General Psychology

Development Through the Life Span

 Prenatal Development
 Prenatal period – from conception to birth
 Germinal stage – zygote moves down
fallopian tube
 Embryonic stage – organ systems are
forming and embryo is very vulnerable to
external influences
 Fetal stage – organs continue to grow and
increase in complexity
 Environmental Influences on
Prenatal Development
 Maternal nutrition
 Smoking
 Alcohol
 Drugs
 Environmental Influences on
Prenatal Development
 Fetal alcohol syndrome – cluster of
symptoms (e.g., low birth weight, poor
muscle tone, and intellectual retardation)
associated with a child born to a mother
who was a heavy alcohol drinker during
pregnancy
 Heavy drinking = 3 or more drinks per
day, or binge drinking during organogenesis
 What About Dad?
 Main issues concern the quality of the
father’s sperm at conception
 Sperm from fathers beyond the age of 35 or 40
may be partly the source of the genetic defect
involved in Down’s Syndrome
 Father’s possible role in transmission of STDs
 Sensory & Perceptual
Development
 Neonate (newborn) SIGHT
 Can focus on objects 1-2 ft. away
 Can discriminate among facial expressions of
emotions
 Within a few hours of birth can recognize a
picture of his or her own mother
 Prefer patterned over unpatterned stimuli
 Prefer patterns that look like human faces over
patterns that do not
 Sensory & Perceptual
Development
 Other senses
 Neonates can hear nearly as well as adults
 Neonates can detect touch and temperature
stimulation
 Neonates can feel pain
 Cognitive Development
 The age-related changes in learning,
memory, perception, attention, thinking,
and problem-solving
 Information-processing approach
 Structural-functional approach
 Cognitive Development
 Information-processing approach –
Focuses on the quantitative changes in basic
information processing systems like
memory, attention, and learning
 Structural-functional approach – says that
structures (schemas) change with
development, while functions remain fixed
 Structural-Functional Approach
 Jean Piaget
 Structures (schemas) change with development,
while functions remain fixed
 Schema – organized mental representation of
the world that is adaptive and formed by
experience
 Cognitive development is seen as a series of
qualitative changes in intelligence
 Piaget’s Theory
– Organization – predisposition to integrate
individual schemas into organized units
– Adaptation – adapting cognitive abilities to
the demands of the environment. Comprises:
– Assimilation – incorporating new information
into an existing schema
– Accommodation – modifying schema to account
for new experiences
Table 8.1: Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.
 Piaget’s Stages of Development
 Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years) –
children discover by sensing (sensori-) and
doing (motor)
 Children learn about causality
 Children learn about object permanence
 Imitation develops
 Object Permanence
 An appreciation that an object no longer in
view can still exist and reappear later
 Piaget’s Stages of Development
 Preoperational Stage (2-6 years) – a
child’s thinking is self-centered or
egocentric
 Piaget’s Stages of Development
 Concrete Operations Stage – Children
(7-11) begin to develop many concepts and
show that they can manipulate those
concepts
 Rule-governed behavior begins in this stage
 Conservation is evident in this stage
 Conservation
 Awareness that changing the form or the
appearance of something does not change
what it really is
 Piaget’s Stages of Development
 Formal Operations Stage – Children
(12 and up) are beginning to be able to
logically manipulate abstract, symbolic
concepts
 Reactions to Piaget
 The borderlines between his proposed
stages are much less clear-cut than his
theory suggests
 Piaget underestimated the cognitive talents
of preschool children
 Object permanence appears earlier than age 2
 Little attention to the impact of language
development and the gradual increase in
memory capacity
 Information-Processing
 Development of Learning
 Classical and operant conditioning shown in
neonates
 Imitation evident as young as 1 week!
 Development of Memory
 Memory demonstrated in very young infants
 Children as young as 3 can understand the
temporal nature of events and form scripts of
those events in memory
 Moral Development
 Piaget believed that children could not
make moral judgments until they were at
least 3-4 years old
 Moral Development
 Lawrence Kohlberg – 3 levels:
 Preconventional morality – prime interest of
child is with the punishment that comes from
breaking a rule
 Conventional morality – acceptance of social
convention where approval matters as much or
more than anything else
 Postconventional morality – moral reasoning
reflects complex, internalized standards
Table 8.2: Kohlberg’s stages of moral development.
 Moral Development
 Carol Gilligan – believes that the moral
reasoning for women is different than that
of men
 Women are more likely to focus on caring,
personal responsibility and relationships
 Men focus on rules, justice, and individual
rights
 Erikson’s Psychosocial View
 Eight-stage theory of life-span
development
1. Trust vs. Mistrust
2. Autonomy vs. Self-Doubt
3. Initiative vs. Guilt
4. Competence vs. Inferiority
Table 8.3: Erikson’s eight stages of development.
 Developing Gender Identity
 Once children can discriminate between the
sexes, they develop schemas for gender-
related information
 Encouraged by parents, children at an early age
(1 year), have defined preferences for choices
of toys
 By age 3 or 4, children tend to gravitate toward
same-sex play groups
 Developing Gender Identity
 Gender identity – sense or self-awareness
of one’s own maleness or femaleness
 Most children develop this by the age of 2 or 3
 Once gender identity is established, it is very
resistant to change
 By late childhood and early adolescence, peer
pressure intensifies gender differences
 Developing Social Attachments
 Attachment – strong emotional relationship
between a child and his or her mother or
primary caregiver
 Attachment Theory
 Strong attachments are most likely to be
formed if the parent is optimally sensitive
and responsive to the needs of the child
 Two-way process
 More than just spending time with child
 Not just mother
 May have life-long ramifications
 Spotlight: Parenting Styles
 Classic model – Diana Baumrind
 Indulgent
 Authoritarian
 Authoritative
 Adolescence
 Period between childhood and adulthood,
often begun at puberty and ending with full
physical growth
 Biological perspective – puberty
 Psychological perspective
 Social perspective
 Challenges of Puberty
 Growth spurt – dramatic increase in height
and weight
 Usually occurs earlier in girls than boys
 Puberty = capability of sexual reproduction
 Menarche in girls
 Boys seldom know when it begins exactly
 Challenge of Identity Formation
 Identity crisis – a struggle to define a sense of
self, what to do in life, and what one’s attitudes,
beliefs, and values should be
 Marcia – 4 ways identity issues can be resolved:
1. Identity Achievement
2. Foreclosure
3. Identity Diffusion
4. Moratorium
 Marriage and Family
 Erikson – Early adulthood revolves around
the choice of intimacy or isolation
 Mate selection – involves availability,
eligibility, and attractiveness (physical and
psychological)
 Approx. 50% of marriages end in divorce!
Table 8.4: Characteristics sought in mates.
 Transition to Parenthood
 Generativity – concern for family and for
one’s impact on future generations
 Marital satisfaction tends to drop during the
child-rearing years of marriage
 Marital satisfaction increases again once the
children leave the nest
 Career Choice
 One’s choice and satisfaction of occupation
affects self-esteem and identity
 Career selection is driven by family
influence and the potential for earning
money
 Challenges of Drug Use
 Many adolescents experiment with drugs
 Smoking (79%) and drinking alcohol (81%) lead
the list of drug-related activities teens have tried at
least once by ninth grade!
 Correlational study – 18year-olds in
experimenter category were more psychologically
healthy than frequent users or abstainers
 Challenges of Sexuality
 49.9% of high-school teens have engaged in
sexual behavior
 Teen pregnancy is a significant social
problem
 Development During
Middle Adulthood
 One must adjust to the physiological
changes of middle age
 Dealing with teens and elderly parents
places some middle-aged adults in what has
been called the “sandwich generation”
 Another task of this age is determining how
to leave a mark on future generations
 What it Means to be Old…
 Ageism – discrimination and prejudice against a
group on the basis of age
 Adults over age 65 can be divided into young-old
and old-old groups
 Fewer than 15% of Americans over the age of 65
live in nursing homes, but it increases to 25% by
age 85
 With increased age often comes increased physical
problems, but only 28% of the elderly report their
health as fair to poor
 Death and Dying
5 stages of facing death:
2. Denial
3. Anger
4. Bargaining
5. Depression
6. Acceptance