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COURSE NOTES: Introductory Psychology

Psych101 graphic

Chapter 4:

The Developing Person

Notes for Psychology 101: based on Myers's text, Exploring Psychology, with supplements and modifications by the instructor, Prof. Cloninger.

denotes a term that you should know how to define, and to recognize and give examples.

denotes an important person. You should remember this person's name and what (s)he has done.

denotes an important research finding.

denotes an issue that you should be able to discuss or explain.

The Developing Person

Major Issues

Nature/Nurture: Are we "born that way" (genetics) or "raised that way" (experience)?
Continuity/Stages: Do we gradually become grown up (like escalator), or go through distinct steps (like elevator)?
Stability/Change: Do personality traits persist through life, or change?

Prenatal Development and the Newborn

Conception

sperm
egg

Prenatal Development

zygote (fertilized egg)
embryo (2 weeks to 8 weeks gestation)
fetus (8 weeks gestation onward)

teratogens: substances harmful to prenatal development

viruses
drugs
tobacco
alcohol

At least one of every five pregnant women uses alcohol and/or other drugs. (Substance Abuse and the American Woman, Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University, June 5, 1996)

Characteristics of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS):

1. Growth retardation
children are born small and generally stay small.

2. Facial defects
Small head - known as microcephaly
Small eyes, these may look wide set.
Mid-face defects --flattening of the cheekbones, lack of definition between the nose and lip,pugnose, small chin, extra skin in the middle part of eye.

3. Some central nervous system defects
Attention problems
Seizures
Learning disabilities
Hearing problems

Each year more than 5,000 are born with FAS and nearly 50,000 babies are born with Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE), a condition characterized by symptoms similar to but less severe than FAS. (Public Health Education Information Sheet, March of Dimes, 1992)
FAS is the leading known cause of mental retardation, surpassing both Spina Bifida and Down's Syndrome. (Journal of the American Medical Association, 1991).
Some experts believe that between 1/3 and 2/3 of all special education children have been irreversibly affected by alcohol in some way.
The latest estimate for the U.S. is a rate of 19.5 per 10,000 live births, although estimates run as high as 30 per 10,000 - about 12,000 babies a year. (Substance Abuse and the American Woman, Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Columbia University, June 5, 1996)

How much alcohol places the fetus at risk?
Research to establish the amount of alcohol that places the fetus at risk is still in progress. The full syndrome has been found in babies born to mothers who drink four to five drinks a day, or who go on binges of extreme alcohol consumption. But, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Some babies are born with defects when the mother consumes much less than four or five drinks a day.
A baby may suffer behavioral and learning problems throughout life when the mother drinks only one or two drinks a day while pregnant.
A National Center for Health Statistics study found that doctors appear less likely to tell black women to quit drinking and smoking during pregnancy than they are to tell white women. Pregnant black women were thirty percent more likely than white women to report that they had never been told to quit drinking, and twenty percent more likely that they had not been told to quit smoking. (The New York Times, January 19, 1994)

The Competent Newborn

more competent than Locke's "blank slate" image
rooting reflex
preference to gaze at human faces
smells
mother's voice

Infancy and Childhood

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

ex: walking (when the time has come)
Maturation is the "nature" side of the "nature-nurture" issue.

Infancy and Childhood: Physical Development

Brain Development

stimulated by experience (rat studies)
increasingly complex neural networks
early immaturity limits memory for events before age 3

Motor Development

typically walk by 12 months
earlier in Uganda, where babies are carried on the back instead of lying in a crib
genetic influence: twins are similar
Motor development limits the effects of teaching (e.g., toilet training).

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Piaget's theory of stages

schema: a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

Cognitive psychology describes "schemas" in adulthood as well as childhood. Schemas are the cognitive tools we use to understand the world.

assimilation and accommodation

1. sensorimotor stage

age 0 to 2
object permanence
stranger anxiety
Mommy doesn't disappear from existence when she is out of sight

2. preoperational stage

age 2 to 6
ability to pretend
egocentrism
lacks conservation
Consider the New Testament story of the loaves and fishes

Preschoolers begin to develop a "theory of mind."

ideas about their own and others' mental states (feelikngs, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behavior these might predict)

3. concrete operational stage

age 7 to 11
conservation
operations, such as pouring liquids
mathematical transformations

4. formal operational stage

age 12 and after
abtract thinking (imagined realities and symbols)
permits mature moral reasoning

Reflections on Piaget's Theory

universality
continuity argument (vs. stages)

Infancy and Childhood: Social Development

stranger anxiety
attachment
(Although we are talking about childhood, the lessons of early social development continue to affect us throughout life.)

stranger anxiety
the fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age
fear of new babysitter

attachment
an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation
love of mother, father, babysitter

Origins of Attachment

Body Contact: Harlow's monkeys

safe haven (when distressed) and secure base (from which to explore)

Familiarity: critical period; imprinting (Lorenz's studies of ducklings)

Responsive Parenting

secure attachment; insecure attachment

Maturation prepares us to become attached, but individual experience determines how well it happens. We learn how to love, and how to be loved.

Effects of Attachment

Secure Attachment Predicts Social Competence: basic trust (Erikson)
Deprivation of Attachment: child abuse cycles

Child-Rearing Practices

authoritarian parents: impose rules and expect obedience
permissive parents: few demands, little punishment; submit to child's wishes
authoritative parents: demanding but also responsive

best for self-esteem, sense of control
(But remember, correlation does not prove causation!)

adult attachment (romantic love styles)

secure: trusting attachment
insecure: anxious attachment; avoidance of attachment

Adolescence

Adolescent Physical Development

puberty
primary sex characteristics
secondary sex characteristics
menarche
early vs. late maturation in males/females

Adolescent Cognitive Development

Developing Reasoning Power

formal operations (abstract reasoning)

Developing Morality: Kohlberg's dilemmas

Should Heinz steal a drug to save his wife's life, if he can't afford to buy it, and the druggist won't reduce the price?

preconventional
self-interest
"Yes, his wife will cook his dinner."
"No, he would go to jail."

conventional
obey laws and rules
"No, stealing is against the law."

postconventional
reasoning about agreed-upon rights and ethical principles
"Yes, the right to life is more important than the right to property."
"No, civilized society depends on obeying the laws or trying to change them."

Stage is assessed based on reasons, not simply yes/no.

Adolescent Social Development

Erikson's 8 Stages (lifespan approach)

The Crisis of Each Stage:

1. trust vs. mistrust
2. autonomy vs. shame, doubt
3. initiative vs. guilt
4. competence ("industry") vs. inferiority
5. identity vs. role confusion ("identity confusion")

negative identity
choice of major; career
6. intimacy vs. isolation

gender and social connectedness
females: interconnected
separating from parents
7. generativity vs. stagnation
8. integrity vs. despair

Forming an Identity

Developing Intimacy

intimacy: the ability to form emotionally close relationships

Gender and Social Connectedness

Gilligan's view of (male) separate identity contrasted with (female) making connections

Separating From Parents

Adulthood

Physical Development in Adulthood

Physical Changes in Middle Adulthood

gradual physical decline
menopause

Physical Changes in Later Life

sensory abilities decline
health

Alzheimer's disease

3% of 75-year-olds
increasing % with age
acetylcholine deficiency
memory, reasoning, language

Cognitive Development in Adulthood

Aging and Memory (especially declines with fewer recognition cues, and rote memory)

Aging and Intelligence

cross-sectional studies show decline
longitudinal studies show stability
why the discrepancy? more education in later eras ("cohorts")
crystallized intelligence
fluid intelligence