Studying Development Physical Development Cognitive Development SocialEmotional Development

• • Studying Development Physical Development Cognitive Development Social-Emotional Development © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Things You’ll Learn in Chapter 9 Q 1 Are our childhood friends’ predictions of our adult personality better than our own self-ratings? Q 2 Does prenatal exposure to smoke increase the risk of obesity later in life? Q 3 Why do teenagers seem to sleep so much? Q 4 Do babies learn faster when they’re sitting up than when they’re lying down? Q 5 Do today’s college students want women to propose marriage? © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

STUDYING DEVELOPMENT © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Theoretical Issues • Developmental psychology = the study of agerelated changes in behavior and mental processes and stages of growth, from conception to death © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Three Major Issues Nature or Nurture? • How do both genetics (nature) and life experience (nurture) influence development? • Nature says development is governed by automatic, genetically predetermined signals – Maturation = the continuing influence of heredity throughout development; age-related physical and behavioral changes characteristic of a species – Critical period = time of special sensitivity to specific types of learning that shapes the capacity for future development © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Three Major Issues Stages or continuity? • Some developmental theories feature stages that are discrete and relatively different from each other • Other theorists believe development follows a continuous pattern with gradual but steady and measureable changes. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Three Major Issues Stability or change? • Psychologists who emphasize stability say measurements of personality in childhood are important predictors of adult personality • Psychologists who emphasize change disagree © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Research Approaches • How to study the entire human life span? • Cross-sectional design = A research technique that measures individuals of various ages at one point in time and provides information about age difference • Longitudinal design = A research design that measures a single individual or group of individuals over an extended period and gives information about age changes. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Research Approaches © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Are our childhood friends’ predictions of our adult personality better than our own self-ratings? Martin-Storey et al. , 2012 • 1976 -1978: Researchers asked grade-school children to rate themselves and their peers on personality factors likeability, aggression, social withdrawal • 1999 -2003: Researchers asked same participants to complete tests again. • Peer ratings were better than self-ratings in predicting adult personality Q 1 Is this research crosssectional or longitudinal? © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Longitudinal vs. Cross-Sectional Consider these results: • Cross-sectional studies show that intelligence and reasoning peak in early adulthood and then decline • Longitudinal studies show gradual increase in intelligence and reasoning until age 60 and then decline © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. What might explain the difference in the results?

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Prenatal Development • Germinal Period: From conception to implantation • Embryonic Period: From • Fetal Period: implantation to 8 weeks From 8 weeks to birth © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Prenatal Development • Placenta connects fetus to mother’s uterus; serves as link for food and waste; screens out some (but not all!) harmful substances • Teratogen = An environmental agent that causes damage during prenatal development – Greek word “teras” means “malformation” – Crosses placental barrier Does prenatal exposure to smoke increase Q 2 the risk of obesity later in life? Children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were more likely to be obese as adults, perhaps due to increased preference for fatty foods from nicotine exposure in the developing brain (Haghighi et al. , 2013) © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Environmental Dangers © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Early Childhood: Brain Development • Prenatal brain development • Brain growth in first 2 years © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Early Childhood: Motor Development • Motor development = orderly, observable emergence of active movement skills What factors might affect the speed with which a baby reaches each milestone? © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Early Childhood: Sensory and Perceptual Development • Hearing is developed, with preference for mother’s voice • Smell and taste are developed, with ability to distinguish among sweet, salty, and bitter • Touch and pain are highly developed (example: rooting reflex) • Vision is poorly developed, with vision worse than 20/200 at birth; vision improves within 6 months to 20/100 and by age 2 is at near-adult acuity © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Adolescence • Adolescence is the psychological period between childhood and adulthood • Puberty = the biological changes during adolescence that lead to an adult-sized body and sexual maturity • Growth spurt includes rapid increase in size, weight, and reproductive structures Q 3 Why do teenagers seem to sleep so much? Puberty is triggered by changes in the brain and the release of certain hormones that occur only during deep sleep (Shaw et al. , 2012) © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

• Adolescence in the United States is typically the teenage years • Concept of adolescence varies across cultures • In non-industrialized cultures, children assume adult responsibilities as soon as possible, with no need for slow transition from childhood to adulthood © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Adulthood: Middle age Women Men • Menopause = the cessation of the menstrual cycle; occurs between 45 and 55 • Decreased production of estrogen produces physical and psychological changes • Does not cause serious psychological mood swings, loss of sexual interest, or depression • Gradual decline in hormone levels • Can continue to father children into 70 s or 80 s • Male climacteric or andropause = weight gain, loss of muscle strength, decline in sexual responsiveness, hair loss • Midlife crisis is myth © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Adulthood: After middle age • Gradual changes in heart, arteries and sensory receptors • Cardiac output decreases, blood pressure increases • Visual acuity and depth perception decline; hearing acuity declines; smell sensitivity declines • Some decline in cognitive and memory skills © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Adulthood: After middle age • Ageism = prejudice or discrimination based on physical age; similar to racism and sexism in its negative stereotypes • Study of n = 1000 older adults found increase in wellbeing with age, contrary to negative stereotypes (Jeste et al. , 2012) Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Piaget: the Basics • Schemas = the cognitive structures, framework, or “blueprints” of knowledge, regarding objects, people and situations, which grow and differentiate with experience • Assimilation = applying existing mental patterns (schemas) to new information; new information is incorporated (assimilated) into existing schemas • Accommodation = the process of adjusting (accommodating) existing mental patterns (schemas) or developing new ones to fit better with new information © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Remember, stage theories say development occurs in discrete stages. Piaget said each stage is required and leads to mastery of later stages Q 4 Do babies learn faster when they’re sitting up than when they’re lying down? • Babies were better at distinguishing between objects they first explored while sitting upright than when they were lying down • Why? The seated position may make babies better able to reach for, hold, and manipulate objects © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Sensorimotor Stage • Birth to approximately age 2 • Schemas are developed through sensory and motor activities • Object permanence = Piagetian term for an infant’s recognition that objects (or people) continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched directly – Gained during sensory/motor stage © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Preoperational Stage • Roughly ages 2 to 7 • Ability to employ significant language and to think symbolically • Thinking is egocentric = the inability to take the perspective of another person; assumes other see, hear, feel, and think exactly as they do • Thinking is animistic = belief that all things are living (or animated) • Lacks operations (reversible mental processes) – thus “preoperational” © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Concrete Operational Stage • Beginning approximately age 7 • Child can perform mental operations on concrete objects and understand reversibility and conservation, but thinking is tied to concrete, tangible objects and events • Conservation = the understanding that certain physical characteristics (such as volume) remain unchanged, even though appearances may change © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Formal Operational Stage • Beginning around age 11 • Can now apply operations to abstract concepts and hypothetical situations • Imaginary audience = a form of egocentrism where teenagers tend to believe everyone is thinking about them, rather than wrapped up in their own concerns • Personal fable = adolescents’ belief that they alone have insights or difficulties that no one understands or experiences Unique and invulnerable? What could go wrong? © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Personal Fable or Brain Development? • Mood swings, poor decisions, risky behaviors previously attributed to personal fable may now be tied to less developed frontal lobe in adolescents © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Vygosky vs. Piaget • Vygotsky emphasized sociocultural influence on child’s development, especially the role of adult as instructor • Zone of proximal development (ZPD) – the area between what children can accomplish on their own and what they can accomplish with the help of others who are more competent. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Vygosky vs. Piaget • Criticisms of Piaget • Piaget underestimated abilities – Research shows infants achieve object permanence earlier than thought – Research shows babies and preschoolers exhibit non-egocentric responses • Piaget underestimated genetic and cultural influences © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Attachment • Attachment = a strong emotional bond with special others that endures over time • Harlow’s studies of monkeys raised by either a “cloth mother” or “wire mother” showed monkeys preferred contact with cloth mother • Contact comfort, pleasurable tactile sensations, is a powerful contributor to attachment © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Attachment • Mary Ainsworth • “Strange situation” observed how infants responded to the presence or absence of their mother and a stranger in an unfamiliar setting © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Parenting Styles © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Moral Development • Consider this situation: – In Europe, a cancer-ridden woman was near death, but an expensive drug existed that might save her. The woman’s husband, Heinz, begged the druggist to sell the drug cheaper or to let him pay later. But he refused. Heinz became desperate and broke into his store and stole it. • Was Heinz right? Why or why not? © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Assessing Kohlberg’s Theory • Do people high on Kohlberg’s scale act more morally than others? – Some research shows a person’s moral identity is a good predictor of behavior in real-world situations (Johnston, Sherman, & Grusec, 2013) – Other research shows situational factors are better predictors of moral behavior (Bandura, 1986, 1992, 2008) © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Personality Development • Psychosocial stages = Erikson’s theory that individuals pass through eight developmental stages, each involving a specific crisis that must be successfully resolved • • Trust vs. mistrust Autonomy vs. shame/doubt Initiative vs. guilt Industry vs. inferiority • • Identity vs. role confusion Intimacy vs. isolation Generativity vs. stagnation Ego integrity vs. despair © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Sex and Gender Influences • How would you be different if you were a member of the other sex? • First, some definitions: • Sex = biological characteristic determined at the moment of conception • Gender = psychological and sociocultural meanings added to biological maleness or femaleness • Gender roles = societal expectations for “appropriate” male and female attitudes and behaviors © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Gender-Role Development © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Androgyny • Androgyny = exhibiting both masculine and feminine traits; from the Greek andro for “male” and gyn for “female” • Blending of masculine and feminine traits leads to higher self-esteem and more success in complex society (Bem, 1981, 1993) • Gender roles are becoming less rigidly defined © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Androgyny Q 5 Do today’s college students want women to propose marriage? • Both men and women strongly prefer traditional gender roles when it comes to marriage proposals, even at a relatively liberal university in California • More than 60% of women surveyed were at least “somewhat willing” to take their husband’s name (Robnett & Leaper, 2013) • “Benevolent sexism” like this looks positive on the surface but contributes to power differentials between men and women (Lasnier, 2013) © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.