The Developing Person
Cognitive (thinking) development
Social development
Moral Development
Psychosocial Development
Aging
Cognitive Development
• Jean Piaget
 Sensorimotor (0-2 years)
 Object Permanence
 Preoperational (2-7 years)
 Conservation of Matter
 Egocentric
 Concrete operations (7-12 years)
 Concrete objects
 Formal operations (12 to adult)
 Abstract thought
 “What if?” questions can be considered
Social Development
• How do we develop social bonds?
 Body contact
 Familiarity
 Self Concept
Body contact
• Harlow monkey studies
• Wire mother & terrycloth mother
 Preferred non-nourishing cloth mother
Familiarity
• Critical period
• Imprinting
 Birds forming attachment during the critical
period
Parental attachment
• Toddlers with secure attachments to
parents:
 More sociable
 More enthusiastic and persistent in tackling
challenging tasks.
Self concept
• Children with a positive self concept are
more sociable.
Parenting
• Authoritarian
 Impose rules & expect obedience
• Permissive
 Go along with child’s desires
• Authoritative
 Discusses and negotiates rules
 Produce more self-confident children
Moral Development
• Kohlberg - Moral development
• Preconventional
 Obey to gain rewards or avoid punishment
• Conventional
 Respect for laws and rules simply because
they are there
• Postconventional
 Abstract reasoning-rights and ethics
Morality and social influence
• Social influence effects whether or not we
will act on our morality.
• Eg. The best predictor of a H.S. student
using drugs, is the number of the student’s
friends that use drugs.
Erickson’s eight stages of
Psychosocial Development
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Infancy = Trust vs mistrust
Toddler = Autonomy vs Shame & doubt
Preschooler = Initiative vs guilt
Elementary school =
 Competence vs inferiority
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Adolescence = Identity vs. role confusion
Young adult = Intimacy vs. isolation
Middle adult = Generativity vs. stagnation
Late adulthood = Integrity vs. despair
 Integrity achieved in late adulthood
Adulthood and aging
• Alzheimer’s disease
 Deterioration of the brain
 Effects memory and thinking
 Difficulty in naming familiar objects or people
 Linked to genetic abnormalities
 Linked to activity (Use it or lose it)
Aging and memory
• Crystallized intelligence
 Accumulated knowledge
 Increases with age
• Fluid intelligence
 Ability to reason and solve problems
 Decreases with age
Aging and Society
• The “social clock”
 The feeling that events in life regularly occur
at specific ages.
 Graduation, marriage, children, retirement, etc.
 Varies greatly from culture to culture
 No biological basis for timing of events