Myers PSYCHOLOGY
Seventh Edition in Modules
Module 8
Infancy and Childhood
James A. McCubbin, Ph.D.
Clemson University
Worth Publishers
Infancy and Childhood:
Physical Development
 Maturation
 biological growth
processes that
enable orderly
changes in
behavior
 relatively
uninfluenced by
experience
At birth
3 months
15 months
Cortical Neurons
Infancy and Childhood:
Physical Development
 Babies only 3
months old can
learn that
kicking moves
a mobile--and
can retain that
learning for a
month (RoveeCollier, 1989,
1997).
Cognitive Development
z Developmental psychologists try to
describe how children think and evaluate
the world.
z The work of Piaget had a great impact in
this area.
z He developed a theory of cognitive
development.
Infancy and Childhood:
Cognitive Development
 Cognition
 all the mental activities associated
with thinking, knowing,
remembering, and communicating
 Schemas are the frameworks that
we use to organize and interpret
information.
Infancy and Childhood:
Cognitive Development
 Assimilation
 interpreting one’s new experience
in terms of one’s existing schemas
 Accommodation
 adapting one’s current
understandings (schemas) to
incorporate new information
Schema: Dogs are four legged animals
Scenario: child sees a cat
Assimilation
z The child thinks that the
cat is a dog.
Accommodation
z The child changes their
schema to include both
dogs and cats as having
four legs.
Schema – Everything with wheels is a truck.
Scenario – Child is presented with a bicycle.
Assimilation
z He thinks the bicycle is a
type of truck.
Accommodation
z He changes his concept
of things with wheels to
include trucks and bikes.
Piaget’s Stages of
Cognitive Development
Typical Age
Range
Description
of Stage
Developmental
Phenomena
Birth to nearly 2 years
Sensorimotor
Experiencing the world through
senses and actions (looking,
touching, mouthing)
•Object permanence
•Stranger anxiety
About 2 to 6 years
Preoperational
Representing things
with words and images
but lacking logical reasoning
•Pretend play
•Egocentrism
•Language development
About 7 to 11 years
Concrete operational
•Conservation
Thinking logically about concrete
•Mathematical
events; grasping concrete analogies
transformations
and performing arithmetical operations
About 12 through
adulthood
Formal operational
Abstract reasoning
•Abstract logic
•Potential for
moral reasoning
Infancy and Childhood:
Cognitive Development
 Object Permanence
 the awareness that things continue to exist
even when not perceived
Characteristics of the
sensorimotor stage
z The child acts on the environment by
knocking down blocks, making sounds,
finding toes.
z The child sees an object and reaches.
z The child realizes that objects still exist
although the objects is no longer seen.
z The child cries when the parent is no
longer present. This is called stranger
anxiety.
Infancy and Childhood:
Cognitive Development
 Baby Mathematics
 Shown a numerically impossible outcome, infants
stare longer (Wynn, 1992)
4. Possible outcome:
Screen drops, revealing
one object.
1. Objects placed
in case.
2. Screen comes 3. Object is removed.
up.
4. Impossible outcome:
Screen drops, revealing
two objects.
Infancy and Childhood:
Cognitive Development
 Conservation
 the principle that properties such as mass,
volume, and number remain the same despite
changes in the forms of objects
Conservation Experiments
z Conservation of liquid quantity
z Conservation of mass
z Conservation of area
z Conservation of number
Infancy and Childhood:
Cognitive Development
 Egocentrism
 the inability of the preoperational child to take
another’s point of view
 Theory of Mind
 people’s ideas about their own and others’ mental
states- about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts
and the behavior these might predict
 Autism
 a disorder that appears in childhood
 Marked by deficient communication, social interaction
and understanding of others’ states of mind
Characteristics of the
preoperational stage
z The child starts to represent the world internally through
language.
z The child cannot take another point of view.
z The child thinks all objects have life.
z The child thinks human beings created everything.
z The child uses inaccurate logic by assuming that the
characteristics of a specific idea can be applied to a
similar idea – birds fly – airplanes fly – birds must be
airplanes.
z The child classifies objects by only one trait – typically
color.
Concrete Operational
Stage
z The child can now understand simple
operations performed on concrete reality.
z They have a mental schema for quantity,
mass, volume and number.
z Change in shape does not affect quantity.
z They can comprehend math
transformations.
Characteristics of the
concrete operational stage
z The child begins to understand that objects can change
shape without other changes in the characteristics.
z The child understands and performs operations that go
in the other direction.
z The child draws conclusions from a number of specific
facts.
z The child classifies objects into larger classes of objects.
z The child classifies by a number of characteristics.
Formal Operational Stage
z
z
z
z
Occurs around adolescence
Manipulate complex mental representation
Think in terms of abstractions
Metacognition
Characteristics of the
Formal Operational stage
z The child thinks abstractly.
z The child hypothesizes.
z The child can get specific facts from a
generalization.
Assessing Piaget
Pros
z We learn best when we
build on what we already
know.
z New reasoning abilities
require previous abilities.
z Children don’t reason
with adult logic.
Cons
z He underestimated
children.
z Development is
continuous not in stages.
z Children go through the
stages more rapidly than
was estimated.
Examples
z 1. Jake looks at a string of plastic beads;
six are white and ten are blue. Jake is
asked how many white beads there are
and answers correctly – six. He is then
asked how many plastic beads there are
and he answers ten.
• Stage
• Age
• Concept
Social Development
 Stranger Anxiety
 fear of strangers that infants commonly
display
 beginning by about 8 months of age
 Attachment
 an emotional tie with another person
 shown in young children by their seeking
closeness to the caregiver and displaying
distress on separation
2. Carrie can solve an algebraic equation.
Stage – age - concept
z 3. Pierre loves to play peek-a-boo. He
laughs when someone puts a blanket over
his face and then pulls it away.
y Stage – age – concept.
z 4. Paul sees a piece of ribbon tied in a
bow. He unties the bow and stretches it
to its full length. Which is longer – they
are the same.
y Stage –age - concept
Social Development
 Harlow’s Surrogate
Mother Experiments
 Monkeys preferred
contact with the
comfortable cloth
mother, even while
feeding from the
nourishing wire
mother
Social Development
 Critical Period
 an optimal period shortly after birth
when an organism’s exposure to certain
stimuli or experiences produces proper
development
 Imprinting
 the process by which certain animals
form attachments during a critical period
very early in life
Social Development
 Monkeys raised
by artificial
mothers were
terror-stricken
when placed in
strange
situations
without their
surrogate
mothers.
Attachment
z Work of Mary Ainsworth
z Studied attachment between infants and
mothers
z 3 types of attachment
y Secure attachment
y Avoidant attachment
y Anxious attachment
In all studies she observed infants’ reactions when placed into a
strange, novel situation when their parent left them alone for
short period of time and then returned.
Secure attachment
z These infants usually appear active and happy.
z They are willing to explore a new room if the
mother is present. They warm up quickly to a
stranger who talks with the mother.
z They are not greatly disturbed if the mother is
absent for a brief period of time.
z When the mother returns to the room the infant
becomes anxious and runs to the mother’s side.
Avoidant attachment
z These infants are not even upset by
separation from the mother. They do not
cry when she leaves.
z When she returns, the infant may ignore
her or react casually to her presence. The
infant may even avoid her.
z If the infant is distressed they will not
seek contact.
Anxious attachment
z These infants do not explore a strange room full
of toys.
z They cry and cling to the mother even before
being separated from her.
z They act suspicious of strangers and get very
upset if the mother leaves the room.
z When she returns they pout or even cry.
z They show extreme stress when she leaves but
resist being comforted when she returns.
Social Development
Percentage
of infants
100
who cried
when their
mothers left
80
 Groups of
infants left by
their mothers
in a unfamiliar
room (from
Kagan, 1976).
Day care
60
40
Home
20
0
3.5 5.5 7.5 9.5 11.5 13.5 20
Age in months
29
Social Development
 Basic Trust (Erik Erikson)
 a sense that the world is predictable and
trustworthy
 said to be formed during infancy by
appropriate experiences with responsive
caregivers
 Self-Concept
 a sense of one’s identity and personal
worth
Social Development: ChildRearing Practices
 Authoritarian
 parents impose rules and expect obedience
 “Don’t interrupt.” “Why? Because I said so.”
 Permissive
 submit to children’s desires, make few
demands, use little punishment
 Authoritative
 both demanding and responsive
 set rules, but explain reasons and encourage
open discussion
Parenting examples
z For each scenario determine an authoritarian response,
a permissive response, and an authoritative response.
z 1. Your 7 year old daughter wants to sleep over at her
friend’s house with three other girls. You have met the
friend but not her parents.
z 2. You decide to run away from home. You are caught
just as you are heading out the door.
z 3. Your 4 year old has coloured on the wall for the first
time.
z 4. You have missed your curfew by 30 minutes.
Developmental Issues
z There are three major issues in the study
of developmental psychology.
z 1. Continuity and stages
y How is our development continuous, and how do we develop in
stages?
z 2. Stability and change
y What remains stable across our development, and how do we
change?
z 3. Nature and nurture
y How does the interaction of nature and nurture affect
development?