Psychology Unit 6 Study Guide

Unit 6 Study Guide  Developmental psychology: branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social changes throughout life spans  Three major issues that it’s based on: o Nature/nurture: How do genetic inheritance (our nature) and experience (the nurture we receive) influence our development? o Continuity/stages: Is development a gradual, continuous process like riding an escalator, or does it proceed through a sequence of separate stages, like climbing rungs on a ladder? o Stability/change: Do our early personality traits persist through life, or do we become different persons as we age? Prenatal Development  Conception is when a woman’s ovary releases a mature egg and a sperm cell manages to be let in  The egg nucleus and sperm nucleus fuse to make the zygote  Zygote: fertilized egg  One cell becomes 2, then 4, until cell division has produced about 100 identical cells within the 1st week  After about 10 days of conception, the zygote attaches to the mother’s uterine wall and the embryo is formed from the zygote’s inner cells  Placenta: formed as the zygote’s outer cells attached to the uterine wall and transfers nutrients and oxygen from mother to fetus  Embryo: developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month  Over the next 6 weeks, the organs begin to form & function and the heart begins to beat  Fetus forms by 9 weeks after conception  During the 6th month, organs have developed enough to give the fetus a good chance of survival if born prematurely  The baby can hear and recognize sounds & respond to light  Newborns prefer their mother’s voice and language rather than others since that’s what they’ve been listening to the whole time  Time span for prenatal development o Zygote: conception to 2 weeks   o o Embryo: 2-6 weeks Fetus: 9 weeks to birth Teratogens: agents, such as chemicals, viruses, and drugs, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS): physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking (severe cases= noticeable facial misproportions) Competent Newborn  William James presumed that newborns experience a “blooming, buzzing confusion”  Healthy newborns: o Turn heads towards voices o See 8-12 inches from their faces o Gaze longer at human-like objects right from birth  Newborns come with automatic reflex responses that are suited for survival o Rooting: touch corner of their mouth and they turn head to then open mouth, looking for food o Sucking: meant to acquire food o Grasping: grabbing onto anything in reach and hanging on o Moro: when balance is lost, and they reach their arms out o Babinski: rubbing finger along foot causes them to extend their toes  Habituation: decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation (as infants gain familiarity with repeated visual stimuli, they get uninterested more and look away sooner) INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD  Maturation: orderly sequence of biological growth  Maturation (nature) sets basic course of development but experience (nurture) adjusts it Physical Development  Brain development o Brain and mind develop from infancy and beyond o Most neurons are formed by the day you’re born o After birth, branching of neural networks has growth spurt which allows for walking, talking, and remembering o Most rapid growth in frontal lobes are from ages 3 to 6 (enables rational planning) o Association areas (those linked with thinking, memory, language) = last cortical areas to develop  Under influence of adrenal hormones, tens of billions of synapses form & organize, after which a pruning process shuts down excess connections and strengthens others  Motor development o Developing brain enables physical coordination o Genes guide motor development (identical twins usually begin sitting up and walking on nearly the same day)  o Maturation (including rapid development of cerebellum at back of brain) creates readiness to learn walking at age 1 Brain maturation and infant memory o Earliest conscious memories usually start from around 4 years old (infantile amnesia; we can’t remember anything from when we’re 3 and down) o Carolyn Rovee-Collier found that babies only 3 months old can learn that kicking moves a mobile, and they can retain that learning for a month Cognitive Development  Cognitive development: development of all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating  Piaget spent his life studying children’s cognitive development o Convinced that child’s mind is not a mini model of an adult’s o Led him to believe that a child’s mind develops through a series of stages  His core idea was that our intellectual progression reflects an unceasing struggle to make sense of our experiences o Maturing brains build schemas (concepts or mental molds into which experiences are poured) (ex. cats, dogs, love) o By adulthood, we have built countless schemas  Piaget proposed 2 concepts to explain how schemas are used and adjusted: o We assimilate new experiences- interpret them in terms of our current understandings (schemas) o As we interact with the world, we adjust/accommodate our schemas to incorporate information provided by new experiences  Piaget’s Theory and Current Thinking: believed that children construct their understanding of the world while interacting with it o He made the four Stages of Cognitive Development:  Sensorimotor Stage  Birth to age 2  Take in world through senses and actions  Young infants lack object permanence (awareness that objects continue to exist even when not perceived)  By 8 months, infants begin exhibiting memory for things no longer seen  If a toy’s hidden, they’ll momentarily look for it  Within another month or 2, they’ll look for it even after being restrained for several seconds  Today’s researchers believed that object permanence is developed more gradually  Preoperational Stage  Age 2 to 6 or 7  Able to represent things with words and images but too young to perform mental operations  Children don’t have conservation before 6 (principle that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape)  Symbolic thinking and pretend play appear  Egocentrism  Piaget contended that preschool children are egocentric (they have difficulty perceiving things from another’s point of view)  Preschoolers haven’t developed ability to take another’s viewpoint    Theory of Mind  Ability to think about mental states (yours and others)  Preschoolers develop ability to infer others’ mental states when they begin forming a theory of mind  By age of 4-5, children’s theory of mind has leapt forward  Children with autism spectrum disorder have difficulty understanding that one’s state of mind differs from theirs Concrete Operational Stage  By about age 7, children enter this stage (as said by Piaget)  Given concrete (physical materials), they begin to grasp conservation (change in form doesn’t mean change in quantity)  Children become able to comprehend mathematical transformations Formal Operational Stage  By age 12, reasoning expands from purely concrete (involving actual experience) to encompass abstract thinking (involving imagined realities and symbols)  As children approach adolescence, they can ponder hypothetical propositions and deduce consequences  Formal operational thinking (systematic reasoning) is now within their grasp  Rudiments of formal operational thinking began earlier than Piaget realized Jean Piaget: Cognitive Development Stages Sensorimotor Birth – nearly 2 years   Preoperational Ages 2-6 or 7    Concrete Operational Ages 7-11  Babies experience world through senses and actions Object permanence (awareness that objects continue to exist even when not perceived) & stranger anxiety Representing things with words & images They use intuition rather than logical reasoning Pretend play & egocentrism (they have difficulty perceiving things from another’s point of view) Thinking logically about concrete events, grasping concrete analogies, & doing math operations Conservation (principle that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape) & mathematical transformations  Abstract reasoning  Abstract logic & potential for mature moral reasoning  Formal Operational  Age 12 - adulthood Alternate Viewpoint: Lev Vgotsky & the Social Child o He was also studying how children think and learn o He noted that by age 7, they increasingly think in words & use words to solve problems o This is done by internalizing their culture’s language and relying on inner speech o He emphasized how child’s mind grows through interaction with social environment o He countered Piaget by saying that experiences provide scaffolding to get to the zone of proximal development Social Development o Babies are social creatures- form bond with their caregiver (they prefer familiar faces and voices) o Stranger anxiety: fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age (may greet strangers by crying and reaching for familiar caregivers) o Children develop stranger anxiety after object permanence emerges and they become mobile  Human bonding o Attachment bond: a powerful survival impulse that keeps them close to their caregivers (they become attached to those who are comfortable and familiar) o Harry Harlow showed that monkeys needed touch to form attachment  Monkey attached to the doll that was soft even though the metal one had a source of food  The monkey saw the soft doll as its mother & always ran to her when in distress  Monkey would go to metal doll for food & then go back quickly to the soft one o Physical touch is critical and how much you’re held as a baby may determine your future social & cognitive abilities o Body contact  Human infants become attached to parents who are soft and warm and who rock, feed, and pat them  Infants use mother as secure base  Much parent-infant emotional communication occurs via soothing touch    As we mature, our secure base and safe haven shifts from parents to peers and partners o Familiarity  Attachments based on familiarity form during a critical period  Critical period: an optimal period when certain events must take place to facilitate proper development  Lorenz found that some animals form attachment through imprinting  Imprinting: rigid attachment process (difficult to reverse) (THEY ATTACH TO THE VERY FIRST THING THEY SEE)  Children don’t imprint but they do become attached to what they’ve known (mere exposure leads to a bond) Attachment differences o Ainsworth’s strange situation experiment shows 3 types of attachment:  Secure attachment  In mother’s presence, they play comfortably, happily exploring their new environment  However, when she leaves, they become distressed  When she returns, they seek contact with her  Insecure attachment (avoidant AND anxious/ambivalent/resistant)  Less likely to explore surroundings  May cling to their mothers  Cry loudly and remain upset or seem indifferent to mother’s departure and return  Sensitive, responsive mothers had infants who exhibited secure attachment  Insensitive, unresponsive mothers often had infants who were insecurely attached o Children’s anxiety over separation from parents peaks at around 13 months, then gradually declines o Attachment Styles and Later Relationships  Erik Erikson believed that securely attached children approach life with sense of basic trust- sense that world is predictable and reliable  He attributed this to early parenting  Infants blessed with sensitive, loving caregivers form a lifelong attitude of trust rather than fear  Our adult styles of romantic love tend to exhibit either:  Secure, trusting attachment  Insecure, anxious attachment  Avoidance of attachment  Feeling insecurely attached to others may take either of 2 main forms:  Anxiety: people constantly crave acceptance but remain vigilant to signs of possible rejections’  Avoidance: people experience discomfort getting close to others and use avoidant strategies to maintain distance from others Deprivation of Attachment o Most children growing up under adversity are resilient- they withstand trauma and become normal adults   o In humans, the unloved may become the unloving  Most abusive parents have reported being neglected or battered as children o Serotonin levels are lowered/affected in children who are abused or neglected  By sensitizing the stress response system, early stress can permanently heighten reactions to later stress o Adults also suffer when attachment bonds are severed Self-Concept o By end of childhood (age 12), a self-concept is normally developed o Self-concept: an understanding and assessment of who they are o 18-month olds have schema of how their faces should look o By school age, children’s self-concept expands into more detailed descriptions (including gender, group memberships, psychological traits, similarities and differences compared with other children)  They form concepts of which traits they have and which they would like to have Parenting Styles o 3 parenting styles:  Authoritarian parents are coercive  Impose rules and expect obedience  Permissive parents are unrestraining  They make few demands and use little punishment  May be indifferent, unresponsive, or unwilling to set limits  Authoritative parents are confrontive  Both demanding and responsive  Exert control by setting rules, but, especially with older children, they encourage open discussion and allow exceptions o Children with highest self-esteem, self-reliance, and social competence usually have warm, concerned authoritative parents o Those with authoritarian parents tend to have less social skill and self-esteem o Those with permissive parents tend to be more aggressive and immature o Effects are stronger when children are embedded in authoritative communities with connected adults who model a good life o Association between certain parenting styles (firm but open) and certain childhood outcomes (social competence) is CORRELATIONAL, not CAUSATIONAL o Parents who struggle with conflicting advice should remember that all advice reflects the advice-giver’s values ADOLESCENCE  Development is lifelong = life-span perspective  Adolescence: years spent morphing from child to adult o Begins with physical beginnings of sexual maturity and ends with social achievement of independence and adult status Physical Development  Adolescence begins with puberty (time in which we sexually mature) o Puberty follows surge of hormones, which may intensify moods and trigger bodily changes o Primary sex characteristics: reproductive organs and external genitalia o Secondary sex characteristics: nonreproductive traits such as hair, hips, facial hair, etc. o Menarche: a girl’s first period o Early Maturing  Sequence of physical changes in puberty = far more predictable than their timing (variation of timing may have psychological consequences)  Early maturation in boys  Stronger and more athletic during early teen years  Tend to be more popular, self-assured, and independent  More at risk for alcohol use, delinquency, and premature sexual activity  Early maturation in girls  If young girl’s body and hormone-fed feelings are out of sync with her emotional maturity and her friends’ physical development and experiences, she may begin associating with older adolescents or may suffer teasing or sexual harassment  May be vulnerable to anxiety disorder  Girls are reaching puberty earlier now than in the past due to increased body fat, increased hormone-mimicking chemicals in diet, and increased stress related to family disruption o The Teenage Brain  Brain cells increase connections until puberty  During adolescence, selective pruning of unused neurons and connections takes place  As teens mature, their frontal lobes continue to develop  Growth of myelin sheath enables better communication with other brain regions  Bring improved judgement, impulse control, and long-term planning  Frontal lobe maturation lags behind emotional limbic system  Teens find rewards more exciting than adults do Cognitive Development  Capable of thinking about their own thinking and about other people’s thinking, they also begin to imagine what others are thinking of them (most begin to reason more abstractly gradually)  Developing Reasoning Power o When adolescents achieve formal operations (intellectual summit, Piaget termed), they apply their new abstract reasoning tools to the world around them o Reasoning hypothetically and deducing consequences enables them to detect inconsistencies and spot hypocrisy in others’ reasoning  Developing Morality o Two crucial tasks of childhood and adolescence: discerning right from wrong and developing character (psychological muscles for controlling impulses) o Moral Reasoning  Kohlberg agreed, sought to describe development of moral reasoning— thinking that occurs as we consider right from wrong   Kohlberg proposed 3 basic levels of moral thinking:  Preconventional  Conventional  Postconventional Kohlberg claimed they formed a moral ladder (the sequence is unvarying) o Moral Intuition  Moral intuitions: quick gut feelings or affectively laden intuitions  Mind makes moral judgements as it makes aesthetic judgements— quickly and automatically  Desire to punish wrongdoings is mostly driven not by reason but rather by emotional reactions  After emotional fact, moral reasoning aims to convince us and others the logic of what we have intuitively felt  Our moral judgements provide another example of 2-track— dual processing  Moral reasoning (centered in 1 brain area) says one thing  Intuitive moral emotions (rooted in other brain areas) override reason sometimes with a different action o Moral Action  What we do depends on social influences  Big part of moral development is self-discipline needed to restrain one’s own impulses— to delay small gratification now to enable bigger rewards later  Our capacity to delay gratification is basic to our future academic, vocational, and social success  Delaying gratification fosters flourishing Social Development  Erickson contended that each stage of life has its own psychosocial class, a crisis that needs resolution o Young children- trust, then autonomy (independence), then initiative o School-age children strive for competence, feeling able and productive o Adolescents- synthesize past, present, and future’s possibilities into clear sense of self (search for identity)   Forming an Identity o To refine sense of identity, adolescents usually try out different “selves” in different situations  May act out 1 self at home, another with friends, and another at school or online  If 2 situations overlap, discomfort can be considerable  Resolution = self-definition that unifies various selves into a consistent and comfortable sense of who one is (an identity) o Group identities are often formed by how people differ from those around them o Social identity often forms around someone’s distinctiveness if they’re minority, have a disability, etc. o Erikson noticed that some adolescents forge their identity early, simply by adopting their parents’ values and expectations o Other adolescents may adopt a peer group’s identity o Has been contended that key task of adolescence is to achieve a purpose (desire to accomplish something personally meaningful that makes difference to the world beyond oneself) o Erikson contended that adolescent identity formation is followed in young adulthood by developing capacity for intimacy (ability to form emotionally close relationships) o Humans are just like social animals because relationships are vital to both Parent and Peer Relationships o As adolescents seek to form their own identities, they begin to pull away from parents o Parent-child arguments occur more often by adolescence o Positive parent-teen and peer relationships often go hand in hand o Adolescence is typically a time of diminishing parent influence and growing peer influence o Heredity contributes most in forming individual temperament and personality differences, and peer influences do much of the rest o Temperament: person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity o Teens rapidly adopt social media Emerging Adulthood  Shortly after sexual maturity, young people would assume adult responsibilities and status  Independence is put on a hold because of college and further education  Adolescents now take more time to establish themselves  Today = later independence and earlier sexual maturity  Emerging adulthood- in prosperous communities, the time from 18 to mid 20’s is increasingly not-yet-settled life o No longer adolescents o Have not yet assumed full adult responsibilities o Feel “in between” ADULTHOOD  More difficult to generalize adult stages than earlier in life  Early adulthood: roughly 20s & 30s  Middle adulthood: to age 65  Late adulthood: after age 65 Physical Development  Physical abilities begin almost imperceptible decline in mid 20s  Physical changes in middle adulthood o Physical decline accelerates after 40 o Physical vigor has more to do with health and exercise habits o Gradual decline in fertility  Women experience menopause and menstrual cycles usually end within a few years after 50  Men experience less sperm and stuff  Physical changes in late adulthood o Life Expectancy  Increasing life expectancy combined with decreasing birth rates (old people are a bigger and bigger population segment)  Males are more prone to dying (women outlive men by 4.6 years worldwide) o Sensory Abilities, Strength, and Stamina  Not usually acutely aware of physical decline until later in life  Visual sharpness diminishes, and distance perception and adaptation to light-level changes are less acute  Pupils shrink and lens become less transparent, reducing amount of light reaching retina o Health  Bad news of aging: body’s immune system weakens and makes old people more susceptible to life-threatening ailments such as cancer and pneumonia  Good news: accumulation of antibodies over life span allows people over 65 to suffer fewer short terms ailments like the flu o Aging Brain  Takes more time to react, solve puzzles, remembering names  Neural processing lag is greatest on complex tasks  Speech slows  Brain regions important to memory begin to fail during aging  Brain weight reduces by 5% by age 80  Exercise and Aging  Exercise slows aging  Enhances muscles, bones, and energy  Helps prevent obesity and heart disease  Maintains telomeres that protect chromosome ends  Stimulates brain cell development and neural connections (increased oxygen and nutrient flow)  In aging brains, exercise reduces brain shrinkage  Promotes neurogenesis (birth of neurons) in hippocampus Cognitive Development  Aging and Memory o Teens and young adults surpass both young children and 70 y/o’s at prospective memory (Remember to…) o Older people’s prospective memory remains strong when events help trigger a memory o Time-based tasks and habitual tasks can be challenging o Our capacity to learn and remember differs from person to person, especially in 70 y/o’s o No matter how quick or slow we are, remembering seems also to depend on the type of information we’re trying to retrieve  If information is meaningless, the older we are, more errors are likely to be made  If information is meaningful, older people’s rich web of existing knowledge helps them hold it  May take longer than younger adults to produce the words and things they know o Some studies show that brain training that exercises memory can sharpen the mind o In last 3 or 4 years of life, cognitive decline typically accelerates, and negative feelings increase (near-death drop = terminal decline)  Neurocognitive Disorders and Alzheimer’s Disease o Some people who live into their 90s suffer substantial loss of brain cells in process that isn’t normal aging o Series of smalls strokes, brain tumors, or alcohol use disorder can progressively damage brain o Alzheimer’s disease  Memory and then reasoning deteriorates  As disease runs its course (after 5-20 years), the person becomes emotionally flat, then disoriented and disinhibited, and finally mentally vacant (sort of living death, mere body stripped of its humanity)  Underlying symptoms = loss of brain cells and deterioration of neurons that produce neurotransmitter ACH (vital for memory and thinking)  Two abnormalities in these ACH-producing neurons  Shriveled protein filaments in cell body  Clumps of free-floating protein fragment that accumulates as plaque at neuron tips where synaptic communication normally occurs  Diminishing sense of smell and slowed or wobbly walking may foretell it  Before symptoms appear- degeneration of critical brain cells and diminished activity in Alzheimer’s related brain areas Social Development  Adult’s Ages and Stages o Argued that for many the midlife transition is a crisis- time of great struggle, regret o For ¼ adults who report experiencing a life crisis, it is triggered by a major event (loss, divorce, illness), not age o Social clock varies from era to era and culture to culture  Once-rigid sequence has loosened- social clock still ticks, but people feel freer to be out of sync with it  Adulthood’s Commitments o According to Erikson, 2 basic aspects of our lives dominate adulthood  Intimacy- forming close relationships  Generativity- being productive and supporting future generations  Well-Being Across the Life Span o From teens to midlife, people typically experience strengthening sense of identity, confidence, and self-esteem o Older adults experience fewer problems in their relationships- less attachment anxiety, stress, and anger o With age, we become more stable and accepting  Amygdala (neural processing center for emotions) responds less actively to negative events (but not to positive events) o At all ages, bad feelings associated with negative events fade faster than good feelings associated with positive events  Death and Dying o Most people suffer and cope with death of relatives and friends o Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ Stages of Death/Grief: 1. Denial 2. Anger 3. Bargaining 4. Depression 5. Acceptance o Reactions to a loved one’s death range widely  Some cultures encourage public weeping and wailing  Others hide grief o Integrity: feeling that one’s life has been meaningful and worthwhile Oral (mouth) Ages 0-2   Anal (bowels Ages 2-4 and bladder)   Phallic (genitals)   Ages 4-7  Latency (hidden) Ages 7-11     Pleasure is sought through mouth Fixation in this stage= overeating, smoking, or childhood dependence on things Libido is focused on controlling and expelling waste Fixation= overly controlling person (retentive) or out of control (expulsive) Children first recognizes their gender May cause conflicts in families with Oedipus & Electra complexes (mommy’s boys and daddy’s girls) Fixation= later problems in relationships Libido is hidden Children hang out with people of the same gender Fixation= sexual issues Fixation is normal in this stage Genital Age 12 - death (genitals) Sigmund Freud: Psychosexual Development Stages Erik Erikson: Psychosocial Development Stages Trust vs. Mistrust Autonomy vs. Shame & Doubt Initiative vs. Guilt Industry vs. Inferiority Identity vs. Role Confusion Infancy to 1 year If needs are dependably met, infants develop basic trust Ages 1-3 Controlling bodies & temper tantrums; they may doubt their abilities Ages 3-6 Kids are curious and want to understand the world, but they may be scolded and feel guilt for being “annoying” Age 6 - puberty Kids are now evaluated by a formal system and peers; may lead to inferiority complex Teens - 20s Teens try to figure out who they are but may suffer an identity crisis if they don’t Intimacy vs. Isolation 20s - 40s Generativity vs. Stagnation 40s - 60s Integrity vs. Despair Late 60s+ Young adults want to form close relationships and have an intimate love, but they may feel socially isolated People want to contribute to the world (usually through family & work) but they may feel they don’t have a purpose People reflect on their lives and may either feel a sense of satisfaction or failure Jean Piaget: Cognitive Development Stages Sensorimotor Ages 0-2   Preoperational Ages 2-7      Concrete Operational Ages 7-11 Formal Operational Age 12 - death     Babies experience world through senses and actions Object permanence (awareness that objects continue to exist even when not perceived) Representing things with words & images They use intuition rather than logical reasoning Pretend play Egocentrism: they have difficulty perceiving things from another’s point of view Lack of conservation (principle that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape) Logical thinking Can demonstrate conservation Abstract reasoning Abstract logic & potential for mature moral reasoning Lawrence Kohlberg: Moral Development Stages Preconventional morality Before age 9 (Infancy & Pre-school) Conventional morality Early adolescence   Self-interest Obey rules to avoid punishment or get rewards  If you’re rewarded for actions, then you’ll repeat them  If you’re punished, the act must be wrong  Uphold laws & rules to gain (School-age) Postconventional morality Adolescence & beyond (Teens & adulthood) social approval or maintain social order  Based on how others see you (if society thinks it’s wrong, so should you)  Actions reflect belief in basic rights & self-defined ethical principles