Social Development
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
 Monkeys raised
by artificial
mothers were
terror-stricken
when placed in
strange
situations
without their
surrogate
mothers.
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
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
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: 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
Social Development:
Child-Rearing Practices
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
Adolescence: Social
Development
 Identity
 one’s sense of self
 the adolescent’s task is to solidify a
sense of self by testing and integrating
various roles
 Intimacy
 the ability to form close, loving
relationships
 a primary developmental task in late
adolescence and early adulthood
Erikson’s Stages of
Psychosocial Development
Approximate
age
Stage
Description of Task
Infancy
(1st year)
Trust vs. mistrust
If needs are dependably met, infants
develop a sense of basic trust.
Toddler
(2nd year)
Autonomy vs. shame Toddlers learn to exercise will and
and doubt
do things for themselves, or they
doubt their abilities.
Preschooler
(3-5 years)
Initiative vs. guilt
Preschoolers learn to initiate tasks
and carry out plans, or they feel
guilty about efforts to be independent.
Elementary
(6 yearspuberty)
Competence vs.
inferiority
Children learn the pleasure of applying
themselves to tasks, or they feel
inferior.
Erikson’s Stages of
Psychosocial Development
Approximate
age
Stage
Description of Task
Adolescence
(teens into
20’s)
Identity vs. role
confusion
Teenagers work at refining a sense of self by
testing roles and then integrating them to
form a single identity, or they become
confused about who they are.
Young Adult
(20’s to early
40’s)
Intimacy vs.
isolation
Young adults struggle to form close relationships and to gain the capacity for intimate
love, or they feel socially isolated.
Middle Adult
(40’s to 60’s)
Generativity vs.
stagnation
The middle-aged discover a sense of contributing to the world, usually through family
and work, or they may feel a lack of purpose.
Late Adult
(late 60’s and
up)
Integrity vs.
despair
When reflecting on his or her life, the older
adult may feel a sense of satisfaction or
failure.
Adolescence: Social
Development
 The changing parent-child relationship
Percent with
positive, warm
interaction
with parents
100%
80
60
40
20
0
2 to 4
5 to 8
9 to 11
Ages of child in years
Review of Freud’s Stages
of Development
Psychosexual Development:
Freud's theory of psychosexual development
is one of the best known, but also one of the
most controversial.
Freud believed that personality develops
through a series of childhood stages during
which the pleasure-seeking energies of the id
become focused on certain erogenous areas.
This psychosexual energy, or libido, was
described as the driving force behind
behavior.
Stage 1: Oral Stage (Birth to
18 months)
During the oral stage, the child if focused
on oral pleasures (sucking).
Too much or too little gratification can
result in an Oral Fixation or Oral
Personality which is evidenced by a
preoccupation with oral activities.
This type of personality may have a
stronger tendency to smoke, drink
alcohol, over eat, or bite his or her nails.
Stage 2: Anal Stage (18
months to three years)
The child’s focus of pleasure in this stage
is on eliminating and retaining feces.
Through society’s pressure, mainly via
parents, the child has to learn to control
anal stimulation.
In terms of personality, after effects of an
anal fixation during this stage can result in
an obsession with cleanliness, perfection,
and control (anal retentive).
Stage 3: Phallic Stage
(ages three to six)
The pleasure zone switches to the genitals
Freud believed that during this stage boy
develop unconscious sexual desires for their
mother: Oedipus Complex
Later it was added that girls go through a
similar situation, developing unconscious sexual
attraction to their father. Although Freud
Strongly disagreed with this, it has been termed
the Electra Complex by more recent
psychoanalysts.
Stage 3: Continued
According to Freud, out of fear of
castration and due to the strong
competition of his father, boys eventually
decide to identify with him rather than
fight him
By identifying with his father, the boy
develops masculine characteristics and
identifies himself as a male, and represses
his sexual feelings toward his mother.
Stage 4: Latency Stage
(age six to puberty)
It’s during this stage that sexual urges
remain repressed and children interact
and play mostly with same sex peers.
Stage 5: Genital Stage
(puberty on)
The final stage of psychosexual
development begins at the start of
puberty when sexual urges are once again
awakened.
Through the lessons learned during the
previous stages, adolescents direct their
sexual urges onto opposite sex peers,
with the primary focus of pleasure is the
genitals.
Moral Development
Kohlberg’s Moral
Ladder
Postconventional
level
Morality of abstract
principles: to affirm
agreed-upon rights and
personal ethical principles
Conventional
level
Morality of law and
social rules: to gain
approval or avoid
disapproval
Preconventional
level
Morality of self-interest:
to avoid punishment
or gain concrete rewards
 As moral
development
progresses, the
focus of concern
moves from the
self to the wider
social world.
Adulthood: Physical
Development
 Menopause
 the time of natural cessation of menstruation
 also refers to the biological changes a woman
experiences as her ability to reproduce declines
 Alzheimer’s Disease
 a progressive and irreversible brain disorder
 characterized by a gradual deterioration of
memory, reasoning, language, and finally,
physical functioning
Adulthood: Physical
Development
 The Aging Senses
1.00
0.75
Proportion of normal
(20/20) vision when
identifying letters on
an eye chart
0.50
0.25
0
10
30
50
Age in years
70
90
Adulthood: Physical
Development
 The Aging Senses
90
Percent correct when
Identifying smells
70
50
10
30
50
Age in years
70
90
Adulthood: Physical
Development
 The Aging Senses
90
Percent correct when
identifying spoken
words
70
50
10
30
50
Age in years
70
90
Adulthood: Physical
Development
Fatal
accident 12
rate
10
8
6
4
2
0
16
 Slowing
reactions
Fatal accidents
per 100 million miles
contribute to
Fatal accidents
increased
per 10,000 drivers
accident risks
among those
20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 and 75 and older.
over
Age
Adulthood: Physical
Development
 Incidence of Dementia by Age
Percentage
with dementia
Risk of dementia
increases in later
years
40%
30
20
10
0
60-64
70-74
65-69
80-84
75-79
Age Group
90-95
85-89
Adulthood: Cognitive
Development
100
Percent
90
of names
recalled 80
70
60
50
40
 Recalling new
names
After three
introductions introduced
once, twice, or
three times is
easier for
younger adults
than for older
ones (Crook &
70
West, 1990).
Older age groups have
poorer performance
After two
introductions
30
20
After one
10 introductions
0
18
40
50
60
Age group
Adulthood: Cognitive
Development
Number
24
Of words
remembered
20
16
12
8
4
0
 In a study by
Schonfield &
Robertson (1966),
Number of words
the ability to recall
recognized is
stable with age
new information
declined during early
and middle
Number of words
adulthood, but the
recalled declines
with age
ability to recognize
new information did
20 30 40 50
60 70 not.
Age in years
Adulthood: Cognitive
Development
Reasoning
ability
score
60
Cross-sectional method
suggests decline
55
50
45
Longitudinal method
suggests more stability
 a study in which
people of different
ages are compared
with one another
 Longitudinal Study
40
35
 Cross-Sectional
Study
25 32 39 46 53 60 67 74 81
Age in years
Cross-sectional method
Longitudinal method
 a study in which
the same people
are restudied and
retested over a
long period
Adulthood- Cognitive
Development
Intelligence
(IQ) score
105
Verbal scores are
stable with age
100
95
90
85
Nonverbal scores
decline with age
80
75
20 25
Verbal scores
Nonverbal scores
35
45
Age group
55
65
 Verbal
intelligence
scores hold
steady with age,
while nonverbal
intelligence
scores decline
70
(adapted from
Kaufman &
others, 1989).
Adulthood: Cognitive
Development
 Crystallized Intelligence
 one’s accumulated knowledge and verbal
skills
 tends to increase with age
 Fluid Intelligence
 ones ability to reason speedily and
abstractly
 tends to decrease during late adulthood
Adulthood: Social
Development
 Early-forties midlife crisis?
Emotional
instability
24%
No early 40s
emotional crisis
16
Females
8
Males
0
33
36
39
42
45
48
Age in Years
51
54
Adulthood: Social
Changes
 Social Clock
 the culturally preferred timing of
social events
 marriage
 parenthood
 retirement
Adulthood: Social
Changes
Percentage
“satisfied”
with life
as a whole
80
60
40
20
0
15
25
35
45
Age group
55
65+
 Multinational
surveys show
that age
differences in
life satisfaction
are trivial
(Inglehart,
1990).
Adulthood: Social
Changes