Psychology-Human Development

Autonomy Vs. Shame and Doubt Psychosocial Stages of Development

- During toddlerhood (18 months through 3 years), children can develop either a positive sense of independence and autonomy or negative feelings of shame and doubt. - In seeking autonomy, they are likely to develop a strong sense of independence. - A toddler who is experiencing toilet training is learning the beginnings of self-control. The toddler's growing independence is evident in the child's insistence that no matter how difficult the task, "I can do it myself!" Similarly common is the toddler's assertion of autonomy with a simple two-letter word: "No!"

Information Processing Theory

- Focuses on how individuals encode information, manipulate it, monitor it, and create strategies for handling it -Focuses on specific cognitive processes, such as memory, as we have reviewed in previous chapters.

Initiative Vs. Guilt Psychosocial Stages of Development

- In early childhood (3 to 5 years), preschoolers experience what it is like to forge their own interests and friendships and to take on responsibilities. - When they experience a sense of taking on responsibility, preschoolers develop initiative. -Otherwise, according to Erikson, they may feel guilty or anxious.

Physical Processes

- Involves changes in an individual's biological nature. -Maturation -Examples: Genes inherited from parents; the hormonal changes of puberty and menopause; and changes throughout life in the brain, height and weight, and motor skills.

Resilience

- Is a person's ability to recover from or adapt to difficult times. - Means that even in the face of adversity, a person shows signs of positive functioning. - Can refer to factors that compensate for difficulties, buffering the individual from the effects of these, or to the fact that moderate difficulties may themselves help to promote development - A key concept in understanding the role of negative early experiences in later development.

Teratogen Threats to the Fetus

- Is any agent that causes a birth defect. - Includes chemical substances ingested by the mother. -Substances that are ingested by the mother can lead to serious birth defects.

Fetal Period

- Months 2 through 9 - At 2 months, the fetus is the size of a kidney bean and has started to move around. - At 4 months, the fetus is 5 inches long and weighs about 5 ounces. - At 6 months, the fetus has grown to a pound and a half. - The last 3 months of pregnancy are the time when organ functioning increases, and the fetus puts on considerable weight and size, adding baby fat.

Physical Changes in Early Adulthood

- Most adults reach their peak physical development during their 20s and are the healthiest then. - The decline in strength and speed often is noticeable in the 30s. -Perceptual abilities also decline. -Hearing loss is very common with age. - In fact, starting at about age 18, hearing begins a gradual decline, though it is so slow that most people do not notice it until the age of 50 or so.

Permissive Parenting

- Parenting style that involves placing few limits on the child's behavior. -Lets the child do what he or she wants. - Some parents deliberately rear their children this way because they believe that the combination of warm involvement and few limits will produce a creative, confident child. -Children with this type of parents typically rate poorly in social competence. -They often fail to learn respect for others, expect to get their own way, and have difficulty controlling their behavior.

Neglectful Parenting

- Parenting style that is distinguished by a lack of parental involvement in the child's life. - Children of this type of parenting might develop a sense that other aspects of their parents' lives are more important than they are. -Children with this type of parents are neglectful tend to be less competent socially, to handle independence poorly, and (especially) to show poor self-control.

Object Permanence

- Piaget's term for the crucial accomplishment of understanding that objects and events continue to exist even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, or touched. -Believed that "out of sight" literally was "out of mind" for very young infants.

Erikson's Theory of Socioemotional Development

- Proposed eight psychosocial stages of development from infancy through old age. -In their view, the first four stages take place in childhood; the last four, in adolescence and adulthood.

Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) Threats to the Fetus

- Some, such as gonorrhea, can be transferred to the baby during delivery. -Others, including syphilis and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can also infect the fetus while it is in the womb. -Enhances the risk of stillbirth, as well as a number of other problems, such as eye infections and blindness (in the case of gonorrhea). - Also increases the risk of preterm birth.

Authoritative Parenting

- This parenting style is more collaborative. -Encourages the child to be independent but still places limits and controls on behavior. -Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed, and parents are warm and nurturing toward the child. - Children with this type of parent tends to be socially competent, self-reliant, and socially responsible.

Trust Vs. Mistrust Psychosocial Stages of Development

- Trust is built in infancy (birth to 18 months) when a baby's basic needs are met by responsive, sensitive caregivers. - At this stage, the helpless infant depends on caregivers to establish a sense that the world is a predictable and friendly place. -Once trust is established, toddlers begin to see themselves as independent agents in the world.

Germinal Period

- Week 1 and 2 -Begins with conception. - After 1 week and many cell divisions, the zygote is made up of 100 to 150 cells. - By the end of 2 weeks, the mass of cells has attached to the uterine wall.

Embryonic Period

- Week 3 through 8 - The rate of cell differentiation intensifies, support systems for the cells develop, and the beginnings of organs appear. - In the third week, the neural tube, which eventually becomes the spinal cord, starts to take shape. - Within the first 28 days after conception, the neural tube is formed and closes, encased inside the embryo. By the end of this period, the heart begins to beat, the arms and legs become more differentiated, the face starts to form, and the intestinal tract appears.

Schema

- is a mental concept or framework that organizes and provides a structure for interpreting information. - Are expressed as various behaviors and skills that the child can exercise in relation to objects or situations. - In adulthood, they represent more complex expectations and beliefs about the world. -Piaget described two processes responsible for how they: Assimilation and Accommodation.

Authoritarian Parenting

- is a strict punitive style. - This type of parent firmly limits and controls the child with little verbal exchange. -Children of this type of parents sometimes lack social skills, show poor initiative, and compare themselves with others. -Culture influences the effects of authoritarian parenting.

Emerging Adulthood

- is the transitional period from adolescence to adulthood. -The age range is approximately 18 to 25 years of age. -Characterized by experimentation and exploration -At this point in their development, many individuals are still exploring which career path they want to follow, what they want their identity to be, and what kinds of close relationships they will have.

Executive Function

- refers to higher-order, complex cognitive processes, including thinking, planning, and problem solving. -Involves managing one's thoughts to engage in goal-directed behavior and to exercise self-control.

Formal Operational Stage

-11 years of age through adulthood. - The adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic, and logical ways. -Thinking includes thinking about things that are not concrete, making predictions, and using logic to come up with hypotheses about the future.

Preoperational Stage

-2 to 7 years of age. -The child begins to represent the world with words and images. These words and images reflect increased symbolic thinking and go beyond the connection of sensory information and physical action. -The type of symbolic thinking that children are able to accomplish during this stage is limited. -They still cannot perform what Piaget called operations, by which he meant mental representations that are reversible. - Children at this stage have difficulty understanding that reversing an action may restore the original conditions from which the action began. -Children's thoughts in this stage is egocentric because they cannot put themselves in someone else's shoes. -Their thinking is also intuitive, meaning that preoperational children make judgments based on gut feelings rather than logic. - In reaching a basic level of operational understanding, children progress to the third of Piaget's cognitive stages.

Concrete Operational Stage

-7 to 11 years of age. -The child can now reason logically about concrete events and classify objects into different sets. -Involves using operations and replacing intuitive reasoning with logical reasoning in concrete situations.

Kohlberg's Theory

-A provocative theory of moral development. - In his view, Moral development consists of a sequence of qualitative changes in the way an individual thinks. -His stages of moral development consist of three general levels: Proconventional, Conventional, Postconventional. -Believed that moral development advances because of the maturation of thought, the availability of opportunities for role taking, and the chance to discuss moral issues with a person who reasons at a stage just above one's own.

Preferential Looking Physical Development in Infancy and Childhood

-A research technique that involves giving an infant a choice of what object to look at. -Used in studying infant perception. - Using this technique, researchers have found that as early as 7 days old, infants are already engaged in organized perception of faces and are able to put together sights and sounds and at 3 months, infants prefer real faces to scrambled faces, and their mother's face to a stranger's.

Socioemotional Development in Middle Adulthood

-According to Erikson, following the resolution of the intimacy versus isolation dilemma, the adult turns to concerns about generativity versus stagnation. -Generativity means making a contribution to the next generation. - The feeling that one has made a lasting and memorable contribution to the world is related to higher levels of psychological well-being.

Socioemotional Development in Early Adulthood

-According to Erikson, people face a developmental dilemma involving intimacy versus isolation. -At this stage, individuals either form intimate relationships with others or become socially isolated.

Hormonal Stress Theory

-Argues that aging in the body's hormonal system can lower resistance to stress and increase the likelihood of disease. - As individuals age, the hormones stimulated by stress stay in the bloodstream longer than is the case for younger people. -These prolonged, elevated levels of stress hormones are linked to increased risks for many diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes.

Cross-Sectional Studies

- A number of people of different ages are assessed at one point in time, and differences are noted. - By examining how the ages of these individuals relate to the characteristics measured, researchers can find out whether younger individuals differ from older ones. - Age differences, however, are not the same as developmental change.

Aging and the Brain

- Adults can grow new brain cells throughout life. - Keeping the brain actively engaged in challenging activities can help to slow the effects of age.

Longitudinal Study

- Assesses the same participants multiple times over a lengthy period. - Can find out not only whether age groups differ but also whether the same individuals change with respect to a particular characteristic as they age.

An Infant/Child's Brain

- At birth and in early infancy, the brain's 100 billion neurons have only minimal connections. - During the first 2 years of life, the dendrites of the neurons branch out, and the neurons become far more interconnected. Myelination, the process of encasing axons with fat cells begins prenatally and continues after birth well into adolescence and young adulthood. - During childhood, synaptic connections increase dramatically.

An Infant/Child's Brain Physical Development in Infancy and Childhood

- At birth and in early infancy, the brain's 100 billion neurons have only minimal connections. - During the first 2 years of life, the dendrites of the neurons branch out, and the neurons become far more interconnected. Myelination, the process of encasing axons with fat cells begins prenatally and continues after birth well into adolescence and young adulthood. - During childhood, synaptic connections increase dramatically.

The Course of Prenatal Development

- Development from zygote to fetus. -Is divided into three periods: Germinal period, Embryonic period, and Fetal period.

Mary Ainsworth

- Devised the strange situation test to measure children's attachment. - In this procedure, caregivers leave infants alone with a stranger and then return. Children's responses to this situation are used to classify them into one of three attachment styles. -Secure infant is upset when the mother leaves, but calms down and appears happy to see her when she returns. -Avoidant infant might not even notice the mother has gone. -Anxious/ambivalent infant responds with intense distress, only to rage at the mother when she returns.

Cohort Effects

- Differences between individuals that stem not necessarily from their ages but from the historical and social time period in which they were born and developed. - A problem with cross-sectional studies. - Differences observed between these groups might be due not to their age but rather to these differing experiences.

Instability Main Features of Emerging Adulthood

Residential changes peak during emerging adulthood, a time during which there also is often instability in love, work, and education.

Conventional Stages of Moral Development

The individual abides by standards learned from parents or society's laws.

Postconventional Stages of Moral Development

The individual recognizes alternative moral courses, explores the options, and then develops an increasingly personal moral code.

Genotype

The individual's genetic heritage—his or her actual genetic material.

Proconventional Stages of Moral Development

The individual's moral reasoning is based primarily on the consequences of behavior and punishments and rewards from the external world.

Phenotype

The person's observable characteristics; shows the contributions of both nature (genetic heritage) and nurture (environment).

John Bowlby

Theorized that the infant and the mother instinctively form an attachment.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Threats to the Fetus

A cluster of abnormalities and problems that appear in the offspring of mothers who drink alcohol heavily during pregnancy.

Synapse Physical Development in Infancy and Childhood

A gap between neurons that is bridged by chemical neurotransmitters.

Age of Possibilities, a time when individuals have an opportunity to transform their life Main Features of Emerging Adulthood

Arnett describes two ways in which emerging adulthood is the age of possibilities: (1) Many emerging adults are optimistic about their future, and (2) for emerging adults who have experienced difficult times while growing up, emerging adulthood presents an opportunity to guide their lives in a positive direction.

Effortful Control or Self-Regulation

Controlling arousal and not being easily agitated.

Jeff Arnett

Identified five main features of emerging adulthood: Identity exploration, especially in love and work, Instability, Self-Focus, Feeling "in-between", and Age of possibilities, a time when individuals have an opportunity to transform their life.

Biculturism

Identifying in some ways with their ethnic minority group and in other ways with the majority culture.

Nativist Approach

Infants possess primitive expectancies about events and objects in the world that are less dependent upon experience than Piaget imagined.

Accommodation

Occurs when individuals adjust their schemas to new information: Rather than using one's old ways of doing things, a new experience promotes new ways of dealing with experience. - Existing schemas can be changed, and new schemas can be developed. - For an adult, this may mean rethinking old strategies for problem solving when a new challenge, such as the loss of a job, presents itself.

Assimilation

Occurs when individuals incorporate new information into existing knowledge: Faced with a new experience, the person applies old ways of doing things.

Sensation

Physical stimulation of the sense organ.

Reflexes

Unlearned responses that occur in the presence of specific stimuli.

Reflexes Physical Development in Infancy and Childhood

Unlearned responses that occur in the presence of specific stimuli.

Puberty

a period of rapid skeletal and sexual maturation that occurs mainly in early adolescence.

Synapse

is a gap between neurons that is bridged by chemical neurotransmitters.

Testosterone

is associated in boys with the development of genitals, an increase in height, and voice change; is an androgen

Estradiol

is associated in girls with breast, uterine, and skeletal development; is an estrogen.

Estrogen

is the class of sex hormones that predominate in females.

Androgen

is the class of sex hormones that predominate in males.

Secure Attachment

means infants use the caregiver, usually the mother, as a secure base from which to explore the environment.

Selective Optimization with Compensation

means that older adults match their goals with their current abilities and compensate for declines by finding other ways to do the things they enjoy.

Preterm Infant Threats to the Fetus

one who is born prior to 37 weeks after conception, may also be at risk for developmental difficulties.

Piaget and Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

-Believed that children actively construct their cognitive world as they go through a series of stages. - In their view, children use schemas to make sense of their experience. - According to them, we go through four stages in understanding the world. Each stage involves a qualitatively different way of making sense of the world than the one before it. -These stages are: Sensorimotor Stage, Preoperational Stage, Concrete Operational Stage, and Formal Operational Stage.

Sensorimotor Stage

-Birth to 2 years of age -The infant constructs an understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experience with physical actions. An infant progresses from reflexive, instinctual action at birth to the beginning of symbolic thought towards the end of the stage.

Physical Changes in Middle and Late Adulthood

-By the 40s or 50s, the skin has begun to wrinkle and sag because of the loss of fat and collagen in underlying tissues. -Small, localized areas of pigmentation in the skin produce age spots, especially in areas exposed to sunlight such as the hands and face. -Hair becomes thinner and grayer due to a lower replacement rate and a decline in melanin production. -Individuals lose height in middle age, and many gain weight. - Once individuals hit their 40s, age-related vision changes usually become apparent, especially difficulty in seeing things up close and after dark. -Usually in the late 40s or early 50s, a woman's menstrual periods cease completely. -With menopause comes a dramatic decline in the ovaries' production of estrogen. Estrogen decline can produce uncomfortable symptoms such as hot flashes (sudden, brief flushing of the skin and a feeling of elevated body temperature), nausea, fatigue, and rapid heartbeat. - Physical strength declines and motor speed slows, and bones may become more brittle.

Industry Vs. Inferiority Psychosocial Stages of Development

-Children in middle and late childhood (6 years to puberty) can achieve industry by mastering knowledge and intellectual skills. -When they do not, they can feel inferior. At the end of early childhood, children are ready to turn their energy to learning academic skills. If they do not, they can develop a sense of being incompetent and unproductive. -During the beginnings of elementary school, children learn the value of what Erikson called industry, gaining competence in academic skills and acquiring the ability to engage in self-discipline and hard work.

Socioemotional Development and Aging

-From Erikson's perspective, the person who has entered the later years of life is engaged in looking back—evaluating his or her life and seeking meaning. -Erikson called this stage of life integrity versus despair . -Through this process of life review and reminiscence, the older adult comes to a sense of meaning or despair, Erikson theorized. -The individual is also occupied with coming to terms with his or her own death, according to Erikson.

Identity Vs. Identity Confusion Psychosocial Stages of Development

-In seeking an identity, adolescents face the challenges of finding out who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life. - Adolescents are confronted with many new roles and adult statuses. - If they do not adequately explore their identity during this stage, they end up confused about who they are.

Socioemotional Processes

-Involves changes in an individual's relationships with other people, in emotions, and in personality. -Examples: An infant's smile in response to her mother's touch, a girl's development of assertiveness, an adolescent's joy at the senior prom, a young man's aggressiveness in sport, and an older couple's affection for each other.

Cognitive Processes

-Involves changes in an individual's thought, intelligence, and language. -Examples: Observing a colorful mobile as it swings above a crib, constructing a sentence about the future, imagining oneself as a movie star, memorizing a new telephone number.

Developmental Psychology

-Is interested in how people change—physically and psychologically as they age. -These changes occur on three different levels: Physical Processes, Cognitive Processes, and Socioemotional Processes.

Cellular-Clock Theory

-Leonard Hayflick -Cells can divide a maximum of about 100 times and that, as we age, our cells become less capable of dividing. -Found that cells extracted from adults in their 50s to 70s had divided fewer than 100 times. -The total number of cell divisions was roughly related to the individual's age. - Based on the way cells divide, Hayflick places the human life span's upper limit at about 120 years.

Harry Harlow

-Performed a study that demonstrates the essential importance of warm contact. -Separated infant monkeys from their mothers at birth and placed them in cages with two artificial "mothers." One of the mothers was a physically cold wire mother; the other was a warm, fuzzy cloth mother (the "contact comfort" mother). Each mother could be outfitted with a feeding mechanism. Half of the infant monkeys were fed by the wire mother, half by the cloth mother. The infant monkeys nestled close to the cloth mother and spent little time on the wire one, even if it was the wire mother that gave them milk. When afraid, the infant monkeys ran to the comfy mom. - Demonstrates that contact comfort, not feeding, is crucial to an infant's attachment to its caregiver.

James Marcia

-Proposed the concept of identity status to describe a person's position in the development of an identity. -In their view, two dimensions of identity, exploration and commitment, are important. -Their approach focuses on identity as an active construction, an outcome of a process of thinking about and trying on different identities.

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Cognitive Theory

-Recognized that cognitive development is very much an interpersonal process that happens in a cultural context. -Theorized that these expert thinkers spur cognitive development by interacting with a child in a way that is just above the level of sophistication the child has mastered. -In effect, these interactions provide scaffolding that allows the child's cognitive abilities to be built higher and higher. -The goal of cognitive development is to learn the skills that will allow the individual to be competent in his or her particular culture. - A child is not simply learning to think about the world—he or she is learning to think about his or her own world.

Development

-Refers to the pattern of continuity and change in human capabilities that occurs throughout the course of life. -Most involves growth, although it also is concerned with decline.

Motor and Perception Skills Physical Development in Infancy and Childhood

-Relative to the rest of the body, a newborn's head is gigantic, and it flops around uncontrollably. -Within 12 months, the infant becomes capable of sitting upright, standing, stooping, climbing, and often walking. - During the second year, growth decelerates, but rapid gains occur in such activities as running and climbing. - They develop together and mutually promote each other.

Motor and Perceptual Skills

-Relative to the rest of the body, a newborn's head is gigantic, and it flops around uncontrollably. -Within 12 months, the infant becomes capable of sitting upright, standing, stooping, climbing, and often walking. - During the second year, growth decelerates, but rapid gains occur in such activities as running and climbing. - They develop together and mutually promote each other.

Free-Radical Theory

-States that people age because unstable oxygen molecules known as free radicals are produced inside their cells. -These molecules damage DNA and other cellular. -The damage done by free radicals may lead to a range of disorders, including cancer and arthritis.

Newborn Reflexes

-The ability to suck and swallow. -If they are dropped in water, they will naturally hold their breath, contract their throats to keep water out, and move their arms and legs to stay afloat at least briefly. -Some reflexes persist throughout life, such as, coughing, blinking, and yawning. -Others, such as automatically grasping something that touches the fingers, disappears in the months following birth, as higher brain functions mature and infants develop voluntary control over many behaviors.

Newborn Reflexes Physical Development in Infancy and Childhood

-The ability to suck and swallow. -If they are dropped in water, they will naturally hold their breath, contract their throats to keep water out, and move their arms and legs to stay afloat at least briefly. -Some reflexes persist throughout life, such as, coughing, blinking, and yawning. -Others, such as automatically grasping something that touches the fingers, disappears in the months following birth, as higher brain functions mature and infants develop voluntary control over many behaviors.

Empiricist Approach

-emphasizes the role of experience in the world as the central driver of cognitive and perceptual development. - Points out that even if very young infants show an understanding of object permanence, that capacity might still originate in (very early) experience.

John Gottman

-has identified four principles at work in successful marriages: Nurturing fondness and admiration, Turning toward each other as friends, Giving up some power, and Solving conflicts together .

Preferential Looking

A research technique that involves giving an infant a choice of what object to look at. -Used in studying infant perception. - Using this technique, researchers have found that as early as 7 days old, infants are already engaged in organized perception of faces and are able to put together sights and sounds and at 3 months, infants prefer real faces to scrambled faces, and their mother's face to a stranger's.

Prenatal Development

A time of astonishing change, beginning with conception.

Inhibition

Being shy and showing distress in an unfamiliar situation.

Maturation

Biological growth processes an individual undergoes during development.

Identity Exploration, especially in love and work Main Features of Emerging Adulthood

Emerging adulthood is the time of significant changes in identity for many individuals.

Self-Focus Main Features of Emerging Adulthood

Emerging adults are self-focused in the sense that they have little in the way of social obligations, and little in the way of duties and commitments to others, which leaves them with a great deal of autonomy in running their own lives.

Conception

Occurs when a single sperm cell from the male merges with the female's ovum (egg) to produce a zygote, a single cell with 23 chromosomes from the mother and 23 from the father.

Perception

Interpretation and integration of stimuli involving the sense organ and the brain.

Commitment

Involves making a decision about which identity path to follow and making a personal investment in attaining that identity.

Infant Attachment

Is the close emotional bond between an infant and its caregiver.

Nurture

Refers to the individual's environmental and social experiences.

Feeling "in-between" Main Features of Emerging Adulthood

Many emerging adults consider themselves neither adolescents nor full-fledged adults.

Nature

Refers to a person's biological inheritance, especially his or her genes.

Exploration

Refers to a person's investigating various options for a career and for personal values.

Temperament

Refers to an individual's behavioral style and characteristic way of responding.

Cognitive Development

Refers to how thought, intelligence, and language processes change as people mature.

Negative Affectivity

Tending to be frustrated or sad.