It is also involved in the integration of information from different sensory modalities, and it plays a role in integrating sensory input with information stored in memory and with information about internal states.

scientific method

is that all beliefs, no matter how probable they seem and no matter how many people share them, may be wrong

Two biological processes that contribute to faster processing

myelination and increased connectivity among brain regions

Activating influences

occur when fluctuations in sex-linked hormone levels influence the contemporaneous activation of certain brain and behavioral responses For example, the body increases androgen production in response to perceived threats, with possible implications for gender differences in aggression.

Language is a species-specific behavior:

only humans acquire language in the normal course of development

affiliation

refers to making connections with others The traditional masculine role in most societies stresses self-assertion over interpersonal affiliation, with corresponding emphases on independence, competition, and task orientation.

phallic stage

spans the ages of 3 to 6. In this stage, the focus of sexual pleasure again migrates, as children become interested in their own genitalia and curious about those of parents and playmates. Both boys and girls derive pleasure from masturbation, an activity that the parents of Freud's time and place often punished severely. Freud believed that during the phallic stage, children identify with their same-sex parent, giving rise to gender differences in attitudes and behavior

David Elkind (1967)

thinking about the self in early adolescence is characterized by a form of egocentrism called the personal fable The tendency to exhibit this type of egocentrism is often still evident in late adolescence and may even increase in boys The kind of egocentrism that underlies adolescents' personal fables also causes many adolescents to be preoccupied with what others think of them

random assortment

A second mechanism that promotes variability During germ-cell division, the 23 pairs of chromosomes are shuffled randomly, with chance determining which member of each pair goes into each new egg or sperm. Thus, when a sperm and an egg unite, the odds are essentially zero that any two individuals—even members of the same family—would have the same genotype (except, of course, identical twins)

reliability

The degree to which independent measurements of a behavior under study are consistent

self-socialization

active process during development whereby children's cognitions lead them to perceive the world and to act in accord with their expectations and beliefs Self-socialization occurs in gender development when children seek to behave in accord with their gender identity as a girl or a boy

The temporal lobe

is associated with memory, visual recognition, speech and language, and the processing of emotion and auditory information

Risk Factors and Intellectual development

no single factor, nor even any small group of factors, is the key. Instead, a variety of factors in combination contribute to the problem of poor intellectual development Thus, environmental risks seem to have both immediate and long-term effects on children's intellectual development. Genetic contributions cannot be ruled out—anxiety, poor mental health, and other risk factors may be biologically transmitted from parent to child—but a greater number of risk factors is definitely associated with lower IQ scores

nine characteristics of children were identified, including such traits as quality of mood, adaptability, activity level, and attention span and persistence. Further analyzing the interview results in terms of these characteristics, the researchers classified the infants into three groups: easy, difficult, and slow-to-warm-up.

-Easy babies adjusted readily to new situations, quickly established daily routines such as sleeping and eating, and generally were cheerful in mood and easy to calm. -Difficult babies were slow to adjust to new experiences, tended to react negatively and intensely to novel stimuli and events, and were irregular in their daily routines and bodily functions. -Slow-to-warm-up babies were somewhat difficult at first but became easier over time as they had repeated contact with new objects, people, and situations.

Rejected children

A majority of rejected children tend to fall into one of two categories: those who are overly aggressive and those who are withdrawn

maternal factors-disease

Although most maternal illnesses that occur during a pregnancy have no impact on the fetus, some do. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that have become increasingly common throughout the world are also quite hazardous to the fetus. Cytomegalovirus, a type of herpes virus that is present in 50% to 80% of the adult population in the United States, is currently the most common cause of congenital infection Genital herpes can also be very dangerous: if the infant comes into contact with active herpes lesions in the birth canal, blindness or even death can result. HIV infection is sometimes passed to the fetus in the womb or during birth, but the majority of infants born to women who are HIV-positive or have AIDS do not become infected themselves HIV can also be transmitted through breast milk after birth, but recent research suggests that breast milk con- tains a carbohydrate that may actually protect infants from HIV infection Maternal flu may interact with genetic or other factors to lead to mental illness.

telegraphic speech

Children's first sentences are two-word combinations; their separate utterances of "More," "Juice," and "Drink" become "More juice" and "Drink juice." These two-word utterances have been described as telegraphic speech because, just as in telegrams, nonessential elements are missing

psychosocial moratorium

Erikson (1968) argued that because of all the "possible and imaginable" role options that are available in modern society, attaining identity achievement is highly complex and difficult. In light of the negative consequences of failing to achieve a coherent identity, he proposed the importance of a psychosocial moratorium—a time-out period during which the adolescent is not expected to take on adult roles and is free to pursue activities that lead to self-discovery. Although Erikson argued that this period of experimentation is important to adolescents' finding the best identity for themselves, a moratorium of this sort is possible or acceptable only in some cultures. Even then, it is often a luxury reserved for the middle and upper classe

Identity Versus Role Confusion (adolescence to early adulthood)

Erikson accorded great importance to adolescence, seeing it as a critical stage for the achievement of a core sense of identity. Adolescents change so rapidly in so many ways that they can hardly recognize themselves, either in the mirror or in their minds

Industry Versus Inferiority (age 6 to puberty)

Erikson's fourth stage, which lasts from age 6 to puberty (Freud's latency period), is crucial for ego development. During this stage, children master cognitive and social skills that are important in their culture, and they learn to work industriously and to cooperate with peers

heredity

Heredity contributes to children's sense of self-worth in several ways. The most obvious of these involve physical appearance and athletic ability, both of which are strongly related to self-esteem. The association between self-esteem and attractiveness may be stronger for girls than for boys, particularly in late childhood and adolescence, because girls are much more likely to report concerns about their appearance In addition, genetically based intellectual abilities and aspects of personality, such as sociability, no doubt play a part in academic and social self-esteem The hereditary contribution to self-esteem is underscored by the fact that on a variety of dimensions, self-esteem is more similar in identical twins than in fraternal twins and in nontwin siblings than in stepsiblings

Discipline and Parenting Style

High levels of prosocial behavior and sympathy in children tend to be associated with constructive and supportive parenting, including authoritative parenting Parental support of, and attachment to, the child have been found to be especially predictive of prosocial behavior for youths who are low in fearfulness a parenting style that involves physical punishment, threats, and an authoritarian approach tends to be associated with a lack of sympathy and prosocial behavior in children If children are regularly punished for failing to engage in prosocial behavior, they may start to believe that the reason for helping others is primarily to avoid punishment Such reasoning also encourages sympathy with others and provides guidelines children can refer to in future situations

multiple intelligences theory

Howard Gardner (1993) labeled his approach multiple intelligences theory. Its basic claim is that people possess eight kinds of intelligence: the linguistic, logical-mathematical, and spatial abilities emphasized in previous theories and measured on IQ tests, and also musical, naturalistic, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal abilities Gardner used several types of evidence to arrive at this set of intelligences. One involved deficits shown by people with brain damage. For example, some brain- damaged patients function well in most respects but have no understanding of other people (Damasio, 1999). This phenomenon suggested to Gardner that inter- personal intelligence was distinct from other types of intelligence. A second type of evidence that Gardner used to identify this set of intelligences was the existence of prodigies, people who from early in life show exceptional ability in one area but not in others

collaboration

However, the goals of assertion and affiliation are not mutually exclusive: they are often blended together in a style Collaboration is associated with gender-role flexibility and, on average, is more common among girls than among boys. Developmental psychologists generally acknowledge the combined influences of biological, psychological, and cultural processes on gender development (Leaper, 2013) but differ in how much they stress particular factors. Some researchers argue that certain differences in boys' and girls' behavior reflect underlying biological differences that emerged over the course of human evolution

over- regularization

However, they then start making occasional over- regularization errors, in which they treat irregular forms as if they were regular. For instance, a child who previously said "men" and "went" may begin producing novel forms such as "mans" and "goed," as well as "foots," "feets," "breaked," "broked," and even "branged" and "walkeded"

These critics also argue that some of the theory's explanations are based on circular reasoning:

If an average sex difference in behavior occurs—such as women being more likely than men to express nurturance—it is seen as having helped humans survive during the course of evolution, and it is considered adaptive during evolution because the average gender difference exists today evolutionary psychology theory is not synonymous with all evolutionary approaches. An alternative evolutionary view emphasizes human evolution as maximizing our capacity for behavioral flexibility as an adaptation to environmental variability

deferred imitation

In the last half-year of the sensorimotor stage (ages 18 to 24 months), according to Piaget, infants become able to form enduring mental representations. The first sign of this new capability is deferred imitation, that is, the repetition of other people's behavior minutes, hours, or even days after it occurred

autobiographical memories

One particularly important way in which parents use scaffold- ing is in helping children form autobiographical memories One particularly important way in which parents use scaffold- ing is in helping children form autobiographical memories

hearing nursery rhymes

One relevant experience is hearing nursery rhymes. Many nursery rhymes highlight the contribution of individual sounds to differ- ences among words (e.g., "I do not like green eggs and ham; I do not like them, Sam I am.") Consistent with this hypothesis, 3-year-olds' knowledge of nursery rhymes correlates positively with their later phonemic awareness, above and beyond their IQ scores and their mother's educational level

discontinuous

Others see the process as a series of sudden, discontinuous changes, like the transition from caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly

improving self-regulation

Over the course of the early years, children develop and improve their ability to distract themselves by playing on their own when distressed. They also become less likely to seek comfort from their parents when they are upset because of their growing ability to use language, when they are upset by parental demands, they are more likely to discuss and negotiate the situation with the parent than to engage in an emotional outburst These changes in children's self-regulation are at least partly due to the increasing maturation of the neurological systems—including the portion of the frontal lobes that are central to effortfully managing attention and inhibiting thought and behaviors Once children are capable of crawling, for example, they are viewed as more responsible for their behavior and for complying with parental expectations

Piaget's Theory

Piaget's observations and descriptions vividly convey the texture of children's thinking at different ages. exceptional breadth of the theory. It extends from the first days of infancy through adolescence and examines topics as diverse as conceptualization of time, space, distance, and number; language use; memory; understanding of other people's perspectives; problem solving; and scientific reasoning longevity is that it offers an intuitively plausible depiction of the interaction of nature and nurture in cognitive development, as well as of the continuities and discontinuities that characterize intellectual growth

self-socialization

Social cognitive theories provide a sharp contrast to the emphasis that psycho-analytic and learning theories place on external forces as the primary source of development. Instead, social cognitive theories emphasize the process of self-socialization—children's active shaping of their own development. According to this view, children's knowledge and beliefs about themselves and other people lead them to adopt particular goals and standards to guide their own behavior.

Paths to risk

The key question is whether peer rejection actually causes problems at school and in adjustment, or whether children's maladaptive behavior (e.g., aggression) leads to both peer rejection and problems in adjustment Moreover, early maladjustment, such as internalizing problems, may contribute to both future maladaptive behavior (e.g., aggression) and peer victimization, which in turn may lead to more internalizing problems over time Once children are rejected by peers, they may be denied opportunities for positive peer interactions and thus for learning social skills. Moreover, cut off from desirable peers, they may be forced to associate with other rejected children, and rejected children may teach one another, and mutually reinforce, deviant norms and behaviors

Moral Judgement

The morality of a given action cannot be determined at face value. Consider a girl who steals food to feed her starving sister. Stealing is usually regarded as an immoral behavior, but obviously the morality of this girl's behavior is not so clear. consider an adolescent male who offers to help fix a peer's bike but does so because he wants to borrow it later, or perhaps wants to find out if the bike is worth stealing. Although this adolescent's behavior may appear altruistic on the surface, it is morally ambiguous, at best, in the first instance and clearly immoral in the second Indeed, some psychologists (as well as philosophers and educators) believe that the reasoning behind a given behavior is critical for determining whether that behavior is moral or immoral, and they maintain that changes in moral reasoning form the basis of moral development

mesosystem

The second level in Bronfenbrenner's model is the mesosystem, which encompasses the connections among various microsystems, such as family, peers, and schools

basic processes

The simplest and most frequently used mental activities They include associating events with one another, recognizing objects as familiar, recalling facts and procedures, and generalizing from one instance to another.

guided participation

a process in which more knowledgeable individuals organize activities in ways that allow less knowledgeable people to engage in them at a higher level than they could manage on their own

rejecting-neglecting

are disengaged parents, low in both demandingness and responsiveness to their children. They do not set limits for them or monitor their behavior and are not supportive of them. Children who experience rejecting-neglecting parenting tend to have disturbed attachment relationships when they are infants or toddlers and problems with peer relationships as children

concepts

are general ideas that organize objects, events, qualities, or relations on the basis of some similarity. There are an infinite number of possible concepts, because there are infinite ways in which objects or events can be similar. Concepts help us understand the world and act effectively in it by allowing us to generalize from prior experience Concepts also tell us how to react emotionally to new experiences, as when we fear all dogs after being bitten by one

the main sources of continuity are three processes

assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration

Development Beyond Infancy

children build on their early-emerging psychological understanding to develop an increasingly sophisticated comprehension of themselves and other people and to interact with others in increasingly complex ways

word learning

children typically plod ahead slowly, reaching a productive vocabulary of 50 or so words by around 18 months of age children's communicative abilities are growing rapidly

congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH):

condition during prenatal development in which the adrenal glands produce high levels of androgens; some- times associated with masculinization of external genitalia in genetic females; and sometimes associated with higher rates of masculine-stereotyped play in genetic females

Blackwell, Trzesniewski, and Dweck

devised an effective educational program for middle school students from low-income backgrounds investigators predicted that the students who were told about the effects that learning has on the brain would change their beliefs about intelligence in ways that would help them persevere in the face of failure Children who initially believed that intelligence was an inborn, unchanging quality but who came to believe that intelligence reflected learning showed especially large improvements

genital stage

fifth and final stage begins with the advent of sexual maturation. The sexual energy that had been kept in check for several years reasserts itself with full force, although it is now, for the majority of individuals, directed toward other-sex peers

Moral judgments

pertain to issues of right and wrong, fairness, and justice

experimental group

presented with the experience of interest

behavioural genetics

rapidly expanding field concerned with how variation in behavior and development results from the interaction of genetic and environmental factors The answer given by behavior geneticists is that all behavioral traits are heritable; that is, they are all influenced to some degree by hereditary factors They are also multifactorial, that is, affected by a host of environmental factors as well as genetic ones. Thus, the potential sources of variation are vast

genes

the basic unit of heredity in all living things. Some proteins are the building blocks of the body's cells; others regulate the cells' functioning.

psychic energy

the biologically based, instinctual drives that fuel behavior, thoughts, and feelings

the third-variable problem

the correlation between two variables may actually be the result of some third, unspecified variable

last 5 months

the growth of the lower part of the body accelerates. The fetus's movements have increased dramatically

Cognitive and Motivational Influences

•The average gender differences in interpersonal goals and communication style are related. To the extent that some girls and boys differ in their primary goals for social relationships, they are apt to use different language styles to attain those goals For example, if a boy is especially interested in establishing dominance, using directive statements may help him attain that goal; and if a girl wants to establish intimacy, then talking about personal feelings or elaborating on the other person's thoughts would help realize that goal

Use of the scientific method involves four basic steps:

-Choosing a question to be answered -Formulating a hypothesis regarding the question -Developing a method for testing the hypothesis -Using the data yielded by the method to draw a conclusion regarding the hypothesis

Chall (1979) described five stages of reading development. These stages provide a good overview of the typical path to mastery:

1. Stage 0 (birth until the beginning of 1st grade): During this time, many children acquire key prerequisites for reading. These include knowing the letters of the alphabet and gaining phonemic awareness 2. Stage 1 (1st and 2nd grades): Children acquire phonological recoding skills Stage 2 (2nd and 3rd grades): Children gain fluency in reading simple material. Stage 3 (4th through 8th grades): Children become able to acquire reason- ably complex, new information from written text. To quote Chall, "In the primary grades, children learn to read; in the higher grades, they read to learn" (1979, p. 24). Stage 4 (8th through 12th grades): Adolescents acquire skill not only in understanding information presented from a single perspective but also in coordinating multiple perspectives. This ability enables them to appreciate the subtleties in sophisticated novels and plays, which almost always include multiple viewpoints

These informal theories are rudimentary, but they share three important characteristics with formal scientific theories:

1. They identify fundamental units for dividing all objects and events into a few basic categories. 2. They explain many phenomena in terms of a few fundamental principles. 3. They explain events in terms of unobservable causes.

Phillips, Wellman, and Spelke (2002),

12-month-olds saw an experimenter look at one of two stuffed kittens and say in a joyful voice, "Ooh, look at the kitty!" Then a screen descended, and when it was raised 2 seconds later, the experimenter was holding either the kitty that she had just gushed over or the other one. The 12-month-olds looked longer when the experimenter was hold- ing the other kitty, suggesting that they expected the experimenter to want to hold the kitty that had just excited her so much and were surprised that she was holding the other one. Eight-month-olds looked for similar amounts of time regardless of which kitty the experimenter held, suggesting that the understanding that people's desires guide their actions develops toward the end of the first year At 2, children predict that characters in stories will act in accord with their own desires, even when those desires differ from the child's preferences if 2-year- olds who would rather play with trucks than with dolls are told that a character in a story would rather play with dolls than with trucks, they predict that, given the choice, the character in the story will choose dolls over trucks. Although most 2-year-olds understand that desires can influence behavior, they show little understanding that beliefs are likewise influential. Thus, when 2-year- olds were told a story in which a character named Sam believed that the only bananas available were in a cupboard, but they themselves knew that there were bananas in a refrigerator as well, they were no more likely than by chance to predict that Sam would act in accord with his own belief and search for bananas only in the cupboard By age 3 years, children show some understanding of the relation between be- liefs and actions. For example, they answer questions such as "Why is Billy look- ing for his dog?" by referring to beliefs ("He thinks the dog ran away") as well as to desires ("He wants it")

Although they vary substantially in size, shape, and function, all neurons are made up of three main components:

(1) a cell body, which contains the basic bio- logical material that keeps the neuron functioning; (2) dendrites, fibers that receive input from other cells and conduct it toward the cell body in the form of electrical impulses; and (3) an axon, a fiber (anywhere from a few micrometers to more than a meter in length) that conducts electrical signals away from the cell body to connections with other neurons.

two possible responsibilities for dominant-recessive pattern

(1) a person can inherit two of the same allele— two dominant or two recessive—and thus be homozygous for the trait in question; or (2) the person can inherit two different alleles—one dominant and the other recessive— and thus be heterozygous for the trait.

In the information-processing view, cognitive development arises from children's gradually surmounting their processing limitations through

(1) expansion of the amount of information they can process at one time, (2) increases in the speed with which they execute thought processes, and (3) acquisition of new strategies and knowledge

developmentalists have a much more complex view of emotions. They see emotions in terms of several components:

(1) neural responses involved in emotion; (2) physiological factors, including heart and breath rate and hormone levels; (3) subjective feelings; (4) the cognitions or perceptions that cause or are associated with the aforementioned neural and physiological responses and subjective feelings; and (5) the desire to take action, including the desire to escape, approach, or change people or things in the environment

resilient children tend to have three characteristics:

(1) positive personal qualities, such as high intelligence, an easygoing personality, and an optimistic outlook on the future; (2) a close relationship with at least one parent; and (3) a close relationship with at least one adult other than their parents, such as a grand- parent, teacher, coach, or family friend

In trying to understand the impact that parents can have on children's development, researchers have identified two dimensions of parenting style that are particularly important:

(1) the degree of parental warmth, support, and acceptance, and (2) the degree of parenting control and demandingness

On the basis of her observations, she came to the conclusion that two key measures provide insight into the quality of the infant's attachment to the caregiver:

(1) the extent to which an infant is able to use his or her primary caregiver as a secure base, and (2) how the infant reacts to brief separations from, and reunions with, the caregiver

The Relation of Emotional Self-regulation to Social Competence and Adjustment

A variety of studies indicate that children who have the ability to inhibit inappropriate behaviors, delay gratification, and use cognitive methods of controlling their emotion and behavior tend to be well-adjusted and liked by their peers and by adults Moreover, children and adolescents who are able to deal constructively with stressful situations—negotiating with others to settle conflicts, planning strategies to resolve upsetting situations, seeking social support, and so on—generally are better adjusted than are children who lack these skills, including those who avoid dealing with stressful situations altogether Well-regulated children also do better in school than their less regulated peers do, likely because they are better able to pay attention, are better behaved and better liked by teachers and peers, and, consequently, like school better

authoritative

According to Baumrind, authoritative parents, tend to be demanding but also warm and responsive. They set clear standards and limits for their children, monitor their children's behavior, and are firm about enforcing important limits. Authoritative parents usually want their children to be socially responsible, assertive, and self-controlled. Baumrind found that children of authoritative parents tend to be competent, self-assured, and popular with peers.

Evolutionary psychology theory

According to evolutionary psychology theory, certain behavioral tendencies occur because they helped humans survive during the course of evolution Some evolutionary psychology theorists propose that particular gender differences in behavior reflect evolved personality dispositions. These theorists argue that sex-linked dispositions evolved to increase the chances that women and men would successfully mate and protect their offspring studies of children's play behavior show average gender differences that have been interpreted as consistent with the evolutionary perspective. For example, more boys than girls tend to engage in physically active, rough-and-tumble, and competitive types of play.

The Emergence of Emotion in the Early Years and Childhood

Parents are likely to think that they see many emotions in their infants, including interest and joy, as well as anger, fear, and sadness—even in their 1-month-olds. In fact, however, parents often read into their infant's emotional reaction whatever emotion would seem appropriate in the immediate situation. These systems involve coding dozens of facial cues—whether an infant's eyebrows are raised or knitted together; whether the eyes are wide open, tightly closed, or narrowed; whether the lips are pursed, softly rounded, or retracted straight back; and so on—and then analyzing the combination in which these cues are present.

psychoanalytic theories

No psychological theory has had a greater impact on Western culture and on thinking about personality and social development than the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud

Teacher Influences

Teachers can influence gender differences in children's academic motivation and achievement in two important ways. First, teachers themselves are sometimes influential gender-role models. Second, many teachers hold gender-stereotyped beliefs about girls' and boys' abilities. When teachers hold gender-typed expectations, they may differentially assess, encourage, and pay attention to students according to their gender. In this manner, teachers can lay the groundwork for self-fulfilling prophecies that affect children's later academic achievement

Sight and Touch

The fetus does, however, experience tactile stimulation as a result of its own activity Indeed, the majority of fetal arm movements during the second half of pregnancy result in contact between their hand and mouth By full term, fetuses respond to maternal movements (repeated rocking and swaying), suggesting that their vestibular systems—the sensory apparatus in the inner ear that provides information about movement and balance—is also functioning before birth

Cognitive and motivational influences

The process of self-socialization emphasized in cognitive-motivational theories plays a role in children's academic achievement. According to Eccles's expectancy-value model of achievement (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002), children are most motivated to achieve in areas in which they view themselves as competent (expectations for success) and find interesting and important (value) parents, teachers, peers, and the surrounding culture can influence the development of girls' and boys' academic self- concepts and achievement through the role models, opportunities, and motivations that they provide for practicing, or not practicing, particular behaviors

"irritable distress"

The terms used by investigators to refer to these dimensions vary somewhat—for example, "irritable distress" may be called "frustration" or "anger"—but these dimensions generally include most of the aspects of temperament that have been studied extensively.

demonstration of syntactic bootstraping

An early demonstration of this phenomenon involved showing 2-year-olds a videotape of a duck using its left hand to push a rabbit down into a squatting position while both animals waved their right arms in circles As you can see, infants and young children have a remarkable ability to learn new words as object names. Under some circumstances, they are also able to learn nonlinguistic "labels" for objects. Infants between 13 and 18 months of age map an experimenter's gestures or nonverbal sounds (e.g., squeaks and whistles) onto novel objects just as readily as they map words

polygenic inheritance

These traits, such as shyness, aggression, thrill-seeking, and language learning, involve in which several different genes contribute to any given phenotypic outcome

victimized children

Victimized children fare better if they have a number of reciprocated friendships (Hodges et al., 1999; D. Schwartz et al., 1999), if their friends are capable of defending them and are liked by peers (Hodges et al., 1997), and if their friendships are of high quality—that is, are perceived as providing intimacy, security, and help when needed

Children's Understanding of Emotion

Another key influence on children's emotional reactions and regulation of emotion is their understanding of emotion—that is, their understanding of how to identify emotions, as well as their understanding of what emotions mean, their social functions, and what factors affect emotional experience

The Child as Problem Solver

As suggested by Klahr's analysis of his daughter's behavior, problem solving involves goals, perceived ob- stacles, and strategies or rules for overcoming the obstacles and attaining the goals. Even young children show great ingenuity in surmounting the obstacles imposed by their parents, the physical environment, and their own lack of knowledge

Stability of Temperament over time

As you have seen, temperament, by definition, involves traits that remain fairly stable over time and, in some cases, seem to increase in stability with age One example of trait stability comes from research indicating that children who exhibited inhibition or fearful distress when presented with novel stimuli as infants also were prone to exhibit elevated levels of fear in novel situations at age 2 and elevated levels of social inhibition at age 41⁄2. Research further indicates that children who are high in the ability to focus attention in the preschool years are high in this ability in early adolescence (B. C. Murphy et al., 1999) and that there is also stability in attentional and behavioral regulation from childhood into adolescence (N. Eisenberg, Hofer et al., 2008) and across adolescence

correlational designs

The primary goal of studies that use correlational designs is to determine whether children who differ in one variable also differ in predictable ways in other variables

reactive aggression

Children who are prone to emotionally driven, hostile aggression—labeled reactive aggression—are particularly likely to perceive others' motives as hostile

Oedipus complex

a psychosexual conflict in which a boy experiences a form of sexual desire for his mother and wants an exclusive relationship with her. In Freud's account of the Oedipal conflict, the son's desire for his mother and his hostility toward his father are highly threatening. In response, the boy's ego protects him through repression, banishing his dangerous feelings to the unconscious, the mental storehouse where anxiety-producing thoughts and impulses are held hidden from conscious awareness. A consequence of this widespread repression, according to Freud, is infantile amnesia—the lack of memories from our first few years that we all suffer.

gender identity: more than socialization?

Some boys indicate a preference to identify as a girl, and some girls express a preference to identify as a boy. These children usually favor cross-gender-typed play activities and clothing and dislike gender-typed activities the biological perspective points to the prenatal impact of sex hormones on the developing fetal brain. Such biological influences seem to contribute to gender identity as well as to behavioral gender differences.

instrumental aggression

aggression motivated by the desire to obtain a concrete goal, such as gaining possession of a toy or getting a better place in line. Preschool children sometimes also use relational aggression is intended to harm others by damaging their peer relationships.

gesture-speech mismatches

in which their gesturing conveys more information than their verbal statements, learn more from instruction on mathematical equality problems than do peers whose gesturing and speech before the instruction were consistent The gestures play a causal role in learning as well: children who are encouraged to gesture appropriately while explaining answers to mathematical equality problems learn more than children encouraged not to gesture variability of thought and action (for example, generating diverging gestures and speech or advancing multiple explanations of a phenomenon rather than just one) often indicates heightened readiness to learn

perceptual categorization

infants frequently use perceptual categorization, the grouping together of objects that have similar appearances Infants categorize objects along many perceptual dimensions, including color, size, and movement. As children approach their 2nd birthday, they increasingly categorize objects on the basis of overall shape. As discussed in Chapter 6, when toddlers are shown an unfamiliar object and told that it is a "dax," they assume that other objects of the same shape are also "daxes," even when the objects differ from each other in size, texture, and color

The Transitional Period

• According to Piaget, the period from about age 7 or 8 to age 10 represents a transition from the morality of constraint to the next stage. During this transitional period, children typically have more interactions with peers than previously, and these interactions are more egalitarian, with more give-and-take, than are their interactions with adults. children start to value fairness and equality and begin to become more autonomous in their thinking about moral issues. Piaget viewed children as taking an active role in this transition, using information from their social interactions to figure out how moral decisions are made and how rules are constructed

Random assignment

involves assigning the participants to one experimental group or another according to chance so that the groups are comparable at the outset.

longitudinal

involves following a group of children over a substantial period (usually at least a year) and observing changes and continuities in these children's development at regular intervals during that time.

Visually based retrieval

involves processing a word's meaning directly from its visual form

species-universal

language learning is achieved by typically developing infants across the globe.

alex the parrot

learned to produce and understand basic English utterances, although his skills remained at a toddler level

semantic development

learning the system for expressing meaning in a language, including word learning

aristotle

more concerned with fitting child-rearing to the needs of the individual child. In his word

Representing Space relative to oneself

most 7-month-olds reach to the correct location for objects that were hidden 2 seconds earlier under one of two identical opaque covers, but not for objects hidden 4 seconds earlier, whereas most 12-month-olds accurately reach for objects hidden 10 seconds earlier However, the improved object representations reflect learn- ing as well: infants who are provided a learning experience with a hidden object in one situation show improved location of hidden objects in other situations

Charles Cooley's (1902)

proposal of the "looking glass self," the concept that people's self-esteem is a reflection of what others think of them

Neglected children

some withdrawn children are categorized as neglected because they are not nominated by peers as either liked or disliked Neglected children perceive that they receive less support from peers (S. Walker, 2009; Wentzel, 2003), yet they are not particularly anxious about their social interactions

entity/helpless orientation

tend to base their sense of self-worth on the approval they receive (or do not receive) from other people about their intelligence, talents, and personal qualities

role taking

the ability to adopt the perspective of another person, to think about something from another's point of view. He proposed that such role taking is essential to understanding another person's thoughts, feelings, or motives.

phonological recoding skills

the ability to translate letters into sounds and to blend the sounds into words (informally referred to as "sounding out").

dual representation

the artifact must be represented mentally in two ways at the same time, as a real object and as a symbol for something other than itself

frontal lobe

the brain's "executive," is involved in cognitive control, including working memory, planning, decision making, and inhibitory control. In- formation from multiple sensory systems is processed and integrated in the association areas that lie in between the major sensory and motor areas

prosody

the characteristic rhythmic and intonation patterns with which a language is spoken. Differences in prosody are in large part responsible for why languages—from Japanese to French to Swahili— sound so different from one another.

genome

the complete set of genes Researchers have mapped the entire genome of myriad species of plants and animals, including chickens, mice, chimpanzees, and humans, and even several extinct species, including our closest evolutionary relative, Neanderthals

id

the earliest and most primitive of three personality structures posited by Freud. The id, which is totally unconscious, is the source of psychic energy. The id is ruled by the pleasure principle—the goal of achieving maximal

last 3 months

the fetus grows dramatically in size, essentially tripling its weight.

20 weeks

the fetus spends increasingly more time in a head-down position. The components of facial expressions are present—the fetus can raise its eyebrows, wrinkle its forehead, and move its mouth

genotype

the genetic material an individual inherits

basic level

the medium or in-between one A basic-level category such as "tree" has a number of consistent char- acteristics: bark, branches, large size, and so on. In contrast, the more general cat- egory "plant" has fewer consistent characteristics: plants come in a wide range of shapes, sizes, and colors (consider an oak, a rose, and a house plant).

observational learning

the most common form of learning—occurs through seeing and encoding the consequences other people experience as a result of their actions. Thus, children learn a great deal about gender simply through observing the behavior of their parents, siblings, teachers, and peers

~8 weeks

the nose and mouth are almost fully formed. Cleft pal- ate, one of the most common birth defects worldwide, involves malformations The head of this 9-week-old fetus overwhelms the rest of its body. Rudimentary eyes and ears are forming. All the internal organs are present, although most must undergo further development.

menarche

the onset of menstration Menarche is triggered in part by the increase in body fat that typically occurs in adolescence. In boys, puberty generally starts with the growth of the testes, followed by the appearance of pubic hair, the general growth spurt, growth of the penis, and the capacity for ejaculation

prenatal nutrition

the presence of multiple risk factors can have a cumulative impact. For example, in the case of marginal prenatal nutrition, the fetus's metabolism adjusts to the level of nutritional deficiency experienced in the womb and does not reset itself after birth. In a postnatal environment with abundant opportunities for caloric intake, this sets the stage for the development of overweight and obesity. Such belated emergence of effects of pre- natal experience is referred to as fetal programming, because experiences during the prenatal period "program the physiological set points that will govern physiology in adulthood"

accommodation

the process by which people improve their current under- standing in response to new experiences

assimilation

the process by which people incorporate incoming information into concepts they already understand.

selective attention

the process of intentionally focusing on the information that is most relevant to the current goal. If 7- and 8-year-olds are shown objects from two different categories and are told that they later will need to remember the objects in only one category they focus their attention on the objects in the specified category and remember more of them.

fast mapping

the process of rapidly learning a new word simply from hearing the contrastive use of a familiar word and the unfamiliar word

Neurogenesis

the proliferation of neurons through cell division, is virtually complete by around 18 weeks after conception most of the roughly 100 billion neurons you currently possess have been with you since before you were born. This pattern of results suggests that neurogenesis later in life is not fixed and predetermined but is instead adaptive, increasing under rewarding conditions and decreasing in threatening environments After their "birth," neurons begin the second developmental process, which in- volves migration to their ultimate destinations

This decreased response is evidence of learning and memory:

the stimulus loses its novelty (and becomes boring) only if the infant remembers the stimulus from one presentation to the next.

gender constancy

the understanding that gender is invariant across situations ("I'm a girl, and nothing I do will change that")

piaget: discontinuity aspects of his theory

which he depicted as distinct stages of cognitive development. Each stage represents a coherent way of understanding one's experience, and each transition between stages represents a discontinuous intellectual leap from one coherent way of understanding the world to the next, higher one.

Older infants even interpret quite abstract displays in terms of intention and goal-directed action

• ). For ex- ample, 12-month-olds saw a computer animation of a ball repeatedly "jumping" over a barrier toward a ball on the other side. Adults interpret this display as the jumping ball's "wanting" to get to the other ball. So, apparently, did the infants. When the barrier was removed, the infants looked longer when they saw the ball continue to jump, just as it had done before, than when they saw it move straight to the second ball.

sex chronosome

determine an individual's sex, are an exception to the general pattern of chromosome pairs being the same size and shape and carrying corresponding genes. Females have two identical, largish sex chromosomes, called X chromosomes, but males have one X chromosome and one much smaller Y chromo- some (so called because it has the shape of the letter Y) it is always the father who determines the sex of offspring: if an X-bearing sperm fertilizes an egg, a female (XX) zygote results; if an egg is fertilized by a Y-bearing sperm, the zygote is male (XY). It is the presence of a Y chromosome—not the fact of having only one X chromosome—that makes an individual male.

inheritance

3 and 4 year olds know physical characteristics tend to be passed on from parent to offspring. Older preschoolers also know that certain aspects of development are determined by heredity rather than by environment. For example, 5-year-olds realize that an animal of one species raised by parents of another species will become an adult of its own species Many preschoolers also believe that adopted children are at least as likely to look like their adoptive parents as like their birth parents In other situations, preschoolers' belief in heredity is too strong, lead- ing them to deny that the environment has any influence. For example, preschoolers tend to believe that differences between boys and girls in play preferences are due totally to heredity Related to this general belief in the importance of heredity is one of the most basic aspects of children's biological beliefs--essentialism This essence is what makes all members of the category similar to one another and different from members of other categories; for instance, their inner "dogness" leads to dogs' barking, chasing cats, and liking to be petted. This essence is viewed as being inherited from one's parents and being maintained throughout the organism's life

Social Role theory

A fundamental premise of Alice Eagly's social role theory is that different expectations for each gender stem from the division of labor between men and women in a given society To the extent that family and occupational roles are allocated on the basis of gender, different behaviors (roles) are expected of women and men (as well as of girls and boys) An obvious example, alluded to above, was the traditional exclusion of women from many occupations in the United States and similar societies.

inner cell mass

By the 4th day after conception, the cells arrange themselves into a hollow sphere with a bulge of cells

Cliques and Social Network in Adolescence

Although cliques at younger ages contain mostly same-sex members, by 7th grade, about 10% of cliques contain both boys and girls The dynamics of cliques also vary at different ages in adolescence. During early and middle adolescence, children report placing a high value on being in a popular group and in conforming to the group's norms regarding dress and behavior. In comparison with older adolescents, younger adolescents also report more interpersonal conflict with members of their group as well as with members of other groups.

brief transitions

Before entering a new stage, children pass through a brief transitional period in which they fluctuate between the type of thinking characteristic of the new, more advanced stage and the type of thinking characteristic of the old, less advanced one

Views of Children's Nature

Dynamic-systems theories are the newest of the four types of theories discussed in this chapter, and their view of children's nature incorporates influences from each of the others

superego

Freud also believed that young children experience intense sexual desires during the phallic stage, and he proposed that their efforts to cope with them leads to the emergence of the third personality structure, the superego. The superego is essentially what we think of as conscience

Electra complex

Freud thought that girls experience a similar but less intense conflict—the Electra complex, involving erotic feelings toward the father—which results in their developing a weaker conscience than boys do.

The Development of Social and Cognitive Skills

Friendships provide a context for the development of social skills and knowledge that children need to form positive relationships with other people In addition, young children who discuss emotions with their friends and interact with them in positive ways develop a better understanding of others' mental and emotional states than do children whose peer relationships are less close Friendship provides other avenues to social and cognitive development as well. Through gossip with friends about other children, for example, children learn about peer norms, including how, why, and when to display or control the expression of emotions and other behaviors As Piaget pointed out, friends are more likely than nonfriends to criticize and elaborate on one another's ideas and to elaborate and clarify their own ideas

glial cells

Glial cells, the brain's white matter, make up nearly half the human brain, out- numbering neurons 10 to 1. They perform a variety of critical functions, including the formation of a myelin sheath around axons Glial cells play a further role in communication within the brain by influencing the formation and strengthening of synapses and by communicating biochemically among themselves in a network separate from the neural network, and allowing them to efficiently regulate many aspects of brain activity

study

In this study, high levels of both warmth and control were found in African American and Hispanic American families, as well as in a number of other cultures in countries such as Italy, Kenya, Sweden, Colombia, Jordan, the Philippines, and Thailand Because of variations such as these, findings regarding parenting styles in U.S. families—especially findings that involve primarily European American middle- class families—cannot automatically be generalized to other cultures or subcultures. Nonetheless, it should be noted that there are probably more similarities than differences in the parenting values and behaviors of various ethnic groups in the United States, as is strongly suggested by research that controls for socioeconomic status

ingroup assimilation

Ingroup bias is related to the process of ingroup assimilation, whereby individuals are socialized to conform to the group's norms. That is, peers expect ingroup members to demonstrate the characteristics that define the ingroup. Thus, they anticipate ingroup approval for preferring same-gender peers and same-gender-typed activities, as well as for avoiding other-gender peers and cross-gender-typed activities

Brain Structure and Functioning

Male and female brains show some small differences in physical structure One such difference is in the corpus callosum (the connection between the brain's two hemispheres), which tends to be larger and to include more dense nerve bundles in women than in men When engaged in cognitive tasks (e.g., deciding whether words rhyme or navigating a maze), the male brain tends to show activations in one hemisphere or the other, whereas the female brain tends to show activations in both hemispheres One limitation of research documenting sex differences in brain structure is that it is mostly based on brain-imaging studies performed on adults.

collective monologues

Piaget (1923/1926) labeled young children's talk with their peers as collective monologues Even when they take turns speaking, their conversations tend to be a series of non sequiturs, with the content of each child's turn having little or nothing to do with what the other child has just said

object permanence

Piaget (1954) made a striking and controversial claim about a deficiency in infants' thinking during this period—the one referred to in the chapter-opening anecdote about the father hiding his glasses. The claim was that through the age of 8 months, infants lack object permanence, the knowledge that objects continue to exist even when they are out of view.

According to Bowlby, the initial development of attachment takes place in four phases:

Preattachment (birth to age 6 weeks) In this phase, the infant produces innate signals, most notably crying, that summon caregivers, and the infant is comforted by the ensuing interaction. Attachment-in-the-making (age 6 weeks to 6 to 8 months). During this phase, infants begin to respond preferentially to familiar people. Typically they smile, laugh, or babble more frequently in the presence of their primary caregiver and are more easily soothed by that person. Clear-cut attachment (between 6 to 8 months and 11⁄2 years). In this phase, infants actively seek contact with their regular caregivers. They happily greet their mother when she appears and, correspondingly, may exhibit separation anxiety or distress when she departs Reciprocal relationships (from 11⁄2 or 2 years on). During this final phase, toddlers' rapidly increasing cognitive and language abilities enable them to understand their parents' feelings, goals, and motives and to use this understanding to organize their efforts to be near their parents.

The Origins of Youths' Sexual identity

Puberty, during which there are large rises in gonadal hormones, is the most likely time for youth to begin experiencing feelings of sexual attraction to others. Twin and adoption studies, as well as DNA studies, indicate that a person's sexual orientation is at least partly hereditary: identical twins, for example, are more likely to exhibit similar sexual orientations than are fraternal twins

The self in adolescence

The adolescent in the composite, for instance, describes himself/herself as a somewhat different person with friends and with parents, as well as with familiar and unfamiliar people. In part, this may be because young adolescents tend to think about each of their abstract representations of the self separately from other abstractions and cannot integrate them Although adolescents in their middle teens are better than younger adolescents at identifying contradictions in themselves (see Figure 11.2) and often feel conflicted about these inconsistencies, most still do not have the cognitive skills needed to integrate their recognition of these contradictions into a coherent conception of self. Thus, older adolescents place less emphasis on what other people think than they did at younger ages and are more concerned with meeting their own standards and with their future self—what they are becoming or are going to be Older adolescents are also more likely to have the cognitive capacity to integrate opposites or contradictions in the self that occur in different contexts or at different times Moreover, they are likely to view their contradictions and inconsistencies as a normal part of being human, which likely reduces feelings of conflict and upset

plasticity

The capacity of the brain to be molded or changed by experience means that less information needs to be encoded in the genes.

mitosis

The first is cell division Within 12 hours or so after fertilization, the zygote divides into two equal parts, each containing a full complement of genetic material. Then those parts keep dividing

dynamic- systems theories

a class of theories that focuses on how change occurs over time in complex systems Dynamic-systems research also has shown that the onset of crawling changes infants' relationships with family members, who may be thrilled to see their baby attain an important motor milestone but also find themselves having to be much more watchful and controlling to avoid harm to the child and to the objects in the child's path another contribution of dynamic-systems research has been to demonstrate that the development of seemingly simple actions is far more complex and interesting than previously realized. It has shown instead that individual children acquire skills at different ages and in different ways, and that their development entails regressions as well as progress longitudinal study of the development of infants' reaching conducted by Esther Thelen, who, along with her col- league Linda Smith, was the cofounder of the dynamic-systems approach to cognitive development. In this particular study, Thelen and colleagues (1993) repeatedly observed the reaching efforts of four infants during their first year. Infants must individually discover the appropriate [reaching] speeds from the background of their characteristic styles. As infants become older, their attention becomes more focused, and their perceptual discrimination improves, and their memories get better, and their movements become more skilled. A rich, complex, and realistic account of change must include this dynamic interplay. As suggested by the term dynamic, dynamic-systems theories depict development as a process in which change is the only constant

Francis Galton

a cousin of Charles Darwin, identified men who had achieved "eminence" in a variety of fields and concluded that talent runs in families, because very close relatives of an eminent man (his father, brother, son) were more likely to be high achievers themselves than were less close relatives.

alternatives to spanking

alternatives to spanking such as expressing empathy or helping children find positive alternatives to expressing anger time-outs effective special programs for children who were angry out of control the "turtle technique" child isolates themselves until theyre ready to return back "I use my words not my hands"

phonemes

are the units of sound in speech; a change in phoneme changes the meaning of a word • The phonemes that distinguish meaning in any one language overlap with, but also differ from, those in other languages. . For example, the sounds /r/ and /l/ are a single phoneme in Japanese, and do not carry different meanings. Further- more, combinations of sounds that are common in one language may never occur in others

Central Developmental Issues

information-processing theories examine how nature and nurture work together to produce development. What makes information-processing theories unique is their emphasis on precise descriptions of how change occurs

validity

refers to the degree to which it measures what it is intended to measure. Researchers strive for two types of validity: internal and external

mathematical equality

the idea that the values on the two sides of the equal sign must balance. On almost all problems in which young children encounter the equal sign, numbers appear only to the left of it (e.g., 3 + 4 =__; 3 + 5 =__). Eventually, however, children encounter arithmetic problems with numbers on both sides of the equal sign, such as 3 + 4 + 5 = ___ + 5 as late as 4th grade, most children in the United States answer such problems incorrectly

socialization

their direct and indirect influence on their children's standards, values, and ways of thinking and feeling

social reform movement

During the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a great many children in Europe and the United States worked as poorly paid laborers with no legal protections. The Earl of Shaftesbury's effort at social reform brought partial success—a law forbidding employment of girls and of boys younger than 10. established a legacy of research conducted for the benefit of children and provided some of the earliest recorded descriptions of the adverse effects that harsh environments can have on children.

Infancy and toddlerhood

During their first year, infants' perceptual abilities allow them to figure out that there are two groups of people in the world: females and males. much research indicates that infants can detect complex regularities in perceptual information. gender cues For example, habituation studies of infant perception and categorization indicate that by about 6 to 9 months of age, infants can distinguish males and females, usually on the basis of hairstyle Infants can also distinguish male and female voices and make intermodal matches on the basis of gender Although we cannot conclude that infants understand anything about what it means to be female or male, it does appear that older infants recognize the physical difference between females and males by using multiple perceptual cues. By the latter half of their second year, children have begun to form gender-related expectations about the kinds of objects and activities typically associated with males and females. For example, 18-month-olds looked longer at a doll than at a toy car after viewing a series of female faces, and looked longer at a toy car than at a doll after habituating to male faces Another study with 24-month-olds found that counter-stereotypical matches of gender and action (e.g., a man putting on lipstick) led to longer looking times; it appeared that the children were surprised by the action's gender inconsistency The clearest evidence that children have acquired the concept of gender occurs around 21⁄2 years of age, when they begin to label other people's genders. For example, researchers might assess this ability by asking children to put pictures of children into "boys" and "girls" piles. Children typically begin to show understanding of their own gender identity within a few months after labeling other people's gender. By age 3, most children use gender terms such as "boy" and "girl" in their speech and correctly refer to themselves as a boy or girl

How change occurs

Dynamic-systems theories posit that changes occur through mechanisms of variation and selection that are analogous to those that produce biological evolution Selection involves increasingly frequent choice of behaviors that are effective in meeting goals and decreasing reliance on less effective behaviors. Most important is the relative success of each approach in meeting a particular goal: as children gain experience, they increasingly rely on approaches that produce desired outcomes Another important consideration is efficiency: children increasingly choose approaches that meet goals more quickly or with less effort than do other approaches. A third consideration is novelty, the lure and challenge of trying something new.

normal distribution

Early developers of intelligence tests observed that many easy-to- measure human characteristics, such as men's heights, women's heights, men's weights, and women's weights, fall into a normal distribution normal distributions are symmetrical around a mean (average) value, with most scores falling relatively near the mean. Similarly, the normal distribution found in intelligence test scores of children of a given age means that most IQ scores are fairly close to the mean, with few children obtaining very high or very low scores.

infancy

Early in life, males and females are quite similar in size, appearance, and abilities. At birth, males, on average, weigh only about half a pound more than females do; through infancy, male and female babies look so similar that, if they are dressed in gender-neutral clothing, people cannot guess their gender "Baby X" technique has frequently been used to demonstrate the power of gender stereotypes The technique is successful at revealing the influence of stereotyped expectations, because there are no consistent or obvious differences in how female and male infants actually look when they are clothed in a neutral manner or in how they behave.

apoptosis

"cell suicide," is readily apparent in hand development: the formation of fingers depends on the death of the cells in between the ridges in the hand plate.

These three elements are involved in five relations that are fundamental in the development of every child:

(1) the parents' genetic contribution to the child's genotype; (2) the contribution of the child's genotype to his or her own phenotype; (3) the contribution of the child's environment to his or her phenotype; (4) the influence of the child's phenotype on his or her environment; and (5) the influence of the child's environment on his or her genotype. We will now consider each of these relations in turn

Parents socialize their children's emotional development through

(1) their expression of emotion with their children and other people, (2) their reactions to their children's expression of emotion, and (3) the discussions they have with their children about emotion and emotional regulation.

nativist view espouced by chomsky

According to the strongly nativist view espoused by Chomsky, the cognitive abilities that support language development are highly specific to language. As Steven Pinker (1994) describes it, language is "a distinct piece of the biological makeup of our brains . . . distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave intelligently" (p. 18). This claim is taken one step further by the modularity hypothesis

overall academic Achievement

Although girls and boys are similar in general intelligence, they tend to differ in academic achievement from elementary school through college. Recent statistics in the United States indicate that girls tend to show higher levels of school adjustment and achievement than do boys In addition to the overall differences in academic achievement, for some specific cognitive abilities and academic subjects, one gender tends to excel slightly more than the other.

distributional properties

Another regularity to which infants are surprisingly sensitive concerns the distributional properties of the speech they hear. In every language, certain sounds are more likely to appear together than are others • the researchers found that infants dis- criminated between the words and the sequences that were not words • Thus, the infants used recurrent sound patterns to fish words out of the passing stream of speech. This ability to learn from distributional properties extends to real languages as well; English-learning infants, for example, can track similar statistical patterns when listening to Italian IDS • Similarly, after hearing Italian words like mela and bici embedded in fluent Italian speech, 17-month-olds who had no prior exposure to Italian readily mapped those labels to objects This ability helps them to find new words in the speech stream. After hearing "It's Jerry's cup!" a number of times, 6-month-old Jerry is more likely to learn the word cup than if he had not heard it right after his name

Gender differences in the function of friendships

As children grow older, gender differences emerge in what girls and boys feel they want and get from their friendships. Girls are more likely than boys to desire closeness and dependency in friendships and also to worry about abandonment, loneliness, hurting others, peers' evaluations, and loss of relationships if they express anger Probably as a consequence of this intimacy, girls also report getting more upset than do boys when friends betray them, are unreliable, or do not provide support and help Ironically, the very intimacy of girls' close friendships may make them more fragile, and therefore of shorter duration, than those of boys girls are also more likely than boys to co-ruminate with their close friends, that is, to extensively discuss problems and negative thoughts and feelings girls who are socially anxious or depressed seem more susceptible to the anxiety or depression of their friends Girls and boys are less likely to differ in the amount of conflict they experience in their best friendships (A. J. Rose & Rudolph, 2006). Boys' and girls' friendships also do not differ much in terms of the recreational opportunities they provide

When we consider Piaget's account of cognitive development during infancy, several notable trends are evident

At first, infants' activities center on their own bodies; later, their activities include the world around them. Early goals are concrete (shaking a rattle and listening to the sound it makes); later goals often are more abstract (varying the heights from which objects are dropped and observing how the effects vary). Infants become increasingly able to form mental representations, moving from "out of sight, out of mind" to remembering a playmate's actions from a full day earlier. Such enduring mental representations make possible the next stage, which Piaget called preoperational thinking.

causes of maltreatment

At the level of the microsystem, certain characteristics of parents increase the risk for maltreatment (Emery & Laumann-Billings, 1998). Among these are low self-esteem, strong negative reactions to stress, and poor impulse control. Child maltreatment tends to be associated with additional factors in the mesosystem and exosystem that increase stress on parents. Many of these factors are related to low family income. They include high levels of unemployment, inadequate housing, and community violence Often a particularly important exosystem contributor to child maltreatment is a family's social isolation and lack of social support (more common in lower-income families). Such isolation may have multiple causes—mistrust of other people, a lack of the social skills needed to maintain positive relationships, frequent moves from place to place because of economic factors, or living in a community characterized by violence and transience.

problems with adjustment

Children who are rejected in the elementary school years—especially aggressive-rejected boys—are at risk for increases in externalizing symptoms such as aggression, delinquency, hyperactivity and attention-deficit disorders, conduct disorder, and substance abuse In addition, aggressive boys (both rejected and nonrejected) increased in parent-reported externalizing symptoms between grades 6 and 10, whereas other boys did not; and by 10th grade, aggressive-rejected boys themselves reported an average of more than twice the number of symptoms reported by all other boys Other research provides evidence that peer rejection may also be associated with internalizing problems such as loneliness, depression, withdrawn behavior, and obsessive-compulsive behavior, even 10 or 40 years later

Consistency of Aggressive and Antisocial Behaviour

Children who are the most aggressive and prone to con- duct problems such as stealing in middle childhood tend to be more aggressive and delinquent in adolescence than children who develop conduct problems at a later age In one study, children who had been identified as aggressive by their peers when they were 8 years old had more criminal convictions and engaged in more serious criminal behavior at age 30 than did those who had not been identified as aggressive Many children who are aggressive from early in life have neurological deficits (i.e., brain dysfunctions) that underlie such problems as difficulty in paying attention and hyperactivity These deficits, which may become more marked with age (Aguilar et al., 2000), can result in troubled relations with parents, peers, and teachers that further fuel the child's aggressive, antisocial pattern of behavior Early-onset conduct problems are also associated with a range of family risk factors. Adolescents with a long childhood history of troubled behavior represent only a minority of adolescents who engage in the much broader problem of "juvenile delinquency" Indeed, most adolescents who perform delinquent acts have no history of aggression or antisocial behavior before age 11 Youths who develop problem behaviors in adolescence typically stop engaging in antisocial behavior later in adolescence or early adulthood

The development of conceptions of self

Children's sense of self changes in fairly dramatic ways across infancy, childhood, and adolescence. It continues to develop into adulthood, becoming more complex as the individual's emotional and cognitive development deepens

universal grammer

Chomsky proposed that humans are born with a Universal Grammar, a hard-wired set of principles and rules that govern grammar in all languages.

Older parents

In 1970, 1 of 100 first births were to mothers 35 or older; in 2010, the comparable figure was more than 1 in 7 Older parents also are more likely to have planned the birth of their children and to have fewer children overall. Thus, they have more financial resources for raising a family. Older parents also tend to be more positive in their parenting of infants than younger parents are—unless they already have several children. In another study, this one of mothers aged 16 to 38 who had recently given birth, older mothers expressed greater satisfaction with parenting and commitment to the parenting role, displayed more positive emotion toward the baby, and showed greater sensitivity to the baby's cues. Men who delay parenting until approximately age 30 or later are likewise more positive about the parenting role than are younger fathers

Sexual identity or Orientation

In childhood and especially adolescence, an individual's identity includes his or her sexual orientation—that is, a person's preference in regard to erotic feelings toward males or females. The majority of youth are attracted to individuals of the other sex; a sizable minority is not

synapses

Neurons communicate with one another at synapses, which are microscopic junctions between the axon terminal of one neuron and the dendritic branches of another

Current Perspectives

Erikson's emphasis on the quest for identity in adolescence has had a lasting impact, providing the foundation for a wealth of research on this aspect of adolescence. The signal weakness of both theories is that their major theoretical claims are stated too vaguely to be testable, and many of their specific elements, particularly in Freud's theory, are generally regarded as highly questionable. Freud's identification of infantile amnesia, for example, has been supported by a vast literature on the earliest memories that people can recall In one study, adults between the ages of 62 and 89 were asked to recall up to three memories from each decade of their lives, and the researchers classified their reports with respect to Erikson's stages memories from the second decade of their lives were predominantly of experiences having to do with identity confusion and establishing a sense of identity

as behavior modification

Skinner's work on reinforcement has led to a form of therapy known as behavior modification, which has proven quite useful for changing undesirable behaviors

ethnic identity in childhood

Ethnic identity develops gradually during childhood, although it does not develop for all ethnic-minority children. Preschool children do not really understand the significance of being a member of an ethnic group, although they may be able to label themselves as "Mexican," "Native American," "African American," or the like By the early school years, ethnic-minority children know the common characteristics of their ethnic group, start to have feelings about being members of the group, and may have begun to form ethnically based preferences regarding foods, traditional holiday activities, language use, and so forth The family and the larger social environment play a major role in the development of children's ethnic identity. Parents and other family members and adults can be instrumental in teaching their children about the strengths and unique features of their ethnic culture and instilling them with ethnic pride

Children's ethnic identity can be viewed as having five components (Bernal et al., 1993):

Ethnic knowledge. Children's knowledge that their ethnic group has certain distinguishing characteristics—behaviors, traits, values, customs, styles, and language—that set it apart from other groups. Ethnic self-identification. Children's categorization of themselves as members of their ethnic group. Ethnic constancy. Children's understanding that the distinguishing characteristics of their ethnic group do not change across time and place and that they themselves will always be a member of their ethnic group. Ethnic-role behaviors. Children's engagement in the behaviors that reflect the distinguishing characteristics of their ethnic group. Ethnic feelings and preferences. Children's feelings about belonging to their ethnic group and their preferences for the group's members and the characteristics that distinguish the group.

Extending the work of Erikson, Jean Phinney (Phinney & Kohatsu, 1997) has identified three phases of ethnic-identity development that minority youth often experience:

Ethnic-identity diffusion/ foreclosure. In this phase, many ethnic-minority adolescents have not examined their ethnicity and are not particularly interested in it. Some others have internalized the majority society's negative views of their ethnic group. Ethnic-identity search/ moratorium. Minority youth in this phase develop an interest in learning about their ethnic or racial culture and begin to consider the effects that their ethnicity may have on their life in the present and future. In some cases, this exploration eventually leads to the third phase, ethnic- identity achievement (K. A. Whitehead et al., 2009). Ethnic-identity achievement. This phase is characterized by a more conscious awareness of, and commitment to, one's ethnic group and ethnic identity

the self in children

• As children progress through childhood, their conception of themselves becomes increasingly complex and encompassing. This developmental pattern in self- understanding has been vividly illustrated by Susan Harter, a leading researcher on children's emerging sense of self. Combining statements made by a wide array of children in a number of empirical studies, Harter has constructed composite examples of children's typical self-descriptive statements at different ages. • Their focus on observable features is further reflected by the fact that the prototypical 3-year-old in the example bragged about particular skills such as running fast and did not make generalizations about his/her overall ability as an athlete. The composite example reflects another characteristic typical of children's self- concept during the preschool years: their self-evaluations are unrealistically positive

Peer influences

• Gender differences in aggression are consistent with the gender-typed social norms of girls' and boys' same-gender peer groups. However, it is worth noting that children who are high in aggression and low in prosocial behavior are typically rejected in both male and female peer groups • Another peer influence on aggression may be boys' regular participation in aggressive contact sports, which sanction the use of physical force and may contribute to higher rates of direct aggression among boys Support for this proposal is the finding that participation in aggressive sports, such as football, in high school is correlated with a higher likelihood of sexual aggression in college

Arithmetic

• People often think of arithmetic learning as a process of rote memorization, but it actually is far more complex and interesting. How well children learn arithmetic depends on the strategies that they use, the precision of their representations of numerical magnitudes, and their understanding of basic mathematical concepts and principles.

prereading skills

• Preschoolers acquire certain basic information about reading just from looking at books and having their parents read to them. Children with well-educated parents also tend to learn the names of most or all the letters of the alphabet before they enter school. This tends not to be true of children whose parents are poorly educated.

methylation

Evidence for the enduring epigenetic impact of early experiences and behaviors comes from research on methylation, a biochemical process that reduces expression of a variety of genes and that is involved in regulating reactions to stress increased methylation in the cord-blood DNA of newborns of depressed mothers (Oberlander et al., 2008) and in adults who were abused as children (McGowan et al., 2009), leading researchers to speculate that such children are at heightened risk for depression as adults

Sobel and Kirkham (2006),

• for instance, presented 19- and 24-month-olds a box called a "blicket detector" that, the experimenter explained, played music when a type of object called a blicket was placed on it. inally, the children were asked to turn on the blicket detector. The 24-month-olds consistently chose object B, indicating that seeing the ineffectiveness of object A led them to infer that object B was the blicket. In contrast, the 19-month-olds chose object A as often as they did object B, suggesting that they did not draw this inference. To succeed on the task, the toddlers needed to understand the causal relations that would make one tool more effective than the others for pulling in the toy. In particu- lar, they needed to understand that a sufficiently long shaft and a head at right angles to the shaft were essential. The 2-year-olds succeeded considerably more often than the 1-year-olds did in obtaining the toy, both in their initial efforts to get it on their own and after being shown by the experimenter how they could use the optimal tool to obtain it. One reason for the older toddlers' greater success was that they more often used a tool to try to get the toy, as opposed to reaching for it with their hands or seeking their mother's help. Another reason was that the older toddlers chose the optimal tool in a greater percentage of trials in which they used some tool. A third reason was that the older toddlers more often generalized what they had learned on the first problem to new, superficially different problems involving tools and toys with different shapes, colors, and decorations

Distinguishing Living from Nonliving things

• infants in their first year distinguish people from other animals and that they distinguish both from inanimate objects. • age of 3 or 4 years, when they can comprehend and answer questions about these categories. • On one hand, most preschoolers know that plants, like animals but unlike inanimate objects, grow, heal themselves, and die. • most preschoolers believe that plants are not alive; in fact, it is not until age 7 to 9 years that a clear majority of children realize that plants are living things Consistent with this interpretation, letting 5-year-olds know that plants bend to- ward sunlight and that their roots grow toward water leads the children to conclude that plants, like animals, are living things

equilibration

• is the process by which children (indeed, people of all ages) bal- ance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding. Equilibra- tion includes three phases. First, children are satisfied with their understanding of a particular phenomenon; Piaget labeled this a state of equilibrium, because the children do not see any discrepancies between their observations and their under- standing of the phenomenon. Then, new information leads them to perceive that their understanding is inadequate. Piaget said that this realization puts children in a state of disequilibrium; they recognize shortcomings in their understanding of the phenomenon, but they cannot generate a superior alternative. Finally, they develop a more sophisticated understanding that eliminates the shortcomings of the old one, creating a more advanced equilibrium within which a broader range of observations can be understood.

preoperational stage

(ages 2 to 7 years), toddlers and preschoolers become able to represent their experiences in language and mental imagery. This allows them to remember the experiences for longer periods and to form more sophisticated concepts. However, as suggested by the term pre- operational, Piaget's theory emphasizes young children's inability to perform certain mental operations, such as considering multiple dimensions simultaneously As children develop, they rely less on self-generated symbols and more on conventional ones. For example, when 5-year-olds play games involving pirates, they might wear a patch over one eye and a bandanna over their head because that is the way pirates are commonly depicted

Characteristics of Aggressive-antisocial children and adolescents

Aggressive-antisocial children and adolescents differ, on average, from their nonaggressive peers in a variety of characteristics. These include having a difficult temperament and the tendency to process social information in negative ways.

norm of reaction

Because of the continuous interaction of genotype and environment, a given genotype will develop differently in different environments. This idea is expressed by the concept of the norm of reaction (Dobzhansky, 1955), which refers to all the phenotypes that could theoretically result from a given genotype in relation to all the environments in which it could survive and develop

study on children's understanding

Children are then asked how the character in the story feels. By age 3, children are quite good at identifying situations that make people feel happy. At age 4, they are fairly accurate at identifying situations that make people sad, and by age 5, they can identify situations likely to elicit anger, fear, or surprise Children's ability to understand the circumstances that evoke complex social emotions such as pride, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and jealousy often emerges after age 7, and, according to cross-cultural research that involved children from both Western nations and a remote Himalayan village, this ability is considerable by late elementary school and early adolescence From age 4 until at least age 10, children are generally better at identifying emotions from stories depicting the cause of an emotion than from pictures of facial expressions such as fear, disgust, embarrassment, and shame

freud's emphasis

Freud's emphasis on the importance of early experience and close relationships was especially influential in setting the foundation for modern-day attachment theory and research In addition, Freud's remarkable insight that much of our mental life occurs outside the realm of consciousness is fundamental to modern cognitive psychology and brain science. current research in cognitive and affective neuroscience suggests that a remarkably large proportion of human behavior stems from unconscious processes. According to this research, we are, to a surprising degree, "strangers to ourselves," often acting on the basis of unconscious processes and only later constructing rational accounts of our behavior Our behavior is also influenced by implicit attitudes of which we are unaware, attitudes that are often antithetical to what we consciously believe. Probably the most important further step they can take, based on Freud's and Erikson's theories, is to program Kismet to form a few very close relationships with others. Certain people should become much more important to Kismet than other people with whom it interacts.

gene expression: developmental changes

Genes influence development and behavior only when they are turned on, and human development proceeds normally, from conception to death, only if genes get switched on and off in the right place, at the right time, and for the right length of time.

The method most often used for this purpose was devised by James Marcia (1980). In this method, study participants are interviewed to determine the extent of their exploration of, and commitment to, issues related to occupation, ideology (e.g., religion, politics), and sexual behavior. On the basis of their responses, they are classified into one of the following four categories of identity status:

Identity-diffusion status. The individual does not have firm commitments regarding the issues in question and is not making progress toward developing them. Foreclosure status. The individual has not engaged in any identity experimentation and has established a vocational or ideological identity based on the choices or values of others. Moratorium status. The individual is exploring various occupational and ideological choices and has not yet made a clear commitment to them. Identity-achievement status. The individual has achieved a coherent and consolidated identity based on personal decisions regarding occupation, ideology, and the like. The individual believes that these decisions were made autonomously and is committed to them

2010 genome project

In 2010, a consortium of geneticists began working to sequence the genomes of 10,000 vertebrate species (Lander, 2011), the expectation being that examining the genomes of such a diverse set of species will provide knowledge not only about those species but also about human evolution and the way genes function. One surprise was the number of genes that humans have: the current estimate of around 21,000 genes is far fewer than previous estimates, which ranged from 35,000 to more than 100,000 genes (Clamp et al., 2007). A second major surprise was that most of those genes are possessed by all living things.

current perspectives

In contrast to psychoanalytic theories, learning theories are based on principles derived from experiments. As a result, they allow explicit predictions that can be empirically tested The primary weakness of the learning approach is its lack of attention to biological influences and, except for Bandura's theory, to the role of cognition in influencing behavior The emotional and verbal reactions of people to its behaviors instruct Kismet regarding the appropriateness of what it has done. Kismet also has the capacity to acquire new behaviors by modeling what it "sees" and "hears" humans do. Kismet's ability to learn from people is a crucial aspect of what makes it seem truly sociable

american and japanese preschoolers

In one study, Japanese and American preschoolers were asked to say what they would do in hypothetical situations of conflict and distress, such as being hit or seeing a peer knock down a tower of blocks they had just built. American preschoolers expressed more anger and aggression in response to these vignettes than did Japanese children. This difference may have to do with the fact that American mothers appear to be more likely than Japanese mothers to encourage their children to express their emotions in situations such as these Cultures also differ in the degree to which they promote or discourage specific emotions, and these differences are often reflected in parents' socialization of emotion

Preparation for production

In their first months, babies are getting ready to talk. Then, at around 6 to 8 weeks of age, infants begin to coo—producing long, drawn-out vowel sounds, such as "ooohh" or "aaahh." Young infants entertain themselves with vocal gymnastics, switching from low grunts to high-pitched cries, from soft murmurs to loud shouts. While their sound repertoire is expanding, infants become increasingly aware that their vocalizations elicit responses from others, and they begin to engage in dialogues of reciprocal ooohing and aaahing, cooing and gooing with their parents

holophrastic period

Initially, infants say the words in their small productive vocabulary only one word at a time. This phase is referred to as the holophrastic period, because the child typically expresses a "whole phrase"—a whole idea—with a single word

Social Cognitive theory

Kay Bussey and Albert Bandura (1999) proposed a theory of gender development based on Bandura's (1986, 1997) social cognitive theory The theory depicts a triadic model of reciprocal causation among personal factors, environmental factors, and behavior patterns. Personal factors include cognitive, motivational, and biological processes. According to social cognitive theory, learning occurs through tuition, enactive experience, and observation. Observational learning of gender-role information involves four key processes: attention, memory, production, and motivation. To learn new information, it must, of course, be attended to (noticed) and then stored in memory. Next, children need to practice the behavior (production) that they have observed (assuming that the behavior is within their capabilities). Finally, children's motivation to repeat a gender-typed behavior will depend on the incentives or disincentives they experience relative to the behavior. These sanctions can be experienced either directly (as when a parent praises a daughter for helping to prepare dinner) or indirectly (as when a boy observes another boy getting teased for playing with a doll). According to the social cognitive theory, children monitor their behavior and evaluate how well it matches personal standards. After making this evaluation, children may feel pride or shame, depending on whether they meet their standards. When individuals experience positive self-reactions for their behavior, they gain the sense of personal agency referred to as self-efficacy Self- efficacy can develop gradually through practice (as when a son regularly plays catch with his father), through social modeling (as when a girl observes a female friend do well in math and thinks that maybe she could do well herself), and by social persuasion (as when a coach gives a pep talk to push the boys' performances on the baseball field).

origins of aggression

Key contributors include genetic makeup, socialization by family members, the influence of peers, and cultural factors.

kohlberg's stages

Kohlberg proposed three levels of moral judgment—preconventional, conventional, and postconventional (or principled). Preconventional moral reasoning is self-centered: it focuses on getting rewards and avoiding punishment. Conventional moral reasoning is centered on social relationships: it focuses on compliance with social duties and laws. Post-conventional moral reasoning is centered on ideals: it focuses on moral principles. Kohlberg argued that people in all parts of the world move through his stages in the same order, although they differ in how many stages they attain. Consistent with Kohlberg's theory, people who have higher-level cognitive and perspective-taking skills and who are better educated exhibit higher-level moral judgment When the boys were 10 years old, they used primarily Stage 1 reasoning (blind obe- dience to authority) and Stage 2 reasoning (self-interest). Thereafter, reasoning in these stages dropped off markedly. For most adolescents aged 14 and older, Stage 3 reasoning (being "good" to earn approval or maintain relationships) was the primary mode of reasoning, although some adolescents occasionally used Stage 4 reasoning (fulfilling duties and upholding laws to maintain social order). Only a small number of participants, even by age 36, ever achieved Stage 5 (upholding the best interests of the group while recognizing life and liberty as universal values).

Initiative Versus Guilt (ages 4 to 6)

Like Freud, Erikson saw the time between ages 4 and 6 years as a period during which children come to identify with, and learn from, their parents: "[The child] hitches his wagon to nothing less than a star: he wants to be like his parents, who to him appear very powerful and very beautiful"

Parental influence

Many children may observe their parents modeling gender- typed communication patterns. A meta-analysis comparing mothers' and fathers' speech to their children indicated small average effect sizes, with mothers more likely than fathers to use affiliative speech; in contrast, fathers were more likely than mothers to use controlling (high in assertion and low in affiliation) speech

alleles

Many of an individual's genes are never expressed; some others are only partially expressed. One reason for this is the fact that about one-third of human genes have two or more different forms The alleles of a given gene influence the same trait or characteristic (e.g., eye color), but they contribute to different developmental outcomes (e.g., brown, blue, hazel, gray eyes).

Peers in Groups

Most children usually have one or a few very close friends and some less close additional friends with whom they spend time and share activities. Developmentalists have been especially interested in how these peer groups emerge and change with age and how they affect the development of their members

Quality of Ongoing Parent—Child Interactions and Peer Relationships

Ongoing parent-child interactions are associated with peer relations in much the same way that attachment patterns are. Research that has investigated ongoing father-child interactions has found that they, too, can play a role in children's peer relationships. Overall, research in this area suggests that when the family is generally characterized by a warm, involved, and harmonious family style, young children tend to be sociable, socially skilled, liked by peers, and cooperative in child care In contrast, parenting that is characterized by harsh, authoritarian discipline and low levels of child monitoring is often associated with children's being unpopular and victimized it is difficult to prove that quality of parenting actually has a causal influence on children's social behavior with peers. The most likely possibility is that the causal links are bidirectional—that parents' behavior affects their children's social competence and vice versa—and that both environmental and biological factors play a role in the development of children's social competence with peers.

Parents typically contribute to their children's socialization in at least three different ways:

Parents as direct instructors. Parents may directly teach their children skills, rules, and strategies and explicitly inform or advise them on various issues. Parents as indirect socializers. Parents provide indirect socialization through their own behaviors with and around their children. Parents as social managers. Parents manage their children's experiences and social lives, including their exposure to various people, activities, and information, especially when children are young

qualitative change

Piaget believed that children of different ages think in qualitatively different ways. he proposed that children in the early stages of cognitive development conceive of morality in terms of the consequences of a per- son's behavior, whereas children in later stages conceive of it in terms of the person's intent Thus, a 5-year-old would judge someone who accidentally broke a whole jar of cookies as having been naughtier than someone who deliberately stole a single cookie; an 8-year-old would reach the opposite conclusion

Economic Stress and Parenting

Protracted economic stress is a strong predictor of quality of parenting, familial interactions, and children's adjustment, and the outcome for each is generally negative Moreover, economic pressures tend to increase the likelihood of marital conflict and parental depression, which, in turn, make parents more likely to be uninvolved with, or hostile to, their children and less likely to cooperate and support each other's parenting The quality of parenting and family interactions is especially likely to be com- promised for families at the poverty level, which in 2010 included 32% of U.S. single-parent families headed by mothers and 6.2% of families headed by married adults. All told, about 22% of children younger than 18 years lived in poverty in the United States in 2010, the highest rate of child poverty among industrialized, Western countries One factor that can help moderate the potential impact of economic stress on parenting is having supportive relationships with relatives, friends, neighbors, or others who can provide material assistance, child care, advice, approval, or a sympathetic ear. In considering the effects of economic stress on parenting, it is important to bear in mind that individuals contribute to their own socioeconomic situation through their traits, dispositions, and goals, and these same traits, dispositions, and goals are likely to influence their relations with their children and their children's behavior. Similarly, adolescents with lower levels of problem behavior tended, over time, to attain higher socioeconomic status and to be more emotionally invested in their children, and their children, in turn, exhibited fewer problem behaviors

sex vs gender

Sex tends to imply biological origins for any differences between males and females. Therefore, we follow the convention of using gender as a more neutral term that refers simply to one's social categorization as either female or male, and we use the term sex only when referring explicitly to biological processes, such as those involving sex hormones or genetic sex.

Developmental processes

Some aspects of the construction of the brain are set in motion and tightly controlled by the genes, relatively independent of experience. But, as you will see, other aspects are profoundly influenced by experience

secure attachment.

The first attachment category—the one into which the majority of infants fall—is secure attachment. Babies in this category use their mother as a secure base during the initial part of the session, leaving her side to explore the many toys available in the room. However, when their mother returns, they make it clear that they are glad to see her, either by simply greeting her with a happy smile or, if they have been upset during her absence, by going to her to be picked up and comforted. About 62% of typical middle-class children in the United States whose mother is not clinically disturbed fall into this category; for infants from lower socioeconomic groups, the rate is significantly lower—slightly less than 50% for children under 24 months of age

Negative Emotions

The first negative emotion that is discernible in newborn infants is generalized distress, which can be evoked by a variety of experiences ranging from hunger and pain to overstimulation The emergence and development of other negative emotions in infancy are, as noted earlier, more difficult to pin down. A number of studies suggest that negative emotion in young infants continues to be expressed as undifferentiated distress (Oster, Hegley, & Nagel, 1992) and that anger and distress/pain are especially likely to be undifferentiated in most contexts Dynamic-systems theorists have argued that differentiating among infants' expression of emotions is difficult partly because their expressions of emotion are affected by nonemotional factors such as the position of their head, their respiration, and where they are looking (which affects the eyebrow and areas around the eye), as well as by their immediate experience of emotion and interpretation of the context The interpretation of negative emotions is complicated by the fact that infants sometimes display negative emotions that seem incongruent with the situation they are experiencing In the string-pulling study cited earlier, for example, the infants who could "control" the music by pulling the string attached to their arms fussed and sometimes expressed anger when their pulling of the string no longer produced music. Other times, however, these infants showed fear when pulling the string no longer produced music In some contexts involving relatively intense emotion, however, investigators have been able to differentiate among certain negative emotions in fairly young infants. The correspondence between the context and infants' emotional expressions seems to become more consistent from 5 to 12 months of age. For example, in research in which experimenters prevented infants from moving their arms, the infants' expressions indicative of anger increased with age, whereas their expressions of interest and surprise decreased

The Problem of reference

The first step for infants in acquiring the meanings of words is to address the problem of reference, that is, to start associating words and meaning. That the problem of reference is a real problem is illustrated by the case of a toddler who thought "Phew!" was a greeting, because it was the first thing her mother said on entering the child's room every morning

mother's voice

The mother's voice is probably the most interesting sound frequently available to fetuses. If fetuses can learn something about their mother's voice prenatally, this could provide them with a running start for learning about other aspects of speech afterbirth These findings suggest that the fetuses recognized (and were aroused by) the sound of their own mother's voice relative to a stranger's voice

macrosystem

The outer level of Bronfenbrenner's model is the macrosystem, which consists of the general beliefs, values, customs, and laws of the larger society in which all the other levels are embedded. It includes the general cultural, subcultural, or social-class groups to which the child belongs

interpersonal goals

The scientific evidence, however, indicates that average gender differences in adults' communication are not nearly as dramatic as Gray portrayed them. The average gender differences in communication and interpersonal goals during childhood and adolescence have likewise been found to be modest In terms of interpersonal goals, researchers have found average gender differences that are consistent with traditional gender roles In contrast, more girls than boys tend to favor intimacy and support as goals in their relationships. The effect sizes for these differences tend to be small to moderate. Researchers have also observed some average gender differences among children in communication style with their peers. Contrary to the stereotypes of talkative girls and taciturn boys, studies generally do not find average differences in talkativeness after early childhood Girls also tend to be somewhat more likely than boys to use collaborative statements, which reflect high affiliation and high assertion. In contrast, boys tend to be more likely than girls to use directive statements, which reflect high assertion and low affiliation

guilt and shame

The two other self-conscious emotions, guilt and shame, are sometimes mistakenly thought of as roughly equivalent, but they are actually quite distinct. Guilt is associated with empathy for others and involves feelings of remorse and regret about one's behavior, as well as the desire to undo the consequences of that behavior In contrast, shame does not seem to be related to concern about others. Shame and guilt can be distinguished fairly early, as documented by a study in which researchers arranged for 2-year-olds to play with a doll belonging to an adult (the experimenter). In general, the degree of association of guilt feelings with bad or hurt- ful behavior increases in the second to third year (Aksan & Kochanska, 2005), and the individual differences in children's guilt observed at 22 months of age remain relatively stable across the early preschool years In everyday life as well, the same situation often elicits shame in some individuals and guilt in others. In addition, children are more likely to feel guilt rather than shame if their parents help them understand the consequences their actions have for others, teach them the need to repair the harm they have done, avoid publicly humiliating them, and communicate respect and love for their children even when disciplining them The situations likely to induce self-conscious emotions in children vary across cultures, as does the frequency with which specific self-conscious emotions are likely to be experienced Similarly, the Japanese tend to avoid bestowing praise on the individual because they believe that it encourages a focus on the self rather than on the needs of the larger social group (M. Lewis, 1992). Correspondingly, Japanese children, in comparison with U.S. children, are less likely to report experiencing pride as a consequence of personal success In such cultures, parents' efforts to elicit shame from their young children are often direct and disparaging (e.g., "You made your mother lose face," "I've never seen any 3-year-old who behaves like you")

Developmental changes in Friendship

They also fight more often—but again, they are also more likely to negotiate their way out of the conflict Although children's friendships remain similar in many aspects as the children grow older, they do change in one important dimension: the level and importance of intimacy. At this age, children also tend to view friends in terms of rewards and costs (Bigelow, 1977). In this respect, friends tend to be close by, have interesting toys, and have similar expectations about play activities. Nonfriends tend to be uninteresting or difficult to get along with. At about 9 years of age, children seem to become more sensitive to the needs of others and to the inequali- ties among people. Children define friends in terms of taking care of one another's physical and material needs, providing general assistance and help with school work, reducing loneliness and the sense of being excluded, and sharing feelings. When children are about 10 years old, loyalty, mutual understanding, and self- disclosure become important components of children's conceptions of friendship Thus, friendships become an increasing source of intimacy and disclosure with age, as well as a source of honest feedback. What accounts for the various age-related changes that occur in children's friendships, particularly with regard to their concept of friendship? Some researchers have argued that the changes in children's thinking about friendship are qualitative, or discontinuous. Consequently, their thinking about friendships is limited in the degree to which they consider issues beyond their own needs. Hartup and Stevens (1997) maintain that children of all ages consider their friendships "to be marked by reciprocity and mutuality—the giving and taking, and returning in kind or degree"

Social Cognition

They are more likely than nonaggressive children to attribute hostile motives to others in contexts in which the other person's motives and intentions are unclear Correspondingly, when asked to come up with possible solutions to a negative social situation, aggressive children generate fewer options than do nonaggressive children, and those options are more likely to involve aggressive or disruptive behavior aggressive children are also inclined to evaluate aggressive responses more favorably, and competent, prosocial responses less favorably, than do their nonaggressive peers, especially as they get older it is not surprising that aggressive children are predisposed to aggressive behavioral choices (Calvete & Orue, 2012; Dodge et al., 2006). This aggressive behavior, in turn, appears to increase children's subsequent tendency to positively evaluate aggressive interpersonal behaviors, further increasing the level of future antisocial conduct

Cross-cultural similarities and differences in factors related to peer status

Various studies done in Germany, Italy, and Hong Kong, for example, have shown that, as in the United States, withdrawal becomes linked with peer rejection in preschool or elementary school Research has also demonstrated that there are certain cultural and historical differences in the characteristics associated with children's sociometric status. A probable explanation for this difference is that Chinese culture traditionally values self-effacing, withdrawn behavior, and Chinese children are encouraged to behave accordingly In contrast, because Western cultures place great value on independence and self-assertion, withdrawn children in these cultures are likely to be viewed as weak, needy, and socially incompetent. Chen argues that the economic and political changes in China in the past decade have been accompanied by an increased valuing of assertive, less inhibited behavior

cigarette smoking

When a pregnant woman smokes a cigarette, she gets less oxygen, and so does her fetus. Indeed, the fetus makes fewer breathing movements while its mother is smoking. The main developmental consequences of maternal smoking are slowed fetal growth and low birth weight, both of which compromise the health of the new- born. it is estimated that approximately 1 in 10 women in the United States smokes during pregnancy For women who manage to quit smoking during pregnancy, the relapse rate is high after they give birth; roughly half begin smoking again within the first 6 months after their baby is born.

Childhood

With the changes in body composition that occur in early adolescence, particularly the substantial increase in muscle mass in boys, the gender gap in physical and motor skills greatly increases. After puberty, average gender differences are very large in strength, speed, and size: few adolescent girls can run as fast or throw a ball as far as most boys can Another average gender difference that increases in magnitude during childhood is activity level On average, boys' activity level tends to be higher than that of girls. In infancy, the difference is small, meaning that there is a lot of overlap between the distributions of the two genders Average gender differences in activity level also may contribute to children's preferences for gender-typed play activities. Dissatisfaction with body image has long been associated with a host of difficulties, ranging from low self-esteem and depression to eating disorders. Another change that accompanies physical maturation is the onset of sexual attraction, which usually begins before the physical process of puberty is complete. According to the recollections of a sample of American adults, sexual attraction is first experienced at around 10 years of age— regardless of whether the attraction was for individuals of the other sex or the same sex

René Spitz

a French psychoanalyst who had worked with Freud, conducted a series of classic studies of how the lack of adequate caregiving affects development (Spitz, 1945, 1946, 1949). Spitz filmed infants (a methodological innovation) residing in orphanages, most of whom had been born to unmarried mothers and had been given up for adoption. these early observations also challenged the more central belief, then held by many child-care professionals, that if children in institutions such as orphanages received good physical care, including proper nourishment and health care, they would develop normally.

sociodramatic play

a kind of pretend play in which they enact miniature dramas with other children or adults, such as "mother comforting baby" or "doctor helping sick child" Sociodramatic play is more complex and more social than object substitution

One fundamental benefit of experience-expectant plasticity

because experience helps shape the brain, fewer genes need to be dedicated to normal development

behavioral inhibition

the tendency to be high in fearful distress and restrained when dealing with novel or stressful situations.

cell differentiation

the third process in prenatal development is cell differentiation. Initially, all of the embryo's cells, referred to as embryonic stem cells, are equivalent and interchangeable: none has any fixed fate or function. After several cell divisions, however, these cells start to specialize in terms of both structure and function.

tuition

which refers to direct teaching, occurs during gender socialization—for example, when a father shows his son how to throw a baseball, or a mother teaches her daughter how to change a baby's diaper

Ethological and evolutionary theories

• Ethological and evolutionary theories are concerned with understanding various aspects of development and behavior in terms of a given animal's evolutionary heritage. Of particular interest are species-specific behaviors—behaviors that are common to members of a particular species (such as humans) but not typically observed in other species.

central developmental issues

• The primary developmental question on which learning theories take a unanimous stand is that of continuity/discontinuity: they all emphasize continuity, proposing that the same principles control learning and behavior throughout life and that therefore there are no qualitatively different stages in development. The theme of research and children's welfare is also relevant here in that therapeutic approaches based on learning principles have been widely used to treat children with a variety of problems

Quality of the Child's Relationships with Parents

• The quality of a child's relationship with his or her parents can affect the child's emotional development in several ways. In turn, these feelings affect children's emotionality. For instance, children who are securely attached—that is, who have high-quality, trusting relationships with their parents—tend to show more positive emotion and less social anxiety and anger than do children who are insecurely attached—that is, whose relationships with their parents are low in trust and sup- port Securely attached children also tend to be more open and honest in their expression of emotion as well as more advanced in their understanding of emotion, perhaps because their parents are more likely to discuss feelings and other mental states with them

we use sybols

(1) to represent our thoughts, feelings, and knowledge, and (2) to communicate our thoughts, feelings, and knowledge to other people.

Unlike Thomas and Chess, many contemporary researchers differentiate among types of negative emotionality and assess different types of regulatory capacities. More recent research suggests that infant temperament is captured by six dimensions:

-Fearful distress/inhibition—distress and withdrawal, and their duration, in new situations -Irritable distress—fussiness, anger, and frustration, especially if the child is not allowed to do what he or she wants to do -Attention span and persistence—duration of orienting toward objects or events of interest -Activity level—how much an infant moves (e.g., waves arms, kicks, crawls) -Positive affect/approach—smiling and laughing, approach to people, degree of cooperativeness and manageability -Rhythmicity—the regularity and predictability of the child's bodily functions such as eating and sleeping

primary mental abilities

A somewhat more differentiated view of intelligence (Thurstone, 1938) pro- poses that the human intellect is composed of seven primary mental abilities: word fluency, verbal meaning, reasoning, spatial visualization, numbering, rote memory, and perceptual speed.

drawing

At around 3 or 4 years or age, most children begin trying to draw pictures of something; they try to produce representational art One recent study (Callaghan et al., 2011) found that children from homes filled with pictorial images (a Canadian sample) produce such images earlier and more often than children from homes with few such images Initially, children's artistic impulses outstrip their motor and planning capabilities However, the 21⁄2-year- old creator of this picture was narrating his efforts as he drew, making it possible to as- certain his artistic intentions. While he represented the individual elements of his picture reasonably well, he was unable to co- ordinate them spatially. The most common subject for young children is the human figure (Goodnow, 1977). Just as infants who are first beginning to speak simplify the words they produce, young children simplify their drawings

four different moth- ers respond when they observe their child taking away another child's toy:

Authoritative. When Kareem takes away Troy's toy, Kareem's mother takes him aside and points out that the toy belongs to Troy and that Kareem has made Troy upset. She also says, "Remember our rule about taking other peoples' things. Now think about how to make things right with Troy." Her tone is firm but not hostile, and she waits to see if Kareem returns the toy. Authoritarian. When Elene takes Mark's toy, Elene's mother comes over, grabs her arm, and says in an angry voice, "Haven't I warned you about taking other people's things? Return that toy now or you will not be able to watch TV tonight. I'm tired of you disobeying me!" Permissive. When Jeff takes away Angelina's toy, Jeff 's mother does not intervene. She doesn't like to discipline her son and usually does not try to control his actions. However, she is not detached as a parent and is affectionate with him in other situations. Rejecting-neglecting. When Heather takes away Alonzo's toy, Heather's mother, as she does in most situations, pays no attention. She generally is not very involved with her child. Even when Heather behaves well, her mother rarely hugs her or expresses approval of Heather or her behavior In addition to the broad effects that different parenting styles seem to have for children, they also establish an emotional climate that affects the impact of whatever specific parenting practices may be employed Moreover, parenting style affects children's receptiveness to parents' practices. Children are more likely to listen to, and care about, their parents' preferences and demands if their parents are generally supportive and reasonable than if they are distant, neglectful, or expect obedience in all situations In a recent study, adolescents' reports of relatively high levels of externalizing problems (e.g., delinquency, loitering, and intoxication) and internalizing problems (e.g., low self-esteem, depressive symptoms) predicted a decline in parents' authoritative parenting styles (as reported by the youths) 2 years later, whereas an increase or decline in authoritative parenting over the same 2 years did not predict a change in the adolescents' adjustment

Cognitive and motivational influences

Average gender differences in empathy and prosocial behavior may be related to differences in boys' and girls' rates of aggression On average, girls are somewhat more likely than boys to report feelings of empathy and sympathy in response to people's distress (N. Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998), and they also tend to display more concern in their behavioral reactions (e.g., looks of concern and attempts to help). Direct aggression may be more likely among children who are less empathetic and have fewer prosocial skills. In support of this explanation, one study found average gender differences, with boys scoring higher on direct aggression and lower on empathy than girls, but both aggressive girls and aggressive boys scored lower on empathy than did nonaggressive girls and boys The gender-typed social norms and goals regarding assertion and affiliation may further contribute to the average gender difference in conflict and aggression When some boys focus on dominance goals, they may be more likely to appraise conflicts as competitions that require the use of direct aggression. In addition, some boys may initiate direct aggression as a way to enhance their status. In contrast, by emphasizing intimacy and nurturance goals, many girls may be more likely to view relationship conflicts as threats that need to be resolved through compromise that preserves harmony Even though girls, on average, have more intimate friendships than do boys, girls' same-gender friendships tend to be less stable over time That is, when conflict occurs in same- gender friendships and indirect aggression occurs, girls may be more likely than boys to take it personally and see it as a reason to end the relationship.

parental confict

Children who are frequently exposed to verbal and physical violence between their parents tend to be more antisocial and aggressive than other children One obvious reason for this is that embattled parents model aggressive behavior for their children. Another is that children whose mothers are physically abused tend to believe that violence is an acceptable, even natural part of family interactions

the Cost of Affluence

Contrary to popular assumption, growing up in highly affluent families can have negative effects on development Luthar and Becker (2002) note that affluent parents tend to pressure their children to excel both academically and in extracurricular activities. At the same time, these parents often provide their chil- dren with little support. U.S. teens whose family income was fairly low reported higher feelings of closeness with their mothers and fathers than did those whose family income was much higher

Developmental changes in speech perception

During the last months of their first year, infants increasingly home in on the speech sounds of their native language, and by 12 months of age, they have "lost" the ability to perceive the speech sounds that are not part of it. In other words, their speech perception has become adultlike

Children's Contributions to word learning

From this simple contrast, the participants inferred which tray they were supposed to get and that the name of the color of that tray was "chromium." After this single exposure to a novel word, about half the children showed some knowledge of it 1 week later by correctly picking out "chromium" from an array of paint chips. Some theorists have proposed that the many inferences children make in the process of learning words are guided by a number of assumptions (some- times referred to as principles, constraints, or biases) that limit the possible meanings children entertain for a new word.

Dweck's Theory of Self-Attributions and Achievement Motivation

Imagine two grade-school children, Diane and Megan, both hard at work trying to solve math problems, and both initially failing. Coming to the realization that the problems are quite difficult, Diane feels excited about meeting the challenge and works persistently to get the answers. According to Carol Dweck's social cognition perspective (2006), the difference in their reaction is attributable to a difference in their achievement motivation Diane has an incremental view of intelligence, the belief that intelligence can be developed through effort. She focuses on mastery—on meet- ing challenges and overcoming failures, and she generally expects her efforts to be successful. Megan, on the other hand, has an entity view of intelligence, the belief that her intelligence is fixed. Her goal is to be successful, and as long as she is succeeding, all is well

strategies

Information-processing theories point to the acquisition and growth of strategies as another major source of the development of memory. Between ages 5 and 8 years, children begin to use a number of broadly useful memory strategies, among them the strategy of rehearsal

writing

Much less is known about the development of children's writing than about the development of their reading, but what is known shows interesting parallels be- tween the two

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Judgement

On the basis of a 20-year longitudinal study in which he first assessed boys' moral reasoning at ages 10, 13, and 16, Kohlberg proposed that moral development proceeds through a specific series of stages that are discontinuous and hierarchical. For Kohlberg, the reasoning behind choices of what to do in the dilemma, rather than the choices themselves, is what reflects the quality of their moral reasoning

behavioural cycle

Once the fetus begins to move at 5 to 6 weeks, it is in almost constant motion for the next month or so. Then periods of inactivity gradually begin to occur. In the latter half of the prenatal period, the fetus moves only about 10% to 30% of the time This confirms the impression of most pregnant women that their fetuses wake up and start doing acrobatics just as they themselves are trying to go to sleep.

relation 2: child's genotype-child's phenotype

Our examination of the genetic contribution to the phenotype be- gins with a key fact: although every cell in your body contains copies of all the genes you received from your parents, only some of those genes are expressed.

Stability of sociometric status

Over relatively short periods such as weeks or a few months, children who are popular or rejected tend to remain so, whereas children who are neglected or controversial are likely to acquire a different status Over time, sociometric stability for rejected children is generally higher than for popular, neglected, or controversial children and may increase with the age of the child

plato

Plato viewed the rearing of boys as a particularly demanding challenge for parents and teachers innate knowledge

negative emotions and behaviour

Similarly, children prone to negative emotions such as anger are more likely to have behavioral problems such as aggression if exposed to hostile parenting or low levels of positive parenting Not only are children's maladjustment and social competence predicted by the combination of their temperament and their parents' child-rearing practices, but the child's temperament and parents' socialization efforts also seem to affect each other over time Thus, temperament plays a role in the development of children's social and psychological adjustment, but that role is complex and varies as a function of the child's social environment and the degree to which a child represents a challenge to the parent

sociocultural theories

Sociocultural theorists emphasize that much of cognitive development takes place through direct interactions between children and other people—parents, siblings, teachers, play- mates, and so on—who want to help children acquire the skills and knowledge valued by their culture

The Stage of the Mortality of Constraint

The first stage of moral reasoning, referred to as the morality of constraint, is most characteristic of children who have not achieved Piaget's stage of concrete operations—that is, children younger than 7 years regard rules and duties to others as unchangeable "givens." justice is whatever authorities (adults, rules, or laws) say is right, and authorities' punishments for noncompliance are always justified. in this stage that children believe that what determines whether an action is good or bad are the consequences of the action, not the motives or intentions behind it. First, Piaget argued that parental control of children is coercive and unilateral, leading to children's unquestioning respect for rules set by adults. Second, children's cognitive immaturity causes them to believe that rules are "real" things, like chairs or gravity, that exist outside people and are not the product of the human mind

Michael Lewis

believe that these emotions emerge in the second year because that is when children gain the understanding that they themselves are entities distinct from other people and begin to develop a sense of self

example of a genotype-environment interaction

comes from an important study showing that the effects of abusive parenting vary in severity as a function of the child's genotype

Social competence

is a set of skills that helps individuals achieve their personal goals in social interactions while maintaining positive relationships with others

Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)

is characterized by angry, defiant behavior that is age-inappropriate and persistent (lasting at least 6 months). Children with ODD typically lose their temper easily, arguing with adults and actively defying their requests or rules. They are also prone to blame others for their own mistakes or misbehavior and are often spiteful or vindictive.

Piaget (1954/1971)

proposed that this is the one kind of spatial coding that infants can do. The reason, according to his theory, is that during the sensorimotor period, infants can form only egocentric spatial representations

latency period

the fourth developmental stage lasts from about age 6 to age 12. It is, as its name implies, a time of relative calm. Sexual desires are safely hidden away in the unconscious, and psychic energy gets channeled into constructive, socially acceptable activities, including both intellectual and social pursuits

B. F. Skinner (1957)

wrote a book entitled Verbal Behavior, in which he presented a behaviorist theory of language development behaviourists believed that development is a a function of learning through reinforcement and punishment of overt behavior. Skinner argued that parents teach children to speak by means of the same kinds of reinforcement techniques that are used to train animals to perform novel behavior

puppets

• In one recent study that used puppets rather than objects, 5-month-olds uniformly preferred characters who were positive toward "helpers," whereas 8-month-olds preferred characters who were positive toward "helpers" and negative toward "hinderers" These and related studies indicate that well before their 1st birthday, infants have already learned a great deal about how humans behave and how their behavior is related to their intentions and goals. Infants and young children can also draw inferences about other people's knowledge states.

Influences of schooling

• One type of evidence for this conclu- sion came from a study that examined IQ scores of older and younger Israeli chil- dren within the 4th, 5th, and 6th grades • As indicated by the gradual upward trends in the graphs in Figure 8.6, older children within each grade did somewhat better than younger children within that grade on each part of the test. However, the jumps in the graphs between grades indicate that chil- dren who were only slightly older, but who had a year more schooling, did much better than the slightly younger children in the grade below them. Another type of evidence indicating that going to school makes children smarter is that average IQ and achievement test scores rise during the school year but not during summer vacation Children from families of low socio-economic status and those from families of high socioeconomic status make comparable gains in school achievement during the school year. However, over the summer, the achievement test scores of low-SES children tend to stay constant or drop, whereas the scores of high-SES children tend to rise

alcohol

"the most common human teragon" Maternal alcohol use is the leading cause of fetal brain injury and is generally considered to be the most preventable cause. Surprisingly, women who are White, older than 35 years, and em- ployed are more likely to drink during pregnancy than are women who are non-White, younger than 24 years, and unemployed Women who use alcohol before becoming pregnant (about half of women of childbearing age) are most likely to continue using alcohol during pregnancy. When a pregnant woman drinks, the alcohol in her blood crosses the placenta into both the fetus's bloodstream and the amniotic fluid. Thus, the fetus gets alco- hol directly in its bloodstream, and indirectly by drinking an amniotic-fluid cock- tail

Although the self-esteem of young European American children tends to be higher than that of their African American peers, after age 10, the trend reverses slightly. This shift most likely occurs because

(1) African Americans tend to identify more with their racial group than do European Americans, and (2) African American culture, more than European American culture, emphasizes desirable aspects of the group's distinctiveness

The two key prerequisites for language acquisition are

(1) a human brain and (2) experience with a human language. The former clearly falls on the side of nature, and the latter, on the side of nurture.

The primary environmental influence on children's development of prosocial behavior probably is their socialization in the family. Researchers have identified three ways in which parents socialize prosocial behavior in their children:

(1) through their modeling and teaching prosocial behavior; (2) through their arranging opportunities for their children to engage in prosocial behavior; and (3) through their methods of disciplining their children and eliciting prosocial behavior from them

formal operational stage

(age 12 years and beyond), children can think deeply not only about concrete events but also about abstractions and purely hypothetical situations. Formal operational thinking, which includes the ability to think abstractly and to reason hypothetically, is the pinnacle of the Piagetian stage progression. The difference between reasoning in this stage and in the previous one is clearly illustrated by formal operational reasoners' approach to the pendulum problem. compare times to complete an arc for a heavier weight and a lighter weight, attached to strings of equal length and dropped from the same height. To test the effect of string length, they compare the travel times of a long and a short string, with equal weight dropped from the same position. To test the influence of dropping point, they vary the dropping point of a given weight attached to a given string. Piaget believed that unlike the previous three stages, the formal operational stage is not universal: not all adolescents (or adults) reach it. This insight leads them to think about alternative ways that the world could be and to ponder deep questions concerning truth, justice, and morality. The attainment of formal operational thinking does not mean that adolescents will always reason in advanced ways, but it does, according to Piaget, mark the point at which adolescents attain the reasoning powers of intelligent adult

concrete operational stage

(ages 7 to 12 years), children can reason logically about concrete objects and events; for example, they understand that pouring water from one glass to a taller, narrower one leaves the amount of water unchanged Although few 5-year-olds solve any of the three conservation tasks de- scribed in the previous section, most 7-year-olds solve all of them. The same progress in thinking also allows children in the concrete operational stage to solve many other problems that require attention to multiple dimensions However, this relatively advanced reasoning is, according to Piaget, limited to concrete situations. Thinking systematically remains very difficult, as does reasoning about hypothetical situations. These limitations are evident in the types of experiments that concrete operational children perform to solve the pendulum problem In this problem, children are presented a pendulum frame, a set of strings of varying length with a loop at each end, and a set of metal weights of varying weight, any of which can be attached to any string. When the loop at one end of the string is attached to a weight, and the loop at the other end is attached to the frame of the pendulum, the string can be swung. Most concrete operational children begin their experiments believing that the relative heaviness of the weights being dropped is the most important factor, perhaps the only important one. This belief is not unreasonable; indeed, most adolescents and adults share it. What distinguishes the children's reasoning from that of older individuals is how they test their belief. For example, they might compare the travel time of a heavy weight on a short string dropped from a high position to the travel time of a light weight on a long string dropped from a lower position. When the first string goes faster, they conclude that, just as they thought, heavy weights go faster. This premature conclusion, however, reflects their limited ability to think systematically or to imagine all possible combinations of variables

sensorimotor stage

(birth to age 2 years), infants' intelligence is expressed through their sensory and motor abilities, which they use to perceive and explore the world around them He recognized that these behaviors are not random but instead reflect an early type of intelligence involving sensory and motor activity. Indeed, many of the clearest examples of the active child theme come from Piaget's descriptions of the development of what he called "sensorimotor intelligence." Infants are born with many reflexes. When objects move in front of their eyes, they visually track them; when objects are placed in their mouths, they suck them; when objects come into contact with their hands, they grasp them; when they hear noises, they turn toward them; and so on. Even during their first month, infants begin to modify their reflexes to make them more adaptive At birth, for example, they suck in a similar way regardless of what they are sucking. Within a few weeks, however, they adjust their sucking ac- cording to the object in their mouth Over the course of the first few months, infants begin to organize separate re- flexes into larger behaviors, most of which are centered on their own bodies. For example, instead of being limited to exercising their grasping and sucking reflexes separately, they can integrate them: when an object touches their palm, they can grasp it, bring it to their mouth, and suck on it. Thus, their reflexes serve as build- ing blocks for more complex behaviors. In the middle of their first year, infants become increasingly interested in the world around them—people, animals, toys, and other objects and events beyond their own bodies At around 1 year of age, infants begin to actively and avidly explore the potential ways in which objects can be used. The "child as scientist" example presented earlier, in which Piaget's son Laurent varied the positions from which he dropped different objects to see what would happen, provides one instance of this emerging competency.

Media influences

A common question for parents and researchers is whether frequently watching violent TV shows and movies or playing violent video games has a negative impact on children. One possible inference is that consuming more violent media may contribute to average gender differences in physical aggression. viewing aggression in movies, TV programming, and video games is associated with children's aggressive behavior and that this holds true for girls as well as for boys. Several experimental studies point to a causal influence. That is, the likelihood of aggression increases in some children after watching violent programs or playing violent videogames However, rather than causing aggression, the effect might more likely be correlated with children who are also prone toward aggressive behavior for additional reasons. Whereas boys are more likely than girls to favor TV shows and movies with violent content, one study found that adolescent girls were more likely than boys to prefer shows depicting indirect aggression Furthermore, an experimental study demonstrated that observing indirect aggression on TV increased the subsequent likelihood of indirect aggressive behavior but had no impact on direct aggression

differential (or discrete) emotions theory

A corresponding view that has been held by some contemporary investigators is differential (or discrete) emotions theory, which has argued that each emotion is innately packaged with a specific set of physiological, bodily, and facial reactions and that distinct emotions can be differentiated very early in life

negative identity

A different self-defeating outcome of the search for an identity is a negative identity, one that is chosen because it represents the opposite of what is valued by people around the adolescent.

self-locomotion

A major factor in helping infants acquire a sense of space independent of their own location appears to be self-locomotion. Infants who crawl or have had experience propelling themselves in walkers more often remember the locations of objects on the object permanence task (page 165) than do infants of the same age without such locomotor experience The reasons why self-locomotion enhances infants' representation of space should be familiar to anyone who has both driven a car and been a passenger in one. Just as driving requires continuous updating of information about the surroundings, so does crawling or walking Striking evidence for this conclusion emerged from a study in which kindergarteners were tested in the kitchens of their own homes Other kindergartners went through the same procedure, except that they were instructed to actually walk through their kitchen and turn around as they imagined themselves walking to the teacher's chair and then turning to face the class. Under these conditions, the children's pointing to the imagined objects in their imagined classroom was far more accurate. Assembling puzzles requires identifying appropriate pieces for specific locations and physically rotating them into the proper orientation; mentally rotating pieces to identify plausible candidates for filling empty locations allows more efficient puzzle solving than would otherwise be possible

Parental influences

A meta-analysis found that mothers tended to have higher rates of verbal interaction with daughters than with sons Thus, one possibility is that young girls learn language a bit faster than boys do simply because mothers spend more time talking with daughters than sons Finally, both patterns may tend to occur—a possible bidirectional influence whereby both mothers and daughters tend to be talkative and reinforce this behavior in one another. Parents' gender stereotyping (see Box 15.2) is also related to children's academic achievement Many parents accept the prevailing stereotypes about boys' and girls' relative interest in and aptitude for various academic subjects Observational research suggests that parents may communicate their own gender-stereotyped expectations to their children through differential encouragement In fact, longitudinal research indicates that parents' expectations can be a stronger predictor of children's later achievement than the children's earlier performance in particular subject areas

Sources of Self-esteem

A number of factors are related to the development of children's self-esteem. These include their genetic inheritance, the quality of their relationships with others, their appearance and competence, their school and neighborhood, and various cultural factors that impinge on their lives. Thus, the development of self-esteem offers a highly transparent example of the interaction of nature and nurture, including the sociocultural context. Moreover, it is a domain of functioning marked by large individual differences.

centration

A related limitation of preschoolers' thinking is centration, that is, focusing on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event to the exclusion of other relevant but less striking features. If presented with a balance scale like that in Figure 4.5 and asked which side will go down, 5- and 6-year-olds center on the amount of weight on each side, ignore the distance of the weights from the fulcrum, and say that whichever side has more weight will go down Another good example of centration comes from Piaget's research on children's understanding of conservation. The idea of the conservation concept is that merely changing the appearance or arrangement of objects does not necessarily change other key properties, such as quantity of material. Orangeade might be poured into a taller, narrower, glass; a short, thick clay sausage might be molded into a long, thin sausage; or one of the two rows of pennies might be spread out. Finally, in the third phase, children are asked whether the dimension of interest, which they ear- lier had said was equal for the two objects or sets of objects, is still equal. The large majority of 4- and 5-year-olds answer "no." On conservation- of-liquid-quantity problems, they claim that the taller, narrower glass has more orangeade; on conservation-of-solid-quantity problems, they claim that the long, thin sausage has more clay than the short, thick one; and so on Preoperational thinkers center their attention on the single, perceptually salient dimension of height or length, ignoring other relevant dimensions Children's tendency to focus on static states of objects (the appearance of the objects after the transformation) and to ignore the transformation that was performed (pouring the orangeade or reshaping the clay) also contributes to their difficulty in solving conservation problems.

Infants' Arithmetic

A screen comes up, hiding the doll from the infant's sight. Next, the infant sees a hand place a second doll be- hind the screen and then sees the hand emerge from behind the screen without the doll, thus seeming to have left the second doll with the first one. Finally, the screen drops down, revealing either one or two dolls. Most 5-month-olds look longer when there is only one doll, suggesting that they expected that 1 1 should equal 2 and that they were surprised when they saw only a single object. Similar results are seen with subtraction: 5-month-olds look longer when the apparent removal of one of two objects results in two objects being present than when the removal results in one object being there One reason for the controversy is that efforts to replicate the original result have had mixed success. The fact that much of infants' numerical competence is limited to sets of three or fewer objects has led a second group of experts (Clearfield & Mix, 1999; L. B. Cohen & Marks, 2002; T. J. Simon, 1997) to conclude that infants' responses on these tests of arithmetic are based not on understanding of arithmetic but instead on perception Consistent with this interpretation, when 5-month-olds are tested under conditions that increase the difficulty of forming a mental image (e.g., when they see a hand place one object and then a second object behind the raised screen but, in contrast to the usual procedure, do not see either object's position until the end), the infants do not show surprise when 1 + 1 = 1

stress

A second factor that affects children's adjustment to divorce is the stress experienced by the custodial parent and children in the new family arrangement. This isolation typically occurs when custodial parents have to change their residence and lose access to established social networks, or when friends and relatives— especially in-laws—take sides in the divorce and turn against them. As a result of all these factors, the parenting of newly divorced mothers, compared with that of mothers in two-parent families, often tends to be characterized by more irritability and coercion and less warmth, emotional availability (e.g., parental sensitivity, structuring, nonintrusiveness, and nonhostility), consistency, and supervision of children children tend to be most adjusted during and after the divorce if their custodial parent is supportive, emotionally available, and uses authoritative parenting Making parenting even more difficult for the mother, noncustodial fathers often are permissive and indulgent with their children (Hetherington, 1989; Parke & Buriel, 1998), increasing the likelihood that children will resent and resist their mother's attempts to control their behavior. Thus, stressful life experiences during and after divorce often undermine the quality of parenting and of family interactions, which affects children's adjustment Disruptions such as these due to reduced family income are likely to contribute to the problems some children of divorce experience, including declines in school performance

puberty

A series of dramatic bodily transformations during adolescence is associated with puberty, the developmental period marked by the ability to reproduce: for boys, to inseminate, and for girls, to menstruate, gestate, and lactate. In girls, puberty typically begins with enlargement of the breasts and the general growth spurt in height and weight, followed by the appearance of pubic hair and then menarche For both sexes, there is considerable variability in physical maturation. The variability in physical development is due to both genetic and environmental factors. The influence of environmental factors is particularly evident in the changes in physical development that have occurred over generations The physical changes that boys and girls experience as they go through puberty are accompanied by psychological and behavioral changes

Pornography

A serious concern for many parents is children's exposure to pornography on television and the Internet, whether inadvertent or intentional. Online pornography is particularly problematic because of its ready availability. On aver- age, American children first encounter pornography on the Web at the age of 11 Of special concern is pornography featuring children. Child pornography is a multibillion-dollar industry and among the fastest-growing criminal segments on the Web The most effective weapons against the various negative effects of media on children operate at the microsystem level, with parents exercising control over their children's access to undesirable media, and at the macrosystem level, with legal controls and government programs designed to minimize the negative features of the media with which children interact.

Intelligence as numerous processes

A third view envisions intelligence as comprising numerous, distinct processes. Information-processing analyses of how people solve intelligence test items and how they perform everyday intellectual tasks such as reading, writing, and arithmetic reveal that a great many processes are involved Viewing intelligence as "many processes" allows more precise specification of the mechanisms involved in intelligent behavior than do approaches that view it as "a single trait" or "several abilities.

aggressive-rejected children

According to reports from peers, teachers, and adult observers, 40% to 50% of rejected children tend to be aggressive. These aggressive-rejected children are especially prone to hostile and threatening behavior, physical aggression, disruptive behavior, and delinquency In addition, longitudinal research has shown that children who are aggressive, negative, and disruptive tend to become increasingly disliked by peers across the school year Nonetheless, other research suggests that the experience of rejection may trigger or increase children's aggression. They were then presented with their "peers'" evaluations—which were actually standardized assessments devised by the researchers to be either neutral or mostly negative and rejecting. After receiving their evaluations, the participants were given the opportunity to reduce the payments that would be made to the judges and to post negative comments about the judges on the contest's website. Aggressive children sometimes develop a network of aggressive friends and are accepted in their peer group (Xue & Meisels, 2004), and some elementary school and preadolescent children who start fights and get into trouble are viewed as "cool" and are central in their peer group

Explanations for Gender Differences In Personality

Activity level and impulse control are temperamental qualities that are partly based on genetic predispositions For instance, some parents encourage athletic participation more in sons than in daughters. Also, peer pressures on boys to participate in sports are often stronger than on girls As a consequence of these socialization practices, preferences for physical activity may strengthen in boys and weaken in girls.

aggressive-rejected children

Aggressive-rejected girls were viewed by parents as most prone to internalizing problems by grade 10. Thus, both boys and girls who were assessed as rejected in 3rd grade—especially if they also were aggressive—were at risk for developing internalizing problems years later As you have seen, although these children tend to become rejected by the middle to late elementary school years, they are generally not at risk for the behavioral problems that aggressive-rejected children often experience. However, a consistent pattern of social withdrawal, social anxiety, and wariness with familiar people, including peers, is associated with symptoms such as depression, low self-worth, and loneliness in childhood and into early adulthood In a longitudinal study of American children born in the late 1920s, boys who were rated by their teachers as reserved and unsociable were less likely to have been married and to have children than were less reserved boys. They also tended to begin their careers at later ages, had less success in their careers, and were less stable in their jobs. Reserved men who were late in establishing stable careers had twice the rate of divorce and marital separation by midlife as did their less reserved peers. In contrast, reserved girls were more likely than their less reserved peers to have a conventional lifestyle of marriage, parenthood, and homemaking rather than working outside the home. Thus, a reserved style of interaction at school during childhood was associated with more negative outcomes for men than for women, perhaps because a reserved style was more compatible with the feminine home- maker role of the times than with the demands of achieving outside the home A final group of rejected children who may be especially at risk for loneliness and other internalizing problems is victimized children, who are targets of their peers' aggression and demeaning behavior. Victimized children tend to be aggressive, as well as withdrawn and anxious Other factors might also contribute to victimization. For example, immigrant children are more likely to be victimized than are peers who are part of the majority group, likely because they are seen as different peer victimization is not an uncommon event and can begin quite early. Over time, victimization by peers likely increases children's aggression, withdrawal, depression, and loneliness Although the rate of victimization generally appears to be lower among older children (Olweus, 1994), peer victimization is a serious problem that warrants concern, especially since the same children tend to be victimized again and again

Differences in Mothers' and Fathers' Interactions with Their Children

Although in most Western cultures today spouses share child-care responsibilities to some degree, in the majority of families, mothers—including those who work outside the home—still spend considerably more time with their children than fathers do The degree of maternal and paternal involvement in parenting and the nature of parents' interactions with children doubtlessly vary as a function of cultural practices and such factors as the amount of time parents work away from home and children spend at home. Economic and educational factors also seem to be related to the degree to which mothers engage in various caregiving activities. It is likely that cultural differences in the importance placed on literacy and cognitive growth account for these differences in mothers' caregiving activities

Measuring Intelligence

Although intelligence is usually viewed as an invisible capacity to think and learn, any measure of it must be based on observable behavior. One of Binet's profound insights was that the best way to measure intelligence is by observing people's actions on tasks that require a variety of types of intelligence: problem solving, memory, language comprehension, spatial reasoning, and so on. Intelligence testing is highly controversial. Critics such as Ceci (1996) and Sternberg (2008) argue that measuring a quality as complex and multifaceted as intelligence requires assessing a much broader range of abilities than are assessed by current intelligence tests; that current intelligence tests are culturally biased; and that reducing a person's intelligence to a number (the IQ score) is simplistic and ethically questionable. advocates (e.g., Gottfredson, 1997; J. L. Horn & McArdle, 2007) argue that intelligence tests are better than any alternative method for predicting important outcomes such as school grades, achievement test scores, and occupational success; that they are valuable for making decisions such as which children should be given special education; and that alternative methods for making educational decisions, such as evaluations by teachers or psychologists, may be subject to greater bias

Lesbian and Gay Parents

Although the numbers of lesbian and gay parents cannot be estimated with confidence because many conceal their sexual orientation, the most likely figure seems to be between 1 and 5 million The 2000 Census reported that among individuals living in same-sex cohabiting partnerships, 33% of women and 22% of men had children living with them. Most children of lesbian or gay parents are born when their parents are in a heterosexual marriage or relationship. Other lesbians or gay men choose to become foster or adoptive parents, although there sometimes are legal barriers to such adoptions. According to a grow- ing body of research, they are, in fact, very similar in their development to children of heterosexual parents in terms of adjustment, personality, and relationships with peers Perhaps surprisingly, children of lesbian and gay parents generally report low levels of stigmatization and teasing (Tasker & Golombok, 1995), although they sometimes feel excluded, or gossiped about, by peers As in families with heterosexual parents, the adjustment of children with lesbian and gay parents seems to depend on family dynamics, including the closeness of the parent-child relationship (Wainright & Patterson, 2008), how well the parents get along, parental supportiveness, regulated discipline, and the degree of stress parents experience in their parenting When gay adoptive fathers have low levels of social support and a less positive gay identity, they experience more stress regarding parenting and are more likely to have poor relationships with their children

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Although the term "ADHD" is relatively new, the syndrome—variously labeled as "hyperactivity," "minimal brain dysfunction," and "attention-deficit disorder" (ADD)—has long been recognized. However, they have difficulty sticking to plans, following rules and regulations, and persevering on tasks that require sustained attention Children with ADHD typically have difficulty acquiring academic skills, such as reading and writing, since these skills require focusing attention for prolonged periods. In other words, roughly 11% of school-aged children in the United States today have been given a diagnosis of ADHD. This represents a 16% increase in ADHD diagnoses for this age group since 2007 and a whopping 41% increase over the past de- cade. Even more remarkably, 20% of high school boys have been given a diagnosis of ADHD at some point in their lives, compared with 10% of high school girls The causes of ADHD are quite varied. Genetic factors clearly play a role. If one identical twin has ADHD, the odds are about 50% that the other twin does too, a rate roughly 10 times that among children in general (Silver, 1999) Environmental factors in the microsystem also influence the development of ADHD. For instance, prenatal exposure to alcohol, which can affect brain development (Chapter 2, pages 60-63), is associated with the development of ADHD

Fear and Distress

Although there is little firm evidence of distinct fear reactions in infants during the first months of life, by 4 months of age, infants do seem wary of unfamiliar objects and events Then, at around the age of 6 or 7 months, initial signs of fear begin to appear (Camras et al., 1991), most notably the fear of strangers in many circum- stances. In part, this shift likely reflects infants' recognition that unfamiliar people do not provide the comfort and pleasure that familiar people do. In general, the fear of strangers intensifies and lasts until about age 2. However, it should be noted that the fear of strangers is quite variable, depending on both the infant's temperament (i.e., how fearful the infant is in general) and the specific context, such as whether a parent is present and the manner in which the stranger approaches (e.g., abruptly and excitedly or slowly and calmly). Other fears are also evident at around the age of 7 months, including fear of novel toys, loud noises, and sudden movements by people or objects, all of which tend to increase until about 12 to 16 months of age. Because babies often do not have the ability to escape from potentially dangerous situations on their own, they must rely on their parents to protect them, and expressions of fear and distress are powerful tools for bringing help and support when they are needed. Individual differences in the decline in these kinds of fears seem to be related to the quality of children's relationships with their mothers and how effectively their mothers deal with their children's expressions of fear

Conversational Skills

Although young children are eager to participate in conversations with others, their conversational skills lag well behind their burgeoning language skills. An effective way to structure children's conversations about the past is to ask them elaborative questions, that is, questions that enable them to say something—anything—that advances the story Those toddlers whose parents scaffold their early conversations by asking useful, elaborative questions produce better narratives on their own a few years later A crucial aspect of becoming a good conversational partner is the pragmatic development that allows children to understand how language is used to communicate Children's pragmatic abilities develop over the course of the preschool years, facilitating communication with adults and peers. In particular, they learn to take the perspective of their conversational partner, something that is clearly lacking in the example of the "conversation" between preschoolers Jenny and Chris, quoted earlier The development of this ability is related to children's level of executive function; as children become more able to control their tendency to assume their own perspective, it becomes easier for them to take the perspective of a conversational partner. Children also learn to use information other than words to interpret meaning. We thus see that young children put their burgeoning linguistic skills to good use, becoming more effective communicative partners. Initially, they need substantial support from a more competent partner, but their conversational skills increase quite regularly.

Children's Understanding of Real and False Emotions

An important component in the development of emotional understanding is the realization that the emotions people express do not necessarily reflect their true feelings The beginnings of this realization are seen in 3-year-olds' occasional (and usually transparent) attempts to mask their negative emotions when they receive a disappointing gift or prize Part of the improvement in understanding false emotion involves a growing understanding of display rules • They increasingly understand, for example, that people use verbal and facial display rules to protect others' feelings or their own, as when they pretend to like someone's cooking so as not to hurt the cook's feelings (labeled a prosocial motive) or hide their emotions when they themselves are being teased or lose a contest • These age-related advances in children's understanding of real versus false emotion and display rules are apparently linked to increases in children's cognitive capacities • Elementary school girls in the United States, for instance, are more likely than boys to feel that openly expressing emotions such as pain is acceptable • This is especially true for girls from cultures such as India, in which females are expected to be deferential and to express only socially appropriate emotions • These findings obviously are consistent with the gender stereotypes that girls are more likely both to try to protect others' feelings and to be more emotional than boys. • Parents' beliefs and behaviors—which often reflect cultural beliefs—likely contribute to children's understanding and use of display rule Correspondingly, the degree to which Nepali chil- dren report masking negative emotions varies with the degree to which mothers in different Nepali subcultures report teaching their children how to manage emotions (P. M. Cole & Tamang, 1998). Thus, children seem to be attuned to display rules that are valued in their culture or that serve an important function in the family.

identity forclosure

Another negative outcome related to the struggle for identity can arise if adolescents commit themselves to an identity prematurely, that is, without adequately considering alternative possibilities. . An example of this category might be a 17-year-old who quits school and goes to work in a dead-end job because he or she does not envision any other options, or a young adolescent who, never considering other available career tracks, decides to become a doctor simply because his or her parent is one.

Sameroff (1993)

Arnold Sameroff and his colleagues developed an environmental risk scale (Sameroff et al., 1993) based on 10 features of the environment that put children at risk for low IQ scores (Table 8.2). Each child's risk score is a simple count of the number of major risks facing the child. Sameroff and his colleagues measured the IQ scores and environmental risks of more than 100 children when they were 4-year-olds and again when they were 13-year-olds. They found that the more risks in a child's environment, the lower the child's IQ score tended to be. The average IQ score of children whose environments did not include any of the risk factors was around 115; the average score of children whose environments included six or more risks was around 85. The sheer number of risks in the child's environment was a better predictor of the child's IQ score than was the presence of any particular risk. The Sameroff (1993) study also provided an interesting perspective on why children's IQ scores are highly stable. It is not just that children's genes remain constant; over time, their environment tends to remain fairly constant as well. The study revealed that there was just as much stability in the number of risk factors in children's environments at ages 4 and 13 years as there was in their IQ scores over that period. The number of risk factors in a 4-year-old's environment not only correlates highly with the child's IQ score at age 4 but also predicts likely changes in the child's score between ages 4 and 13. Although Sameroff and his colleagues described their measure as a "risk index," it is as much a measure of the quality of a child's environment as of its potential for harm. High IQ scores are associated with favorable environments as much as low scores are associated with adverse ones

Skinner's Operant Conditioning

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) was just as forceful as Watson in proposing that behavior is under environmental control, once claiming that "a person does not act upon the world, the world acts upon him" Skinner's research on the nature and function of reinforcement led to many discoveries, including two that are of particular interest to parents and teachers. One is the fact that attention can by itself serve as a powerful reinforcer: children often do things "just to get attention" (Skinner, 1953, p. 78). Thus, the best strategy for discouraging a child who throws temper tantrums from continuing to do so is to ignore that behavior whenever it occurs. When the toddler son of one of the authors first graduated to a "big-boy bed," he repeatedly got up after having been put to bed, using one pretext after another to join his parents. A second important discovery that Skinner made is the great difficulty of extinguishing behavior that has been intermittently reinforced, that is, that has some- times been followed by reward and sometimes not. As Skinner discovered in his research with animals, intermittent reinforcement makes behaviors resistant to extinction The intermittent-reinforcement effect is one reason most children have at least a few persistent bad habits. Part of the effectiveness of the bedtime example described above was due to the total consistency of the father's behavior Observers noticed that the boy's teachers were unintentionally reinforcing his withdrawn behavior: they talked to him and comforted him when he was alone but tended to ignore him when he played with other children. The boy's withdrawal was modified by reversing the reinforcement contingencies: the teachers began paying attention to the boy whenever he joined a group but ignored him whenever he withdrew. Soon the child was spending most of his time playing with his classmates

The Society for Research on Child Development, an organization devoted to research on children, has formulated a code of ethical conduct for investigators to follow (SRCD Governing Council, 2007). Some of the most important ethical principles in the code are:

Be sure that the research does not harm children physically or psychologically. Obtain informed consent for participating in the research, preferably in writing, from parents or other responsible adults and also from children if they are old enough that the research can be explained to them. The experi- menter should inform children and relevant adults of all aspects of the research that might influence their willingness to participate and should explain that refusing to participate will not result in any adverse consequences to them. Preserve individual participants' anonymity, and do not use information for purposes other than that for which permission was given. Discuss with parents or guardians any information yielded by the investigation that is important for the child's welfare. Try to counteract any unforeseen negative consequences that arise during the research. Correct any inaccurate impressions that the child may develop in the course of the study. When the research has been completed, explain the main findings to participants at a level they can understand.

Environmental effects

Because heritability estimates rarely exceed 50%, a large contribution from environmental factors is usually indicated. Behavior geneticists try to assess the extent to which aspects of an environment shared by biologically related people make them more alike and to what extent non- shared experiences make them different. Surprisingly, behavior geneticists have reported little evidence of shared- environment effects for some other aspects of development. Behavior geneticists' investigations of the effects of nonshared environments arise from the recognition that even children who grow up in the same family do not have all their experiences in common—either inside or outside the family. Outside the family, siblings can also have highly divergent experiences, partly as a result of belonging to different peer groups. Highly active siblings who both like physical challenges and thrills will have very different experiences if one takes up rock climbing while the other hangs out with delinquents.

cultural variations in attachment

Because human infants are believed to be biologically predisposed to form attachments with their caregivers, one might expect attachment behaviors to be similar in different cultures. In fact, in large measure, infants' behaviors in the Strange Situation are similar across numerous cultures, including those of China, western Europe, and various parts of Africa. Although relatively few studies in non-Western cultures have included the category "disorganized/disoriented," the findings of those that have suggest that the percentage of babies who fall into this category is roughly 21%, which is not statistically different from the rates in Western countries Despite these general consistencies in attachment ratings, some interesting and important differences in children's behavior in the Strange Situation have been noted in certain other cultures All the insecurely attached Japanese infants were classified as insecure/resistant, which is to say that none exhibited insecure/avoidant behavior One possible explanation for this is that Japanese culture exalts the idea of oneness between mother and child; correspondingly, its child-rearing practices, compared with those in the United States, foster greater mother- infant closeness and physical intimacy, as well as infants' greater dependency on their mother. Thus, in the Strange Situation, Japanese children may desire more bodily contact and reassurance than do U.S. children and therefore may be more likely to exhibit anger and resistance to their mother after being deprived of contact with he Another explanation is that the Strange Situation might not always have been a valid measure because it is possible that some Japanese parents were self-conscious and inhibited in the Strange Situation setting, which, in turn, could have affected their children's behavior. Thus, part of the difference in the rates of insecure/resistant attachment shown by Japanese and U.S. infants may be due to the fact that, at the time that many of the studies in question were conducted (the 1980s), very few infants in Japan were enrolled in day care and thus did not experience frequent separations from their mother

The Development of Prosocial Behaviour

By 10 to 14 months of age, and occasionally between age 8 and 12 months, children sometimes become disturbed and upset when they view other people who are upset Indeed, young children sometimes seek comfort from a parent when they see someone else upset or are upset both for another person and for themselves By 18 to 25 months of age, toddlers in laboratory studies sometimes share a personal object with an adult whom they have viewed being harmed by another In displaying empathy, children in the second year of life also are more likely to try to comfort someone who is upset than to become upset themselves, indicating that they know who it is that is suffering. In the second and third years of life, the frequency and variety of young children's prosocial behaviors increase. Children not only increasingly comfort others and share objects but also assist adults with various tasks such as sweeping, carrying objects, or setting the table Between the ages of 2 and 3, children most often ignore their siblings' distress or need, or they simply watch without intervening. Children's prosocial behaviors such as helping, sharing, and donating increase in frequency in the toddler years and from the preschool years through childhood The origins of individual differences in prosocial behaviour

The Stage of Autonomous Morality

By about age 11 or 12, Piaget's second stage of moral reasoning emerges. In this stage, referred to as the stage of autonomous morality (also called moral relativism), children no longer accept blind obedience to authority as the basis of moral decisions. They fully understand that rules are the product of social agreement and can be changed if the majority of a group agrees to do so. Children at this stage believe that punishments should "fit the crime" and that punishment delivered by adults is not necessarily fair. According to Piaget, all normal children progress from the morality of constraint to autonomous moral reasoning. Individual differences in the rate of their progress are due to numerous factors, including differences in children's cognitive maturity, in their opportunities for interactions with peers and for reciprocal role taking, and in how authoritarian and punitive their parents are

Cliques

By age 11, many of children's social interactions—from gatherings in the school lunchroom to outings at the mall—occur within the clique A key feature that underlies cliques and binds their members together is the similarities the members share. Like friends, members of cliques tend to be similar in their degree of academic motivation; in their aggressiveness and bullying; and in their shyness, attractiveness, popularity, and adherence to conventional values such as politeness and cooperativeness In contrast to the tendency of dominant children to be the central figures in young children's groups, during the school years, girls and boys who are central to the peer group are likely to be popular, athletic, cooperative, seen as leaders, and studious relative to other peers Cliques in middle childhood serve a variety of functions: they provide a ready-made pool of peers for socializing; they offer validation of the characteristics that the group members have in common; and, perhaps most important, they provide a sense of belonging.

the self by age 2

By age 2, many children can recognize themselves in photographs. In one study, 63% of a group of 20- to 25-month-olds picked themselves out when presented with pictures of themselves and two same-sex, same-age children. During their third year, children's self-awareness becomes quite clear in other ways as well. 2-year-olds exhibit embarrassment and shame—emotions that obviously require a sense of self Two-year-olds' self-awareness is also evident in, and is enhanced by, their use of language. They can, for example, use pronouns to refer to themselves ("me," "mine") and can label themselves by name Thus, language makes it possible for children to construct a narrative of their own "life story" and develop a more enduring picture of the self Parents contribute to the child's expanding self-image by providing descriptive information about the child ("You're such a big boy"), evaluative descriptions of the child ("You're so smart"), and information about the degree to which the child has met rules and standards ("Good girls don't hit their baby sisters")

Middle Childhood

By around 7 years of age, children have attained gender constancy, and their ideas about gender are more consolidated. At this point, children often show a bit more flexibility in their gender stereotypes and attitudes than they did in their younger years Around 9 or 10 years of age, children start to show an even clearer understanding that gender is a social category. They typically recognize that gender roles are social conventions as opposed to biological outcomes Some children may even argue that, in such cases, other girls and boys should be allowed to follow their personal preferences. For instance, Damon (1977) found that children would say that a boy who liked to play with dolls should be allowed to do so. children understood the notion of individual variations in gender typing, but they were also aware that violating gender role norms would have social costs. Killen and Stangor (2001) demonstrated this when they told children stories about a child who was excluded from a group because of the child's gender. Despite their capacity to see this as wrong, children commonly exclude other children from activities based on their gender Brown and Bigler (2005) identified various factors that affect whether children recognize gender discrimination. First among them are cognitive prerequisites, such as having an understanding of cultural stereotypes, being able to make social comparisons, and having a moral understanding of fairness and equity. People's awareness of sexism can also be influenced by individual factors such as their self-concepts or beliefs. Finally, the specific situation can affect children's likelihood of noticing discrimination. For instance, children are more likely to notice discrimination directed toward someone else than toward themselves

Differences in Young Children's Interactions with Friends and Nonfriends

By the age of 2, children begin to develop several skills that allow greater complexity in their social interactions, including imitating peers' and other people's social behavior (Seehagen & Herbert, 2011), engaging in cooperative problem solving, and trading roles during play Especially with friends, cooperation and coordination in children's interactions continue to increase substantially from the toddler to the preschool years Pretend play may occur more often among friends because friends' experiences with one another allow them to trust that their partner will work to interpret and share the meaning of symbolic actions Preschool friends quarrel as much or more with one another as do nonfriends and also more often express hostility by means of assaults, threats, and refusing requests Moreover, friends are more likely than nonfriends to resolve conflicts in ways that result in equal outcomes rather than in one child's winning and another's losing

Anger and Sadness

By their 1st birthday, infants clearly and frequently express anger, often toward other people (Radke-Yarrow & Kochanska, 1990), and their expression of anger typically increases until 16 months of age, although there is considerable variation in this pattern across infants Infants often exhibit sadness in the same types of situations in which they show anger, such as after a painful event and when they cannot control outcomes in their environment, although displays of sadness appear to be somewhat less frequent than displays of anger or distress Except in the case of children who have problematic relationships, the expression of negative emotion, and perhaps the experiencing of it as well, generally decline after the second year of life The general decline in negative emotionality is likely due to children's increasing ability to express themselves with language (Kopp, 1992), as well as to the increasing ability for the average child to regulate the expression of their negative feelings

Modeling and the communication of values

Children are especially likely to imitate the prosocial behavior of adults with whom they have a positive relationship individuals who had risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Nazis in Europe during World War II were interviewed many years later, along with "bystanders" from the same communities who had not been involved in rescue activities when recalling the values that they had learned from their parents and other influential adults, 44% of the rescuers mentioned generosity and caring for others, whereas only 21% of bystanders mentioned the same values. Bystanders also reported that their parents emphasized ethical obligations to family, community, church, and country, but not to other groups of people. In contrast, rescuers were seven times more likely than bystanders to report that their parents taught them that values related to caring should be applied to everyone (28% of rescuers; 4% of bystanders) One effective way for parents to teach their children prosocial values and behaviors is to have discussions with them that appeal to their ability to sympathize

counteraction of Chomsky's argument

Children are motivated to interact with others, to communicate their own thoughts and feelings, and to understand what other people are trying to communicate to them According to this position, children gradually discover the underlying regularities in language and its use by paying close attention to the multitude of clues available in the language they hear, the social context in which language is used, and the intentions of the speaker

Socioeconomic Status and Children's antisocial behaviour

Children from low- income families tend to be more antisocial and aggressive than children from more prosperous homes One major reason is the greater amount of stressors experienced by children in poor families, including stress in the family (illness, domestic violence, divorce, legal problems) and neighborhood violence because of the many stressors they face, impoverished parents are more likely than other parents to be rejecting and low in warmth; to use erratic, threatening, and harsh discipline; and to be lax in supervising their children In addition to all these low-SES risk factors, conditions such as the presence of gangs, the lack of jobs for juveniles, and few opportunities to engage in constructive activities (e.g., clubs and sports) also likely contribute to the antisocial behavior of many youths in poor neighborhoods.

Effects on Academic Achievement

Children who are heavy users of screen media (more than 16 hours per day) are far more likely to report fair/poor grades (Cs or below) than are those who are moderate users (3 to 16 hours per day) or light users (less than 3 hours per day). Boys in the 1st through 3rd grades who did not already own a video game console were randomly assigned to an experimental group, whose members were given a console at the beginning of the study, or to a comparison group, whose members were, in the name of fairness, given a console after the study was completed.

Factors affecting Children's Adjustment in Stepfamilies

Children's adjustment to living with a stepparent is influenced by a number of factors, including the child's age at the time of the remarriage. children generally adjust better and do better academically when all the children are full siblings (Hetherington et al., 1999; Tillman, 2008). One indicator of this is the fact that, in adolescence, children born into blended families have higher rates of delinquency, depression, and detachment from school tasks and relationships than do full siblings living with their biological parents, perhaps because there may be more sibling conflict in blended families Although most stepfathers want their new families to thrive, they generally feel less close to their stepchildren than do fathers in intact families (Hetherington, 1993). At first, stepfathers tend to be polite and ingratiating toward their stepchildren and are not as involved in monitoring or controlling them as are fathers in intact families If the noncustodial parent has hostile feelings toward the new stepparent and communicates these feelings to the child, the child is likely to feel caught in the middle, increasing his or her adjustment problems children in stepfamilies fare best when the relations between the noncustodial parent and the stepparent are supportive and the relations between the biological parents are cordial Thus, the success or failure of stepfamilies is affected by the behavior and attitudes of all involved parties. Finally, the effects of restructuring the family may vary across racial and ethnic groups.

Children's Behaviour and Temperaments

Children's influence on parenting through their appearance is, of course, a passive contribution. Consistent with the theme of the active child, children also actively shape the parenting process through their behavior and expressions of temperament Differences in children's behavior with their parents—including the degree to which they are emotionally negative, unregulated, and disobedient—can be due to a number of factors. The most prominent of these are genetic factors related to temperament In line with our discussion of differential susceptibility, some children may be more reactive to the quality of parenting they receive than are others. Children's noncompliance and externalizing problems offer further insight into the complex ways in which children can affect their parents' behavior toward them. In resisting their parents' demands, for example, children may become so whiny, aggressive, or hysterical that their parents back down, leading the children to resort to the same behavior to resist future demands Over time, the mutual influence, or bidirectionality, of parent-child interactions reinforces and perpetuates each party's behavior A similar self-reinforcing and escalating negative pattern is common when parents are hostile and inconsistent in enforcing standards of conduct with their adolescent children; their children, in turn, are hostile, insensitive, disruptive, and inflexible with them and exhibit increased levels of problem behaviors

Peer influence

Children's interests often are shaped by the activities and values they associate with their classmates and friends. Consequently, peers can shape children's academic achievement. Girls and boys may be more likely to achieve in particular school subjects when they are viewed as compatible with peer norms. For example, one study found that U.S. high school students who viewed their friends as supportive of science and math were more likely to express interest in a future science-related career The association between friends' science support and science career interest held for both girls and boys—but boys were more likely than girls to report having a friendship group supportive of science. Traditional masculinity norms emphasizing dominance and self-reliance may undermine some boys' academic achievement in the United States and other Western countries some boys may not consider it masculine to do well in certain subjects or possibly in school overall. indeed, some research suggests that boys' endorsement of traditional masculinity is related to lower average performances in reading and writing and lower rates of high school graduation in North America and Europe

chronic stress and depression

Chronic stress and conflict in the family also predict depression in youths In addition, some investigators emphasize the role that maladaptive belief systems play in the onset and maintenance of depression. They argue, for example, that depressed individuals tend to see themselves and others in an excessively negative way and, thus, feel incompetent, flawed, and worthless, and view the world as cruel and unfair depressed youths also tend to ruminate about the potential causes and negative consequences of their symptoms; this rumination can intensify their negative feelings without leading to productive problem solving and solutions

IQ Scores as Predictors of Important Outcomes

Claims that an IQ score is a strong predictor of academic, economic, and occupational success are based on solid evidence IQ scores also correlate positively with long-term educational outcomes. In the United States, a person's IQ score in 6th grade correlates about 0.60 with the years of education that the person eventually completes In part, the positive relation between IQ score and occupational and economic success stems from the fact that standardized test scores serve as gatekeepers, determining which students gain access to the training and credentials required for entry into lucrative professions. A child's IQ score is more closely related to the child's later occupational success than is the socioeconomic status of the child's family, the school the child attends, or any other variable that has been studied Characteristics of the environment are similarly influential: parents' encouragement and modeling of productive careers predict their children's occupational success Consistent with the importance of IQ, the figure shows that, among people with the same level of education, those with higher IQ scores earn more money. Consistent with the importance of other factors, the figure shows that, among people with comparable IQ scores, those who complete more years of education earn more money.

Verbal skills

Compared with boys, girls tend to be slightly advanced in early language development, including fluency and clarity of articulation and vocabulary development On standardized tests of children's overall verbal ability, a negligible average gender difference favors girls (Hyde & Linn, 1988). Larger average differences are seen when specific verbal skills are examined. Girls tend to achieve higher average performance in reading and writing from elementary school into high school; the effect size of the average differences was small for reading and medium for writing Boys are more likely to suffer speech-related problems, such as poor articulation and stuttering, as well as more reading-related problems such as dyslexia

Factors affecting the development of conscience

Contrary to Freud's idea that the conscience emerges as an outcome of identification with the same-gender parent at about age 4 to 6, children actually develop a conscience slowly over time. These two components of conscience—the desire to comply with rules and feelings of guilt when failing to do so—are quite stable in their early development from 22 to 45 months of age As they mature, children are more likely to take on their parents' moral values, and to exhibit guilt for violating those values, if their parents use disciplinary practices that deemphasize parental power and include rational explanations that help children understand and learn the parents' values Children may develop a conscience in different ways according to their temperament. Toddlers who are prone to fear (e.g., who are fearful of unfamiliar people or situations) tend to exhibit more guilt at a young age than do less fearful children When mothers use gentle discipline, fearful children do not become so apprehensive and anxious that they tune out their mother's messages about desired behavior. Gentle discipline arouses fearful children just enough that they attend to and remember what their mother tells them In contrast, gentle discipline seems to be unrelated to the development of conscience in fearless young children, perhaps because it is insufficient to arouse their attention Fearless children appear motivated more by the desire to please their mother than by a fear of her For children with a different genotype for SLC6A4, their level of conscience is unrelated to their mother's responsiveness (Kochanska et al., 2011). This pattern is an example of differential susceptibility, whereby some children are more reactive than others are to the quality of parenting they receive, be it high or low quality. The early development of conscience undoubtedly contributes to whether children come to accept the moral values of their parents and society. Indeed, in a longitudinal assessment of children's behavioral and affective expression of guilt (in which they were led to believe that they had broken a valuable object), the children's levels of guilt at 22 and 45 months of age predicted their morality at 54 months of age

Contact with noncustodial parents

Contrary to popular belief, the frequency of children's contact with their noncustodial parent, usually the father, is not, in itself, a significant factor in their adjustment after divorce the child's adjustment after the divorce influences the father's level of contact and involvement with the child rather than the other way around In contrast, contact with nonresidential fathers who have antisocial traits (e.g., who are vengeful, prone to getting into fights, manipulative, discourteous) predicts an increase in children's noncompliance with their fathers Less is known about noncustodial mothers. However, it is clear that they pro- vide more emotional support for their children than noncustodial fathers do and are more likely to maintain contact through letters, phone calls, and overnight visits

Comparing Girls and Boys

Contrary to this assumption, as we will see in this section, only a few cognitive abilities, personality traits, and social behaviors actually show consistent gender differences, and most of those gender differences tend to be fairly small. When evaluating gender comparisons for different behaviors, it is often the case that one gender differs only slightly from the other: the overlap between genders is considerable. Across different research studies, contradictory findings are common regarding gender differences or similarities in particular outcomes. Contradictory findings can occur because studies vary in the characteristics of their samples (such as participants' ages and backgrounds) and the methods used (such as surveys, naturalistic observation, or experiments) • Because statistically significant gender differences in cognitive abilities and social behaviors are often in the small range of effect sizes, Janet Hyde (2005) has advocated "the gender similarities hypothesis." She argued that, when comparing girls and boys, it is important to appreciate that similarities far outweigh differences on most attributes.

current treatment for ADHD

Current treatment for ADHD involves agents in the microsystem (the family doctor), the exosystem (the drug industry), and the macrosystem (the government). he reason is that the brain systems in these children are actually underaroused; the children's rest- less and sometimes disruptive behavior is actually an attempt to wake the brain up. It is important to realize that the benefits of Ritalin continue only as long as children take the medication. Longer-lasting gains re- quire not only medication but also behavioral treatments. Parents' disciplinary practices also had an impact on the efficacy of these treatments in this study. In particular, ADHD treatment had the greatest impact on children's behavior in school when parents were able to improve their previously negative or ineffective parenting behavior. The availability of medications helpful to those with ADHD is, of course, the result of a perception on the part of drug companies that they can produce, sell, and make a profit from a drug targeted for this problem. Pointing to the highest level of the bio- ecological model—the chronosystem—many experts have suggested that ADHD may have emerged as a serious problem only in recent times—specifically, only since the advent of compulsory schooling

DNA (deoxyribosenucleic acid)

DNA carries all the biochemical instructions involved in the formation and functioning of an organism. these instructions are packed in genes DNA is vital to functioning, and precisely how it works, is, as of today, shrouded in mystery and controversy.

social identity theory

Developmental psychologists have highlighted the importance of gender as a social identity in children's development Indeed, gender may be the most central social identity in children's lives Henri Tajfel and John Turner's (1979) social identity theory addresses the influence of group membership on people's self-concepts and behavior with others. Two influential processes that occur when a person commits to an ingroup are ingroup bias and ingroup assimilation A corollary of social identity theory is that the characteristics associated with a high-status group are typically valued more than those of a low-status group. Related to this pattern is the tendency of cross-gender-typed behavior to be more common among girls than among boys. Social identity theory helps to explain why gender-typing pressures tend to be more rigid for boys than for girls In most societies, males are accorded greater status and power than are females. Consistent with social identity theory, boys are more likely than girls to initiate and maintain role and group boundaries Boys are also more likely to endorse gender stereotypes and to hold sexist attitudes

Programs for Helping Poor Children

During the early 1960s, a political consensus developed in the United States that helping children from poor families was an urgent national priority. Psychological research contributed to this consensus by demonstrating that children's environments had significant effects on their cognitive growth

oral stage

During the first year of life, the infant is in Freud's first stage of psychosexual development called because the primary source of gratification and pleasure is oral activity, such as sucking and eating The pleasure associated with breast-feeding is so intense that other oral activities— sucking on a thumb or pacifier, for instance—also provide pleasure. As always with Freud, there is a dark side: infants "pay for this security by a fear of loss of love." For Freud, common fearful reactions to being alone or in the dark are based on "missing someone who is loved and longed for"

Preschool years

During the preschool years, children quickly learn gender stereotypes—the activities, traits, and roles associated with each gender. By around 3 years of age, most children begin to attribute certain toys and play activities to each gender. By around 5 years of age, they usually stereotype affiliative characteristics to females and assertive characteristics to males During this period, children usually lack gender constancy: they do not understand that gender remains stable across time and is consistent across situations. For example, a preschooler might think that a girl becomes a boy if she cuts her hair, or that a boy becomes a girl if he wears a dress

Self-organization

Dynamic-systems theories view development as a process of self-organization that involves bringing together and integrating attention, memory, emotions, and actions as needed to adapt to a continuously changing environment The organizational process is sometimes called soft assembly, because the components and their organization change from moment to moment and situation to situation, rather than being governed by rigid stages that are consistently applied across time and situations. The dynamic-systems perspective also suggested that infants' attention would influence their object-permanence performance. Consistent with this view, manipulating infants' attention by tapping one of the locations just as the infants were about to reach usually resulted in their reaching to the tapped location, regardless of where the object was actually hidden. The researchers had reasoned that the addition of the wrist weights would require the infants to use different muscle tensions and forces than they had previously used to reach for the object and consequently would disrupt the infants' habit of reaching to location A.

Early Interactions

Even before infants start speak- ing, they display the beginnings of communicative competence: the ability to communicate intentionally with another person. Jerome Bruner and his colleagues (Bruner, 1977; Ratner & Bruner, 1978) have proposed that learn- ing to take turns in social interactions is facilitated by parent-infant games, such as peekaboo and "give and take," in which caregiver and baby take turns giving and receiving objects. These early interactions give infants practice in bidirectional communication, providing infants with a scaffold to learn how to use language to converse with others. The results of this study suggest that babbling may serve as a signal to the caregiver that the infant is attentive and ready to learn. The foundation of intersubjectivity is joint attention, which, early on, is established by the parent's following the baby's lead, looking at and commenting on whatever the infant is looking at. Through babbling, they gain some initial level of control over the production of sounds that are necessary to produce recognizable words

physical knowledge

Even in the first year of life, infants seem to appreciate that objects do not float in midair, that an object that is inadequately supported will fall, that a nonround object placed on a stable surface will stay put, and so forth. Infants also gradually come to understand under what conditions one object can support another. At 3 months of age, infants are surprised (they look longer) if a box that is released in midair remains suspended (as in Figure 5.17a), rather than falling. However, as long as there is any contact at all between the box and the platform (as in Figure 5.17b and 5.17c), these young infants do not react when the box remains stationary. Roughly a month later, they recognize the importance of the amount of contact, and hence they look longer when the box in Figure 5.17c stays put with only a small portion of its bottom surface on the platform. Shortly after their 1st birthday, infants also take into account the shape of the object and hence are surprised if an asymmetrical object like that shown in Figure 5.17d remains stable. Infants presumably develop this progressively refined understanding of support relations between objects as a result of experience

View of Children's Nature

For Freud, behavior is motivated by the need to satisfy basic drives. These drives, and the motives that arise from them, are mostly unconscious, and individuals often have only the dimmest understanding of why they do what they do In Erikson's theory, development is driven by a series of developmental crises related to age and biological maturation

Stanford-Binet intelligence test

For instance, on the Stanford-Binet intelligence test (a descendant of the original Binet-Simon test), 2-year-olds are asked to identify the objects depicted in line drawings (a test of object recognition), to find an object that they earlier had seen hidden (a test of learning and memory), and to place each of three objects in a hole of the proper shape (a test of perceptual skill and motor coordination). The version of the Stanford-Binet presented to 10-year- olds asks them to define words (a test of verbal ability), to explain why certain social institutions exist (a test of general information and verbal reasoning), and to count the blocks in a picture in which the existence of some blocks must be inferred (a test of problem solving and spatial reasoning).

Media Violence

Foremost among the concerns that have been raised is fear that a steady diet of watching violent television shows, playing violent video games, and listening to music with violent lyrics will cause children to behave violently. Furthermore, aggression in television programs and movies tends to be glamorized and trivialized—particularly the violence perpetrated by heroes, who are rarely punished or condemned for their actions. Extensive reviews of the vast amount of research on this issue have led researchers to conclude that the scientific debate about whether media violence increases aggression and violence is over. Exposure to media violence has an impact in four different ways (C. A. Anderson et al., 2003). First, seeing actors engage in aggression teaches aggressive behaviors and inspires imitation of them, as you saw earlier in this chapter in the discussion of Bandura's studies with Bobo. Second, viewing aggression activates the viewer's own aggressive thoughts, feelings, and tendencies. when aggression- related thoughts are frequently activated, they may become part of the individual's normal internal state. Third, media violence is exciting and arousing for most youth, and their heightened physiological arousal makes them more likely to react violently to provocations right after watching violent films. Finally, frequent long-term expo- sure to media violence gradually leads to emotional desensitization—a reduction in the level of unpleasant physiological arousal most people experience when observing violence.

freud's theory of psychosexual development

Freud began his career as a neurologist and soon became interested in the origins and treatment of mental illness. Freud's interest in psychological development grew as he became increasingly convinced that the majority of his patients' emotional problems originated in their early childhood relationships, particularly those with their parents. Freud made fundamental, lasting contributions to developmental psychology, although, as we will discuss later, they had to do with certain broad psychological concepts, not with the specifics of his theory.

Support and Validation

Friends can provide a source of emotional support and security, even at an early age. Friends also can provide support when a child feels lonely. School-aged children with best friends and with intimate, supportive friendships experience less loneliness compared with children who do not have a best friend or whose friends are less caring and intimate The support of friends can be particularly important during difficult periods of transition that involve peers. Friendships may also serve as a buffer against unpleasant experiences, such as being yelled at by the teacher, being excluded or victimized by peers The researchers also recorded the children's cortisol levels multiple times each day, as a measure of the children's stress reactions. The study showed that when a best friend was not present, the more negative children's everyday experiences were, the greater the increase in their cortisol levels and the greater the decline in their sense of self-worth following each experience

fetal movement

From 5 or 6 weeks after conception, the fetus moves spontaneously, starting with a simple bending of the head and spine that is followed by the onset of increasingly complex movements over the next weeks One of the earliest distinct patterns of movement to emerge (at around 7 weeks) is, remarkably enough, hiccups. Although the reasons for prenatal hiccups are unknown, one recent theory posits that they are essentially a burping reflex, preparing the fetus for eventual nursing The fetus also moves its limbs, wiggles its fingers, grasps the umbilical cord, moves its head and eyes, and yawns. By 12 weeks, most of the movements that will be present at birth have appeared, although the mother is still unaware of them. This prenatal continuity extends into the postnatal period: more active fetuses turn out to be more active infants Furthermore, fetuses that have regular periods of sleep and waking are more likely to have regular sleep times as newborns A particularly important form of fetal movement is swallow- ing. The fetus drinks amniotic fluid, which passes through its gastrointestinal system. Most of the fluid is then excreted back out into the amniotic sac In addition, the passage of amniotic fluid through the digestive system helps it to mature properly. Thus, swallowing amniotic fluid prepares the fetus for survival outside the womb. A second form of fetal movement anticipates the fact that at birth the newborn must start breathing. Beginning as early as 10 weeks after conception, the fetus promotes its respiratory readiness by exercising its lungs through "fetal breathing," moving its chest wall in and out fetal breathing is initially infrequent and irregular, but it increases in rate and stability, especially over the third trimester

Cultural and Socioeconomic differences

Hindu Indians believe that they have a clear moral obligation to attend to these needs. In contrast, Americans appear to consider it a matter of personal choice or a combination of moral and personal choice. This difference in perceptions may be due to the strong cultural emphasis on individual rights in the United States and the emphasis on duties to others in India Cultural differences with regard to which events are considered moral, social conventional, or personal sometimes arise from religious beliefs In Hindu society, fish is viewed as a "hot" food, and eating "hot" food is believed to stimulate the sexual appetite. Thus, beliefs regarding the significance and consequences of various actions in different cultures can influence the designation of behaviors as moral, social conventional, or personal. Even within a given culture, different religious beliefs may affect what is considered a moral or a social-conventional issue. In Finland, for example, conservative religious adolescents are less likely to make a distinction between the moral and social-conventional domain than are nonreligious youths. For the religious youths, the most crucial deciding factor for nonmoral (conventional) issues is God's word as written in the Bible (i.e., whether or not the Bible says a particular social convention is wrong; Vainio, 2011). Socioeconomic class can also influence the way children make such designations. Research in the United States and Brazil indicates that children of lower-income families are somewhat less likely than middle-class children to differentiate sharply between moral and social conventional actions and, prior to adolescence, are also less likely to view personal issues as a matter of choice. This social-class difference in children's views may evaporate as youths approach adolescence, although Brazilian mothers of lower-income youths still claim more control over personal issues than do mothers of middle-income youths

Continuity of IQ Scores

If IQ is a consistent property of a person, then the IQ scores that people obtain at different ages should be highly correlated. Longitudinal studies that have measured the same children's IQ scores at different ages have, in fact, shown impressive continuity from age 5 onward. Several variables influence the degree of stability of IQ scores over time. As might be expected, the closer in time that IQ tests are given, the more stability is found. Thus, the same study that found that IQ scores at ages 5 and 15 correlated 0.67 also found that scores at ages 5 and 9 correlated 0.79 and at ages 5 and 6 cor- related 0.87. For instance, in one study, IQ scores of 4- and 5-year-olds correlated 0.80, those of 6- and 7-year-olds correlated 0.87, and those of 8- and 9-year-olds correlated 0.90 Although a person's IQ scores at different ages tend to be similar, the scores are rarely identical. Children who take an IQ test at age 4 and again at age 17 show an average change, up or down,of 13 points; those who take the test at ages 8 and 17 show an average change of 9 points; and those who take it at ages 12 and 17 show an average change of 7 points Changes in the child's environment, such as those associated with parental divorce or remarriage or moving to a better or worse neighborhood, also can produce changes in IQ score

how parents treat children

If parents favor one child over another, the sibling relationship may suffer, and the less favored child may experience distress, depression, and other problems with adjustment, especially if the child does not have a positive relationship with his or her parents Differential treatment by parents is particularly influential in early and middle childhood, with less favored siblings being likelier to experience worry, anxiety, or depression than are their more favored siblings By early adolescence, however, children often view parents' differential treatment of them as justified because of differences they perceive between themselves and their siblings in age, needs, and personal characteristics. Cultural values may play a role in children's evaluations of, and reactions to, differential parental treatment. Another factor that can affect the quality of siblings' interactions is the nature of the parents' relationship with each other. Siblings get along better if their parents are getting along with each other Although some siblings turn to one another for support when their parents divorce or remarry (Jenkins, 1992), they may also compete for parental affection and attention, which often are scarce in these situations. Relationships between half-siblings can be especially emotionally charged, perhaps because the older sibling may resent the younger sibling who is born to both parents in the new marital relationship Thus, the quality of sibling relationships differs across families depending on the ways that parents interact with each child and with each other and children's perceptions of their treatment by other family members.

Changes in Families in the United States

In 1940, the father was the breadwinner and the mother was a full-time homemaker in 52% of nonfarm families A third change that occurred in the family, partly as a result of the two just mentioned, was that the average age at which women bore children increased, especially within marriages The rise in out-of-wedlock births began in the 1980s. In 1980, 18% of all births were to unmarried women; in 2009, the figure was 41%, including 94% of births for 15- to 17-year-olds Due both to the increase in divorce and the increase in the birthrate among unmarried women, the percentage of children living with two married parents fell from 77% in 1980 to 66% in 2010. Although people are more likely to divorce than in the past, most divorced people also remarry. Indeed, 54% percent of divorced women remarry after 5 years and 75% remarry within 10 years; these rates are even higher for women in the child-bearing years

Basic Trust Versus Mistrust (the first year).

In Erikson's first stage (which corresponds to Freud's oral stage), the crucial issue for the infant is developing a sense of trust—"an essential trustfulness of others as well as a fundamental sense of one's own trustworthiness"

comprehensive analysis of 11 of the most prominent early-intervention programs

In a comprehensive analysis of 11 of the most prominent early-intervention programs—all of which focused on 2- to 5-year-old African American children from low-income families—Irving Lazar and his colleagues found a consistent pat- tern Participation in the programs, most of which lasted a year or two, initially increased children's IQ scores substantially—by 10 to 15 points. However, over the next 2 or 3 years, the gains decreased, and by the 4th year after the end of the programs, no differences were apparent between the IQ scores of participants and those of nonparticipants from the same neighborhoods and back- grounds. Fortunately, other effects of these experimental programs were more enduring. Only half as many program participants as nonparticipants were later assigned to special-education classes—14% versus 29%. A likely reason is that the interventions had long-term effects on children's motivation and behavior. These effects would help children do well enough in the classroom to be promoted with their classmates, which in turn might make them less likely to drop out of high school and less likely to turn to criminal activity, even if their IQ scores were unchanged. Positive effects such as these suggest that early-intervention programs not only can help participants lead more successful lives but might also more than repay their costs by reducing the need for social services

cultural differences

In fact, Chinese (Taiwanese) parents frequently try to induce shame in their preschool children when they transgress, typically pointing out that the child's behavior is judged negatively by people outside the family and that the child's shame is shared by other family members Because of this cultural emphasis, it is likely that children in this society experience shame more frequently than do children in many Western cultures. hen children in Western cultures do experience shame or sadness, their mothers seem to be most concerned with helping them feel better about themselves. In contrast, Chinese mothers more often than Western mothers use the situation as an opportunity to teach proper conduct and help their child understand how to conform to social expectations and norms The Tamang are Buddhists who place great value on keeping one's sem (mind-heart) calm and clear of emotion, and they believe that people should not express much negative emotion because of its disruptive effects on interpersonal relationships. Of particular interest is the fact that although nonsupportive parental behavior comparable to that of the Tamang has been associated with low social competence in U.S. children, it does not seem to have a negative effect on the social competence of Tamang children. In a study of African American mothers living in dangerous neighborhoods, mothers valued and promoted their daughters' readiness to express anger and aggressiveness in situations related to self-protection because they wanted their daughters to act quickly and decisively to defend themselves when necessary. One way they did this was to play-act the role of an adversary, teasing, insulting, or challenging their daughters in the midst of everyday interactions. It is unlikely that mothers in a less difficult and dangerous neighborhood would try to promote the readiness to express aggression in their children, especially in their daughters. Thus, the norms, values, and circumstances of a culture or sub- cultural group likely contribute substantially to differences among groups in their expression of emotion.

Selman's Stage Theory of Role Taking

In formulating his theory of social cognition, Robert Selman (1980; Yeates & Selman, 1989) focused on the development of role taking According to Selman, young children's social cognition is quite limited because they lack the ability to engage in role-taking behavior. Indeed, Selman, like Piaget, suggested that before the age of 6 years, children are virtually unaware that there is any perspective other than their own; they assume that whatever they think, others will think as well. Selman proposed that children go through four increasingly complex and abstract stages in their thinking about other peo- ple. In stage 1 (roughly ages 6 to 8), children come to appreci- ate that someone else can have a perspective different from their own, but they assume that the different perspective is merely due to that person's not possessing the same information they do. In stage 2 (ages 8 to 10), children not only realize that some- one else can have a different view, but they also are able to think about the other person's point of view. However, it is not until stage 3 (ages 10 to 12) that children can systematically com- pare their own and another person's point of view. In this stage, they can also take the perspective of a third party and assess the points of view of two other people. In stage 4 (age 12 and older), adolescents attempt to understand another's perspective by comparing it with that of a "generalized other," assessing whether the person's view is the same as that of most people in their social group

Ethnic and cultural influences on parenting

In keeping with our theme of the sociocultural context, it is important to note that the effects of different parenting styles and practices may vary somewhat across ethnic or racial groups in the United States. Moreover, whereas parental use of physical discipline has been associated with high levels of problem behaviors for European American youths, such punishment is associated with relatively low levels for African American youths (Deater-Deckard et al., 1996; Lansford et al., 2004), especially when African American mothers believe measured physical punishment is an appropriate method for correcting misbehavior One possible explanation for these findings is that many caring African American parents may feel the need to use authoritarian control to protect their children from special dangers, ranging from the risks found in crime-ridden neighborhoods to the prejudice experienced in predominantly affluent European American communities American communities, where controlling, intrusive parenting is mere normative than in many middle-class European American communities and may be interpreted in a benign manner by African American children, especially if their parents are warm in other situations For example, in European American families, authoritative parenting, as noted, seems to be associated with a close relationship between parent and child and with children's positive psycho- logical adjustment and academic success. Although such a pattern of parental control generally fits the category of authoritarian parenting, it appears to have few negative effects for Chinese American and Chinese children, at least prior to adolescence. Rather, for younger Chinese children, it is primarily physical punishment that is related to negative outcomes A likely explanation is that in Chinese culture, children (but perhaps not adolescents) view parental strictness and emphasis on obedience as signs of parental involvement and caring, and as important for family harmony However, it is interesting to note that in some urban areas of China today, parental use of control appears to be rela- tively low compared with that in a number of other cultures (Deater-Deckard et al., 2011), probably as a result of exposure to Western child-rearing values

Children's Use of Social Conventional Judgement

In many cultures, children begin to differentiate between moral and social conventional issues at an early age By age 3, they generally believe that moral violations (e.g., stealing another child's possession or hitting another child) are more wrong than social conventional violations (e.g., not saying "please" when asking for something or wearing other-gender clothing). By age 4, they believe that moral transgressions, but not social conventional transgressions, are wrong even if an adult does not know about them and even if adult authorities have not said they are wrong Children tend to justify their condemnation of moral violations by referring to violations of fairness and harm to others' welfare children and, to a lesser degree, adolescents, believe that parents have authority, unless the parent gives commands that violate moral and conventional principles At the same time, parents usually feel that they should have some authority over their children's personal choices, even into adolescence, so parents and teenagers frequently do battle in this domain—battles that parents often lose

Gender-typed behaviours

In middle childhood, many boys' and girls' peer groups establish somewhat different gender-role norms for behavior For this reason, some researchers have suggested that each gender usually constructs its own "culture" during childhood Conversely, in line with their greater tendency to value affiliative goals (or a balance of affiliative and assertive goals), girls' peer groups are more likely to reflect norms of intimacy, collaboration, and emotional sharing when children violate gender-role norms, their peers often react negatively (Fagot, 1977), including mercilessly teasing someone who has crossed gender "borders." At home and in the neighborhood, the choice of play companions is frequently limited. As a result, girls and boys often play cooperatively with one another. In more public settings, the implicit convention is that girls and boys can be friendly if they can attribute the reason for their cross- gender contact to an external cause. For example, this might occur when a teacher assigns them to work together on a class project or when they are waiting in line together at the cafeteria. However, beyond such exceptions, the risk of peer rejection is high when children violate the convention to avoid cross-gender contact Overall, gender typing during childhood tends to be more rigid among boys than among girls In addition, girls are less gender-typed in their behavior. Girls are more likely than boys to play with cross-gender-typed toys, for example girls tend to be more flexible in coordinating interpersonal goals. For instance, girls commonly coordinate both affiliative and assertive goals in their social interactions Girls, however, also frequently pursue play activities traditionally associated with boys, as in sports such as soccer and basketball

kindergraden study

In one study of beginning kindergartners, 86% of children whose mothers graduated from college were proficient in letter recognition, but only 38% of children whose mothers did not complete high school were Kindergartners' mastery of letter names is positively correlated with their later reading achievement through at least 7th grade (Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987). How- ever, no causal relation exists between the two: teaching the names of the letters to randomly chosen preschoolers does not increase their subsequent reading achievement Phonemic awareness, on the other hand, is both correlated with later reading achievement and a cause of it. Kindergartners' performance on these measures of phonemic awareness is the strongest predictor of their ability to sound out and spell words in the early grades—stronger even than IQ score or social-class background

project head start

In response to the same political consensus of the 1960s that led to small-scale early-intervention programs, the U.S. government initiated a large-scale intervention program: Project Head Start. In the past 50 years, this program has provided a wide range of services to more than 25 million children Head Start serves more than 900,000 preschoolers per year, most of them 4-year-olds. The population served is racially and ethnically diverse: in 2010, 39% were African Americans, 31% European Americans, and 34% Hispanic Americans (the sum is more than 100% because small percentages of children were counted in multiple categories) In the program, children receive medical and dental care and nutritious meals, and are provided with a safe environment. Many parents of participating children work as caregivers at the Head Start centers, serve on policy councils that help plan each center's directions, and receive help with their own vocational and emotional needs. The strongest evidence for this conclusion comes from the Head Start Impact Study (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2010), an especially well-done experiment that included 5000 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families who were on waiting lists to participate in a Head Start program. The children who participated in Head Start showed better prereading and pre-writing skills (though no better math skills) at the end of a year in the program By the end of 1st grade, how- ever, children's intellectual outcomes were almost identical to those of nonparticipants On the other hand, participation in Head Start produces a number of other positive effects that do endure, ones that resemble those produced by the experimental preschool programs: improved social skills and health, lower frequency of being held back in school, greater likelihood of graduating from high school and enrolling in college, and lower rates of drug use and delinquency

study testing self-recognition

In studies that test this ability, an experimenter surreptitiously puts a dot of rouge on a child's face, places the child in front of a mirror, and then asks the child who the person with the red spot is, or tells the child to clean the spot off the per- son in the mirror. Children younger than 18 months old often respond by trying to touch the image in the mirror, or they do nothing. By about the age of 18 months, however, many children touch the rouge on their own face, so it is assumed that they realize that the mirror image is a self-reflection.

Children and the Media: The Good, the Bad, and the Awful

In terms of the bioecological model, media are situated in the exosystem, but they are subject to influences from the chronosystem, as indicated earlier; from the macrosystem (including cultural values and government policies); from other elements in the exosystem (such as economic pressures); and from the microsystem (such as parental monitoring). Most notably, watching Sesame Street was associated with increases in young children's vocabulary and helped prepare them for school entry, with some positive effects persisting even through children now spend more time involved in using screen media than in any other activity besides sleeping. Media usage is increas- ing at an incredible rate; 8- to 18-year-olds upped their average screen time by more than an hour just in the past 5 years, from an average of 6 hours 21 minutes in 2005 to 7 hours 38 minutes in 2010

Romantic Relationships with Peers

In the United States, 25% of 12-year-olds and 70% of 18-year-olds report having had a recent romantic relationship The path to heterosexual romantic relationships in adolescence typically begins in mixed-gender peer groups, with dating emerging out of mixed-gender affiliations in these groups by early adulthood, the time spent with romantic partners increases to the level that it is at the expense of involvement with friends and crowds Young adolescents tend to be drawn to, and choose, partners on the basis of characteristics that bring status—such as being stylish and having the approval of peers Older adolescents are more likely than younger ones to select partners based on compatibility and characteristics that enhance intimacy, such as caring and compromise By late adolescence, having a high-quality romantic relationship is also associated with feelings of self-worth and a general sense of competence, and it can improve functioning in adolescents who are prone to depression, sadness, or aggression Early dating and sexual activity, for example, are associated with increased rates of current and later problem behaviors, such as drinking and using drugs, as well as with social and emotional difficulties The quality of adolescents' romantic relationships appears to mirror the quality of their other relationships. Adolescents who have had poor-quality relationships with parents and peers are likely to have romantic relationships characterized by low levels of intimacy and commitment and by aggression It is also believed that adolescents' working models of relationships with their parents tend to be reflected in their romantic relationships. This belief is sup- ported by the finding that children who were securely attached at age 12 months were more socially competent in elementary school, which predicted more secure relationships with friends at age 16. Thus, romantic relationships appear to be affected in multiple ways by youths' history of relationships with parents and peers

Aggression and disruptiveness

In the elementary school years and early adolescence, children who have antisocial and aggressive friends tend to exhibit antisocial, delinquent, and aggressive tendencies themselves, even across time However, the research in this area is correlational, so it is difficult to know to what degree this pattern reflects socialization or individual selection. One longitudinal study found that both selection and socialization processes were in play in mid-adolescence, but that from ages 16 to 20, antisocial behavior was reinforced only through socialization by friends

Opportunities for prosocial activities

In the home, opportunities to help others include household tasks that are performed on a routine basis and benefit others, although performance of household tasks may foster prosocial actions primarily toward family members Participation in prosocial activities may also provide opportunities for children and adolescents to take others' perspectives, to increase their confidence that they are competent to assist others, and to experience emotional rewards for helping.

The development of aggression and other antisocial behaviours

Instances of aggression over the possession of objects occur between infants before 12 months of age—especially behaviors such as trying to tug objects away from each other—but most do not involve bodily contact such as hitting Beginning at around 18 months of age, physical aggression such as hitting and pushing—particularly over the possession of objects—increases in frequency until about age 2 or 3 with the growth of language skills, physical aggression decreases in frequency, and verbal aggression such as insults and taunting increases overt physical aggression continues to remain low or to decline in frequency for most children during elementary school, although a relatively small group of children—primarily boys —develop fre- quent and serious problems with aggression and antisocial behavior at this age or in early adolescence Whereas aggression in young children is usually instrumental, aggression in elementary school children often is hostile, arising from the desire to hurt another person or the need to protect oneself against a perceived threat to self-esteem In childhood, covert types of antisocial behaviors such as stealing, lying, and cheating also occur with considerable frequency and begin to be characteristic of some children with behavioral problems In mid-adolescence, serious acts of violence increase markedly, as do property offenses and status offenses such as drinking and truancy adolescent violent crime peaks at age 17, when 29% of males and 12% of females report committing at least one serious violent offense male adolescents and adults engage in much more violent behavior and crime than do females. though in 2009, 29% of the arrests among juveniles were of females (Puzzanchera, 2009), who made up 17% of the juvenile arrests for violent crime and 35% of the juvenile arrests for property crime

Intelligence quotient (IQ)

Intelligence tests such as the WISC and the Stanford-Binet provide an overall quantitative measure of a child's intelligence relative to that of other children of the same age. This summary measure is referred to as the child's IQ (intelligence quotient). On most IQ tests, the standard deviation is about 15 points. Thus, as shown in Figure 8.3, a child scoring 1 standard deviation above the mean for his or her age (a score higher than 84% of children) receives a score of 115 (the mean of 100 plus the 15-point SD). Similarly, a child scoring 1 standard deviation below the mean (a score higher than only 16% of children) receives a score of 85 (the mean of 100 minus the SD of 15). A score of 130 at age 5 means that a child's performance exceeded that of 98% of age peers; a score of 130 at age 10 or 20 means exactly the same thing. This property has facilitated analysis of the stability of individuals' IQ scores over time, a topic we turn to next.

stepfathers

It is thus not surprising that children with stepfathers tend to have higher rates of depression, withdrawal, and disruptive problem behaviors than do children in intact families • Preadolescent girls in particular are likely to have problems with their stepfathers. Often the difficulty arises from the fact that prior to the remarriage, divorced moth- ers have had a close, confiding relationship with their daughters, and the entry of the stepfather into the family disrupts this relationship. Despite these potential difficulties, the presence of an involved stepfather can bring benefits, including a substantial improvement in family finances and a welcome source of emotional support and assistance for the custodial parent. One sign of this is that the increase of delinquency associated with children of divorce is lessened if the adolescent's parent remarries (Burt et al., 2008). Overall, with time, children often become as close to their stepfathers as they are to their nonresidential biological fathers, sometimes even closer (Falci, 2006), usually without affecting their relationship with the biological father

Biological influences

It is well known that, on average, males have higher base-line levels of testosterone than do females, and many people assume that this accounts for gender differences in aggression. However, there is an indirect one: the body increases its production of testosterone in response to perceived threats and challenges, and this increase can lead to more aggressive behavior Furthermore, people who are impulsive and less inhibited are more likely to perceive the behavior of others as threatening. Thus, because boys, on average, have more difficulty regulating emotion, they may be more prone to direct aggression

Watson's behaviourism

John B. Watson (1878-1958), the founder of behaviorism, believed that children's development is determined by their social environment and that learning through conditioning is the primary mechanism of development Watson first exposed Little Albert to a perfectly nice white rat in the laboratory. Initially, Albert reacted positively to the rat. On subsequent exposures, however, the researchers repeatedly paired the presentation of the rat with a loud noise that clearly frightened Albert. After a number of such pairings, Albert became afraid of the rat itself. Watson's work on classical conditioning laid the foundation for treatment procedures that are based on the opposite process—the deconditioning, or elimination, of fear. A student of Watson's (M. C. Jones, 1924) treated 2-year-old Peter, who was deathly afraid of white rabbits This approach, now known as systematic desensitization, is still widely used to rid people of fears and phobias of everything from dogs to dentists. In his child-rearing manual, Psychological Care of Infant and Child (1928), he offered parents stern advice for fulfilling this responsibility. One particular piece of Watson's advice that was widely adopted in the United States was to put infants on a strict feeding schedule. Watson's behaviorist emphasis on the environment as the key factor in determining behavior persisted in the work of B. F. Skinner.

Kismet

Kismet was designed by a team of scientists headed by Cynthia Breazeal. Their primary goal was to develop robots that, instead of being programmed to behave in specific ways, are programmed to learn from their social interactions with humans, just as infants do. Kismet learns from its interactions with people—from the instructions it receives from them and from their reactions to its behavior. Kismet develops over time as a function of the interaction between the "innate" structure built into it and its subsequent socially mediated experience. We learn how to behave on the basis of how others respond to our behavior; we learn how to interpret ourselves according to how others treat us; and we interpret other people by analogy to ourselves—all in the context of social interaction and human society.

Understanding the Causes and Dynamics of Emotion

Knowing the causes of emotions is also important for understanding one's own and others' behavior and motives If the child understands that, in this situation, the friend may be lashing out not because the friend is nasty but because the friend feels threatened and inadequate, the child may be much better able to control his or her own response. A variety of studies have shown rapid development over the preschool and school years in children's understanding of the kinds of emotions that certain situations tend to evoke in others. In this kind of research, even 28-month-olds mention emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, fear, crying, and hurting in appropriate ways in their conversations (e.g., "You sad, Daddy?" or "Don't be mad.") and sometimes even mention their causes (e.g., "Santa will be happy if I pee in the potty." or "Grandma mad. I wrote on wall.") By age 4 to 6, children can give accurate explanations for why their peers expressed negative emotions in their preschool (e.g., because they were teased or lost the use of a toy) With age, children also come to understand that people can feel particular emotions brought on by reminders of past events In different versions of the story, Mary later sees one of three reminders of her loss—the culprit dog, her rabbit's cage, or a photo- graph of her rabbit. Similarly, from ages 3 to 5, children increasingly can explain that when people are in a situation that reminds them of a past negative event, they may worry and change their behavior to avoid future negative events Understanding that memory cues can trigger emotions associated with past events helps children to explain their own and others' emotional reactions in situations that in themselves seem emotionally neutral. In the elementary school years, children become increasingly sophisticated in their understanding about how, when, and why emotions occur. They also come to recognize that people can experience more than one emotion at the same time, including both positive and negative emotions arising from the same source In addition, they increasingly understand how the mind can be used to both increase and reduce fears and that thinking positively can improve one's emotion while thinking negatively can worsen it

cognitive developmental theory

Lawrence Kohlberg's (1966) cognitive developmental theory of gender-role development reflects a Piagetian framework Kohlberg maintained that children's understanding of gender involves a three-stage process that occurs between approximately 2 to 6 years of age. First, by around 30 months of age, young children acquire a gender identity However, they do not yet realize that gender is permanent. For example, young children may believe that a girl could grow up to be a father The second stage, which begins at around 3 or 4 years of age, is gender stability The basic understanding of gender is completed in the third stage, around 6 years of age, when children achieve gender constancy Kohlberg noted that this is the same age at which children begin to succeed on Piagetian conservation problems and argued that both achievements reflect the same stage of thinking. Kohlberg maintained that children's under- standing that gender remains constant even when superficial changes occur is similar to their understanding that the amount of a substance is conserved even when its appearance is altered (a ball of clay that has been mashed flat is still the same amount of clay; a girl who gets her hair cut short and starts wearing baseball shirts instead of dresses is still a girl) Subsequent research has supported the idea that children's understanding of gender develops in the sequence Kohlberg hypothesized and that the attainment of gender constancy occurs at more or less the same age as success on conservation problems Studies also indicate that acquiring gender constancy increases the likelihood of many gender-typed behaviors

Brain-language relations

Left-hemisphere specialization appears to emerge very early in life. Studies using neuroimaging techniques have demonstrated that newborns and 3-month- olds show greater activity in the left hemisphere when exposed to normal speech than when exposed to reversed speech or silence An exception to this pattern of lateralization occurs in the detection of pitch in speech, which in infants, as in adults, tends to involve the right hemisphere Although it is evident that the left hemisphere predominantly processes speech from birth, the reasons for this are not yet known. One possibility is that the left hemisphere is innately predisposed to process language but not other auditory stimuli. Another possibility is that speech is localized to the left hemisphere be- cause of its acoustic properties

Liben and Bigler (2002)

Liben and Bigler (2002) have added another component to gender schema theory. They proposed that children use two kinds of filters when processing in- formation about the world. One is a gender schema filter and the other is an interest filter Liben and Bigler's modification to gender schema theory helps to account for findings indicating that children are often inconsistent in their gender-typed interests (for example, they are often more traditional in some areas than others). Although gender schemas are resistant to change, the contents of children's gender schemas can be modified through explicit instruction. Such an approach was demonstrated by Bigler and Liben, who created a cognitive intervention program in which elementary school children learned that a person's interests and abilities (but not gender) are important for the kind of job that the person could have Children who participated in this week-long program showed decreased gender stereotyping and also had better memory for gender-inconsistent stimuli (such as a picture of a girl holding a hammer). children gradually revert back to their old gender stereotypes

maintaining positive illusions in children

Maintaining positive illusions about themselves is relatively easy for young children because they usually do not consider their own prior successes and failures when assessing their abilities. Even if they have failed badly at a task several times, they are likely to believe that they will succeed on the next try Children begin to refine their conceptions of self in elementary school, in part because they increasingly engage in social comparison At the same time, they increasingly pay attention to discrepancies between their own and others' performance on tasks The developmental changes in older children's conceptions of self reflect cognitive advances in their ability to use higher-order concepts that integrate more specific behavioral features of the self. The newfound cognitive capacity to form higher-order conceptions of the self allows older children to construct more global views of themselves and to evaluate themselves as a person overall. The preceding self-description also reflects the fact that schoolchildren's self-concepts are increasingly based on others' evaluations of them, especially those of their peers.

Gender-typed behaviour

Many children begin to demonstrate preferences for some gender-typed toys by around 2 years of age. These preferences become stronger for most children during the preschool years during childhood, one of the largest average gender differences is in toy and play preferences

Mathematics Anxiety

Many children experience mathematics anxiety, a negative emotional state that leads to fear and avoidance of math Mathematics evokes more anxiety than other school subjects, probably because of the unambiguous right/wrong status of answers to many mathematics problems, the widespread belief that mathematics is closely linked to intelligence, and the frustrating periods with no apparent progress that mathematics learning often entails. Mathematics anxiety is considerably more prevalent in girls than in boys The feelings of dread that math can inspire contribute to the negative outcomes that are feared; a likely reason is that the anxiety reduces the working memory resources needed to solve mathematics problems The mechanisms are not well understood, but one contributor appears to be the views of adults who are important in the children's lives. The negative impact of anxiety on mathematics learning has prompted efforts to find ways of reducing it. One promising intervention is surprisingly simple: have students write a brief description of their emotions just before taking a test. Even among children with mathematics anxiety, most learn the basics reasonably well. However, as noted in Box 8.4, the learning process goes seriously awry with certain children who suffer from the general difficulty in thinking about numbers that is known as mathematics disability

Gender Schema Theory

Martin and Halverson (1981) proposed gender schema theory as an alternative to Kohlberg's explanation of children's gender development Accordingly, children's understanding of gender develops through their construction of gender schemas Children use an ingroup/outgroup gender schema to classify other people as being either "the same as me" or not As a consequence, an own-gender schema is formed, consisting of detailed knowledge about how to do things that are consistent with one's own gender. To test the impact of gender schemas on children's information processing, 4- to 9-year-olds were given three boxes. Each contained unfamiliar, gender-neutral objects, and each was separately labeled as "boys," "girls," or "boys and girls/girls and boys." The children spent more time exploring objects in boxes labeled for their own gender (or for both genders) than objects in the box labeled only for the other gender. One week later, not surprisingly, they remembered more details about the objects that they had explored than about the ones that they had spent less time with Children regularly look to their peers to infer gender-appropriate behavior. In an observational study conducted in a preschool classroom, boys were influenced by the number and the proportion of same-gender children who were playing with a set of toys: they approached toys that were being played with primarily by boys and shunned those that seemed popular mainly with girls Gender schemas are also responsible for biased processing and remembering of information about gender. Consistent with the research described above, children tend to remember more about what they observe from same-gender than from cross- gender role models This tendency to retain information that is schema-consistent and to ignore or distort schema-inconsistent information helps to perpetuate gender stereotypes that have little or no basis in reality.

Maternal reasoning

Maternal use of reasoning (e.g., "Can't you see that Tim is hurt?") seems to increase prosocial behavior even for 1- to 2-year-olds, as long as mothers state their reasoning in an emotional tone of voice Emotion in the mother's voice likely catches her toddler's attention and communicates that she is very serious about what she is saying. children tend to be more prosocial when their parents are not only warm and supportive but also model prosocial behavior, include reasoning and references to moral values and responsibilities in their discipline, and expose their children to prosocial models and activities some school interventions have been effective at promoting prosocial behavior in children, so environmental factors must contribute to its development

social smiles

More important, by the third month of life, and sometimes as early as 6 or 7 weeks of age, babies begin to exhibit social smiles, that is, smiles directed toward people Social smiles frequently occur during interactions with a parent or other familiar people and tend to elicit the adult's delight, interest, and affection In turn, this response usually inspires more social smiling from the infant. Thus, the infant's early social smiles likely promote care from parents and other adults and strengthen the infant's relationships with other people. The social basis of social smiles is highlighted by the fact that although young infants sometimes smile at interesting objects, humans are much more likely to make them smile

The potential impact of divorce

Most experts agree that children of divorce are at greater risk for a variety of short-term and long-term problems than are most children who are living with both their biological parents. In addition, children of divorce, especially boys, may be prone to higher levels of externalizing problem behaviors such as aggression and antisocial behavior, both soon after the divorce and years later Adolescents whose parents divorce exhibit a greater tendency toward dropping out of school, engaging in delinquent activities and substance abuse, and having children out of wedlock Within this group, women, but not men, appear to also be at risk for poorer-quality intimate relationships; lower self-esteem; and lower satisfaction with social support from friends, family members, and other people In fact, although divorce usually is a very painful experience for children, the differences between children from divorced families and children from intact families in terms of their psychological and social functioning are small overall

strategy-choice process

Most young children use both approaches (Share, 2004), choosing adaptively between them from 1st grade onward. They do so through a strategy-choice process, in which they choose the fastest approach that is likely to allow correct word identification. In the context of reading, this means that on easy words, children rely heavily on the fast but not always accurate approach of visually based retrieval; on hard words, they resort to the slower but surer strategy of phonological recoding. The mechanisms underlying this adaptive strategy choice involve a form of associative learning in which children's past behavior shapes their future behavior

The caregiver-child attachment relationship

Much of the early research, such as that con- ducted by Spitz, focused on how the development of young children who had been orphaned or otherwise separated from their parents was affected by the quality of the caregiving they subsequently received. Harry Harlow and his colleagues reared infant rhesus monkeys in isolation from birth, comparing their development with that of monkeys reared normally with their mothers. The isolated babies were well fed and kept healthy, but they had no exposure to their mother or other monkeys. When they finally were placed with other monkeys 6 months later, they compulsively bit and rocked themselves and avoided other monkeys completely, apparently incapable of communicating with, or learning from, others. They also showed high levels of fear when exposed to threatening stimuli such as a loud sound. As adults, formerly isolated females had no interest in sex. If they were artificially impregnated, they did not know what to do with their babies. This research, although examining the effects of the lack of all early social interaction (and not just that with parents), strongly supported the view that children's healthy social and emotional development is rooted in their early social interactions with adults.

Leslie (2000)

Nativists (e.g., Leslie, 2000) argue that the early understanding is possible only because children are born with a basic understanding of human psychology. In contrast, empiricists (e.g., Frye et al., 1996; Ruffman, Slade, & Crowe, 2002) argue that experiences with other people and general information-processing capacities are the key sources of the early understanding of other people

Casuality

Nativists and empiricists fundamentally disagree about the origins of under- standing of physical causes. The difficulty of making sense of the world without some basic causal understanding and the fact that children show some such under- standing early in infancy have led nativists to propose that infants possess an innate causal module or core theory that allows them to extract causal relations from the events they observe (e.g., Leslie, 1986; Spelke, 2003). Empiricists, however, have proposed that infants' causal understanding arises from their observations of innumerable events in the environment

Space

Nativists argue that children possess an innate module that is specialized for rep- resenting and learning about space and that processes spatial information separately from other types of information Empiricists argue that children acquire spatial representations through the same types of learning mechanisms and experiences that produce cognitive growth in general, that children adaptively combine spatial and nonspatial information to reach their goals, and that language and other cultural tools such as puzzles shape spatial development Nativists and empiricists agree on some issues. One is that from early in infancy, children show impressive understanding of some spatial concepts, such as above, below, left of, and right of (Casasola, 2008; P. C. Quinn, 2005). Another common conclusion is that self-produced movement around the environment stimulates processing of spatial information. A third shared belief is that certain parts of the brain are specialized for coding particular types of spatial information; for example, development of the hippocampus appears to produce improvements in place learn- ing A fourth common conclusion is that geometric information—information about lengths, angles, and directions—is extremely important in spatial processing.

How do Children Acquire Biological Knowledge?

Nativists propose that humans are born with a "biology module" much like the theory of mind module described earlier in the chapter. This brain structure or mechanism helps children learn quickly about living things Empiricists, in contrast, maintain that children's biological understanding comes from their personal observations and from information they receive from parents, teachers, and the general culture Empiricists also note that children's biological understanding reflects the views of their culture. For example, 5-year-olds in Japan are more likely than their peers in the United States and Israel to believe that nonliving things and plants are able to feel physical sensations, such as pain and cold Young children are innately fascinated by animals and learn about them much more quickly than about aspects of their environment that they find less interesting.

Genes, Environment, and the Development of Intelligence

No issue in psychology has produced more acrimonious debate than the issue of how heredity and environment influence intelligence. A useful starting point for thinking about genetic and environmental influences on intelligence is Bronfenbrenner's (1993) bioecological model of development (detailed in Chapter 9). This model envisions children's lives as embedded within a series of increasingly encompassing environments. The child, with a unique set of qualities including his or her genetic endowment and personal experiences, is at the center

Oakes and Cohen (1995)

Oakes and Cohen (1995) presented 6- to 10-month-olds a series of video clips in which a moving object collided with a stationary object and the stationary object immediately moved in the way one would expect. Then the infants were shown a slightly different clip in which the stationary object started moving shortly before it was struck. Infants looked at this event for a longer time than they had looked during the preceding trials, presumably because the new video clip violated their sense that inanimate objects do not move on their own. By the end of their second year, and by some measures even earlier, children can infer the causal impact of one variable based on indirectly relevant information about another

smell

Obstetricians have long reported that during birth they can smell scents like curry and coffee in the amniotic fluid of women who had recently consumed them Smells can be transmitted through liquid, and amniotic fluid comes into contact with the fetus's odor receptors through fetal breathing, providing fetuses with the opportunity for olfactory experience

stepmothers

Often fathers expect stepmothers to take an active role in parenting, including monitoring and disciplining the child, although children frequently resent the stepmother's being the disciplinarian and may reject her authority or accept it only grudgingly. Despite these problems, when it is pos- sible for stepmothers to use authoritative parenting successfully, stepchildren may be better adjusted

Critique of Kohlberg's Theory

One criticism is that Kohlberg did not sufficiently differentiate between truly moral issues and issues of social convention Another criticism pertains to cultural differences. Although children in many non-Western, nonindustrialized cultures start out reasoning much the way Western children do in Kohlberg's scoring system, their moral judgment within this system generally does not advance as far as that of their Western peers (e.g., Nisan & Kohlberg, 1982; Snarey, 1985). This finding has led to the objection that Kohlberg's stories and scoring system reflect an intellectualized conception of morality that is biased by Western values Another criticism has to do with Kohlberg's argument that change in moral development is discontinuous. Kohlberg asserted that because each stage is more advanced than the previous one, once an individual attains a new stage, he or she seldom reasons at a lower stage. Rather, children and adolescents may gradually acquire the cognitive skills to use increasingly higher stages of moral reasoning but also may use lower stages when it is consistent with their goals, motives, or beliefs in a particular situation. Kohlberg developed his conception of moral-reasoning stages on the basis of interviews with a sample of boys. Carol Gilligan (1982) argued that Kohlberg's classification of moral judgment is biased against females because it does not adequately recognize differences in the way males and females reason morally. Gilligan suggested that because of the way they are socialized, males tend to value principles of justice and rights, whereas fe- males value caring, responsibility for others, and avoidance of exploiting or hurting others However, consistent with Gilligan's arguments, during adolescence and adulthood, females focus somewhat more on issues of caring about other people in their moral judgment Although Kohlberg's stages probably are not as invariant in sequence nor as universal as he claimed, they do describe changes in children's moral reasoning that are observed in many Western societies.

Race, Ethnicity, and Intelligence

One fact is that the average IQ scores of children from different racial and ethnic groups do differ. For example, the average IQ score of European American children is about 10 points higher than that of African American children (Dickens & Flynn, 2006). The average scores of Hispanic American and Native American children are a few points higher than those of African American children, and those of Asian American children are a few points higher than those of European Americans A second fact is that scientific statements about group differences in IQ scores refer to statistical averages rather than to any individual's score. Understanding this second fact is essential for interpreting the first. Millions of African American children have IQ scores higher than the average European American child, and millions of European American children have IQ scores lower than the average African American child. A third crucial fact is that differences in IQ and achievement test scores of children from different racial and ethnic groups describe children's performance only in the environments in which the children live. The findings do not indicate their intellectual potential, nor do they indicate what their scores would be if the children lived in different environments. Indeed, with decreases in discrimination and inequality in the past 40 years, achievement test differences between European American and African American children decreased considerably.

Parental Conflict

One influence on children's adjustment to divorce is the level of parental conflict prior to, during, and after the divorce the level of parental conflict may predict the outcomes for children more than the divorce itself does. In addition, when there is parental conflict, fathers tend to have lower-quality relationships with their children, which may contribute to children's adjustment problems Conflict between parents often increases when the divorce is being negotiated and may continue for years after the divorce. This ongoing conflict is especially likely to have negative effects on children if they feel caught in the middle of it, as when they are forced to act as intermediaries between their parents or to inform one parent about the other's activities. Adolescents who feel that they are caught up in their divorced parents' conflict are at increased risk for being depressed or anxious and for engaging in problematic behavior such as drinking, stealing, cheating at school, fighting, or using drugs

hereditary and depression

One is heredity: major depression often runs in families. Children whose mothers are depressed tend to exhibit a pattern of activation in the prefrontal cortex and amygdala that is associated with greater reactivity to the environment, negative emotionality, and withdrawal; they also may have elevated hormone-based stress reactivity rumination a perseverative focus on one's own negative emotions and on their causes and consequences, without engaging in efforts to improve one's situation co-rumination extensively discussing and self-disclosing emotional problems with another person Other family factors likely also contribute to depression in youth. In particular, whether or not the mother is depressed, children's symptoms of depression are frequently associated with low levels of family engagement, support, and acceptance and with high levels of negativity

parental sensitivity

One key aspect of parental sensitivityis consistently responsive caregiving. The mothers of securely attached 1-year-olds tend to read their babies' signals accurately, responding quickly to the needs of a crying baby and smiling back at a beaming one. Positive exchanges between mother and child, such as mutual smiling and laughing, making sounds at each other, or engaging in coordinated play, are a characteristic of sensitive parenting that may be particularly important in promoting secure attachment In contrast, the mothers of insecure/resistant infants tend to be inconsistent in their early caregiving: they sometimes respond promptly to their infants' distress, but sometimes they do not. These mothers often seem highly anxious and overwhelmed by the demands of caregiving. Mothers of insecure/avoidant infants tend to be indifferent and emotionally unavailable, sometimes rejecting their baby's attempts at physical closeness Mothers of disorganized/ distressed infants sometimes exhibit abusive, frightening, or disoriented behavior and may be dealing with unresolved loss or trauma. By age 3 to 6, perhaps in an attempt to manage their emotions, these children often try to control their mother's activities and conversation, either in an excessively helpful and emotionally positive way, basically trying to cheer her up, or in a hostile or aggressive way

child maltreatment

One of the most serious threats to children's development in the United States is child maltreatment, defined as intentional abuse or neglect that endangers the well-being of anyone younger than 18 The highest rate of victimization was for infants younger than 1 year: 21.2 out of every 1,000 U.S. infants in this age group were maltreated in 2011. More tragic still, more than 1,500 children—most of them younger than 4— were killed by a parent or parents. Consistent with the bioecological model, a variety of factors, including characteristics of the child, the parents, and the community, have been shown to be involved in the causes and consequences of child abuse.

flynn effect

One reflection of societal influences is that in many countries throughout the world, average IQ scores have consistently risen over the past 80 years, a phenomenon that has been labeled the Flynn effect in honor of James Flynn, the researcher who discovered this widespread trend The specific source of the Flynn effect remains controversial. Some researchers argue that the key factors are improvements in the lives of low-income families, such as improved nutrition (Lynn, 2009), health, and formal education, these researchers point to evidence that the increase in IQ scores has been greatest among those in the lower part of the IQ score and income distributions. An alternative plausible explanation for the increases in IQ scores is increased societal emphasis on abstract problem solving and reasoning Supporting this interpretation is the fact that scores on tests of fluid intelligence, which reflects abstract problem solving and reasoning, have increased much more than scores on tests of crystallized intelligence

word identification

One remarkable finding makes the point: 40% of 4th-graders who were poor at identifying words said they would rather clean their rooms than read Thus, not only does poor word identification make the reading process slow and laborious, it also leads children to read no more than is absolutely necessary, which, in turn, hinders improvement in their reading skills. Words can be identified in two main ways: phonological recoding and visually based retrieval Correct use of phonological recoding increases the associations between words' visual forms and their sounds, which in turn allows greater use of visually based retrieval. Consistent with this view, the shift to retrieval occurs most rapidly for words on which children most often execute phonological recoding correctly—words that are short, that have regular letter-sound relations, and that children encounter frequently. With age and experience, vocabulary knowledge becomes an increasingly important influence on word identification, particularly on words with irregular sound-symbol correspondences

In addition to learning counting procedures, preschoolers also acquire understanding of the principles underlying counting. In particular, they come to understand the following five counting principles :

One-one correspondence: Each object must be labeled by a single number word. Stable order: The numbers should always be recited in the same order. Cardinality: The number of objects in the set corresponds to the last number stated. Order irrelevance: Objects can be counted left to right, right to left, or in any other order. Abstraction: Any set of discrete objects or events can be counted.

depression and lack of social skills

Other investigators argue that youths get depressed because they lack the skills needed for appropriate emotion regulation and positive social interactions children and adolescents who experience depression frequently are low in regulation and exhibit behavioral problems such as aggression, stealing, delinquency, and substance abuse It has also been proposed that peer victimization and rejection contribute to depression, an idea that seems supported by the finding that a sense of connection with peers and school is associated with less depression However, evidence from a recent study that followed children from 4th grade to 6th grade suggests that children's depression contributes to peer victimization, which in turn predicts low acceptance by peers, and that problems with peers did not cause depression

Theories on the Nature and Emergence of Emotion

Other researchers maintain that emotions are not distinct from one another at the beginning of life and that environmental factors play an important role in the emergence and expression of emotions. Some argue, for example, that infants experience only excitement and distress in the first weeks of life, and that other emotions emerge at later ages as a function of experience

parental role in grammatical development

Parents play a role in their children's grammatical development, although a more limited one than you might expect. Clearly, they provide a model of grammatically correct speech. parents generally ignore even wildly ungrammatical mistakes, accepting sentences such as "I magicked it," "Me no want go," or "I want dessert in front of dinner" Given this lack of correction, how do infants figure out the ways in which the syntax of their native language works? One approach to answering this question in the lab involves creating miniature languages—known as artificial grammars—and determining which types of linguistic patterns infants are able to learn. After just brief exposure, infants as young as 8 months can learn fairly complex patterns, generalizing beyond the specific items they have heard Even their errors reveal an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the structure of their native language. This accomplishment is made all the more impressive given the relative lack of parental feedback they receive. The manner in which this learning unfolds is the focus of current research

Ineffective discipline and family coercion

Parents who are inconsistent in administering discipline are more likely than other parents to have aggressive and delinquent children One reason parental monitoring may be important is that it reduces the likelihood that older children and adolescents will associate with deviant, antisocial peers the aggression of children who are out of control may be unintentionally reinforced by parents who, once their efforts to coerce compliance have failed, give in to their children's fits of temper and demands

Parents' discussion of emotions

Parents who discuss emotions with their children teach them about the meanings of emotions, the circumstances in which they should and should not be expressed, and the consequences of expressing or not expressing them An additional help in emotional socialization is emotion coaching, in which parents not only discuss emotions with their children but also help them learn ways of coping with their emotions and expressing them appropriately A longitudinal study by Judy Dunn and her colleagues found, for example, that the degree to which children are exposed to, and participate in, discussions of emotions with family members at ages 2 and 3 predicts their understanding of others' emotions until at least age 6 In two similar studies, mothers' references to their children's desires at 15 months of age predicted their children's understanding of emotions and use of emotion language at 24 months. In fact, mothers' verbal references to others' thoughts and knowledge when describing a series of pictures to their children at 24 months of age predicted children's use of emotion language and understanding of emotion at 33 months of age Researchers have also found that children whose parents use emotion coaching are more socially competent with peers, more empathic, and less likely to exhibit problem behaviors or depression than are children who do not receive such guidance

Socioeconomic Influences on Parenting

Parents with low SES are more likely than higher-SES parents to use an authoritarian and punitive child-rearing style; higher-SES parents tend to use a style that is more authoritative, accepting, and democratic Higher-SES mothers, for example, are less likely than low-SES mothers to be controlling, restrictive, and disapproving in their interactions with their young children ( Jansen et al., 2012), even in African American families (Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2008) and non-Western cultures This greater use of language by higher-SES mothers may foster better communication between parent and child, as well as promote the child's verbal skills Higher-SES parents are more likely than lower-SES parents to view themselves as teachers rather than as providers or disciplinarians (S. A. Hill & Sprague, 1999) and to feel more capable as young parents It is likely that level of education is an important aspect of SES associated with differences in parental values and knowledge. Highly educated parents have more knowledge about parenting (Bornstein et al., 2010) and tend to hold a more complex view of development than do parents with less education. many low-SES parents may adopt a controlling, authoritarian parenting style to protect their children from harm in poor, unsafe neighborhoods, especially those with high rates of violence and substance abuse. Correspondingly, it may be that higher-SES parents—being less economically stressed and freer of the need to protect their children from violence—have more time and energy to focus on complex issues in child rearing and may be in a better position to adopt an authoritative style, interacting with their children in a controlled yet flexible and stimulating manner

Parents' Reactions to Children's Emotions

Parents' reactions to their children's negative emotions also seem to affect children's emotional expressivity, as well as their social competence and adjustment. Parents who, like Scott's, dismiss or criticize their children's expressions of sadness and anxiety communicate to their children that their feelings are not valid. Parents send similar messages when they react to their children's anger with threats, belligerence, or dismissive comments. In contrast, parents who are supportive when their children are upset help their children to regulate their emotional arousal and to find ways to express their emotions constructively. In turn, their children tend to be better adjusted and more competent both with peers and academically

Sandra Scarr (1992) proposed that gene-environment relations involve three types of processes:

Passive effects of the genotype arise when children are raised by their biological parents. These effects occur not because of anything the children do but because of the overlap between their parents' genes and their own. Thus, children whose genotypes predispose them to enjoy reading are likely to be raised in homes with plentiful access to reading matter, because their parents also like to read. Evocative effects of the genotype emerge through children's eliciting or influencing other people's behavior. For example, even if a child's parents are not avid readers, they will read more bedtime stories to a child who is interested in the stories than to one who is uninterested. Active effects of the genotype involve children's choosing environments that they enjoy. A high school student who likes reading will borrow books from the library and obtain books in other ways, regardless of whether he or she was read to when young.

Numerical equlity

Perhaps the most basic understanding of numbers involves numerical equality, the idea that all sets of N objects have something in common. When children recognize, for example, that two dogs, two cups, two balls, and two shoes share the property of "twoness," they have a rudimentary understanding of numerical equality. Infants as young as 5 months old appear to have some sense of numerical equality, at least as it applies to sets of one, two, or three objects. This tendency is weak—infants' discriminations are often based on the objects' relative area or perimeter rather than on their number, when both vary (Clearfield & Mix, 1999; Feigenson, Carey, & Spelke, 2002). However, infants also discrimi- nate among small numbers of events, which do not have perimeters or areas, in- dicating that they have a sense of number independent of spatial concepts.

Relations among understanding of space, time, and number

Piaget (1952) hypothesized that infants possess only a general, undifferentiated concept of magnitude, and lack specific concepts of space, number, and time. Subsequent research has shown that infants actually do distinguish among size, number, and time. For example, after habituating to different displays with the same number of objects, infants dishabituate when the number of objects changes, even though the space occupied by the new objects and the time for which they are displayed is the same as previously Lourenco and Longo (2010) found that 9-month- olds have a general sense of magnitude that extends to space, number, and time. infants who had habituated to a link be- tween black with white stripes and larger size might now see that decoration ac- companying either the more numerous set Lourenco and Longo found that the infants dishabituated when the decoration that had accompanied the larger stimulus now accompanied the one that was smaller on another dimension, but not when it continued to accompany the larger one. he ratios required for infants of a given age to discriminate between two stimuli are similar regardless of whether the discrimination involves time, space, or number

Piaget's Theory of Moral Judgement

Piaget describes how children's moral reasoning changes from a rigid acceptance of the dictates and rules of authorities to an appreciation that moral rules are a product of social interaction and are therefore modifiable. Piaget believed that interactions with peers, more than adult influence, account for advances in children's moral reasoning. studied children's moral reasoning by observing children playing games, such as marbles, in which they often deal with issues related to rules and fairness interviewed children to examine their thinking about issues such as transgressions of rules, the role of intentionality in morality, fairness of punishment, and justness when distributing goods among people. Story one child accidently breaking 15 cups while trying to help, one boy trying to sneak jam and breaking 1 cup. Young Children say kid breaking 15 cups naughtier, older children say child trying to sneak jam Piaget concluded that there are two stages of development in children's moral reasoning, as well as a transitional period between the stages

The centrality of Action

Piaget's theory asserts the role of actions during infancy, but dynamic-systems theories emphasize that actions contribute to development throughout life. The ways in which children's actions shape their development extend well beyond reaching and grasping in infancy. Actions influence categorization: in one study, encouraging children to move an object up and down led to their categorizing it as one of a group of objects that were easiest to move in that way, whereas encouraging children to move the same object from side to side led them to categorize it as one of a group of objects that were easiest to move in that way In addition, actions shape memory, as demonstrated by research in which children's past attempts to locate and dig up objects they had earlier seen being hidden in a sandbox altered their recall of the objects' new location after they had seen them being re-hidden.

the growth of play

Play refers to activities that are pursued for their own sake, with no motivation other than the enjoyment they bring. By the elementary school years, play becomes even more complex and social. It begins to include activities such as sports and board games that have conventional rules that participants must follow. majority reported that they had engaged in pretend play at least weekly when they were 10 or 11 years old, and most reported doing so at least monthly when they were 12 or 13 years old Boys and only children tended to report engaging in pretend play at older ages than girls and children with siblings. pretend play may expand children's understanding of the social world. Children who engage in greater amounts of pretend play tend to show greater understanding of other people's thinking (Lillard, 2006) and emo- tions Some children with high social skills simply enjoy pretend play and often engage in it. The jury remains out on whether pretend play is a cause of improved social understanding, but it is clear that such play is not harmful and that it enriches many children's lives. Children's interest in social play is so strong that they do not let the absence of playmates prevent them from engaging in it.

popular children

Popular children—those who, in sociometric procedures, are predominantly nominated as liked by peers—tend to have a number of social skills in common. For example, when popular children enter a group of children who are already talking or playing, they first try to see what is going on in the group and then join in by talking about the same topic or engaging in the same activity as the group, rather than drawing unwarranted attention to themselves Although popular children often are less aggressive overall than are rejected children (Newcomb et al., 1993), in comparison with children designated as average (i.e., those who receive an average number of both positive and negative nominations), they are less aggressive only with respect to aggression related to generalized anger, vengefulness, or satisfaction in hurting others. Highly aggressive children may even have high peer acceptance in some special cases, such as among adolescent males (but not females) who perform poorly in school (Kreager, 2007), in peer groups in which the popular members tend to be relatively aggressive, or in classrooms that have a strong hierarchy in terms of peer status Although children who are well liked by peers tend not to be particularly aggressive, children who are perceived as having high status in the group—those who are often labeled "popular" by other children and often seen as "cool"—tend to be viewed as above average in aggression and use it to obtain their goals

Explanations for gender differences in aggression

Possible explanations for gender differences in aggression range from the effects of biological factors to the socializing influences of family, peers, the media, and the culture at large. Each factor likely has a contributing role.

Negative Influences of cliques and Social Networks

Preadolescents and adolescents are more likely to goof off in school, smoke, drink, use drugs, or engage in violence, for example, if members of their peer group do so and if they hang out with peers who have been in trouble Adolescents who are low in self-regulation are also at increased risk if their peers are antisocial

legal drugs

Pregnant women (and women who have reason to think they might soon become pregnant) should take drugs only under the supervision of a physician. The two legal "drugs" that wreak the most havoc on fetal development are cigarettes (nicotine) and alcohol. Because the use of these substances represents a life- style choice rather than a medical remedy for a specific condition (like flu shots, antiseizure medications, or Accutane), their effects are particularly widespread

Coaching

Preschool children tend to be more socially skilled and more likely to be accepted by peers if their parents effectively coach them on how to interact with unfamiliar peers In contrast, mothers of children who are low in sociometric status often try to direct the group's activity themselves or urge their child to initiate activities that are inconsistent with what the group is currently doing Children may also benefit in their peer relations when their parents provide emotion coaching—that is, explanations about the acceptability of emotions and how to appropriately deal with them Some evidence suggests that a fairly high level of parental advice giving is sometimes associated with low levels of children's social competence and peer acceptance; but, in part, this may be because parents are more likely to try to help when their children are experiencing a high level of problems

Growth, Illness, and Healing

Preschoolers realize that growth, like inheritance, is a product of internal processes. They recognize, for example, that plants and animals become bigger and more complex over time because of something going on inside them Preschoolers also show a basic understanding of illness. Three-year-olds have heard of germs and have a general sense of how they operate. They know that eating food that is contaminated with germs can make a person sick, even if the per- son is unaware of the germs' presence Finally, preschoolers know that plants and animals, unlike inanimate objects, have internal processes that often allow them to regain prior states or attributes. Preschoolers also recognize the limits of living things' recuperative processes: they understand that both illness and old age can cause death, from which no recuperation is possible

Children's Choice of Friends

Preschoolers tend to become friends with peers who are nearby physically, as neighbors or playgroup members. Although proximity becomes less important with age, it continues to play a role in individuals' choices of friends in adolescence (Clarke-McLean, 1996; Dishion, Andrews, & Crosby, 1995). This is partly because one form of proximity is involvement in similar activities at school (e.g., sports, academic activities, arts), which appears to promote the development of new friendships. In most industrialized countries, similarity in age is also a major factor in friendship, with most children tending to make friends with age-mates In part, this may be due to the fact that in most industrialized societies, children are segregated by age in school: in societies where children do not attend school or otherwise are not segregated by age, they are more likely to develop friendships with children of different ages. Another powerful factor in friend selection is a child's gender: girls tend to be friends with girls, and boys, with boys To a lesser degree, children tend to be friends with peers of their own racial/ ethnic group, although this tendency varies across groups and contexts For majority-group children, having cross-ethnic friendships has been associated with positive attitudes toward people in other groups in the future By age 7, children tend to like peers who are similar to themselves in the cognitive maturity of their play (Rubin et al., 1994) and in the level of their aggressive behavior Thus, birds of a feather do tend to flock together. The fact that friends tend to be similar on a number of dimensions underscores the difficulty of knowing whether friends actually affect one another's behavior or whether children simply seek out peers who think, act, and feel as they do.

planning

Problem solving is often more successful if people plan before acting. Children benefit from planning how to get to friends' houses, how to get their way with parents, and how to break bad news to others in ways that are least likely to trigger angry reactions children, and even adolescents, often fail to plan in situations in which it would help their problem solving Information-processing analyses suggest that one reason planning is difficult for children is that it requires inhibiting the desire to solve the problem immediately in favor of first trying to construct the best strategy. A second reason planning is difficult for young children is that they tend to be overly optimistic about their abilities and think that they can solve problems more effectively than their capabilities actually allow Such overoptimism can lead young children to act rashly. For instance, 6-year-olds who overestimate their physical abilities have more accidents than do peers who evaluate their abilities more realistically, presumably because their confidence leads them not to plan how to avoid potential dangers maturation of the prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that is especially important for planning, along with experiences that reduce overoptimism or demonstrate the value of planning, lead to increases in the frequency and quality of planning, which improves problem solving

relation 4: child's phenotype-child's environment

Rather, they are active creators of the environment in which they live in two important ways. First, by virtue of their nature and behavior, they actively evoke certain kinds of responses from others Impulsive children hear "No," "Don't," "Stop," and "Be careful" more often than inhibited children do. Indeed, the degree to which parent- child relationships are mutually responsive is largely a function of the child's genetically influenced behavioral characteristics The second way in which children create their own environment is by actively selecting surroundings and experiences that match their interests, talents, and personality characteristics Beginning in the preschool years, children's friendship opportunities increasingly depend on their own characteristics, as they choose playmates and pals with whom they feel compatible—the "birds of a feather flock together" phenomenon. Returning to the reading example, children who enjoy reading will read more books than will children who find reading tedious. The more they read, the more skillful readers they become, leading them to choose increasingly more challenging books, which, in turn, leads them to acquire advanced vocabulary, improve their language comprehension, and enhance their general knowledge base, resulting in greater success in school.

Comprehension

Reading comprehension involves forming a mental model to represent the situation or idea being depicted in the text and continuously updating it as new information appears Basic processes such as encoding (identification of key features of an object or event) and automatization (executing a process with minimal demands on cognitive resources) are crucial to reading comprehension. The reason is simple: children who are able to identify the key features of stories will understand the story better, and children who are able to automatically identify the key features of words will have more cognitive resources left to devote to comprehension Development of reading comprehension is also aided by acquisition of reading strategies. Another powerful influence on the development of reading comprehension is increasing content knowledge. Relevant content knowledge frees cognitive re- sources for focusing on what is new or complex in the text and allows readers to draw reasonable inferences about information left unstated. The path to strong or weak reading comprehension begins even before children start school. Hearing stories told or read by their parents helps preschoolers learn how such stories tend to go, facilitating their understanding of new stories once they read themselves. The amount that parents read to their children during the preschool years also partially accounts for the differences between the reading comprehension skills of children from middle- and low-income families. The straightforward implication of these findings is that if preschoolers from poor families were read to daily, they too would become better readers. The evidence is consistent with this inference. Encouraging low-income parents to also actively engage their children in the reading process, such as by asking them to re- late what is being read to their own experiences or to explain the characters' goals and motivations, helps even more Once children enter school, the amount of material they read varies greatly and has a large effect on their reading comprehension. High reading ability leads children to read more; children who read more, in turn, show greater gains over time in reading comprehension than do children of equal ability who read less

Academic performance

Research in a variety of regions, including North America, China, and Indonesia, indicates that rejected children, especially those who are aggressive, are more likely than their peers to have academic difficulties Longitudinal research, conducted mostly in the United States, indicates that students' classroom participation is lower during periods in which they are rejected by peers than during periods when they are not, and that the tendency of rejected children to do relatively poorly in school worsens across time approximately 25% to 30% of rejected children drop out of school, compared with approximately 8% or less of other children

Alternative Perspectives on Intelligence

Research using these tests has revealed a great deal about the development of intelligence. However, a number of contemporary theorists have noted that many important aspects of intelligence are not measured by IQ tests. The tests assess verbal, mathematical, and spatial capabilities, but they do not directly examine other abilities that seem to be inherent parts of intelligence: creativity, social understanding, knowledge of one's own strengths and weaknesses, and so on. theories proposed by Gardner and Sternberg have inspired a rethinking of long-held assumptions about intelligence. Intelligence and success in life clearly involve a broader range of capabilities than traditional intelligence tests measure, and measuring these broader capabilities may allow a more encompassing assessment of intelligence

Current Perspectives

Social cognitive theorists have made several important contributions to the study of social development. Another contribution is the insight that the effect of children's social experience depends on their interpretation of those experiences. Thus, children who make different attributions about a given social event (such as someone's causing them harm) or an academic event (such as doing poorly on a test) will respond differently to that event. Kismet is designed to shape his own development through his understanding of the behavior of humans toward him—a form of self-socialization emphasized by social cognition theorists.

cultural influences

Social role theory maintains that socialization practices prepare children for their adult roles in society. If women and men tend to hold different occupations, then different abilities and preferences are apt to be encouraged in girls and boys. A meta-analysis conducted by Else-Quest, Hyde, and Linn (2010) pointed to cultural influences on gender-related variations in mathematics achievement. Gender differences on standardized math tests varied widely across nations: in some, boys scored higher; in others, girls scored higher; and in still others, no gender difference appeared. They found that average gender differences in several math-related outcomes were less likely in nations with higher percentages of women in higher levels of education. Other cultural factors have also been found to predict gender-related variations in academic achievement within American society. Average gender differences in overall academic success and verbal achievement tend to be less common among children from higher-income neighborhoods and among children of highly educated parents Gender differences in achievement may also be less common among children of gender-egalitarian parents. One study found that adolescent girls raised by egalitarian parents maintained higher levels of academic achievement in middle school—especially in math and science—compared with girls raised by more traditional parents

The Role of Parental Socialization

Socialization is the process through which children acquire the values, standards, skills, knowledge, and behaviors that are regarded as appropriate for their present and future roles in their particular culture.

Children as Products of their Culture

Sociocultural theorists believe that many of the processes that produce development, such as guided participation, are the same in all societies. the content that children learn—the particular symbol systems, artifacts, skills, and values—vary greatly from culture to culture and shape thinking accordingly. American and Chinese college students were asked to solve two problems. One problem required a solution analogous to the strategy of leaving a trail of white pebbles to follow home from the woods in "Hansel and Gretel," a tale well known to the American students but unknown to the Chinese. The American students were far more successful in solving that problem, and many of them alluded to the fairy tale even though they had not heard it in many years. The other problem required a solution analogous to that in a fairy tale that was well known to the Chinese students but unknown to the Americans. Chinese culture prizes and promotes interdependence among people, especially among close relatives. European American culture, in contrast, prizes and promotes the independence of individuals. Consistent with these cultural emphases, the Chinese children's reports of their earliest memories included more references to other people than did those of American children, and the American children's reports included more references to the child's own feelings and reactions. Thus, the attitudes and values of a culture, as well as its artifacts and technologies, shape the thoughts and memories of people in that culture.

Biological Influences

Some researchers have proposed that sex differences in brain structure and function may underlie some differences in how male and female brains process different types of information. Also, a slight biological difference can get exaggerated through differential experience However, when boys spend more time playing video games and sports than girls do, they practice their spatial skills more Stronger evidence for possible biological influences is suggested by research showing that some sex differences in brain structure may be partly due to the influence of sex-related hormones on the developing fetal brain Because males are exposed to higher levels of androgens than are females during normal prenatal development, this difference may lead to greater hemispheric specialization in the male brain and more proficiency in spatial ability later in life. Conversely, it has been found that males with androgen insensitivity syndrome tend to score lower-than-average in spatial ability

Babbling

Sometime between 6 and 10 months of age, but on average at around 7 months, a major milestone occurs: babies begin to babble. Standard babbling involves producing syllables made up of a consonant followed by a vowel ("pa," "ba," "ma") that are repeated in strings ("papapa"). Contrary to the long-held belief that infants babble a wide range of sounds from their own and other languages research has revealed that babies actually babble a fairly limited set of sounds, some of which are not part of their native language Native language exposure is a key component in the development of babbling. However, some congenitally deaf babies do "babble" right on schedule—those who are regularly exposed to sign language. Infants exposed to ASL babble manually. They produce repetitive hand movements that are components of full ASL signs, just as vocally babbled sounds are repeated components of spoken words As their babbling becomes more varied, it gradually takes on the sounds, rhythm, and intonational patterns of the language infants hear daily.

g, or general intelligence

Such omnipresent positive correlations have led to the hypothesis that each of us possesses a certain amount of g, or general intelligence, and that g influences our ability to think and learn on all intellectual tasks

X and Y chromosomes

The X chromosome carries roughly 1500 genes, whereas the much smaller Y chromosome carries only about 200. Thus, when a female inherits a recessive allele on the X chromosome from her mother, she is likely to have a dominant allele on the chromosome from her father to suppress it, so she will not express the trait In contrast, when a male inherits the same recessive allele on the X chromosome from his mother, he likely will not have a dominant allele from his father to override it, so he will express the trait

Evolutionary Psychology

The basic idea of this approach is that in the evolutionary history of our species, certain genes predisposed individuals to behave in ways that solved the adaptive challenges they faced (obtaining food, avoiding predators, establishing social bonds), thereby increasing the likelihood that they would survive, mate, and reproduce, passing along their genes to their offspring One of the most important adaptive features of the human species— one that clearly distinguishes us from other species—is the large size of our brains (relative to body size). The trade-off for this is the prolonged period of immaturity and dependence human children go through. These evolutionary changes were made possible by increased social complexity, which is necessary for successful caregiving of extremely helpless offspring. Many evolutionary theorists have suggested that play, which is one of the most salient forms of behavior during the period of immaturity of most mammals, is an evolved platform for learning Children develop motor skills by racing and wrestling with one another, throwing toy spears, or kicking a ball into a goal. To benefit from their protracted immature status, children must, of course, survive it, and their survival and development require that parents spend an enormous amount of time, energy, and resources in raising them Similar findings suggest that unintended child fatalities (e.g., drowning) are also more likely to occur in homes with a resident stepparent than in homes with no stepparent, suggesting that there is less commitment to protecting children in stepparent homes A clear implication of the evolutionary view of development is that radical departures from the species-typical environment could have negative consequences. It is well established that exposing young and prenatal animals of various species to stimulation that is outside the normal range for their species and age has adverse effects on their development modern medicine has enabled increasing numbers of premature infants of ever-smaller sizes to survive. However, their first weeks or even months are spent in an environment that is radically different from the species-typical fetal environment

reciprocal determinism

The basic idea of this concept is that every child has characteristics that lead him or her to seek particular kinds of interactions with the external world

neurons

The basic units of the brain's remarkably powerful informational system are its more than 100 billion neurons (Figure 3.6), which constitute the gray matter of the brain. sensory neurons transmit information from sensory receptors that detect stimuli in the external environment or within the body itself; motor neurons transmit information from the brain to muscles and glands; and interneurons act as intermediaries between sensory and motor neurons.

Environmental pollutants

The bodies and bloodstreams of most Americans (including women of childbearing age) contain a noxious mix of toxic metals, synthetic hormones, and various ingredients of plastics, pesticides, and herbicides that can be teratogenic In China, the rapid modernization that has led to economic success has also taken a toll on health in general, and has led to a dramatic increase in pollution- related birth defects due to the unregulated burning of coal, water pollution, and pesticide use

Normal Emotional Development in Childhood

The causes of emotions continue to change in childhood. For example, the basis of children's self-esteem or self-evaluation changes with cognitive development and experience, and the events that make children feel happiness and pride tend to change accordingly. From early to middle childhood, for instance, acceptance by peers and achieving goals become increasingly important, and successes in these areas become key sources of happiness and pride Similar examples can be seen in regard to children's negative emotions. For instance, as their cognitive ability to represent imaginary phenomena develops in the preschool years, children often start to fear imaginary creatures such as ghosts or monsters. Such fears are uncommon in elementary school children (Silverman, La Greca, & Wasserstein, 1995), probably because children of this age have a better understanding of reality than do younger children. school-aged children's anxieties and fears are generally related to important, real-life issues (albeit sometimes exaggerated), such as challenges at school (tests and grades, being called on in class, and pleasing teachers), health (their parents' and their own), and personal harm (being robbed, mugged, or shot). The frequency with which specific emotions are experienced also may change in childhood and adolescence. There is some evidence, for example, that over the course of the preschool and early school years, children generally become less emotionally intense and negative Typically, early to middle adolescence is marked by an increase in the frequency or intensity of negative emotions and a decrease in positive emotion. For most youths, the increase is mild (Larson & Lampman-Petraitis, 1989; Larson et al., 2002; Weinstein et al., 2007), but for a minority, it is quite sharp, often in their relations with their parents Of course, children's emotional states are highly influenced by the world around them, with negative emotion being intensified by stressful conditions. children and adolescents directly exposed to war or terrorism tend to experience unusually high levels of fear, anxiety, and depression Exposure to lesser stressors, such as conflict between parents in the home, or a single mother's entrance into a new romantic relationship or co-habitation arrangement, also appears to increase children's experience of negative emotion such as fear

Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt (ages 1 to 31⁄2)

The challenge for the child between ages 1 year and 31⁄2 years (Freud's anal stage) is to achieve a strong sense of autonomy while adjusting to increasing social demands. Infants' newfound ability to explore the environment on their own (as we discussed in Chapter 5) changes the family dynamics, initiating a long- running battle of wills in which parents try to restrict the child's freedom and teach the child which behaviors are acceptable and unacceptable.

Consequences of Maltreatment

The consequences of child maltreatment are manifested primarily in the microsystem (although they can extend to, and be moderated by, factors in the mesosystem and exosystem such as child-protection policies and agencies). At school, maltreated children are often anxious and in- attentive and overly dependent on their teachers for approval and support. They are more than twice as likely as other children to fail a grade Although such responses might be maladaptive in many social situations, leading children to misinterpret or overreact to emotional cues, an ecological perspective suggests that overattention to negative emotions might be highly adaptive for children growing up in a home marked by threat and danger.

Aggressive behaviour

The conventional wisdom is that boys are more aggressive than girls are. In support of this expectation, research studies indicate a reliable gender difference in aggression. However, the magnitude of the gender difference is not as great as many people expect. Direct aggression involves overt physical or verbal acts openly intended to cause harm, whereas indirect aggression (also known as relational or social aggression) involves attempts to damage a person's social standing or group acceptance through covert means such as negative gossip and social exclusion. Average gender differences in the incidence of physical aggression emerge gradually during the preschool years John Archer (2004) found that both physical and verbal forms of direct aggression occurred more often among boys than among girls. The average difference was small during childhood and moderate to large during adolescence. There appears to be no average gender difference during child- hood in the use of indirect aggression. In a meta-analysis of studies testing for such gender differences, Card and colleagues (2008) found only a negligible effect size during adolescence, with girls slightly more likely than boys to use indirect aggression. However, because direct aggression is less likely among girls than boys, girls tend to use proportionally more indirect than direct aggression than boys, on average. Thus, when most girls do express aggression, it may be indirect rather than direct physical or verbal aggression Although there may not be much difference between girls and boys in the average use of indirect aggression, being the target of indirect aggression may more often cause problems for girls than boys Average gender differences in aggression have been found primarily in research on same-gender interactions. Research conducted with mostly European American children suggests that different rules may apply when some girls and boys have conflicts with one another. Thus, when they are more assertive and less affiliative, boys may be more apt to get their way in unsupervised mixed-gender groups Studies comparing children's behavior in same-gender versus cross-gender conflicts revealed another interesting pattern However, in cross-gender conflicts, girls' use of power-assertive strategies increased, but boys' use of conflict-mitigation strategies did not change These studies suggest that girls often may find it necessary to play by the boys' rules to gain influence in mixed-gender settings.

Prewriting Skills

The development of writing, like the development of reading, begins before children receive formal schooling. Preschoolers' "writing" indicates that they expect meaning to be reflected in print. They use more marks to represent words that signify many objects, such as "forest," than to represent words that signify a single object, such as "tree" (Levin & Korat, 1993). Similarly, when asked to guess which of several words is the name for a particular object, they generally choose longer words for larger objects (Bialystok, 2000). Although written language does not work this way, the children's guess seems reasonable

synapse elimination

The explosive generation of neurons and synapses during synaptogenesis, which is largely under genetic control, results in a huge surplus—many more neural connections than any one brain can use. This overabundance of synapses includes an excess of connections between different parts of the brain: for instance, many neurons in what will become the auditory cortex are linked with those in the visual area, and both of these areas are overly connected to neurons involved in taste and smell. Approximately 40% of this great synaptic superfluity gets eliminated in a developmental process known as synaptic pruning. Although the amount of white matter in the cortex shows a steady increase from childhood well into adulthood, the amount of gray matter increases dramatically starting around 11 or 12 years of age. The increase in gray matter proceeds rapidly, peaks around puberty, and then begins to decline as some of it is replaced by white matter

maternal factors-nutrition

The fetus depends on its mother for all its nutritional requirements. If a pregnant woman has an inadequate diet, her unborn child may also be nutritionally deprived For example, women who get too little folic acid (a form of B vitamin) are at high risk for having an infant with a neural-tube defect such as spina bifida Because malnutrition is more common in impoverished families, it often coincides with the host of other risk factors associated with poverty, making it difficult to isolate its effects on prenatal development

Positive Emotions

The first clear sign of happiness that infants express is a smile. During the first month, they exhibit fleeting smiles, primarily during the REM phase of sleep; after the first month, they sometimes smile when they are stroked gently. Between the third and eighth week of life, infants begin to smile in reaction to external stimuli, including touching, high-pitched voices, or other stimuli that engage their attention When infants are at least 2 months of age, they also show happiness in both social and nonsocial contexts in which they can control a particular event Observing the infants individually, they arranged for infants in one group to hear music whenever they pulled the string and for infants in the other group to hear music at random intervals. The infants who "caused" the music to play by pulling on the string showed more interest and smiling when the music came on than did the infants whose string-pulling had no connection to the music's being played At about 7 months of age, infants start to smile primarily at familiar people, rather than at people in general. (In fact, as you will see, unfamiliar people often elicit dis- tress at this age.) These selective smiles tend to delight parents and motivate them to continue interacting with the infant. In turn, infants of this age often respond to parents' playfulness and smiles with excitement and joy, which also prolongs their positive social interactions Children's expression of positive emotion increases across the first year of life By late in the first year of life, children's cognitive development allows them to take pleasure from unexpected or discrepant events such as Mom's making a funny noise or wearing a goofy hat Across the preschool years and elementary school years, children's expression of positive emotion in social interactions, especially intense positive emotion, has been found to decline

Identifying the Emotions of Others

The first step in the development of emotional knowledge is the recognition of different emotions in others. By 3 months of age, infants can distinguish facial expressions of happiness, surprise, and anger By 7 months of age, infants appear to discriminate a number of additional expressions such as fear, sadness, and interest By this age or a bit earlier, infants also start to perceive others' emotional expres- sions as meaningful. For example, if infants at this age are shown a video in which a person's facial expression and voice are consistent in their emotional expression (e.g., a smiling face and a bubbly voice) and a video in which a person's facial expression and voice are emotionally discrepant (e.g., a sad face and a bubbly voice), they will attend more to the presentation that is emotionally consistent In studies of this type, 12-month-olds tend to stay near their mother when she shows fear; to move toward the novel person or object if she expresses positive emotion; and to move partway toward the person or object if she shows no emotion Similar results have been found in research on 12-month-olds' ability to read their mother's tone of voice. When prevented from seeing their mother's face as they were being presented with novel toys, infants were more cautious and exhibited more fear when the mother's voice was fearful than when it was neutral By 14 months of age, the emotion-related information obtained through social referencing has an effect on children's touching of the object even an hour later By the age of 3, children in laboratory studies demonstrate a rudimentary ability to label a fairly narrow range of emotional expressions displayed in pictures or on puppets' faces The ability to label anger, fear, and sadness emerges and increases in the next year or two, with the ability to label surprise and disgust gradually appearing in the late preschool and early school years The ability to discriminate and label different emotions helps children to respond appropriately to their own and others' emotions. Similarly, a child who can see that a peer is angry can devise ways to avoid or appease that peer. In fact, children who are more skilled than their peers at labeling and interpreting others' emotions are also higher in social competence

Bowlby's attachment theory

The general idea of the secure base is that the presence of a trusted caregiver provides the infant or toddler with a sense of security that allows the child to explore the environment and hence to become generally knowledgeable and competent Bowlby's idea of the primary caregiver as a secure base was directly influenced by ethological theories, particularly the ideas of Konrad Lorenz Bowlby proposed that the attachment process between infant and caregiver is rooted in evolution and increases the infant's chance of survival. Thus, the attachment process is viewed as having an innate basis, but the development and quality of infants' attachments are highly dependent on the nature of their experiences with caregivers. Bowlby believed that this internal working model guides the individual's expectations about relationships through- out life. As adults, they look for, and expect to find, satisfying and security- enhancing relationships similar to the ones they had with their attachment figures in childhood. If children's attachment figures are unavailable or unresponsive, children develop negative perceptions of relationships with other people and of themselves

Categorical perception of speech sounds

The harder they sucked, the more often they'd hear repetitions of a single speech sound. After hearing the same sound repeatedly, the babies gradually sucked less enthusiastically (habituation). The crucial factor in this study was the relation between the new and old sounds—specifically, whether they were from the same or different phonemic categories. thus, after habituation to a series of sounds that adults perceive as /b/, sucking now produced a sound that adults identify as /p/. For the second group, the new sound was within the same category as the old one A fascinating outcome of this research is the discovery that young infants actually make more distinctions than adults do Adults simply do not perceive differences in speech sounds that are not important in their native language, which partly accounts for why it is so difficult for adults to become fluent in a second language. In contrast, infants can distinguish between phonemic contrasts made in all the languages of the world—about 600 consonants and 200 vowels. Studies done with infants from English-speaking homes have shown that they can discriminate non-English distinctions made in languages ranging from German and Spanish to Thai, Hindi, and Zulu The crucial role of early speech perception is reflected in a positive correlation between infants' speech-perception skills and their later language skills.

Generating Written Text

The high-level goals include making arguments comprehensible without the intonations and gestures that help us communicate when we speak, organizing individual points in a coherent framework, and providing the background information that readers need to understand the writing As with development of reading comprehension, growth of writing proficiency reflects improvements in basic processes, strategies, metacognition, and content knowledge. Automatizing low-level skills, such as spelling and punctuation, aids writing not only because correct spelling and punctuation make writing easier to understand but also because automatizing the low-level skills frees cognitive resources for pursuing the higher-level communicative goals of writing. For older children, formulating outlines serves a similar purpose of dividing the task of writing into manageable parts: first figure out what you want to say, then figure out the best order for making your main points, then figure out how to make each point. Metacognitive understanding plays several crucial roles in writing. Perhaps the most basic type of metacognitive understanding is recognizing that readers may not have the same knowledge as the writer and that one therefore should include all the information that readers will need to allow them to grasp what is being said. Good writers consistently exhibit such understanding by high school; poor writers often do not (Berninger & Richards, 2002). A second crucial type of metacognitive knowledge involves understanding the need to plan one's writing rather than just jumping in and starting to write. Understanding the need for revision is a third key type of metacognitive knowledge. Fortunately, as with reading, instruction aimed at inculcating metacognitive understanding can enhance writing skills Finally, as in reading, content knowledge plays a crucial role in writing. Children generally write better when they are familiar with the topic than when they are not

Learning Theories

The intellectual descendants of Locke are psychologists who consider learning from experience to be the primary factor in social and personality development.

Bandura and Bonobo

The investigators began by having preschool children individually watch a short film in which an adult model per- formed highly unusual aggressive actions on a Bobo doll (an inflatable toy, with a weight in the bottom so it pops back up as soon as it is knocked down). The model punched the doll, hit it with a mallet while shouting "Sockeroo," threw balls at it while shouting "Bang bang," and so on. Another group saw the model punished (scolded). The third group saw the model experience no consequences. The question was whether vicarious reinforcement would affect the children's subsequent reproduction of the behavior. Later, whether or not they had imitated the model, the children were offered juice and prizes to reproduce all the model's actions that they could remember. The results are shown in the figure. The children who had seen the model punished imitated the behavior less than did those in the other two groups. However, the children in all conditions had learned from observing the model's behavior and remembered what they had seen; however, the girls had learned as much about the modeled behaviors as the boys had, as shown by their increased level of imitation when offered a reward. This classic research thus demonstrates that children can quickly acquire new behaviors simply as a result of observing others, that their tendency to reproduce what they have learned depends on whether the person whose actions they observed was rewarded or punished, and that what children learn from watching others is not necessarily evident in their behavior.

Ethnic identity in adolescence

The issue of ethnic or racial identity often becomes more central in adolescence, as young people try to forge their overall identity (S. E. French et al., 2006). Minority-group members in particular may be faced with difficult and painful decisions as they try to decide the degree to which they will adopt the values of their ethnic group or those of the dominant culture One difficulty for ethnic-minority adolescents is that they are more likely than they were at younger ages to be aware of discrimination against their group and consequently may feel ambivalent about the group and their own ethnic status Thus, adolescents in traditional Mexican American families, for instance, may be expected to spend after-school time helping take care of elderly or young family members or earning money for the family Most ethnic-minority adolescents either have stable ethnic identities or progress through the sequence of ethnic-identity development outlined above For some ethnic-minority adolescents, an identity search leads to an exploration of majority identities and a lessening of commitment to the ethnic group. Establishing a clear ethnic identification may be more difficult and less consistent for some adolescents, such as multiethnic youth, who could develop identifications with more than one ethnic or racial group In some cases, ethnic-minority youth develop a bicultural identity that includes a comfortable identification with both the majority culture and their own ethnic culture. However, for adolescents in some traditional cultures (e.g., Canadian First Nations), a bicultural identity can be associated with lower levels of some strengths that are part of successful identity development, such as certain traditional values, as well as fidelity (loyalty and commitment) and wisdom

violation-of-expectancy

The majority of the evidence that young infants can represent and think about invisible objects comes from research using the violation-of-expectancy procedure The basic assumption is that if infants observe an event that violates something they know about the world, they will be surprised or at least interested

The importance of experience

The more often a synapse is activated, the stronger the connection becomes between the neurons involved: in short, neurons that fire together wire together if brain structures were entirely hard-wired, organisms would be unable to adapt to their postnatal environment. To complete the final wiring of the brain, nurture joins forces with nature The collaboration between nature and nurture in building the brain occurs differently for two kinds of plasticity. One kind involves the general experiences that almost all infants have just by virtue of being human. The second kind involves specific, idiosyncratic experiences that children have as a result of their particular life circumstances—such as growing up in the United States or in the Amazon rain forest, experiencing frequent cuddling or abuse, being an only child or one of many siblings, and so on.

family studies of intelligence

The most common focus of behavior-genetics family studies has been intelligence Genetic influence is shown by generally higher correlations for higher degrees of genetic similarity. Most notable is the finding that identical (MZ) twins resemble one another in IQ more than do same-sex fraternal (DZ) twins Further evidence for an environmental role is that MZ twins who are reared together are more similar than those reared apart. In a study of 11,000 MZ and DZ twin pairs across four countries, researchers found that the correlations in IQ between co- twins increased with age for MZ twins and decreased with age for DZ twins As children get older, they increasingly control their own experiences, and their parents have less influence over their activities. The effects of education may be particularly relevant to this pattern of results, given that educational experiences and achievements influence children's performance on measurements of intelligence. It may be that identical twins' IQs become more similar into adulthood because their common genetic predispositions lead them to select similar intellectual stimulation, whereas the IQs of frater- nal twins become increasingly dissimilar because they choose divergent experiences for themselves

the bioecological Model

The most encompassing model of the general context of development is Urie Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model. Bronfenbrenner conceptualizes the environment as "a set of nested structures, each inside the next, like a set of Russian dolls" The different levels vary in how immediate their effects are, but Bronfenbrenner emphasizes that every level, from the intimate context of a child's nuclear family to the general culture in which the family lives, has an impact on that child's development. This theory is ecological in the sense that, just as in the study of the ecology of other living things, it considers how multiple levels of context influence outcomes

effects of poverty

The negative effects of poverty on children's IQ scores are indisputable. Even after taking into account the mother's education, whether both parents live with the child, and the child's race, the adequacy of family income for meeting family needs is related to children's IQ scores Poverty exerts negative effects on intellectual development in numerous ways. Chronic inadequate diet early in life can disrupt brain development; missing meals on a given day (e.g., achievement test day) can impair intellectual functioning on that day; reduced access to health services can result in greater numbers of absences from school; conflicts between adults in the household can produce emotional tur- moil that interferes with learning; insufficient intellectual stimulation can lead to a lack of background knowledge needed to understand new material; and so on. One source of evidence for the relation between poverty and IQ is the fact that in all countries that have been studied, children from wealthier homes score higher on IQ and achievement tests, on average, than do children from poorer homes In contrast, children from poor families in the United States have average achievement test scores far below children from poor families in those same comparison countries. The key difference is that poor families in the United States are much poorer, relative to others in their society, than their counterparts in many other developed countries. the percentage of children living in poor families is much higher among Hispanic Americans and African Americans than among European Americans and Asian Americans and is much higher in families headed by a single female than in families headed by a married couple. These economic differences help explain the group differences in IQ scores that we examine in the next section.

insecurely attached

The other two attachment categories that Ainsworth originally identified involve children who are rated as insecurely attached, that is, who have less positive attachment to their caregivers than do securely attached children. One type of in- securely attached infant is classified as insecure/resistant, or ambivalent. Infants in this category are often clingy from the beginning of the Strange Situation, staying close to the mother instead of exploring the toys When their mother leaves the room, they tend to get very upset, often crying intensely. In the reunion, the insecure/resistant infant typically re-establishes contact with the mother, only to then rebuff her efforts at offering comfort. About 9% of typical middle-class children in the United States fall into the insecure/resistant category, but the percentage appears to be somewhat higher in many non-Western cultures

insecure/avoidant

The other type of insecurely attached infant is classified as insecure/avoidant. Children in this category tend to avoid their mother in the Strange Situation. For example, they often fail to greet her during the reunions and ignore her or turn away while she is in the room. Approximately 15% of typical middle-class children fall into the insecure/avoidant category Subsequent to Ainsworth's original research, attachment investigators found that the reactions of a small percentage of children in the Strange Situation did not fit well into any of Ainsworth's three categories. These children seem to have no consistent way of coping with the stress of the Strange Situation. For example, they may exhibit fearful smiles and look away while approaching their mother, or they may seem quite calm and contented and then suddenly display angry distress.

gender segregation

The preschool period is also when gender segregation emerges, as children start to prefer playing with same-gender peers and to avoid other-gender peers Gender segregation increases steadily between around 3 and 6 years of age, then remains stable throughout childhood Children's preference for same-gender peers is seen across different cultures; however, there are some cultural variations in the degree that children play exclusively with their own gender

Daphne Bugental and colleagues

The program, reflecting a social cognition perspective, was designed and implemented by Daphne Bugental and her colleagues, who found that many abusive parents have inappropriate models of their relationship with their children Thus, they might interpret their baby's prolonged crying as evidence that the baby is mad at them, and they might think that a child who continues to beg for a withheld toy or treat is intentionally trying to subvert their authority. The goal of this program was to help parents at risk for abusing their children achieve more realistic interpretations of their difficulties in caring for their children They were then led to identify a cause that did not focus blame on the children (i.e., something other than deliberate misbehavior by their children), as well as to come up with potential strategies for solving the problem. A particularly important factor in assessing this program is that at-risk families were randomly assigned to the intervention condition or to two comparison conditions. The program was remarkably successful: the prevalence of physical abuse in the intervention group was only 4%, compared with around 25% in the two comparison groups.

functionalist approach

The role of the environment is also emphasized by theorists who take a functionalist approach to understanding emotional development. They propose that the basic function of emotions is to promote action toward achieving a goal in a given context fear, for instance, often causes one to flee or otherwise avoid a stimulus that represents a threat. Functionalists have also argued that emotional reactions are affected by social goals, the immediate context and the individuals involved in it, as well as others' interpretations of events and their reactions to them, both in a given context and in the past For example, young children's experience of emotions such as shame and guilt is related to the values and standards communicated to them by their parents, the manner in which the values and standards are communicated, and the quality of the children's relationships with their parents. all agree that cognition and experience shape emotional development. An emerging perspective that explicitly deals with how the child's characteristics and experiences coalesce in emotional processing is dynamic-systems theory From this perspective, novel forms of functioning (emotional or otherwise) arise through the spontaneous coordination of components interacting repeatedly. A dynamic-systems approach postulates that emotional reactions develop differently for each person, based on an individual's emotion-related biology and cognitive capacities, his or her experiences, and how these factors tend to coalesce across time in an increasingly coherent and predictable manner

Withdrawn-rejected children

The second group of rejected children includes those who are withdrawn-rejected. These children, who make up 10% to 25% of the rejected category, are socially withdrawn and wary and, according to some re- search, are often timid and socially anxious Thus, as with aggression, social withdrawal may be both a cause and consequence of peer exclusion and rejection. However, not all socially withdrawn children are rejected or socially excluded Rather, it is active isolates—withdrawn children who display immature, unregulated, or angry, defiant behavior such as bullying, boasting, and meanness—who are the most likely to be rejected by their peers. Over the course of childhood, withdrawn behavior seems to become a more reliable predictor of peer rejection. By the middle to late elementary school years, children who are quite withdrawn stand out, tend to be disliked, and appear to become increasingly alienated from the group as time goes on

subsequent analyses (Flavell, 1971, 1982; Miller, 2011) have identified some crucial weaknesses in Piaget's theory. The following four are particularly important

The stage model depicts children's thinking as being more consistent than it is. According to Piaget, once children enter a given stage, their thinking consistently shows the characteristics of that stage across diverse concepts. Subsequent research, however, has shown that children's thinking is far more variable than this depiction suggests 2. Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized. Piaget employed fairly difficult tests to assess most of the concepts he studied. This led him to miss infants' and young children's earliest knowledge of these concepts. However, alternative tests of object permanence, which analyze where infants look immediately after the object has disappeared from view, indicate that by 3 months of age, even these young infants at least suspect that objects continue to exist 3. Piaget's theory understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development. Piaget's theory focuses on how children come to understand the world through their own efforts. 4. Piaget's theory is vague about the cognitive processes that give rise to children's thinking and about the mechanisms that produce cognitive growth. Piaget's theory provides any number of excellent descriptions of children's thinking

internalization

The superego is based on the child's internalization, or adoption, of the parents' rules and standards for acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

Cultural Influences

The theoretical approaches that we have discussed so far emphasize biological and cognitive-motivational processes involved in gender development. Two relevant theories that reflect this approach are the bioecological model and social role theory. Both emphasize how cultural practices mirror and perpetuate the gender divisions that are prevalent in a society

Current Perspectives

The three theoretical positions discussed in this section have all made valuable contributions to developmental science by placing individual development in a much broader context than is typically done in mainstream psychology The primary contribution of ethology and evolutionary psychology comes from the emphasis on children's biological nature, including genetic tendencies grounded in evolution. Evolutionary psychology has provided fascinating insights into human development, but it has also come in for serious criticism. Finally, evolutionary-psychology theories tend to overlook one of the most remarkable features of human beings, a feature strongly emphasized by Bronfenbrenner—our capacity to transform our environments and ourselves. Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model has made an important contribution to our thinking about development. His emphasis on the broad context of development and the many different interactions among factors at various levels has high- lighted how complex the development of every child is. The main criticism of this model is its lack of emphasis on biological factors. Cynthia Breazeal's lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—populated with a relatively small number of people. It has no mesosystem at present, although that could change in the future. This fact makes Kismet's experience quite different from that of most human children. Kismet could be affected by the macrosystem at any time, if changes in research priorities of the federal government cut off funding for the project.

Broad applicibility

The type of thinking characteristic of each stage influences children's thinking across diverse topics and contexts.

Renee Baillargeon

The violation-of-expectancy technique was first used in a classic series of stud- ies designed by Renée Baillargeon and her colleagues (Baillargeon, Spelke, & Wasserman, 1985) to see if infants too young to search for an invisible object might nevertheless have a mental representation of its existence. Then a box was placed in the screen's path, and the infants saw two test events. In one, the possible event, the screen rotated upward, occluding the box as it did so, and stopped when it contacted the box. In the impossible event, the screen continued to rotate a full 180 degrees, appearing to pass through the space occupied by the box Infants as young as 31⁄2 months of age looked longer at the impossible event than at the possible one. The researchers reasoned that the full rotation of the screen (to which the infants had previously been habituated) would be more interesting or surprising than the partial rotation only if the infants expected the screen to stop when it reached the box. Other studies have shown that young infants' behavior in this situation is influenced by some of the characteristics of the occluded objects, including height

voice onset time (VOT)

These two phonemes are on an acoustic continuum; they are produced in exactly the same way, except for one crucial difference—the length of time between when air passes through the lips and when the vocal cords start vibrating. This lag, referred to as voice onset time (VOT), is shorter for /b/ (less than 25 milliseconds [ms]) than for /p/ (greater than 25 ms). To study the perception of VOT, researchers create recordings of speech sounds that vary along this VOT continuum, so that each successive sound is slightly different from the one before, with /b/ gradually changing into /p/. All the sounds in this continuum that have a VOT of less than 25 ms are perceived as /b/, and all those that have a VOT greater than 25 ms are perceived as /p/. Thus, adults automatically divide the continuous signal into two discontinuous categories—/b/ and /p/.

Sexual identity in Sexual-Minority Youth

They feel themselves to be unquestioningly heterosexual. For a minority of youth, however, the question of personal sexual identity is a vital one that, initially at least, is often confusing and painful. These are the sexual-minority youth, who experience same-sex attractions. It is difficult to know precisely how many youths are in this category. Although current estimates indicate that only 2% to 4% of high school students in the United States identify themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, the number of youths with same-sex attractions is considerably larger because many sexual-minority youth do not identify themselves as such until early adulthood or later Another complicating fact is that, especially for females, there is considerable instability in adolescents' and young adults' reports of same-sex attraction or sexual behavior One longitudinal study that followed 79 lesbian, bisexual, and unlabeled (those with some same-sex involvement who were unwilling to attach a label to their sexuality) women aged 18 to 25 found that, over a 10-year period, two- thirds changed the identity labels they had claimed at the beginning of the study and one-third changed labels two or more times (L. M. Diamond, 2008). Overall, females are more likely to describe themselves as bisexual or "mostly heterosexual" than are males (Saewyc, 2011). Male youth who have engaged in same-sex sexual experiences show an increasing preference for males from adolescence to early adulthood In most ways, sexual-minority children and adolescents are develop- mentally indistinguishable from their heterosexual peers: they deal with many of the same family and identity issues in adolescence and generally function just as well. However, with the media's increasing attention to, and positive portrayals of, sexual-minority people, as well as increasing legal and cultural acceptance of sexual minorities, more sexual-minority youths in the United States are coming out today than did any previous cohort

research on identity formation

They propose, for example, that, during the moratorium, certain individuals explore possible commitments in two different ways. Some may explore them in breadth, trying out a variety of candidate identities before choosing one Others may make an initial commitment and explore it in depth, through continuous monitoring of current commitments in order to make them more conscious (Meeus et al., 2010). Thus, they may try out various types of art (painting, sculpture) before committing to being an artist. Researchers generally have found that, at least in modern Western societies, the identity status of adolescents and young adults is related to their adjustment, social behavior, and personality. Those who have made a commitment, whether through foreclosure or identity achievement, tend to be emotionally stable and high in self- esteem (Crocetti et al., 2008), low in depression and anxiety, and extroverted and agreeable Individuals who have made commitments through foreclosure tend to be low on substance use and aggression

Parental Punitiveness

This is especially true when the parents are cold and punitive in general (Deater-Deckard & Dodge, 1997), when the child does not have an early secure attachment, and when the child has a difficult temperament and is chronically angry and unregulated in some cultures and subcultures, physical punishment and controlling parental behaviors are viewed as part of responsible parenting when coupled with parental support and normal demands for compliance. Although corporal punishment, as well as yelling and screaming, tends to be associated with higher levels of aggression in children in a number of diverse cultures, including China, India, Kenya, Italy, Philippines, and Thailand, this relation is weaker if children view such parenting as normative In contrast, abusive punishment is likely to be associated with the development of antisocial tendencies regardless of the group in question parents who use abusive punishment provide salient models of aggressive behavior for their children to imitate children who are high in antisocial behavior, exhibit psychopathic traits (e.g., are callous, unemotional, manipulative, remorseless), or are low in self-regulation tend to elicit harsh parenting; in turn, harsh parenting increases the children's problem behavior The relation between punitive parenting and children's aggression can, of course, have a genetic component. Parents whose children are antisocial and aggressive often are that way themselves and are predisposed to punitive parenting differences in punitive parenting with adolescent identical twins were related to differences in the twins' aggression

Krascum and Andrews (1998)

To study how an understanding of causes and effects influences category formation, Krascum and Andrews (1998) told 4- and 5-year-olds about two categories of imaginary animals: wugs and gillies. Some of the preschoolers were provided only physical descriptions of the animals: they were told that wugs usually have claws on their feet, spikes on the end of their tails, horns on their heads, and armor on their backs; gillies were described as usually having wings, big ears, long tails, and long toes. Other children were provided the same physical descriptions, plus a simple causal story that explained why wugs and gillies are the way they are. These children were told that wugs have claws, spikes, horns, and armor because they like to fight. Gillies, in contrast, do not like to fight; instead, they hide in trees. The children who were told why wugs and gillies have the physical features they do were better at classifying the pictures into the appropriate categories. Thus, understanding cause-effect relations helps children learn and remember new categories

Children's Emotional Development in the Family

Twin and adoption studies show that, compared with fraternal twins, identical twins are more similar in the intensity of their emotional reactions, shyness, and sociability, as well as in other aspects of temperament and personality. Furthermore, biological siblings tend to be more similar to one another in some aspects of temperament than do siblings who are not biologically related. In addition, recent studies of specific genes have shown connections between an individual's genes and aspects of temperament such as self-regulatory capacities and emotionality The expression of these genes appears to be affected by environmental factors such as quality of parenting or stress. Sometimes genetic tendencies toward certain temperamental traits (and related behaviors) are most likely expressed when the environment is suboptimal—for example, when parenting is unsupportive or harsh, and sometimes when the environment is optimal Findings in behavioral genetics research also suggest that various environmental factors play an important role in shaping individual differences in temperament

Biological factors

Twin studies suggest that antisocial behavior runs in families and is partially due to genetic factors Heredity also contributes to both proactive and reactive aggression, but in terms of stability of individual differences in aggression and the association of aggression with psychopathic traits (e.g., callousness, lack of affect, including lack of remorse, and manipulativeness), the influence of heredity is greater for proactive aggression Hormonal factors are also assumed to play a role in aggression, although the evidence for this assumption is mixed. However, the relation of testosterone to aggression, although statistically significant, is quite small Another biological contributor to aggression discussed earlier is neurological deficits that affect attention and regulatory capabilities (Moffitt, 1993b): children who are not well regulated are likely to have difficulty controlling their tempers and inhibiting aggressive impulses the biological correlates of aggression probably are neither necessary nor sufficient to cause aggressive behavior in most children. Genetic, neurological, or hormonal characteristics may put a child at risk for developing aggressive and antisocial behavior, but whether the child becomes aggressive will depend on numerous factors, including experiences in the social world.

relation 5 Child's Environment-Child's Genotype

Until fairly recently, geneticists thought of the genotype as being "fixed" at birth. it is now known that although the structure of DNA remains "fixed" (mutations aside), certain epigenetic mechanisms, mediated by the environment, can alter the functioning of genes and create stable changes in their expression—and some of these changes can be passed on to the next generation. Epigenetic factors can help explain why identical twins do not have identical pathways through life: different environments can alter gene expression in subtle ways across developmental time. In a study that measured differences in DNA methylation levels in 3- and 50-year-old identical co-twins, researchers found that, whereas there were virtually no differences in the 3-year-olds' levels, roughly one-third of the 50-year-olds showed "remarkable" differences—and the greater the differences in the twins' lifestyle and experiences, the greater the differ- ences in their methylation levels The myriad risk factors associated with growing up in poverty appear to act on de- veloping children via epigenetic processes as well; adults who grew up in impover- ished households exhibit different patterns of gene expression decades later than do adults who grew up in high-SES homes, regardless of their SES as adults The complexity of gene-environment relationships raises both challenges and opportunities for developmental scientists.

Mathematical and related skills

Until recent decades in the United States, boys tended to perform somewhat better on standardized tests of mathematical ability than did girls. gender gap in mathematics achievement has closed dramatically as a result of efforts made by schools to improve girls' performance The percentage of bachelor's degrees in mathematics awarded to women in the United States increased from 37% in 1970 to 43% in 2010 Mathematics is considered a key gateway for careers in science, technology, and engineering At the high school level, there is no average gender difference in achievement. At the college level, women earned 59% of recent bachelor's degrees in biological sciences In contrast, girls and women are not as well represented in the physical sciences (e.g., physics) and technological fields (e.g., engineering). Among recently awarded bachelor's degrees, for example, women accounted for 20% in physics, 18% in com- puter science, and 18% in engineering

Using symbols as information

Very young children have substantial difficulty with dual representation, limiting their ability to use information from symbolic artifacts This has been demonstrated by research in which a young child watches as an experimenter hides a miniature toy in a scale model of the regular-sized room next door (Figure 6.13) (DeLoache, 1987). The child is then asked to find a larger version of the toy that the child is told "is hiding in the same place in the big room." Three-year- olds readily use their knowledge of the location of the miniature toy in the model to figure out where the large toy is in the adjacent room. In contrast, most 21⁄2-year-old children fail to find the large toy; they seem to have no idea that the model tells them anything about the full-size room. This interpretation received strong support in a study with 21⁄2-year- old children in which reasoning between a model and a larger space was not necessary if a child believes the experimenter's claims about the shrinking machine, then in the child's mind the model simply is the room. Hence, there is no symbolic relation between the two spaces and no need for dual representation. Increasing ability to achieve dual representation—to immediately interpret a symbol in terms of what it stands for—enables children to discover the abstract nature of various symbolic artifacts

central developmental issues

Vygotsky and contemporary sociocultural theorists have proposed a number of specific ideas about how change occurs through social interaction. two related concepts that play prominent roles in sociocultural analyses of change: intersubjectivity and social scaffolding

Early word production

What counts as an infant's "first word"? It can be any specific utterance consistently used to refer to something or to express something. Woof was one of the first words spoken by the boy whose linguistic progress was illustrated at the beginning of this chapter To make life easier for themselves, infants adopt a variety of simplification strategies (Gerken, 1994). For example, they leave out the difficult bits of words, turning banana into "nana," or they substitute easier sounds for hard-to-say ones—"bubba" for brother, "wabbit" for rabbit. Children name their parents, siblings, pets, and themselves, as well as other personally important objects such as cookies, juice, and balls. One reason may be that because nouns label entities—whereas verbs represent relations among entities—the meanings of nouns are easier to pick up from observation than are the meanings of verbs

parent's expressing emotions

Whatever the underlying reason, it is clear that the consistent and open expression of positive or negative emotion in the home is associated with specific outcomes for children. They are socially skilled, well adjusted, low in aggression, able to understand others' emotions (at least in childhood), and tend to have high self-esteem In contrast, when negative emotion is prevalent in the home, especially intense and hostile emotion, children tend to exhibit low levels of social competence and to experience and express negative emotion themselves, including depression and anxiety Even when the conflict and anger in the home involve the adults rather than the children directly, there is an increased likelihood that the children will develop anger, behavior problems, and deficits in social competence and self-regulation Of course, parental expression of emotion is not always causally related to positive or negative outcomes in children: children themselves undoubtedly influence the expression of emotion in the home. Moreover, genetic factors may contribute to some of the associations between parental emotion and children's emotions or behavior Thus, both heredity and the kinds of emotions children see and experience in the home undoubtedly play roles in children's emotional and social development

An Alternative to Divorce: Ongoing Marital Conflict

When considering this argument, it is important to realize that sustained marital conflict has negative effects on children at all ages. Infants and children can be harmed by marital conflict because it may cause parents to be less warm and supportive, undermining their emotional involvement with the child and the security of the early parent-child attachment Perhaps as a consequence of these negative effects, inter- parental conflict and aggression are associated with children's and adolescents' reduced attentional skills, negative emotion, behavioral problems, and abnormal cortisol responses to distress Further complicating matters is the fact that the relation between marital conflict and children's problem behavior seems to be partly due to genetic factors that affect both parents' and children's behavior (Harden et al., 2007; Schermerhorn et al. 2011) and partly due to the link between marital conflict and compromised parenting behavior

Characteristics of Infant-Directed Speech

When people speak to babies, their speech is slower, and their voice is often higher pitched, than when they speak to adults, and they swoop abruptly from high pitches to low pitches and back again Beyond expressing emotional tone, caregivers can use various pitch patterns of IDS to communicate important information to infants even when infants don't know the meaning of the words uttered. IDS also seems to aid infants' language development. To begin with, it draws infants' attention to speech itself. Indeed, infants prefer IDS to adult-directed speech, even when it is in a language other than their own. For example, both Chinese and American infants listened longer to a recording of a Cantonese-speaking woman talking to a baby in IDS than to the same woman speaking normally to an adult friend Although IDS is very common throughout the world, it is not universal. That infants begin life equipped with the two basic necessities for acquiring language—a human brain and a human environment—is, of course, only the beginning of the story. Of all the things we learn as humans, languages are arguably the most complex; so complex, in fact, that scientists have yet to be able to program computer systems to acquire a human language.

consequences of coming out

When they do come out, sexual-minority youths usually disclose their same-sex preferences to a best friend (typically a sexual-minority friend), to a peer to whom they are attracted, or to a sibling, and they do not tell their parents until a year or more later, if at all If they do reveal their sexual identity to their parents, they usually tell their mothers before telling their fathers, often because the mother asked or because they wanted to share that aspect of their life with their mother If sexual-minority youths are from communities or religious or ethnic backgrounds that are relatively low in acceptance of same-sex attractions, they are less likely than other sexual-minority youth to disclose their sexual preference to family members. Although many parents react in a supportive or only slightly negative manner to their children's coming out, there is good reason for many sexual-minority youth to fear disclosing their sexual identity to their family. Surveys indicate that a substantial portion of sexual-minority youth experience threats or insults from relatives when they reveal their sexual orientation, and a small percent experience physical violence (Berrill, 1990; D'Augelli, 1998). Sexual-minority youth who disclose their sexual identity at a relatively early age, and those who are publicly open about their sexual identity, are often subjected to abuse in the home or community Fear of being harassed or rejected outside the home is one reason many sexual- minority youth hide their sexual identity from heterosexual peers. In fact, many heterosexual adolescents are unaccepting of same-sex preferences in their peers and many sexual-minority youth report that having sexual-minority friends is important in providing social support and acceptance Finally, sexual-minority youth have higher reported rates of attempted suicide than do their heterosexual peers Some of these problems appear to be at least partly due to factors we have already noted, including poor relationships with, and sometimes physical abuse from, family members (Bos et al., 2008; M. S. Friedman et al., 2011; Ryan, 2009), along with victimization and harassment by peers and others in the community It must be noted, however, that the seemingly high rates of problems experienced by sexual-minority youth may be misrepresentative because they are often derived from studies of youth who openly identify themselves as gay and who therefore, as mentioned earlier, are at increased risk of abuse or rejection by their family or community

The Shift From Caregiver Regulation to Self-regulation

When young infants are distressed, frustrated, or frightened, their parents typically try to help them regulate their emotional arousal by attempting to soothe or distract them For example, mothers tend to use caressing and other affectionate behavior to calm a crying 2-month-old. Over the next few months, they increasingly include vocalizations (e.g., talking, singing, "shushing") in their calming efforts, as well as in their attempts to divert the infant's attention. By 6 months of age, infants show signs of rudimentary emotional self-regulation. In aversively arousing or uncertain situations, they may reduce their distress by unselectively averting their gaze from the source of distress. Occasionally, 6-month-olds can also self-soothe—that is, engage in repetitive rubbing or stroking of their body or clothing.

Vygotsky's Theory

Whereas Piaget viewed children as intent on mastering physical, mathematical, and logical concepts that are the same in all times and places, Vygotsky viewed them as intent on participating in activities that happen to be prevalent in their local setting Whereas Piaget emphasized qualitative changes in thinking, Vygotsky emphasized continuous, quantitative changes. These Vygotskian views gave rise to the central metaphor of sociocultural theories: children as social learners, shaped by, and shaping, their cultural contexts. Vygotsky's emphasis on children as social learners is evident in his perspective on the relation between language and thought Vygotsky described three phases of its role in the development of children's ability to regulate their own behavior and problem solving • At first, children's behavior is controlled by other people's statements; then, children's behavior is controlled by their own private speech, in which they tell themselves aloud what to do, much as their parents might have done earlier; and then, their behavior is controlled by internalized private speech (thought), in which they silently tell themselves what to do. the progression from external to internalized speech emerges not only with age but also with experience; children generate a considerable amount of overt private speech when they first encounter a challenging task, but the amount lessens as they master it

The Use of Cognitive Strategies to Control Negative Emotion

Whereas younger children regulate their negative emotions primarily by using behavioral strategies (e.g., distracting themselves with play), older children are also able to use cognitive strategies and problem solving to adjust to emotionally difficult situations Finding themselves caught in unpleasant or threatening circumstances, they may rethink their goals or the meaning of events so that they can adapt gracefully to the situation. This ability helps children avoid acting in ways that might be counterproductive.

experience-expectant plasticity

William Greenough refers to the role of general human experience in shaping brain development According to this view, the normal wiring of the brain is in part a result of the kinds of general experiences that have been present throughout human evolution, experiences that every human with an intact sensory-motor system who inhabits a reasonably normal environment will have: patterned visual stimulation, voices and other sounds, movement and manipulation, and so forth Consequently, the brain can "expect" input from these reliable sources to fine-tune its circuitry; synapses that are frequently activated will be strengthened and stabilized and those that are rarely activated will be "pruned." Thus, our experience of the external world plays a fundamental role in shaping the most basic aspects of the structure of our brain Presumably, the lasting deficits of late cataract removal occur because synapses that would normally have been activated by visual stimulation after birth were pruned because of the lack of that stimulation. Thus, because of the lack of auditory experience, brain systems that would normally be involved in hearing and in spoken-language processing become organized to process visual information instead. Similar evidence of early brain reorganization comes from research with blind adults. Consistent with this idea, brain-imaging research suggests that parts of the visual cortex contribute to superior sound localization ability in adults with early-onset blind- ness

content knowledge

With age and experience, children's knowledge about almost everything increases. This increase in knowledge in long-term memory improves recall of new material by making it easier to integrate new material with existing understanding Similarly, children who know a lot about soccer learn more from reading new soccer stories than do other children who are both older and have higher IQs but who know less about soccer Prior content knowledge improves memory for new information in several different ways. One is by improving encoding child experts' greater knowledge of chess leads to their encoding higher-level chunks of information that include the positions of several pieces relative to one another rather than encoding the location of each piece separately Content knowledge also improves memory by providing useful associations. A child who is knowledgeable about birds knows that type of beak and type of diet are associated, so remembering either one increases memory for the other

Representing Space relative to the External environment

With development, infants become increasingly able to choose among alter- native potential landmarks. When 12-month-olds are presented a single yellow cushion, a single green cushion, and a large number of blue cushions, they have little trouble finding an object hidden under either the yellow or the green cushion At 22 months, but not at 16 months, the presence of a land- mark improves children's ability to locate an object that is not hidden adjacent to the landmark Children, like adults, have more difficulty forming a spatial representation when they are moving around in an environment without distinctive landmarks or when the only landmarks are far from the target location. Despite no landmarks being present, the toddlers kept track of the hidden toy's location well enough to show better than chance accuracy in their searches Kearins (1981) compared the spatial abilities of seminomadic aboriginal children growing up in the Australian desert with those of White peers growing up in Australian cities. Spatial ability is essential within aboriginal culture, because much of life within this culture consists of long treks between distant water holes. Thus, consistent with the general importance of the sociocultural context, how people make use of spatial thinking in their everyday activities greatly influences their quality of spatial thinking

biosocial theory

Wood and Eagly (2002) have offered biosocial theory as an alternative evolutionary approach to understanding gender development. Biosocial theory focuses on the evolution of physical differences between the sexes and proposes that these differences have behavioral and social consequences. For much of human history, the most important physical differences have been (1) men's greater average size, strength, and foot speed and (2) women's childbearing and nursing capacities. according to biosocial theory, biology does not necessarily determine destiny. Nowadays in technological societies, men's strength and other physical qualities are not relevant for most means of subsistence. For example, strength is irrelevant to succeeding as a manager, a lawyer, a physician, or an engineer. All these high-status occupations are now performed by women as well as by men (although gender equality is not fully realized in any of these occupations) Thus, according to biosocial theory, both physical sex differences and social ecology shape the different gender roles assigned to men and women—as well as the socialization of boys and girls. some claims associated with evolutionary psychology theory are criticized for emphasizing biological determinants of gender differences. However, evolutionary psychologists take issue with biosocial theory, asserting that the body and the mind evolved together and that biosocial theory addresses only the body's impact on gender development

mutation

a change that occurs in a section of DNA. Most are harmful. Those that occur in germ cells can be passed on to offspring; many inherited diseases and disorders originate from a mutated gene. a mutation that occurs in a germ cell or early in prenatal development makes individuals more viable, that is, more likely to survive Such mutations provide the basis for evolution. This is because a person with the favorable mutated gene is more likely to survive long enough to produce offspring, who, in turn, are likely to possess the mutated gene, thus heightening their own chance of surviving and reproducing

Parental contributions to the child's environment

a highly salient and important part of a child's environment is the parents' relationship with the child—the manner in which they interact with him or her, the general home environment they provide, the experiences they arrange for the child, the encouragement they offer for particular behaviors, attitudes, and activities, and so on Parents' behavior toward their children (e.g., how warm or reserved they are, how patient or short-fused) is genetically influ- enced, as are the kinds of preferences, activities, and resources to which they expose their children Parents who are skilled readers and enjoy and value reading are likely to read often for pleasure and information and are likely to have lots of books around the house. They are also more likely to read frequently to their children and to take them to the library

theory of mind module (TOMM)

a hypothesized brain mechanism devoted to understanding other human beings Advocates of this position argue that among typical children exposed to a typical environment, the TOMM matures over the first 5 years, producing an increasingly sophisticated understanding of people's minds. Further evidence that is often cited to support the idea of the TOMM comes from children with autism spectrum disorders. Theorists who take an empiricist stance suggest a different explanation of the development of theory of mind, maintaining that psychological understanding arises from interactions with other people This finding appears to be strongest when the siblings are older or of the opposite sex, presumably because interacting with people whose interests, desires, and motives are different from their own broadens children's understanding of the mind They cite evidence that children's understanding of false-belief problems is substantially correlated with their ability to reason about complex counterfactual statements (German & Nichols, 2003) and with their ability to inhibit their own behavioral propensities when necessary The ability to inhibit behavioral propensities is important because false-belief problems also require children to suppress the assumption that the person would act on the truth of the situation. Normal development of brain regions relevant to understanding other people, interactions with other people, and improved information-processing capacity all contribute to the growth of psychological understanding during the preschool years.

perceived self-efficacy

a person's beliefs about how effectively he or she can control his or her own behavior, thoughts, and emotions in order to achieve a desired goal For example, your perceived self-efficacy for affect regulation has to do with your beliefs about how well you can manage your emotional life. Perceived academic self-efficacy concerns students' beliefs about how well they can regulate their learning activities, master their coursework, and fulfill their own and others' expectations. A person with high academic self-efficacy tends, for example, to arrange the environment to be conducive to effective studying and, when necessary, to seek information and help from teachers, parents, and peers. An individual's perceptions of self-efficacy in various domains often operate in concert students who lack confidence in their ability to regulate their emotional life see themselves as incapable of taking charge of their academic work

social scaffolding

a process in which more competent people provide a temporary framework that supports children's thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own which more competent people provide a temporary framework that supports children's thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own Through the process of social scaffolding, children become capable of working at a higher level than if they had not received such help. At first, this higher-level functioning requires extensive support, then it requires less and less support, and eventually it becomes possible without any support The goal of social scaffolding—to allow children to learn by doing—is the same as that of guided participation, but scaffolding tends to involve more explicit instruction and explanation, whereas guided participation tends to involve adults' organizing tasks so that children can take increasingly active and responsible roles in them.

adults influences on word learning

adults facilitate word learning by highlighting new words young children are more likely to acquire words their parents use frequently Another stimulus to word learning that adults provide involves naming games, in which they ask the child to point to a series of named items—"Where's your nose?" "Where's your ear?" "Where's your tummy?" There is also some evidence that parents may facilitate their children's word learning by maintaining spatial consistency with the objects they are labeling

Peer Influence

aggressive children tend to socialize with other aggressive children and often become more delinquent over time if they have close friends who are aggressive. The larger peer group with whom older children and adolescents socialize may influence aggression even more than their close friends do In one study, boys exposed to peers involved in overt antisocial behaviors, such as violence and the use of a weapon, were more than three times as likely as other boys to engage in such acts themselves participating in delinquent activities brings adolescents into contact with more delinquent peers Although not all adolescents are susceptible to negative peer influence, even popular youth in early adolescence tend to increase participation in minor levels of drug use and delinquency if these behaviors are approved by peers Peer approval of relational aggression increases in middle school, and students in peer groups supportive of relational aggression become increasingly aggressive Thus, it may be that peers play less of a role in promoting antisocial behavior for adolescents who are embedded in a traditional culture oriented toward adults' expectations (e.g., deference and courtesy toward adults and adherence to adult values) Gangs An important peer influence on antisocial behavior can be membership in a gang. Gangs tend to be composed of young people who are similar in ethnic and racial background. The average age of gang members is between 17 and 18 years, with about half being 18 or older and a small portion being as young as 12 Adolescents are more likely to join gangs if they come from a neighborhood with a high rate of resident turnover, if they have an antisocial personality, and if they have psychopathic tendencies such as a combination of high hyperactivity, low anxiety, and low prosociality being in a gang appears to increase adolescents' delinquent and antisocial behavior above their prior levels the longer adolescents remain in a gang, the more likely they are to engage in delinquent and antisocial behavior Much of this violence involves conflict within and between gangs. and gang members are much more likely than the rest of the population to be victims of violent crime (e.g., killed, robbed, or attacked), apparently in part because of their high involvement in delinquent activities and their ready access to drugs and alcohol

Others' contributions to self-esteem

approval of others Moreover, parents who tend to be accepting and involved with their children and who use supportive yet firm child-rearing practices tend to have children and adolescents with high self- esteem Support from nonparental adults such as teachers has likewise been associated with higher self-esteem in adolescents in contrast, parents who regularly react to their children's unacceptable behavior with belittlement or rejection—in effect, condemning the child rather than the behavior—are likely to instill in their children a sense of worthlessness and of being loved only to the extent that they meet parental standards children's self-esteem is increasingly affected by peer acceptance This tendency to evaluate the self on the basis of peers' perceptions has been associated with a preoccupation with approval, fluctuations in self-esteem, lower levels of peer approval, and lower self-esteem In contrast to children, adolescents increasingly evaluate themselves on the basis of their own internalized standards rather than on the approval of others Adolescent girls' self-esteem, for example, is increasingly linked to their feeling that they can have relationship authenticity—that is, that they can be themselves in terms of their thoughts and feelings in their social interactions

Crowds

are groups of people who have similar stereotyped reputations. Among high school students, typical crowds may in- clude the "brains," "jocks," "loners," "burnouts," "punks," "populars," "elites," "freaks," "hip-hoppers," "geeks," "normals," and "metalheads" Being associated with a crowd may enhance or hurt adolescents' reputations and influence how they are treated by peers. Someone labeled a freak, for example, may be ignored or ridiculed by people in groups such as the jocks or the populars Thus, it is not surprising that youths in high-status groups tend to have higher self-esteem than do youths in less desirable crowds Adolescents in one crowd, for instance, might be exposed to their peers' acceptance of violence or drug use, whereas members of another crowd may find that their peers value success in academics or sports A relatively new dimension in which peers interact, one that they have used with increasing frequency in recent years, is cyberspace

Understanding numerical magnitudes Numerical magnitude representations

are mental models of the way quantities are ordered along a less-to-more dimension. Regardless of whether "7" refers to a distance (7 inches), a weight (7 pounds), a duration (7 hours), or a set size (7 people), the magnitude represented by "7" is larger than that indicated by "6"—and smaller than that indicated by "8"—of the same unit. The idea that symbolically expressed numbers represent magnitudes might seem obvious, but accurately linking such numbers and the magnitudes they represent actually constitutes a major challenge over a prolonged period of development. The range of numbers whose magnitudes children rep- resent reasonably precisely, as indicated by the accuracy of their magnitude comparisons and number-line estimates, changes greatly with age and experience Children of any given age differ considerably in their knowledge of numerical magnitudes. These differences are related to the children's overall mathematical knowledge. During elementary school, children who more accurately estimate whole-number magnitudes on number lines have higher math achievement. Part of the reason for this relation is that more accurate magnitude representations help children learn arithmetic. The more precisely a child understands numerical magnitudes, as measured by his or her accuracy in estimating the position of numbers on a number line, the greater the child's arithmetic proficiency Moreover, instruction that improves the accuracy of children's symbolic numerical magnitude representations also improves their subsequent learning of arithmetic

permissive

are responsive to their children's needs and wishes and are lenient with them. Like Jeff 's mother, they do not require their children to regulate themselves or act in appropriate ways As adolescents, they engage in more school misconduct and drug or alcohol use than do peers with authoritative parents

DeCasper and Spence

asked pregnant women to read aloud twice a day from The Cat in the Hat (or another Dr. Seuss book) during the last 6 weeks of their pregnancy. Thus, the women's fetuses were repeatedly exposed to the same highly rhythmical pattern of speech sounds. Thus, these newborns apparently recognized and preferred the rhythmic patterns from the story they had heard in the womb.

Social Learning theory

attempts to account for personality and other aspects of social development in terms of learning mechanisms emphasizes observation and imitation, rather than reinforcement, as the primary mechanisms of development. .

constructivist

because it depicts children as constructing knowledge for themselves in response to their experiences children learn many important lessons on their own, rather than depending on instruction from adults or older children.

Vygotsky ((1934/1962)

believed that this private speech of young children serves an important regulatory function: children talk to themselves as a strategy to organize their actions

Piaget

believed that young infants' understanding of the world is severely limited by an inability to mentally represent and think about anything that they cannot currently see, hear, touch, and so on. His tests of object permanence led him to infer that when an infant fails to search for an object—even a favorite toy—that has disappeared from sight, it is because the object has also disappeared from the infant's mind. The simplest evidence for young infants' ability to represent an object that has vanished from sight is the fact that they will reach for objects in the dark, that is, they reach for objects they cannot see. When young infants are shown an attractive object and the room is then plunged into darkness, causing the object (and everything else) to disappear from view, most babies reach to where they last saw the object, indicating that they expect it to still be there

peers

by definition, individuals who are close in age to one another, closer usually than siblings

generativity

by using the finite set of words in our vocabulary, we can generate an infinite number of sentences, expressing an infinite number of ideas

Darwin's theory of evolution

careful observations of the motor, sensory, and emotional growth of his infant son, William • A Biographical Sketch of an Infant," which presented his careful observations of the motor, sensory, and emotional growth of his infant son, William Darwin's evolutionary theory also continues to influence the thinking of modern developmentalists on a wide range of topics: infants' attachment to their mothers (Bowlby, 1969), innate fear of natural dangers such as spiders and snakes (Rakison & Derringer, 2008), sex differences (Geary, 2009), aggression and altruism (Tooby & Cosmides, 2005), and the mechanisms underlying learning (Siegler, 1996)

Parents' Expression of Emotion

children exposed to a lot of anger and hostility may come to view themselves as individuals who anger people and may eventually believe that most people are hostile. In addition, parents' expression of emotion provides children with a model of when and how to express emotion This modelling also may affect children's understanding of what types of emotional expressions are appropriate and effective in interpersonal relations Finally, the parental emotions to which children are exposed may affect their general level of distress and arousal in social interactions, in turn affecting their ability to process important information about the interactions (e.g., others' verbal and nonverbal cues) that would help them moderate their behavior.

physically abused

children who have been physically abused are particularly likely to attribute anger to others, even in neutral situations It may be that the experience of physical abuse leads children to be especially sensitive to cues to anger. Physically abused children also have difficulty reasoning about negative emotions. In one study, abused children had difficulty determining which situations might trigger anger in parents, endorsing both positive and negative events as potential causes of parental anger A tendency to assume anger in others (even when it is not present), paired with difficulty understanding what might provoke anger in others, is likely to result in a hostile attributional bias.

Attractiveness

children's physical appearance can influence the way their parents respond to them. For example, mothers of very attractive infants are more affectionate and playful with their infants than are mothers of infants with unappealing faces. Moreover, mothers of unappealing infants, compared with mothers of appealing ones, are more likely to report that their infants interfere with their lives Thus, from the first months of life, unattractive infants may experience somewhat different parenting than attractive infants

Conceptions of the self

children's security of attachment to caregivers affects their feelings about themselves, especially in regard to their relationships with other people. Thus, it is not surprising that children's attachment experiences early in life likely color their early sense of self, which emerges in infancy and carries over into childhood When we speak of the self, we are referring to a conceptual system made up of one's thoughts and attitudes about oneself. This conceptual system can include thoughts about one's own physical being (e.g., body, possessions), social characteristics (e.g., relationships, personality, social roles), and "spiritual" or internal characteristics (e.g., thoughts and psychological functioning). It also may include notions about how the self changes or remains the same over time, beliefs about one's own role in shaping these processes, and even reflections on one's own consciousness of selfhood

Friendships

clearly differentiates her close friends from other children she knows and with whom she may also interact. Researchers generally agree that friends are people who like to spend time together and feel affection for one another. In brief, a friendship is an intimate, reciprocated positive relationship between two people.

Dodge's Information-Processing Theory of Social Problem Solving

cognitive processes in social behavior. This approach is exemplified by Dodge's analysis of children's use of aggression as a problem-solving strategy children were presented stories that involved a child who suffers because of another child's actions, the intentions of which are ambiguous. The children were then asked to imagine themselves as the victim in this scenario and to describe what they would do and why. Dodge and his colleagues have found that some children have a hostile attributional bias School systems have particular problems in dealing with children who have a hostile attributional bias. One strategy is to remove them from regular classrooms because of their disruptive behavior and put them into special classrooms in which they can be more closely supervised this approach brings together children with hostile attributional biases, causing other negative consequences. First, it provides these youngsters with evidence supporting their existing expectation of hostility from others, raising the possibility that they will reinforce one another's aggressive tendencies. At the same time, it segregates them from more well-adjusted peers from whom they might learn more moderate attitudes and social strategies.

Monoamine oxidase A

combination of environmental and genetic factors leading to antisocial outcomes— suffering abusive treatment as a child and possessing a particular variant of MAOA, an X-linked gene known to inhibit brain chemicals associated with aggression. Young men who had a relatively inactive version of the MAOA gene, and who had experienced severe maltreatment, grew up to be more antisocial than other men The important point here is that neither factor by itself (possessing the inactive MAOA gene or being abused) predisposed boys to become highly aggressive; the higher incidence of antisocial behavior was observed only for the group with both factors.

social comparison

comparing themselves with others in terms of their characteristics, behaviors, and possessions

The Child as a Limited-Capacity Processing

computer's information processing is limited by its hardware and by its software. The hardware limitations relate to the computer's memory capacity and its efficiency in executing basic operations. The software limitations relate to the strategies and information that are available for performing particular tasks.

androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS):

condition during prenatal development in which androgen receptors malfunction in genetic males, impeding the formation of male external genitalia; in these cases, the child may be born with female external genitalia.

Long-term memory

consists of the knowledge that people accumulate over their lifetime. It includes factual knowledge (e.g., knowing the capitals of different countries or the teams that won the Super Bowl in the past 5 years), conceptual knowledge (e.g., the concepts of justice, mercy, and equality), procedural knowledge (e.g., knowing how to tie a shoe or play an Xbox game), attitudes (e.g., likes and dislikes regarding political parties or anchovies), reasoning strategies (e.g., knowing how to take an argument to its logical extreme to show its inadequacy), and so on. research shows that people who studied Spanish or algebra in high school often retain a substantial amount of what they learned in the subject 50 years later, despite their not having used the information in the interim and their having accumulated vast stores of other skills, concepts, and knowledge in long-term memory over that period

Gender-typed behaviour

cross-gender interactions and friendships usually become more common during adolescence Adolescence is also a period of increased intimacy in same-gender friendships. For many girls and boys, increased emotional closeness is often attained through sharing personal feelings and thoughts, although there appears to be more variability among boys in the ways they experience and express closeness in friendships While some boys attain intimacy through shared disclosures with same-gender friends, other boys tend to avoid self-disclosure with same-gender friends because they wish to appear strong. many boys who avoid expressing feelings with male friends will do so with their female friends or girlfriends Self-disclosure and supportive listening are generally associated with relationship satisfaction and emotional adjustment

At the center of naïve psychology are three concepts that we all use to under- stand human behavior:

desires, beliefs, and actions

In the course of adolescence and early adulthood, individuals generally progress slowly toward identity achievement (Kroger et al., 2010; Meeus, 2011). The most typical sequences of change appear to be from

diffusion → early foreclosure → achievement, or from diffusion → moratorium → closure → achievement; few move in the opposite direction

Dividing Objects into categories

divide the objects they encounter into three general categories: inanimate objects, people, and other animals (they are unsure for many years whether plants are more like animals or more like inanimate objects) different types of objects (Keil, 1979). Some concepts apply to anything—all things, living and nonliving, have height, weight, color, size, and so on. Forming these general categories of objects allows children to draw accurate inferences about unfamiliar entities. For example, when told that a platypus is a kind of animal, children know immediately that a platypus can move, eat, grow, reproduce, and so on

genome

each person's complete set of hereditary information genome includes not only DNA but also proteins that regulate gene expression by turning gene activity on and off. These proteins change in response to experience and, without structurally altering DNA, can result in enduring changes in cognition, emotion, and behavior

empiricist

empiricists, such as Vladimir Sloutsky (2010), Scott Johnson (2010), David Rakison (Rakison & Lupyan, 2008), and Marianella Casasola (2010) argue that nature endows infants with only general learning mechanisms, such as the ability to perceive, associate, generalize, and remember. Empiricists also maintain that the data on which many nativist arguments are based—data involving infants' looking times in habituation studies—are not sufficient to support the nativists' conclusions that infants understand the concepts in question

Brown (1957)

established that the grammatical form of a novel word influences children's interpretation of it Two- and 3-year-old children also use the grammatical category of novel words to help interpret their meaning Hearing "This is a dax," they assume that dax refers to an object, as well as to other objects from the same category. In contrast, "This is a dax one" suggests that dax refers to a property of the object (e.g., its color or texture), while "This is dax" suggests that dax is a proper noun (a name) Children's interpretation of novel words applied to objects is particularly guided by the objects' shape, possibly because shape is a good cue to category membership. Thus, a child who hears a U-shaped wooden block called "a dax" will assume that dax also refers to a U-shaped object covered in blue fur or to a U-shaped piece of red wire—but not to a wooden block of a different shape

environment

every aspect of the individual and his or her surroundings (including prenatal experience) other than the genes themselves

hearing

external sounds that are audible to the fetus include the voices of people talking to the woman. In addition, the prenatal environment includes many maternal sounds—the mother's heartbeat, blood pumping through her vascular system, her breathing, her swallowing, and various rude noises made by her digestive system. The fetus responds to these various sounds from at least the 6th month of pregnancy on. During the last trimester, external noises elicit changes in fetal movements and heart rate

the process of coming out

first recognition—an initial realization that one is somewhat different from others, accompanied by feelings of alienation from oneself and others The largest group, labeled the early-onset group (75% of the sample), reported, on average, that their first same-sex attraction was at about 12 to 14 years of age, with roughly 30% of this group reporting initial same- sex attractions at 7 or 8 years of age. The second largest group, labeled the middle group (19% of the sample), reported that their first same-sex attraction occurred in late adolescence. The third group, labeled the late-onset group (6% of the sample), reported same-sex attractions beginning at an average age of 29 years for men and 34 years for women. • Sometimes self-identification as gay, lesbian, or bisexual does not occur until after the individual has engaged in same-sex sexual activities. During this period, referred to as test and exploration, the individual may feel ambivalent about his or her same-sex attractions but eventually has limited sexual contact with gays or lesbians and starts to feel alienated from heterosexuality This contact may eventually lead to identity acceptance, which is marked by a preference for social and sexual interaction with other sexual-minority individuals and the person's coming to feel more positive about his or her sexual identity and disclosing it for the first time to heterosexuals (e.g., Family or friends) The final step for some youth and adults is identity integration, in which gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals firmly view themselves as such, feel pride in themselves and their particular sexual community, and publicly come out to many people

Albert Bandura (1977, 1986),

for example, has argued that most human learning is inherently social in nature and is based on observation of the behavior of other people Bandura increasingly emphasized the cognitive aspects of observational learning, eventually renaming his view "social cognitive theory." Observational learning clearly depends on basic cognitive processes of attention to others' behavior, encoding what is observed, storing the information in memory, and retrieving it at some later time in order to reproduce the behavior observed earlier. Unlike most learning theorists, Bandura emphasized the active role of children in their own development, describing development as a reciprocal determinism between children and their social environment. Bandura has also emphasized the importance of a cognitive factor he calls perceived self-efficacy For example, your perceived self-efficacy for affect regulation has to do with your beliefs about how well you can manage your emotional life.

Haier and colleagues (2009)

found that 3 months of playing a video game (Tetris) led to increased brain thickness in areas of adolescent girls' brains that are specifically activated by playing the game and that are also active in the types of spatial tasks that are often used to measure fluid intelligence

Behl-Chadha (1996)

found that 6-month-olds habituated after repeatedly being shown pictures of different types of mammals (dogs, zebras, elephants, and so forth) and then dis- habituated when they were shown a picture of a bird or a fish. The infants also apparently perceived differences between the mammals and the bird or fish that led them to show renewed interest.

Wang and colleagues (2003)

found that approximately one-third of the fetuses did not survive to birth, and that two-thirds of those miscarriages occurred before the pregnancy was clinically detectable. The majority of embryos that are miscarried very early have severe defects, such as a missing chromosome or an extra one, that make further development impossible

egocentrism

found the limitations of this period to be as intriguing and revealing of preoperational understanding. As noted, one important limitation is egocentrism, that is, perceiving the world solely from one's own point of view. The children were asked to identify which of several photographs depicted what a doll would see if it were sitting on chairs at various locations around the table. Most 4-year-olds, according to Piaget, can- not do this. Egocentric thinking is also evident in preschoolers' explanations of events and behavior. An early sign of progress is children's verbal quarrels, which become increasingly frequent during this period. The fact that a child's statements elicit a playmate's objection indicates that the playmate is at least paying attention to the differing perspective that the other child's comment implies

genotype-environment interaction

genotype-environment interactions can be studied directly by randomly assigning nonhuman animals with known genotypes to be raised in a wide variety of environmental conditions

Martin and Fabes

identified what they termed a "social dosage effect" of belonging to same-gender peer groups during early childhood. The amount of time that preschool or kindergarten children spent with same-gender peers predicted subsequent changes in gender-typed behavior over 6 months. Girls who spent more time playing with same-gender peers showed increases in gender-typed play and decreases in aggression and activity level. The reasons for children's same-gender peer preferences seem to involve a combination of temperamental, cognitive, and social forces At first, children appear to prefer same-gender peers because they have more compatible behavioral styles and interests. For instance, girls may avoid boys because boys tend to be rough and unresponsive to girls' attempts to influence them, and boys may prefer the company of other boys because they share similar activity levels As they get older, peer pressures may additionally motivate children to favor same-gender peers. Thus, behavioral compatibility may become a less important factor with age. Therefore, ingroup identity and conformity pressures may supersede behavioral compatibility as reasons for gender segregation as children get older

false-belief problems

in which another person believes something to be true that the child knows is false. false-belief problems were presented to children attending preschools in Canada, India, Peru, Thailand, and Samoa (Callaghan et al., 2005). Performance improved greatly be- tween ages 3 and 5 years in all five societies, from 14% correct for 3-year-olds to 85% correct for 5-year-olds. Especially striking was the consistency of performance across these very different societies: in no country did 3-year-olds answer more than 25% of problems correctly, and in no country did 5-year-olds answer less than 72% correctly

Conduct disorder (CD)

includes more severe antisocial and aggression behaviors that inflict pain on others (e.g., initiating fights, cruelty to animals) or involve the destruction of property or the violation of the rights of others (e.g., stealing, robberies).

The self in infancy

infants have a sense of their ability to control objects outside themselves, as is clear both from their enthusiasm when they can make a mobile move by pulling a string attached to their arm and from their anger when their efforts no longer have an effect. For instance, when viewing live video images of their own leg movements, 3- to 5-month-old infants looked longer and moved their legs more when the video showed their leg movements from a perspective other than their own (e.g., when the right and left legs in the video image appeared to move in opposition to the leg movements the infants were performing) than when the video image showed leg movements as the infants themselves saw them A sense of self becomes much more distinct at about 8 months of age, when infants react with separation distress if parted from their mother, suggesting that they recognize that they and their mother are separate entities. Further indications that children view others as beings different from themselves are apparent by age 1. Infants' emerging recognition of the self becomes more directly apparent by 18 to 20 months of age, when many children can look into a mirror and realize that they are looking at themselves

In a visual-attention version of the false-belief task

infants seem to keep track of what in- formation an adult has about the location of an object. If the object is moved to a new location while an infant—but not the adult—witnesses the move, the infant expects the adult to subsequently search for the object in its original location. That is, the infant expects the adult to search where he or she should believe the toy to be, rather than in the location where the infant knows it actually is. This interpreta- tion is based on the fact that the infants looked longer when the adult searched the object's current location than they did when the adult searched its original loca- tion. Thus, this study indicates that 15-month-olds assume that a person's behavior will be based on what the person believes to be true, even if the infant knows that the belief is false. This result suggests that there may be very early precursors of a theory of mind.

The development of problem solving

information-processing theories depict children as active problem solvers whose use of strategies often allows them to overcome limitations of knowledge and processing capacity. he described 5-year-olds as "solving" conservation-of-number problems (see Figure 4.6) by choosing the longer row of objects, and 7-year-olds as solving the same problems by reasoning that if nothing was added or subtracted, the number of objects must remain the same Children discover new strategies that are more effective than their previous ones, they learn to execute both new and old strategies more efficiently, and they choose strategies that are more appropriate to the particular situation During kindergarten and the first few years of elementary school, children's knowledge of single-digit addition improves greatly. One reason is that children discover new strategies, such as counting-on Another source of improvement is faster and more accurate execution of all the strategies that children know A third source of improvement is that children choose among strategies increasingly adaptively

fluid intelligence

involves the ability to think on the spot—for example, by drawing inferences and understanding relations between concepts that have not been encountered previously. It is closely related to adaptation to novel tasks, speed of information processing, working-memory functioning, and ability to control attention

executive function

involves the control of cognition The ability of executive functions to control thinking and action—enabling the individual to respond appropriately rather than acting impulsively or doing what he or she is used to doing—increases greatly during the preschool and early elementary school years. "Simon Says" Preschoolers have great difficulty inhibiting the impulse to quickly respond to commands that are not preceded by the critical phrase in such games, whereas early elementary school children are much better at inhibiting the impulse to act immediately The quality of executive functioning during early childhood is highly predictive of many important life outcomes years later, including academic achievement in later grades, enrollment in college, and income and occupational status during adulthood Fortunately, several training programs for preschoolers have shown considerable promise for improving young children's executive functioning

relation 1

involves the transmission of genetic material—chromosomes and genes—from parent to offspring

The earliest time at which fetal habituation has been observed

is 30 weeks, indicating that the central nervous system is sufficiently developed at this point for learning and short-term memory to occur

Emotional self-regulation

is a complex process that involves initiating, inhibiting, or modulating the following aspects of emotional functioning: 1. Internal feeling states (the subjective experience of emotion) 2. Emotion-related cognitions (e.g., thoughts about one's desires or goals; one's interpretation of an evocative situation; self-monitoring of one's emotional states) 3. Emotion-related physiological processes (e.g., heart rate and hormonal or other physiological reactions, including neural activation, that can change as a func- tion of regulating one's feeling states and thoughts) 4. Emotion-related behavior (e.g., actions or facial expressions related to one's feelings)

Sympathy

is a feeling of concern for another in reaction to the other's emotional state or condition. Although sympathy often is an outcome of empathizing with another's negative emotion or negative situation, what distinguishes sympathy from empathy is the element of concern: people who experience sympathy for another person are not merely feeling the same emotion as the other person.

imprinting

is a process by which newborn birds and mammals of some species become attached to their mother at first sight and follow her everywhere, a behavior that ensures that the baby will stay near a source of protection and food. For imprinting to occur, the infant has to encounter its mother during a specific critical period very early in life. The basis for imprinting is not actually the baby's mother per se; rather, the infants of some species are genetically predisposed to follow around the first moving object with particular characteristics that they see after emerging into the world Although human newborns do not "imprint," they do have strong tendencies that draw them to members of their own species.

hereditibility

is a statistical estimate of how much of the measured variance on a trait among individuals in a given population is attributable to genetic differences among those individuals A crucial point to understand about heritability estimates is that they tell us nothing about the relative contributions of genetic and environmental factors to the development of an individual. Instead, they estimate how much of the variation among a given population of people is due to differences in their genes roughly 50% of the variation in IQ scores is due to genetic differences among the members of the population. genes do nothing more than code for proteins, so they affect behavior only insofar as those proteins affect the sensory, neural, and other physiological processes involved in behavior Part of the criticism stems from ways that the term "heritability" is often misinterpreted or misused by the public. One very common misuse involves the application of the concept of heritability to individuals, despite the fact that, as we have emphasized, heritability applies only to populations. In addition, a heritability estimate applies only to a particular population living in a particular environment. that heritability estimates can differ markedly for groups of people who grow up in very different economic circumstances. In the United States, for instance, heritability estimates differ considerably as a function of socioeconomic status (SES), as shown by a large twin study that included fami- lies across the SES spectrum Although it is not fully clear what causes these differing levels of heritability, both studies suggest that qualitatively different developmental forces may be operating in poor versus afflu- ent environments. Thus, for example, the fact that the heritability estimate for IQ is relatively high does not mean that the intellectual performance of young children living in poverty cannot be improved by appropriate intervention efforts

empathy

is an emotional reaction to another's emotional state or condition (e.g., sadness, poverty) that is highly similar to (or consistent with) the other person's state or condition To experience empathy, children must be able to identify the emotions of others (at least to some degree) and understand that another person is feeling an emotion or is in some kind of need.

conscience

is an internal regulatory mechanism that increases the individual's ability to conform to standards of conduct accepted in his or her culture. it is likely that the conscience of a young child reflects primarily internalized parental standards (although probably the standards of both parents, not just of the same-gender parent, as Freud suggested). conscience restrains antisocial behavior or destructive impulses and promotes a child's compliance with adults' rules and standards, even when no one is monitoring the child's behavior

crystallized intelligence

is factual knowledge about the world: knowledge of word meanings, state capitals, answers to arithmetic problems, and so on. It reflects long-term memory for prior experiences and is closely related to verbal ability.

Biology and socialization: their joint influence on Children's Antisocial behavior

it is clear that parents' treatment of their children affects children's aggression and antisocial behavior. Direct evidence of the role of parental effects can be found in intervention studies. recent genetically informed research illustrates that often it is the combination of genetic and environmental factors that predict children's antisocial, aggressive behavior and that some children are more sensitive to the quality of parenting than are others. under adverse conditions (e.g., chronic stress, poor parenting, socioeconomic deprivation), children with a particular variant of the serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4) or the dopamine receptor gene (DRD4) tend to be more aggressive than children with different variants of these gene (C. C. Conway et al., 2012) but, compared with those children, they tend to be less aggressive when they are in a supportive, resource-rich environment Regardless of the exact nature of the gene-environment inter- action, it seems clear that the degree of aggression is affected by a combination of heredity and the environment

The Contribution of long-standing characteristics

it is important to recognize that the greater frequency of problem behaviors in children in divorced and remarried families may not be solely due to the divorce and remarriage. Rather, it sometimes may be related to characteristics of the parents or the children that existed long before the divorce. The idea that the greater frequency of problem behaviors in children of divorce may be related to long-standing characteristics of the children themselves is supported by the finding that children of divorce tend to be more poorly adjusted prior to the divorce than are children from nondivorced families Children with difficult personalities and limited coping capacities may also react more adversely to the negative events associated with divorce than would other children

dominant-recessive pattern

mendel The explanation for this pattern (unknown to Mendel) is that some genes have only two alleles, one of which is dominant and the other recessive. the dominant-recessive pattern of inheritance, in which a single gene affects a particular trait, pertains to relatively few human traits—such as hair color, blood type, abundance of body hair, and the like—as well as to a large number of genetic disorders

Minamata disease

methylmercury poisoning At least 40 children had been poisoned prenatally by mercury in the fish eaten by their pregnant mothers and were born with cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, and a host of other neurological disorders.

cross-sectional

most common and easiest This method compares children of different ages on a given behavior, ability, or characteristic, with all the children being studied at roughly the same time—for example, within the same month Cross-sectional designs are useful for revealing similarities and differences between older and younger children

hazards to prenatal development

most miscarriages occur before the woman even knows shes pregnant Across their childbearing years, at least 25% of women—and possibly as many as 50%—experience at least one miscarriage Yet more agonizing is the experience of the approximately 1% of couples who experience recurrent miscarriages, or the loss of three or more consecutive pregnancies

For example, the simple fact that most toddlers and preschoolers growing up in the United States today go to child care outside their homes reflects a number of these less tangible sociocultural factors, including:

o 1. The historical era (50 years ago, far fewer children in the United States attended child-care centers) 2. The economic structure (there are far more opportunities today for women with young children to work outside the home) 3. Cultural beliefs (for example, that receiving child care outside the home does not harm children) 4. Cultural values (for example, the value that mothers of young children should be able to work outside the home if they wish).

Family Stress and Children's Social Competence

parents who are preoccupied and distressed by problems related to poverty are more likely to be negative and less likely to be warm and supportive and to monitor their children's behavior Thus, it is not surprising that children from families with fewer economic resources and higher levels of stress (e.g., unemployment, health problems) exhibit less social competence, have fewer friends, and are more likely than other children to be rejected by their peers

Geary (1999)

proposed that boys' play-fighting may represent an "evolved tendency to practice the competencies that were associated with male-male competition during human evolution" A propensity to engage in physical aggression is thought to have provided reproductive advantages for males in competition with other males for resources, including access to females girls devote much effort to establishing and maintaining positive social relations, spend time in smaller groups of close female friends, and tend to avoid open conflict in their interactions. Girls also engage in much more play-parenting, including play with dolls, than boys do. From the evolutionary psychology perspective, these behaviors reflect evolved dispositions because maternal care in the form of breast-feeding was required for infants' survival.

Wellman and Gelman (1998)

proposed that young children organize their knowledge of the things in the world into three infor- mal theories: a theory of physics (inanimate objects), a theory of psychology (people), and a theory of biology (other living things). These informal theories are viewed as having an innate core but also as incorporating—and in some cases being radically trans- formed by—learning processes such as association, observation, and the statements of other people • suggested that children's first theory of psychology emerges at around 18 months of age, and their first theory of biology at around 3 years. The first theory of psychology is organized around the understanding that other people's actions reflect their desires. The first theory of biology is organized around the realization that people and other animals are living things, different from nonliving things and plants

Gender Dysphoria Disorder:

psychiatric diagnosis included in the DSM-5 to refer to children who identify with the other gender and indicate cross-gender- typed interests

research on attachment

recent research findings indicate that some individual differences in attachment behaviors may be linked in complex ways to specific genes (S. C. Johnson & Chen, 2011). One study, for instance, focused on the possible influence that allelic variants of the serotonin transporter gene, SLC6A4 (formerly named 5HTT), might have on behavior in the Strange Situation. The researchers found that children with a SLC6A4 variant frequently associated with reactivity and vulnerability in the face of stress exhibited less attachment security and more attachment disorganization if they grew up in an institution than did preschoolers with the same variant who lived with their family. There is also some research indicating that a gene involved in the dopamine system, called DRD4, is associated with disorganized attachment when an infant is in a stressful environment (as when the mother is suffering from trauma or loss) but is associated with greater attachment security in a less stressful context This research, along with the study discussed above and other recent work, highlights the concept of differential susceptibility discussed in Chapter 10 (page 409). That is, it suggests that certain genes result in children's being differentially susceptible to the quality of their rearing environment, such that those with the "reactive" genes benefit more from having a secure attachment (e.g., are better adjusted and more prosocial than their peers) but do more poorly if they have an insecure attachment

Emotional intelligence

refers to a set of abilities that are key to competent social functioning. These abilities include being able to motivate one- self and persist in the face of frustration, control impulses and delay gratification, identify and understand one's own and others' feelings, regulate one's moods, regulate the expression of emotion in social interactions, and empathize with others' emotions

nature

refers to our biological endowment, in particular, the genes we receive from our parents. This genetic inheritance influences every aspect of our make-up, from broad characteristics such as physical appearance, personality, intellect, and mental health to specific preferences, such as political attitudes and propensity for thrill-seeking

placenta

second key element of the support system unique organ that permits the exchange of materials carried in the bloodstreams of the fetus and its mother. the placental membrane is semipermeable, meaning that some elements can pass through it but others cannot. Oxygen, nutrients, minerals, and some antibodies— all of which are just as vital to the fetus as they are to you—are transported to the placenta by the mother's circulating blood Waste products (e.g., carbon dioxide, urea) from the fetus cross the placenta in the opposite direction and are removed from the mother's bloodstream by her normal excretory processes. The placental membrane also serves as a defensive barrier against a host of dan- gerous toxins and infectious agents that can inhabit the mother's body and could be harmful or even fatal to the fetus

Self-regulation

self-regulation refers to children's ability to control their own emotions and behavior, to comply with adults' directions, and to make good decisions when adults are not around. Research indicates that girls tend to show higher levels of self-regulation and lower impulsivity than do boys of the same age—with the average gender difference being in the small-to-large range, depending on the type of measure used average gender differences in self- regulation and impulsivity may partly contribute to higher incidences of direct physical aggression among boys than girls

Spelke (2003)

speculated that infants begin life with a primitive theory of physics, that is, of inanimate objects. The theory includes the knowledge that the world contains physical objects that occupy space, move only in response to external forces, move in continuous ways through space rather than jumping from one position to another, and cannot simultaneously occupy the same space as another object

Robert Bradley and Bettye Caldwell (1979)

tackled this problem by devising a measure known as the HOME (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment). The HOME samples various aspects of children's home life, including organization and safety of living space; intellectual stimulation offered by parents; whether children have books of their own; amount of parent-child interaction; parents' emotional support of the child; and so on Subsequent versions of the HOME have been developed for application with preschoolers, school-aged children, and adolescents Throughout childhood, children's IQ scores, as well as their math and reading achievement scores, are positively correlated with the HOME measure of their family environment (Bradley et al., 2001). HOME scores of families of 6-month-olds correlate positively with the IQ scores of the same children at age 4 years; similarly, HOME scores of 2-year-olds correlate positively with IQ scores and school achievement of the same children at age 11 years Thus, assessing varied aspects of a child's family environment allows prediction of the child's IQ score

Authoritarian

tend to be cold and unresponsive to their children's needs. They are also high in control and demandingness and expect their children to comply with their demands without question. Authoritarian parents tend to enforce their demands through the exercise of parental power, especially the use of threats and punishment. High levels of authoritarian parenting are associated with youths' experiencing negative events at school (e.g., being teased by peers, doing poorly on tests) and ineffective coping with everyday stressors (Zhou et al., 2008), along with depression, aggression, delinquency, and alcohol problems In studies by Baumrind and many others, parents' control of children's behavior has been measured mostly in terms of the setting and enforcing of limits. Examples include parents' cutting off children when they want to express themselves, threatening to withdraw love and attention if they do not behave as expected, exploiting children's sense of guilt, belittling their worth, and discounting or misinterpreting their feelings. These kinds of psychological control are more likely to be reported by children in relatively poor families

social referencing

that is, their use of a parent's or other adult's facial expression or vocal cues to decide how to deal with novel, ambiguous, or possibly threatening situations.

spermache

the capacity for ejaculation

critical period

the early years constitute a critical period during which language develops readily. After this period (which ends sometime between age 5 and puberty), language acquisition is much more difficult and ultimately less successful there are several reports of children who barely developed language at all after being deprived of early linguistic experience. The most famous case in modern times is Genie, who was discovered in appalling conditions in Los Angeles in 1970. From the age of approximately 18 months until she was rescued at age 13, Genie's parents kept her tied up and locked alone in a room. During her imprisonment, no one spoke to her; when her father brought her food, he growled at her like an animal. At the time of her rescue, Genie's development was stunted—physically, motorically, and emotionally—and she could barely speak. With intensive training, she made some progress, but her language ability never developed much beyond the level of a toddler's: "Father take piece wood. Hit. Cry" Moreover, adults who learned a second language after puberty use different neural mechanisms to process that language than do adults who learned their second language from infancy

myelination

the formation of the insulating myelin sheath around some axons, begins in the brain before birth and continues into early adulthood. As noted earlier, a crucial function of myelin is to increase the speed of neural conduction. Myelination begins deep in the brain, beginning with the brainstem, and moves upward and outward into the cortex at a fairly steady rate throughout childhood and adolescence and into early adulthood The reasons for the extended period of human myelination remain unknown, and might be both positive (facilitating improvements in executive functions after sexual maturity) and negative (making the human brain more vulnerable to disorders re- lated to myelination discussed on pages 107-108)

Genetic contributions to intelligence

the genome has a substantial influence on intelligence. This genetic influence varies greatly with age (Figure 8.5): it is moderate in early child- hood and becomes large by adolescence and adulthood the IQ scores of adopted children and those of their biological parents become increasingly correlated as the chil- dren develop, but the scores of adopted children and their adoptive parents become less correlated over the course of development One reason for this increasing genetic influence is that some genetic processes do not exert their effects until late childhood or adolescence. For example, some connections linking areas in the brain that are distant from each other are not formed until adolescence, and the extent of such connections reflects genetic influences (Thatcher, 1992). Another reason is that children's increasing independence with age allows them greater freedom to choose environments that are compatible with their own genetically based preferences but not necessarily with those of the parents who are raising them Advances in genetics have inspired research aimed at identifying a small set of genes that explain individual differences in intelligence The most likely explanation is that the genetic contribution to intelligence reflects small contributions from each of a very large number of genes, as well as complex interactions among them

gang

the greatest potential for negative peer-group influence comes with membership in a gang, which is a loosely organized group of adolescents or young adults who identify as a group and often engage in illegal activities. Gang members often say that they join or stay in a gang for protection from other gangs. Gang members frequently report that the most common gang activities are "hanging out" together and engaging in fairly innocuous behaviors (e.g., drinking beer, playing sports, cruising, looking for girls, and having parties) The potential for peer-group influence to promote problem behavior is affected by family and cultural influences. Correspondingly, youths who have poor relationships with their mothers may be especially vulnerable to pressure from the peer group Although the precise reasons for all these differences in peer-group influence are not yet known, it is clear from findings such as these that family and cultural factors can affect the degree to which peers' behaviors are associated with adolescents' problem behavior.

intersubjectivity

the mutual understanding that people share during communication The idea behind this imposing term is both simple and profound: effective communication requires participants to focus on the same topic, and also on each other's reaction to whatever is being communicated. The roots of intersubjectivity are evident early in infancy. By age 6 months, infants can learn novel behaviors by observing another person's behavior, which requires attending to the same actions as the person executing the actions This and related developments in early infancy set the stage for the emergence of a process that is at the heart of intersubjectivity— joint attention. In this process, infants and their social partners intentionally focus on a common referent in the external environment. Around their first birthday, infants increasingly look toward objects that are the targets of their social partners' gaze, even if the partner is not acting on the objects, and actively direct a partner's attention toward objects that they themselves find interesting Joint attention greatly increases children's ability to learn from other people. One important example involves language learning. Intersubjectivity continues to develop well beyond infancy, as children become increasingly able to take the perspectives of other people. The continuing development of such perspective-taking abilities also leads to school-aged children's increasing ability to teach and learn from one another

rehersal

the repeating of information multiple times in order to remember it.

Culture and self-esteem

the sources of self-esteem, as well as its form and function, may be different, and the criteria that children use to evaluate themselves may vary accordingly. Between Asian and Western cultures, for example, there are fundamental differences that appear to affect the very meaning of self-esteem. In contrast, in Asian societies such as Japan and China, which traditionally have had a collectivist (or group) orientation, self-esteem is believed to be more related to contributing to the welfare of the larger group and affirming the norms of social interdependence. These differences seem to be partly due to the greater emphasis that the Asian cultures place on modesty and self-effacement—which results in less positive self- descriptions In addition, in some Asian societies, people tend to be more comfortable acknowledging discrepancies in themselves—for example, the existence of both good and bad personal characteristics—than are people in Western cultures, and this tendency results in reports of lower self-esteem in late adolescence and early adulthood

Ethology

the study of behavior within an evolutionary context, attempts to understand behavior in terms of its adaptive or survival value. According to ethologists, a variety of innate behavior patterns in animals were shaped by evolution just as surely as their physical characteristics were Ethological approaches have frequently been applied to developmental issues. The prototypical, and best-known, example is the study of imprinting made famous by Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989), who is often referred to as the father of modern ethology (Lorenz, 1935, 1952).

illegal drugs

the use of illegal drugs during pregnancy ranges from a low of 3.1% among Hispanic women to a high of 7.7% among non- Hispanic Black women It has proved difficult to pin down exactly how dangerous particular drugs are, however, because pregnant women who use one illegal substance often use others, along with smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol Prenatal exposure to marijuana, the illegal substance most commonly used by women of reproductive age in the United States, is suspected of affecting memory, learning, and visual skills after birth infants who endured prenatal exposure to cocaine have impaired ability to regulate arousal and attention Longitudinal studies of the development of cocaine-exposed children have revealed persistent, although sometimes subtle, cognitive and social deficits

Ongoing debates in Language development

the ways in which various accounts handle these facts differ along two key dimensions. The first dimension is the degree to which these explanations lie within the child (nature) versus within the environment (nurture). The second dimension pertains to the child's contri- butions: Did the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying language learning evolve solely to support language learning (domain-specific), or are they used for learning many different kinds of things (domain-general)? theorists have countered Chomsky's argument about the universality of language structure by pointing out that there are also universals in children's environments. Parents all over the world need to communicate about certain things with their children, and these things are likely to be reflected in the language that children learn An alternative view suggests that the learning mechanisms underlying language development are actually quite general. Although these learning abilities might be innate, their evolutionary development was not restricted to language learning. The ability to extract small chunks of information is likely useful in other domains as well, such as music, which also consists of small pieces (notes, chords) organized into higher-level structures (melody, harmony). Finally, recent theories concerning developmental language disorders (discussed in Box 6.5) invoke aspects of general cognitive function, not just language. One influential perspective oriented around computational modeling is connectionism, a type of information- processing theory that emphasizes the simultaneous activity of numerous inter- connected processing units. Connectionist researchers have developed computer simulations of various aspects of cognitive development, including language acquisition Connectionist accounts have achieved impressive success with respect to modeling specific aspects of language development, including children's acquisition of the past tense in English and the development of the shape bias for word learning

private speech

they tell themselves aloud what to do, much as their parents might have done earlier; and then, their behavior is controlled by internalized private speech (thought), in which they silently tell themselves what to do.

symbols

which include language and many kinds of non- linguistic symbols (print, numbers, pictures, models, maps, and so forth).

myelin sheath

which insulates them and increases the speed and efficiency of information transmission. Several psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, are also linked to defects in the gene that regulates production of myelin

anal stage

which lasts until roughly age 3. In this stage, the child's erotic interests focus on the pleasurable relief of tension derived from defecation.

production

which refers to actually speaking (or signing or writing).

proactive aggression

which, like instrumental aggression, is aimed at fulfilling a need or desire—tend to anticipate more positive social consequences for aggression

the human brain

while the most advanced nonhuman communicators do combine symbols, their utterances show limited evidence of syntactic structure, which is a defining feature of language Even their most basic linguistic achievements come only after a great deal of concentrated human effort, whereas human children master the rudiments of their language with little explicit teaching. Only the human brain acquires a communicative system with the complexity, structure, and generativity of language

Werker & Tees, (1984)

who studied infants rang- ing in age from 6 to 12 months. The infants, all from English-speaking homes, were tested on their ability to discriminate speech contrasts that are not used in English but that are important in two other languages—Hindi and Nthlakapmx (a language spoken by indigenous First Nations people in the Canadian Pacific Northwest). The infants learned that if they turned their head toward the sound source when they heard a change in the sounds they were listening to, they would be rewarded by an interesting visual display. at 6 to 8 months of age, English-learning infants readily discriminated between the sounds they heard; they could tell one Hindi syllable from another, and they could also distinguish between two sounds in Nthlakapmx. At 10 to 12 months of age, however, the infants no longer perceived the differences they had detected a few months before The researchers began by determining whether infants who had never been exposed to ASL were able to discriminate between highly similar ASL signs that are differentiated by the shape of the hand. They found that 4-month-olds could, in fact, discriminate between the signs. However, by 14 months of age, only infants who were learning ASL were able to detect the difference between the hand shapes; those who were not learning ASL had lost their ability to make this perceptual discrimination. Thus, after the age of 8 months or so, infants begin to specialize in their discrimination of speech sounds, retaining their sensitivity to sounds in the native language they hear every day, while becoming increasingly less sensitive to nonnative speech sounds.

P. C. Quinn and Eimas (1996),

• , found that when they were shown a series of pho- tographs of very different breeds of cats, 3- and 4-month-olds habituated; that is, they looked at new cat photographs for less and less time. However, when the infants were subsequently shown a picture of a dog, lion, or other animal, they dishabituated; that is, their looking time increased. suggests that the infants saw all the cats, despite their differences, as members of a single category; their subsequent dishabituation to the photo of the dog or other animal suggests that the infants saw those creatures as members of categories other than cats.

Understanding Biological Processes

• 3- and 4-year-olds recognize that desires influence what people do, they also recognize that some biological processes are independent of one's desires. Preschoolers also recognize that properties of living things often serve important functions for the organism, whereas properties of inanimate objects do not. Thus, 5-year-olds recognize that the green color of plants is crucial for them to make food, whereas the green color of emeralds has no function for the emerald

the Strange Situation

• Ainsworth designed a laboratory test for assessing the security of an infant's attachment to his or her parent. This test is called the Strange Situation because it is conducted in a context that is unfamiliar to the child and likely to heighten the child's need for his or her parent. • In this test, the infant, accompanied by the parent, is placed in a laboratory playroom equipped with interesting toys • After the experimenter introduces the parent and child to the room, the child is exposed to seven episodes, including two separations from, and reunions with, the parent, as well as two interactions with a stranger—one when the parent is out of the room and one when the parent is present • Throughout these episodes, observers rate infants' behaviors, including their attempts to seek closeness and contact with the parent, their resistance to or avoidance of the parent, their interactions with the stranger, and their interactions with the parent from a distance using language or gestures. Through her use of the Strange Situation, Ainsworth (1973) discerned three distinct patterns in infants' behavior that seemed to indicate the quality or security of their attachment bond. These patterns—which are reflected in the infant's behavior throughout the Strange Situation, but especially during the reunions with the parent—have been replicated many times in research with mothers, and sometimes with fathers

Culture and Children's Emotional Development

• Although people in all cultures appear to experience most of the same basic emotions, there is considerable cultural variation in the degree to which certain emotions are expressed. • One reason for this may be genetic, in that people in different racial or ethnic groups may tend, on average, to have somewhat different temperaments. • One such study found that, in general, 11-month-old European American infants react more strongly to unfamiliar stimuli than do Chinese or Chinese American babies and cry or smile more in response to evocative events • A more obvious contributor to cross-cultural differences in infants' emotional expression is the diversity of parenting practices. • Aka infants are almost always within arm's reach of someone who can feed or hold them when the need arises. The Ngandu leave their infants alone more often. Thus, Aka infants may cry and fuss less because they have more physical contact with caregivers and their needs are met more quickly

Temperament and personality

• Children who develop problems with aggression and antisocial behavior tend to exhibit a difficult temperament and a lack of self-regulatory skills from a very early age • Longitudinal studies have shown, for example, that infants and toddlers who frequently express intense negative emotion and demand much attention tend to have higher levels of problem behaviors such as aggression from the preschool years through high school • children who use aggression to achieve instrumental goals are less prone to unregulated negative emotion and physiological responding than those who exhibit angry responses to provocation the combination of impulsivity, problems with attention, and callousness in childhood is especially likely to predict aggression, antisocial behavior, and run-ins with the police in adolescence

gatekeeping

• However, some parents are more thoughtful and active in this role than are others • Pre-schoolers whose parents arrange and oversee opportunities for them to interact with peers tend to be more positive and social with peers, have a larger and more stable set of play partners, and more easily initiate social interactions with peers than do other children—so long as their parents are not overly controlling in this gatekeeping role In adolescence, gatekeeping may be affected by parents' cultural orientation. For example, in Mexican American families, parents who had a stronger orien- tation toward Mexican culture and the traditional Mexican value of familism— which emphasizes closeness in the family, family obligations, and consideration of the family in making decisions—placed more restrictions on adolescents' peer relationships than did parents whose orientation was less traditional.

The Selection of Appropriate Regulatory Strategies

• In dealing with emotion, children, over time, improve in their ability to select cognitive or behavioral strategies that are appropriate for the particular situation and stressor One reason is that, with age, children are more aware that the appropriateness of a particular coping behavior depends on their specific needs and goals, as well as on the nature of the problem. Another reason is that planning and problem-solving skills, which likely contribute to the selection and use of appropriate strategies, im- prove across childhood and across adolescence Children's improving ability to use appropriate strategies for dealing with negative situations is also aided by their growing ability to distinguish between stressors that can be controlled (such as homework) and those that cannot be controlled (such as painful but necessary medical procedures). Faced with having to undergo major surgery, for instance, older children may adapt by trying to think about the benefits of having the surgery, such as being in better health afterward, or by distracting themselves with enjoyable activities. Younger children, in contrast, are more likely to insist that they do not need the operation

Parental and other adult influences

• In general, most parents and other adults disapprove of physical aggression in both boys and girls. After the preschool years, however, they tend to be more tolerant of aggression in boys and often adopt a "boys will be boys" attitude toward it • In an experimental demonstration of this effect, researchers asked people to watch a short film of two children engaged in rough-and-tumble play in the snow and to rate the level of the play's aggressiveness. The children were dressed in gender- neutral snowsuits and filmed at a distance that made their gender undeterminable. Some viewers were told that both children were male; others, that they were both female; and still others, that they were a boy and girl. Viewers who thought that both children were boys rated their play as much less aggressive than did viewers who thought that both children were girls. • Children also appear aware of this "boys will be boys" bias and believe that physical aggression is more acceptable, and less likely to be punished, when enacted by boys than when enacted by girls Thus, girls' reliance on strategies of aggression that are covert—and easily denied if detected—may reflect their recognition that displays of physical aggression on their part will attract adult attention and punishment. Parenting style may also factor into children's manifestations of aggression. Children who experience such parenting may learn to mistrust others and make hostile attributions about other people's intentions (Crick & Dodge, 1996). The association between harsh parenting and later physical aggression is stronger for boys than for girls. Thus, the fact that parents monitor daughters more closely than sons may contribute to gender differences in aggression

infants

• Infants go beyond attributing intentions to others based on their actions: they exhibit preferences for particular individuals and objects based on the individu- als' and objects' actions. • Infants also exhibit social preferences, as evidenced by their desire to engage with some individuals over others. In one of the first studies to demonstrate early social preferences Silently and simultaneously, they smiled at the infant, then at the toy, then at the infant again, and then leaned forward, holding the toys out as though giving them to the infant. The moment the toys disappeared from view on the screen, they ap- peared (through researchers' magic) on a table in front of the infant, creating the impression that they had come directly from the individuals in the video. The infants' responses suggested a social preference for the individual who had spoken their native language: English-learning infants chose the toy offered by the English speaker, whereas French-learning infants chose the toy offered by the French speaker

ego

• Later in the first year, the second personality structure, the ego, begins to emerge. It arises out of the need to resolve conflicts between the id's unbridled demands for immediate gratification and the restraints imposed by the external world. • The ego operates under the reality principle, trying to find ways to satisfy the id that accord with the demands of the real world.

the possible long-term benefits of having friends

• Longitudinal research provides the best data concerning the possible long-term benefits of having friends in elementary school. • In this study, researchers followed children from kindergarten to 2nd grade and found that children with high-quality friendships became less physically aggressive over time They found that, compared with their peers who did not have reciprocated best friendships, 5th-graders who did have them were viewed by classmates as more mature and competent, less aggressive, and more socially prominent

major depression

• Major, or clinical, depression is characterized by some combination of at least five of the following symptoms, occurring nearly every day for at least two weeks: depressed mood most of the time; marked diminished interest or pleasure in almost all activities; significant weight loss; insomnia or excessive sleeping; motor agita- tion; fatigue or loss of energy; feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropri- ate guilt; diminished ability to think or concentrate; recurrent thoughts of death. • In addition to the adolescents who experience major depression, more than 10% of U.S. youths experience depressive symptoms that are not severe and persistent enough to be classified as clinical. This rate higher for girls Some investigators have found that adolescents from a lower socioeconomic level are especially prone to major depression In terms of nonclinical symptoms of depression, however, adolescents' self-reports do not reflect such socioeconomic differences, although they do suggest some ethnic differences, with Hispanic children reporting more symptoms of depression than do European American or African American youth

vicki the chimpanzee

• One early effort was an ambitious project in which a dedicated couple raised a chimpanzee (Vicki) with their own children • . Although Vicki learned to comprehend some words and phrases, she produced virtually no recognizable words. Subsequent researchers attempted to teach nonhuman primates sign language. Washoe, a chimpanzee, and Koko, a gorilla, became famous for their ability to communicate with their human trainers and caretakers using manual signs The most successful sign-learning nonhuman is Kanzi, a great ape of the bonobo species. Kanzi's sign-learning began when he observed researchers trying to teach his mother to communicate with them by using a lexigram board, a panel composed of a few graphic symbols representing specific objects and actions • over the years his lexigram vocabulary increased from 6 words to more than 350. Kaminski, Call, and Fischer (2004) found that Rico, a border collie, knew more than 200 words and could learn and remem- ber new words using the same kinds of processes that toddlers use

Social cognition and social rejection

• Rejected children, particularly those who are aggressive, tend to differ from more popular children in their social motives and in the way they process information related to social situations • Rejected children also have more trouble than other children do in finding constructive solutions to difficult social situations, such as wanting to take a turn on a swing when someone else is using it. Perhaps one reason rejected children are more likely to select inappropriate strategies is that their theory of mind is less developed than that of their better-liked peers, and they may therefore have greater difficulty understanding others' feelings and thoughts

theory of successful intelligence `

• Robert Sternberg (1999) also argued that the emphasis of IQ tests on the type of intelligence needed to succeed in school is too narrow. However, the alternative view of intelligence that he proposed differs from that proposed by Gardner. Sternberg's theory of successful intelligence envisions intelligence as "the ability to achieve success in life, given one's personal standards, within one's sociocultural context" Sternberg proposed that success in life depends on three types of abilities: analytic, practical, and creative. Analytic abilities involve the linguistic, mathematical, and spatial skills that are measured by traditional intelligence tests. Practical abilities involve reasoning about everyday problems, such as how to resolve conflicts with other people. Creative abilities involve intellectual flexibility and innovation that allow adaptation to novel circumstances.

Evaluation of Piaget's Theory

• Studies of children from many countries and various racial or ethnic groups have shown that with age, boys and girls increasingly take motives and intentions into account when judging the morality of actions • In addition, parental punitiveness, which would be expected to reinforce a morality of constraints, has been associated with less mature moral reasoning and moral behavior • Finally, consistent with Piaget's belief that cognitive development plays a role in the development of moral judgment, children's performance on tests of perspective-taking skills, Piagetian logical tasks, and IQ tests have all been associated with their level of moral judgment • little evidence that peer interaction per se stimulates moral development • Piaget also underestimated young children's ability to appreciate the role of intentionality in morality • It is probable that in Piaget's research, young children focused primarily on the consequences of the individuals' actions because consequences (e.g., John's breaking the 15 cups) were very salient in his stories. • many 4- and 5-year-olds do not think that a person caused a negative outcome "on purpose" if they have been explicitly told that the person had no foreknowledge of the consequences of his or her action or believed that the out- come of the action would be positive rather than negative • Moreover, even younger children seem to use knowledge of intentionality to evaluate others' behavior. In one study, 3-year-olds who saw an adult intend (but fail) to hurt another adult were less likely to help that person than they were if the person's behavior toward the other adult was neutral • Equally impressive, 21-month-olds in another study were more likely to help an adult who had tried (but failed) to assist them in retrieving a toy than an adult who had been unwilling to assist them. They were also more likely to help an adult who had tried (but failed) to assist them than an adult whose intentions had not been clear

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)

• The conception of intelligence underlying the WISC-IV is consistent with Carroll's three-stratum framework, proposing that intelligence includes general ability (g), several moderately general abilities, and a large number of specific skills The WISC-IV measures these abilities because they reflect skills that are important within information-processing theories, correlate positively with other aspects of intelligence, and are related to important outcomes, notably school grades and later occupational success

The Development of Emotional Regulation

• The development of emotional regulation is characterized by three general age-related patterns of change. The first pattern involves the transition from infants' relying almost totally on other people to help them regulate their emotions to their being increasingly able to self-regulate during early childhood. The second pattern involves the increasing use of cognitive strategies and planful problem solving to control negative emotions. The third pattern involves the increasing selection and use of appropriate, effective regulating strategies

nature and nurture

• The developmental issue that is front and center in ecological theories is the interaction of nature and nurture. The importance of the sociocultural context and the continuity of development are implicitly emphasized in all these theories. The active role of children in their own development is another central focus, primarily of the bioecological approach.

"constitutionally based"

• The phrase "constitutionally based" in Rothbart and Bates's definition of temperament refers, of course, to genetically inherited characteristics. But it also refers to aspects of biological functioning, such as neural development and hormonal responding, that can be affected by the environment during the prenatal period and after birth. • Similar negative effects can result from sustained elevations of cortisol (a stress-related hormone that activates energy reserves) because of maternal insensitivity or child abuse during the early years of life Thus, the construct of temperament is highly relevant to our themes of individual differences and the role of nature and nurture in development.

disorganized/disoriented

• They also frequently appear dazed or disoriented and may freeze in their behavior and remain still for a substantial period of time. These infants, labeled disorganized/disoriented, seem to have an unsolvable problem: they want to approach their mother, but they also seem to regard her as a source of fear from which they want to withdraw compared with infants who are insecurely attached, 12-month-olds who are securely attached exhibit more enjoyment of physical contact, are less fussy or difficult, and are better able to use their mothers as a secure base for exploration at home

children as Teachers and learner

• Tomasello proposed that the human species has two unique characteristics that are crucial to the ability to create complex, rapidly changing cultures. • The inclination to teach emerges very early: all normal 2-year-olds spontaneously point to and name objects to call other people's attention to what they themselves find interesting. This inclination to teach and to learn from teaching is what enables children to be socialized into their culture and to pass that culture on to others.

number

• Unsurprisingly, the nativist/empiricist debate has extended to the concept of number. Nativists argue that children are born with a core concept of number that includes special mechanisms for representing and learning about the relative numbers of objects in sets, counting, and simple addition and subtraction In contrast, empiricists argue that children learn about numbers through the same types of experiences and learning mechanisms that help them acquire other concepts and that infants' numerical competence is not as great as nativists claim

Bergelson and Swingley (2012)

• Using a computer monitor, Bergelson and Swingley (2012) showed infants pairs of pictures of common foods and body parts and tracked the infants' eye gaze when one of the pictures was named. They found that even 6-month-olds looked to the correct picture significantly more often than would be expected by chance, demonstrating that they recognized the names of these items. • The researchers found that whereas 15-month-olds waited until they had heard the whole word to look at the target object, 24-month-olds looked at the correct ob- ject after hearing only the first part of its label, just as adults do Other visual-fixation research has shown that older infants can even recognize familiar words when they are mispronounced (e.g., "vaby" for "baby," "gall" for "ball," "tog" for "dog," etc.), though their recognition is slower than when they hear the words pronounced correctly

phenylketonuria (PKU)

• a disorder related to a defective recessive gene on chromosome 12. Individuals who inherit this gene from both parents cannot metabolize phenylalanine, an amino acid present in many foods (especially red meats) and in artificial sweeteners. If they eat a normal diet, phe- nylalanine accumulates in the bloodstream, causing impaired brain development that results in severe intellectual impairment. However, if infants with the PKU gene are identified shortly after birth and placed on a stringent diet free of phenylalanine, intellectual impairment can be avoided, as long as the diet is carefully maintained • Because early detection of this genetic disorder has such a positive effect on children's developmental outcomes, all newborn infants in the United States are routinely screened for PKU, as well as for a number of other severe and easily detected ge- netic disorders.

Evolutionarily oriented theorists argue

• that this "for better or for worse" pattern of findings, labeled differential susceptibility, occurs because aspects of temperament and behavior that are adaptive for survival vary across positive and negative social contexts • For instance, in harsh environments, expressing negative emotion may help children to obtain attention and vital resources needed for survival (even though the negative emotion often results in negative social consequences over time), whereas in supportive environments, proneness to negative emotions might make children more sensitive to parents' attempts to socialize positive behaviors, which may lead to higher social and moral competence

implantation

By the end of the 1st week following fertilization, if all goes well (which it does for less than half the zygotes that are conceived), a momentous event occurs— implantation, in which the zygote embeds itself in the uterine lining and becomes dependent on the mother for sustenance After implantation, the embedded ball of cells starts to differentiate. The inner cell mass becomes the embryo, and the rest of the cells become an elaborate support system—including the amniotic sac and placenta—that enables the embryo to develop. The inner cell mass is initially a single layer thick, but during the 2nd week, it folds itself into three layers, each with a different developmental destiny.

cephalocaudal development

earlier development takes place at a more rapid pace than later development, and that the areas nearer the head develop earlier than those farther away (e.g., head before body, hands before feet)

epigenesis

Aristotle rejected the idea of preformation in favor of what he termed epigenesis—the emergence of new structures and functions during development

How do Children Shape Their Own Development

Children first begin to shape their own development through their selection of what to pay attention to Given a choice of looking at a stranger's face or their mother's, even 1-month-olds choose to look at Mom but by the end of the 2nd month, infants smile and coo more when focusing intently on their mother's face than at other times. Once children begin to speak, usually between 9 and 15 months of age, their contribution to their own development becomes more evident. toddlers (1- and 2-year-olds) often talk when they are alone in a room Many parents are startled when they hear this "crib speech" and wonder if something is wrong with a baby who would engage in such odd-seeming behavior. However, the activity is entirely normal, and the practice probably helps toddlers improve their speech. Children play by themselves for the sheer joy of doing so, but they also learn a great deal in the process. Anyone who has seen a baby bang a spoon against the tray of a high chair or intentionally drop food on the floor would agree that, for the baby, the activity is its own reward.

Romanian orphanage children 1980s and 1990s

Children in these orphanages had almost no contact with any caregiver a number of these children were adopted by families in Great Britain. When these children arrived in Britain, most were severely malnourished, with more than half being in the lowest 3% of children their age in terms of height, weight, and head circumference. • By age 6, the physical development of the Romanian-born children had im- proved considerably, both in absolute terms and in relation to the British-born comparison group. • Romanian-born children who were adopted by British families before age 6 months, and who had therefore spent the smallest portion of their early lives in the orphanages, weighed about the same as British-born children when both were 6-year-olds The Romanian- born children who had been adopted before age 6 months demonstrated levels of intellectual competence comparable with those of the British-born group. Those who had been adopted between ages 6 and 24 months did somewhat less well, and those adopted between ages 24 and 42 months did even more poorly The intellectual deficits of the Romanian children adopted after age 6 months were just as great when the children were retested at age 11, indicating that the negative effects of the early deprivation persisted over time children were 8 years old showed that those adopted after living for a substantial period in the orphanages had unusually low levels of neural activity in the amygdala, a brain area involved in emotional reactions

sleeping arrangements

In most other societies, including economically advanced nations such as Italy, Japan, and South Korea, babies almost always sleep in the same bed as their mother for the first few years, and somewhat older children also sleep in the same room as their mother, sometimes in the same bed In some cultures, the father sleeps in the same bed with mother and baby; in others, he sleeps in a separate bed or in a different room. These interviews revealed that by age 6 months, the large majority of the U.S. children had begun sleeping in their own bedroom In contrast, interviews with the Mayan mothers indicated that their children typically slept in the same bed with them until the age of 2 or 3 years and continued to sleep in the same room with them for years thereafter Mayan parents expressed the belief that having a young child sleep with the mother is important for developing a good parent-child relationship, for avoiding the child's becoming distressed at being alone, and for helping parents spot any problems the child is having

children reliability study

In one experiment, researchers tested whether biased questioning affects the accuracy of young children's memory for events involving touching one's own and other people's bodies. The researchers began by having 3- to 6-year-olds play a game, similar to "Simon Says," in which the children were told to touch various parts of their body and those of other children. A month later, the researchers had a social worker interview the children about their experiences during the game Children were led to "remember" not only plausible events that never happened but also unlikely ones that the social worker had been told about. However, when prompted by leading questions, young children's testimony is often inaccurate, especially when the leading questions are asked repeatedly. The younger children are, the more susceptible they are to being led, and the more their recall reflects the biases of the interviewer's questions

conservation-of-liquid-quantity problem

Mother pours water from a short glass to a tall glass when child is 4 child says now there is more water. At 6 child says the water is the same amount conservation-of-liquid-quantity problem is actually a classic technique designed to test children's level of thinking. It has been used with thousands of children around the world, and virtually all the children studied, no matter what their culture

If correlation does not imply causation, why do researchers often use correlational designs?

One major reason is that the influence of many variables of great interest—age, sex, race, and social class among them—cannot be studied experimentally (see the next section) because researchers cannot manipulate them; that is, they cannot assign participants to one sex or another, to one SES or another, and so on

The experimenter asked each mother to tell her child that he or she could play with any of the toys except the ones on the shelf

Raters observed the children through a one-way mirror over the next few minutes and classified them as complying with their mother's request wholeheartedly, grudgingly, or not at all. Then the experimenter asked the mother to leave the room and observed whether the child played with the "forbidden" toys in the mother's absence. The researchers found that children who had complied wholeheartedly in the first instance tended to avoid playing with the forbidden toys for a longer time in the second. Moreover, these children were also more likely to comply with their mother's request that they put away the many toys on the floor after she left the room. This type of structured observation offers an important advantage over naturalistic observation: it ensures that all the children being studied encounter identical situations structured observation does not provide as extensive information about individual children's subjective experience as do interviews, nor can it provide the open-ended, everyday kind of data that naturalistic observation can yield

sibling differences

Siblings share 50% of their genes (identical twins share 100%) A second major source of variation among children is differences in the treatment they receive from parents and other people children also are influenced by their subjective interpretations of the treatment. A classic example occurs when each of a pair of siblings feels that their parents favor the other A fourth major source of differences among children relates to the previously discussed theme of the active child: As children grow older, they increasingly choose activities and friends for themselves and thus influence their own subsequent development

counting on strategy

Siegler and Jenkins (1989) used a microgenetic design to study how young children discover the counting on strategy for adding two small numbers. This strategy involves counting up from the larger addend the number of times indicated by the smaller addend; for example, when asked the answer to 3 1 5, a child who was counting-on would start from the addend 5 and say or think "6, 7, 8" before answering "8."

reproduction

The number of eggs a woman produce at birth stay the same, but men continue to produce sperm As the egg moves through the tube toward the uterus, it emits a chemical substance that acts as a sort of beacon, a "come-hither" signal that at- tracts sperm toward it. If an act of sexual intercourse takes place near the time the egg is released, conception, the union of sperm and egg, will be possible. In every ejaculation, as many as 500 million sperm are pumped into the woman's vagina. a sperm must travel for about 6 hours, journeying 6 to 7 inches from the vagina up through the uterus to the egg-bearing fallopian tube out of the millions of sperm that enter the vagina, only about 200 ever get near the egg still chance for failure including sperm getting tangled in with each other, others end in fallopian tube not harboring the egg other failures deal with genetic or other defects that prevent themselves vigorously enough to reach the egg "survival of the fittest" during fertilization As soon as one sperm's head penetrates the outer membrane of the egg, a chemical reaction seals the membrane, preventing other sperm from entering. The tail of the sperm falls off, the contents of its head gush into the egg, and the nuclei of the two cells merge within hours. The fertilized egg, known as a zygote, now has a full complement of human genetic material, half from the mother and half from the father

the three layers

The top layer becomes the nervous system, the nails, teeth, inner ear, lens of the eyes, and the outer surface of the skin. The middle layer eventually becomes muscles, bones, the circulatory system, the inner layers of the skin, and other internal organs. The bottom layer develops into the digestive system, lungs, urinary tract, and glands.

Gerald Patterson's (1982) comparative study of family dynamics in "troubled" and "typical" families

The troubled families were defined by the presence of at least one child who had been labeled "out of control" and referred for treatment by a school, court, or mental health professional The researchers found that the behaviors and attitudes of both parents and children in the troubled families differed strikingly from those of their counterparts in the typical families

sociocultural context

This sociocultural context influences every aspect of children's development Another important but less tangible component of the sociocultural context is the institutions that influence children's lives: educational systems, religious institutions, sports leagues, social organizations (such as boys' and girls' clubs), and so on Yet another important set of influences are the general characteristics of the child's society: its economic and technological advancement; its values, attitudes, beliefs, and traditions; its laws and political structure; and so on.

Naturalistic observation

When the primary research goal is to describe how children behave in their usual environments naturalistic observation is the method of choice for gathering data observers try to remain unobtrusively in the background in the chosen setting, allowing them to see the relevant behaviors while minimizing the chances that their presence will influence those behaviors.

poverty

about 19% of U.S. families with children had incomes below the poverty line Poverty rates are also very high among the roughly 25% of children in the United States who are either immigrants or the children of immigrants infancy, they are more likely to have serious health problems. In childhood, they are more likely to have social/ emotional and behavioral problems. Lower IQs, math and reading scores their parents read to them less, talk to them less, provide fewer books in the home, and are less involved in their schooling.

Microgenetic designs

are specifically designed to provide an in-depth depiction of the processes that produce change The basic idea of this approach is to recruit children who are thought to be on the verge of an important developmental change, heighten their exposure to the type of experience that is believed to produce the change, and then intensively study the change as it is occurring unlike standard longitudinal methods, microgenetic designs do not yield information about stability and change over long periods. They therefore are typically used when the basic pattern of age-related change has already been established and the goal becomes to understand how the changes occur

Watson's behaviourist theory

argued that children's development is determined by environmental factors, especially the rewards and punishments that follow the children's actions.

stage theories

which propose that development occurs in a progression of distinct age- related stages a child's entry into a new stage involves relatively sudden, qualitative changes that affect the child's thinking or behavior in broadly unified ways and move the child from one coherent way of experiencing the world to a different coherent way of experiencing it.

developmental process

zygote --> embryo --> fetud

schizophrenia

• Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness, often characterized by hallucinations, delusions, confusion, and irrational behavior. There is obviously a genetic component to this disease. Children who have a schizophrenic parent have a much higher probability than other children of de- veloping the illness later in life, even when they are adopted as infants and there- fore are not exposed to their parents' schizophrenic behavior • If one twin has schizophrenia theres a 50% chnce she will have it, as oppose to the roughly 1% probability for the general population since roughly 50% of children who have an identical twin with schizophrenia do not become schizophrenic themselves, and children who grow up in troubled homes are more likely to become schizophrenic than are children raised in a normal household.

experimental designs

• The logic of experimental designs can be summarized quite simply: If children in one group are exposed to a particular experience and subsequently behave differently from a comparable group of children who were not exposed to the experience or were exposed to a different experience, then the subsequent differences in behavior must have resulted from the differences in experience.