Chapter 7

1. Chapter 7 Human Development Across the Lifespan

2. Outline • Prenatal Development • The Newborn • Infancy and Childhood • Adolescence • Early and Middle Adulthood • Later Adulthood

3. Developmental Psychology • The study of the changes that occur in people from conception to death

4. Outline • Prenatal Development • The Newborn • Infancy and Childhood • Adolescence • Early and Middle Adulthood • Later Adulthood

5. Prenatal Development • The period of development from conception to birth • Embryo • A developing human between 2 weeks and 3 months after conception • Cells are beginning to specialize to form organs, muscles, bones, etc. • Fetus • A developing human between 3 months after conception to birth • One inch long, but roughly resembles a human being with arms, legs, a large head and a beating heart

6. Prenatal Development • The placenta nourishes the embryo and the fetus and carries away waste products • The mother’s blood never actually mingles with the unborn child • Diseases and teratogens (toxic agents that she eats, drinks, or inhales) can cross the placenta and compromise the baby’s development

7. Critical Periods in Development • Critical Period • A time when certain internal and external influences have a major effect on development • At other periods, the same influences will have little or no effect • Alcohol is the drug most often abused by pregnant women • Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) • A disorder that occurs in children of women who drink alcohol during pregnancy • Characterized by facial deformities, heart defects, stunted growth, and cognitive impairments

8. Critical Periods in Development • Smoking during pregnancy restricts the oxygen supply to the fetus, slows its breathing and speeds up its heartbeat • Associated with a significantly increased of miscarriage • Babies are more likely to suffer low birth weights, which puts the child at risk for other developmental problems • Other factors that are related to health of a newborn: • Prenatal care and nutrition • Mother’s level of psychological stress during pregnancy

9. Outline • Prenatal Development • The Newborn • Infancy and Childhood • Adolescence • Early and Middle Adulthood • Later Adulthood

10. The Newborn • Neonates • Newborn babies • Newborns an sleep up to 20 hours a day • When awake, they are much more aware and competent than they seem at first glance

11. Reflexes • Rooting reflex • A baby turns its head toward something touching its cheek and gropes around with its mouth • Helps the baby find its mother’s nipple • Sucking reflex • Sucking on any object placed in a baby’s mouth • Swallowing reflex • Enables the baby to swallow liquids without choking

12. Reflexes • Grasping reflex • Clinging vigorously to anything placed in their hands • Stepping reflex • The light stepping motions made by babies if they are held upright with their feet just touching a surface • These reflexes disappear after two or three months

13. Perceptual Abilities • All of a baby's senses are functioning at birth: • Sight • Hearing • Taste • Smell • Touch

14. Vision • A baby’s least developed sense is probably vision, which takes 6 to 8 months to become as good as the average college student's

15. Other Senses • Hearing • Fetuses in the womb hear sounds and after birth and show signs that they remember sounds they heard in the womb • Babies are also able to tell the direction of a sound • Newborns seem particularly adept at discriminating speech sounds • Smell and taste • Newborns have clear-cut likes and dislikes • Prefer sweet flavors

16. Other Senses • As infants grow older their perceptions improve • Their sense organs and nervous system physically mature • Gain experience of the world • Teacher Tube

17. Outline • Prenatal Development • The Newborn • Infancy and Childhood • Adolescence • Early and Middle Adulthood • Later Adulthood

18. Infancy and Childhood • During the first dozen years of life a helpless infant becomes a competent older child • This transformation encompasses many important kinds of changes including • Physical • Motor • Cognitive • Social developments

19. Physical Development • Growth of the body is most rapid during the first year • The average baby grows approximately 10 inches and gains about 15 pounds • Growth slows down considerably until early adolescence • Growth occurs suddenly rather than through small, steady changes • During the first two years, children have heads that are large relative to their bodies as their brain undergoes rapid growth • Brain reaches ¾ of adult size by the age of two • Head growth is complete by age 10

20. Body Proportions at Various Ages

21. Cognitive Development • Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget • Cognitive development is a way of adapting to the environment • Children are intrinsically motivated to explore and understand things, progressing through four basic stages of cognitive development • Piaget’s stages of cognitive development • Sensory-motor stage (birth-2) • Preoperational stage (2-7) • Concrete operational (7-11) • Formal operational (11-15)

22. Sensory-Motor Stage (birth-2) • Object Permanence • The concept that things continue to exist even when they are out of sight • Mental Representations • Mental images or symbols (such as words) used to think about or remember an object, a person, or an event • Self-Recognition • Ability to recognize the reflection as “myself”

23. Preoperational Stage (2-7) • A child becomes able to use mental representations and language to describe, remember, and reason about the world • Allows for engaging in fantasy play and symbolic gestures • Egocentric • Unable to see things from another person’s point of view • Easily mislead by appearances

24. Concrete-Operational Stage (7-11) • A child can attend to more than one thing at a time and understand someone else’s point of view, though thinking is limited to concrete matters • Grasp principles of conservation • The concept that the quantity of a substance is not altered by reversible changes in its appearance

25. Formal-Operational Stage (11-15) • Individuals acquire the ability to think abstractly and test ideas mentally using logic

26. Moral Development • How people make moral decisions about right and wrong • Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development • Preconventional • Interpreting behavior in terms of its concrete consequences • Conventional • Interpreting behavior in terms of social and societal approval • Postconventional • Emphasis on abstract principles, for example justice, liberty, and equality

27. Language Development • Development of language follows a predictable pattern

28. Social Development • Erikson’s Stage Theory • Eight stages beginning at birth and ending in old age • In each stage, the individual faces a central conflict or “crisis” that must be resolved • Successful development in the following periods of development occur when the crisis is resolved favorably • In early development, parent-child interactions are critically important • As the child grows older, peer relationships become more important • In adulthood, focus is on how the person interprets the patterns of his or her life

29. Erikson’s Stage Theory • Trust vs Mistrust (0-1 yr) • If needs are met, infants come to trust the environment and themselves • Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt (1-3 yrs) • Ability to master skills such as walking, holding onto thing, control of their excretory functions • Initiative vs Guilt (3-6 yrs) • Support and encouragement or scolding for new activities? • Industry vs Inferiority (6-13 yrs) • Ability to meet the new expectations at home and school

30. Erikson’s Stage Theory • Identity vs Role Confusion (13-18 yrs) • Ability to integrate the various roles (student, sister, friends, etc.) • Intimacy vs Isolation (18-25 yrs) • To love someone else we must have resolved earlier issues and feel secure in our own identities • Generativity vs Stagnation (25-60 yrs) • The challenge is to remain creative in all aspects of one’s life, finding meaning and joy in all major activities • Integrity vs. Despair (60 yrs-end of life) • Acceptance with one’s life, a sense that it is complete and satisfactory

31. Parent-Child Relationships in Infancy: Development of Attachment • Attachment • The emotional bond that develops in the first year of life that makes human babies cling to their caregivers for safety and comfort • Signs of attachment are evident by age six months or earlier by reacting with coos at the caregiver’s appearance or whimpers when they leaves • Autonomy • Sense of independence; a desire not to be controlled by others • A child who has formed a secure attachment to a caregiver can explore the environment without fear

32. Parent-Child Relationships in Infancy: Development of Attachment • Socialization • Process by which children learn the behaviors and attitudes appropriate to their family and culture • The need for both autonomy and socialization can be met if parent allow the child a reasonable amount of independence, while insisting the child follow certain rules

33. Parent-Child Relationships in Childhood • Effect of parenting style on a child’s outlook and behavior • Authoritative parents provide firm structure and guidance without being overly controlling. • Must successful parenting style • Authoritarian parents are low on warmth but high on control and insist on unquestioning obedience • Produce children who generally have poor communication skills, are moody, withdrawn and distrustful. May also act out when the parents aren’t around

34. Parent-Child Relationships in Childhood • Effect of parenting style on a child’s outlook and behavior • Permissive parents are high on warmth, but low on control • Children tend to be immature, disrespectful, impulsive and out of control • Indifferent parents exert little control, are neglectful and inattentive • Children tend to be overly dependent and lacking social skills and self-control

35. Parent-Child Relationships in Childhood • Criticisms: • Parents do not determine the parent-child relationship on their own – children affect it too • Parents do not act the same way toward every child in the family • Research that indicates that the importance of parents may be overestimated and that peers are a key factor in shaping adult personality

36. Relationships with other Children • Solitary play (0-18 months) • A child engaged in some activity alone • The earliest form of play • Parallel play (18 months – 2 yrs) • Two children playing side by side at the same activities, paying little or no attention to each other • The earliest form of social interaction between toddlers • Cooperative play (3+ yrs) • Two or more children engaged in play that requires interaction

37. Children in Dual Career Families • In the US, over half the children between birth and age third grade spend some time being regularly cared for by persons other then their parents • Current research indicates no direct link between children who are raised in one parent families and psychological disorders.

38. Gender-Role Development • Gender identity (age 3) • The knowledge that one is male or female • Little understanding of what that means • Gender constancy (age 4 or 5) • The realization that gender cannot be changed

39. Gender-Role Development • Gender-role awareness • Knowledge of what behavior is appropriate for each gender • Gender stereotypes • General beliefs about characteristics that men and women are presumed to have • Gender-typed behavior • Socially prescribed ways of behaving that differ for boys and girls • Popular culture – especially television – influences the norms of gender-appropriate behavior that develop in children’s peer groups

40. Television and Children • American children spend more time watching television than they do any other activity other than sleeping • Concerns: • Violence • Sleep Disturbances • Children can learn worthwhile things from educational programs on TV

41. Outline • Prenatal Development • The Newborn • Infancy and Childhood • Adolescence • Early and Middle Adulthood • Later Adulthood

42. Adolescence • Adolescence is a period of the lifespan that is defined as much by social expectations and personal circumstances as by biological and cognitive changes • About age 10 to age 20

43. Sexual Development • Puberty • The onset of sexual maturation, with accompanying physical development • Visible signs occur in a different sequence for boys and girls

44. Early vs Late Development • Age at puberty differs greatly in individuals • Early development for boys has positive impact • They are better in sports and receive greater respect from their peers • Early development has both positive and negative effects for girls • Early developing girls may be admired by other girls, but may be treated as a sex object by boys

45. Adolescent Sexual Activity • The US has the highest teen birth rate in the industrialized world • Nearly 7x the rate in France and 13x the rate in Japan • May be due to ignorance of the most basic facts concerning reproduction

46. Cognitive Changes • Increased ability to reason abstractly (formal operational thought) • Can understand and manipulate abstract concepts, speculate about alternative possibilities and reason in hypothetical terms • Imaginary Audience • Adolescents’ delusion that they are constantly being observed by others • Personal Fable • Adolescents’ delusion that they are unique, very important, and invulnerable

47. Personality and Social Development • Adolescents are eager to establish independence, but fear the responsibilities of adulthood • How “stormy and stressful” is adolescence? • Many adolescents manage to keep stress in check, experience little disruption in their everyday lives, and generally develop more positively than is commonly believed

48. Forming an Identity • Identity Formation • The development of a stable sense of self, necessary to make the transition from dependence on others to dependence on oneself • Identity Crisis • A period of intense self-examination and decision making • Part of the process of identity formation

49. Relationship with Peers • Adolescents require guidance and structure from adults • The low point of parent-child relationships generally occurs in early adolescence, when physical changes of puberty are occurring

50. Outline • Prenatal Development • The Newborn • Infancy and Childhood • Adolescence • Early and Middle Adulthood • Later Adulthood