CHAPTER 9: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT:

I- Exploring Human Development:

Development: The pattern of continuity and change in human capabilities that occurs
throughout life, involving both growth and decline.
Developmental psychology: Interested in how people change physically and
psychologically as the age and throughout the course of life.
—> These changes occur in 3 different levels:
• Physical/Biological Processes: Changes in the brain, height weight, motor skills,
hormonal changes of puberty, menopause. —> MATURATION.
• Socio-emotional Processes: Relationships, emotions, personality.
• Cognitive Processes: Changes in thought, intelligence, language.

Research Methods in Developmental Psychology:

To know what age-related differences mean, we must consider the kind of research
presented:
• Cross-sectional study: Examine how individuals in different age groups have different
characteristics at one point in time.
• Cohort effects: Differences between individuals that stem not necessarily from their
ages but from the historical and social time period during which they were born.
• Longitudinal study: Assess the same participants multiple times over a lengthy
period. *Better at explaining changes in development*.

How do Nature and Nurture Influence Development?

Nature: An individual’s biological inheritance, especially his or her genes.
Nurture: An individual’s environmental and social experiences.

Resilience: A person’s ability to recover from or adapt to difficult times.

II- Child Development:

1. PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT: is a time of astonishing changes, beginning with
conception.
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 chromosomes from the father.
The Course of Prenatal Development: Divided into 3 periods:
• Germinal period (week 1 -2): It begins with conception. After 1 week and many cell
divisions, the zygote is made up of 100 to 150 cells. End of 2 weeks: attached to
the uterine wall.
• Embryonic period (week 3-8): Rate of cell differentiation intensifies — organ
formation — neural tube starts to develop — heart begins to beat — arms and leg
are differentiated — face starts to form — internal tract appears.
• Fetal period (months 2-9): Organ functioning increases, considerable weight and size.

Threats to the Fetus:

Teratogen: Any agent that causes a birth defect. They include chemical substances
ingested by the mother (nicotine/alcohol) and certain illnesses.
• Fetal alchohol spectrum disorder (FASD): cluster of abnormalities and problems that
appear in the offspring of mothers who drink alcohol heavily/moderately
during pregnancy. —> small head, defects in limb, heart, below average
intelligence.
• Sexually transmitted infections (STIs): can be threatening to the baby; syphilis, HIV,
AIDS.
• A preterm infant: one who is born prior to 37 weeks after conception, may also be at
risk for development difficulties. (Poor people)

2. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD:

• Reflexes: Newborns come into the world equipped with several genetically wired
reflexes that are crucial for survival. (Suck and swallow)
◦ Example: if they are dropped in water, they automatically hold their breath,
contract their throat to keep water out, and move their arms and legs to
stay afloat.
• Motor and perceptual skills:
◦ Preferential looking: A research technique that involves giving an infant a
choice of what object to look at.
• The Brain: The infant brain literally is ready and waiting for the experiences that will
create these connections.
◦ During childhood, synaptic connections increase dramatically.
◦ The connections that are made become stronger and will survive; the unused
ones will be replaced by other neural pathways or disappear.

3. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT CHILDHOOD:

Cognitive development refers to how thought, intelligence, and language processes
change as people mature.
Cognition refers to the way individuals think and also to their cognitive skills and
abilities.

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development:

Piaget believed that children actively construct their cognitive world as they go through
series of stages. In Piaget’s view, children use schemas (=mental concept that organizes
and provides a structure for interpreting information) to make sense of their experience.
Piaget described 2 processes responsible for how schemas develop:
• Assimilation: Using experiences you learned before and apply it to new situations.
• Accommodation: Experiencing something new where you learn and retain new
information.

According to Piaget we go through 4 stages in understanding the world. Each stage

involves a qualitatively different way of making sense of the world than the one before it:
1. Sensorimotor Stage: Piaget’s first stage of cognitive development, lasting from birth
to about 2 years, during which infants construct an understanding of the world by
coordinating sensory experiences with motor (physical) actions (=looking,
hearing, touching, grasping, mouthing…)
1. 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.
2. Pre-Operational Stage: Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development, lasting from
about 2 to 7 years, during which thought is more symbolic than sensorimotor
thought. Still do not have logical thinking; magical and egocentric thinking. It’s a
stage that lacks operations.
3. Concrete Operational Stage: Piaget's third stage of cognitive development, lasting
from about 7 to 11 years, during which the individual uses operations and
replaces intuitive reasoning with logical reasoning in concrete situations. They
develop the concept of reversibility(= the ability to reverse mental operations.)
4. Formal Operational Stage: Piaget’s fourth stage of cognitive development, which
begins at 11 to 15 years of age and continues through the adult years; it features
thinking about things that are not concrete, making predictions, and using logic to
come up with hypotheses about the future.

Sensorimotor (1) —> Abstract (2) —> Idealistic (3) —> Logical thoughts (4).

Information Processing Theory: How individuals encode information, manipulate it,

monitor it and create strategies for handling it (cf. Working memory)

4. SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD:

Temperament: An individual’s behavioral style and ways of responding.
There are 3 basic types of temperament in children:
• The easy child: Is in a positive mood, quickly establishes regular routines in infancy
and easily adapts to new experiences.
• The difficult child: Tends to react negatively and to cry frequently, engages in
irregular daily routines and is slow to accept new experiences.
• The slow-to-warm-up child: Low activity level, is somewhat negative, is inflexible,
and is very cautious in the face of new experiences.

Infant attachement: The close emotional bond between an infant and its caregiver.
1. Secure attachement: The ways that infants use their caregiver, usually their mother,
as a secure base from which to explore the environment.
2. Insecure attachement:
1. Avoidant attachement: Infants might not even notice their mother is gone.
2. Ambivalent attachement: Infants respond with intense distress, only to rage at
the mother when she returns.

ERIK ERIKSON’S THEORY OF SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT:

Erikson proposed 8 psychological stages of development from infancy through old age.
In Erikson’s view, the first 4 stages take place in childhood, the last 4 in adolescence and
in adulthood. His developmental tasks are represented by 2 possible outcomes: — one,
greater strength and competence, — the other, greater weakness and vulnerability.

The stages of socioemotional development are:

 1) Trust VS. Mistrust: (birth to 1.5 years) A sense of trust requires a feeling of
physical comfort and minimal amount of fear about the future. Infants basic needs are
met by responsive, sensitive care giver.
2) Autonomy VS. Shame and doubt: (1.5 to 3 years) After gaining trust in their
caregivers, infants start to discover that they have a will of their own. They assert their
sense of autonomy or independence. They realize their will. If infants are restrained too
much, or punished too harshly, they are likely to develop a sense of shame and doubt.
3) Initiative VS. Guilt: (3 to 5 years) A preschool children encounters a widening
social world, they are challenged more and need to develop more purposeful behavior to
cope with these challenges. Children are now asked to assume more responsibility.
Uncomfortable guilt feelings may arise, though if the children are irresponsible and are
made to feel too anxious.
4) Industry VS. Inferiority: (6 to puberty) At no other time are children more
enthusiastic than at the end of early childhood’s period of expansive imagination.
As children move into elementary school years, they direct their energy toward mastering
knowledge and intellectual skills. The danger at this stage involves feeling incompetent
and unproductive.
5) Identity VS. Identity Confusion: (10-20 years) Individuals are faced with finding
out who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life. An important
dimension is the expectation of alternatives solutions to roles. Career exploration is
important.
6) Intimacy VS. Isolation: (20s - 30s) Individuals face the developmental task of
forming intimate relationships with others. Erikson described intimacy as finding oneself
yet loosing oneself in another person.
7) Generativity VS. Stagnation: (40s - 50s) A chief concern is to assist the younger
generation in developing and leading useful lives.
8) Integrity VS. Despair: (60s - ) Individuals look back and evaluate what they have
done with their lives. The retrospective glances can be either positive (integrity) or
negative (despair).

There are 4 basic styles of interaction between parents and their children:
1. Authoritarian parenting: A restrictive, punitive style in which the parent exhorts the
child to follow the parent’s directions. Children of authoritarian parents often lack
social skills, show poor initiative, and compare themselves with others.
2. Authoritative parenting: A parenting style that encourages the child to be
independent but that still places limits and control on behavior. Children whose
parents are authoritative tend to be socially competent, self-reliant and socially
responsible.
3. Neglectful parenting: parenting style characterized by lack of parental involvement in
the child’s life. Children whose parents are neglectful tend to be less competent
socially, to handle independence poorly, and (especially) to show poor self-
control.
4. Permissive parenting: A parenting style characterized by the placement of few limits
on the child’s behavior. Children with permissive parents fail to learn respect for
others, expect to get their own way and have difficulty controlling their behavior.
5. MORAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDHOOD:
Kohlberg’s stages of moral development are:
1) Pre-conventional: The individual’s moral reasoning is based primarily on the
consequences of behavior and punishments and rewards from the external world.
2) Conventional: The individual abides by standards learned from parents or society’s
laws.
3) Post-conventional: The individual recognizes alternative moral causes, explores the
options and then develops increasingly personal moral code.

Prosocial behavior: Behavior that is intended to benefit other people.

III- Adolescence:

1. PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT IN ADOLESCENCE:

Pubertal changes:
Puberty: A period rapid skeletal and sexual maturation that occurs mainly in early
adolescence.
Androgens: (Testosterone) The class of sex hormones that predominate in males,
produced by the testes in male and by the adrenal glands in both males and females. —>
development of genitals, increase in height, voice change.
Estrogens: (Estradiol) The class of sex hormones that predominate in females, produced
mainly by the ovaries. —> development of breasts, uterine, skeletal development.

The Adolescent Brain:

Adolescent —> egocentrism. It involves the belief that others are preoccupied with the
adolescent as he/she is and that the individual is both unique and invincible.

2. SOCIOEMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN ADOLESCENCE:

Marcia’s theory on Identity Crisis: Marcia proposed the concept of identity status to
describe a person’s position in the development of an identity. Exploration refers to a
person’s investigating various options for a career and for personal values.
Commitment involves making a decision about which identity path to follow and
meeting a personal investment in attaining that identity.

Ethnic Identity: It is challenging to develop an identity for individuals from ethnic

groups. As adolescents mature, they get aware of their minority groups. They face the
challenge of biculturalism, which is identifying in some ways with their ethnic minority
group and in other ways with the majority culture.

IV- Emerging Adulthood, Adult Development, and Aging:

Emerging adulthood: The transitional period from adolescence to adulthood, spanning
approximately 18 to 25 years of age.
Biological Theories of Aging:
• Cellular-Clock Theory: Cells can divide a maximum of about 100 times and that, as
we age, our cells become less capable of dividing.
• Free-radical Theory: This theory states that people age because unstable oxygen
molecules known as her radicals as produced inside their cells. These molecules
damage DNA and other cellular structures.
• Hormonal Stress Theory: Aging in the body’s hormonal system can lower resistance
to stress and increase the likelihood of disease.

Cognitive in late adulthood:

Wisdom: Expert knowledge about the practical aspects of life.

There are 4 principles at work in successful marriages:

- Nurturing fondness and administration.
- Turning toward each other as friends.
- Giving up some power.
- Solving conflicts together.