Developmental Psychology
Studies psychological change
throughout the life span
Big Questions in
Developmental Psychology
Nature/Nurture:
Is development due mostly to internal
or external influences?
Nature/Nurture
• Maturation: A key nature Concept
– Defined: Biological process that enables
orderly changes in behavior
How we know the behavior is
due to maturation
Criteria:
1. universal
2. sequential
3. relatively uninfluenced by experience
Maturation?
Nature/Nurture
• Maturation: A key nature concept
• Critical Period: A key nurture concept
A specific period during development when a specific kind
of stimulation (or lack of stimulation) can have a profound
effect on later development
Stages of Prenatal
Development
• conception (fertilization)
• zygote (0-2 wks)
• embryo (2-8 wks)
– rapid cell division; major organs present
• fetal period (8 wks-birth)
– further refining of organs, etc
Teratogens: Agents harmful
to organism
• Drugs
– cigarettes; alcohol (FAS); cocaine;
heroin; marijuana
• Diseases
– Rubella and critical periods
The Importance of Nutrition
At birth
3 months
15 months
Cortical Neurons
Neonate: Apgar Score
Observation
0
1
2
Heart Rate
Absent
<100/min.
>100/min.
Respiration
No breath
Shallow
Regular
Muscle Tone Flaccid
Some Flex
Resp to Stim None
of feet
Well
flexed
Cry
Some
motion
Pink body, Completely
Blue
Pink
extremities
Color
Blue, pale
Apgar Score: The First Test!
Newborn Capabilities
• Reflexes
– rooting; sucking; stepping, Babinski;
grasping; Moro
Newborn Capabilities
• Reflexes
– Rooting; grasping; Babinski; smiling
• Personality
– Easy, Difficult, Slow-to-Warm
• Preferences
– High contrast; movement; face-like
objects; smell of mom!
Inborn Preferences!
• human voices and
faces
facelike images-->
• smell and sound of
mother preferred
Social Development:
Attachment in Infants
• Secure Attachment
–
–
–
–
prefers contact with loved one
can be soothed
follows loved one
cries when loved one leaves
Stranger Anxiety: An
Indication of Attachment
Stranger Anxiety: infant is apprehensive when
confronted by a stranger (approx 6 mo. old)
Stranger Anxiety Across
Cultures (maturation?)
Separation Distress: Another
Indication of Attachment
Percentage
of infants
100
who cried
when their
mothers left
80
• Groups of infants
who had and had
not experienced
day care were left
by their mothers in
a unfamiliar room
Day care
60
40
Home
20
0
3.5 5.5 7.5 9.5 11.5 13.5 20
Age in months
29
Love in Infant Monkeys:
Experiments in Attachment
(Harlow’s Studies)
Experiments in Attachment
Measurement of Attachment (Harlow’s studies)
1. Preference for “contact comfort”
Experiments in Attachment
Measurement of Attachment (Harlow’s Studies)
2. Fear reduction
Experiments in Attachment
Measurement of Attachment (Harlow’s studies)
3. Secure base (for exploration)
The Importance of
Attachment
• Monkeys raised by
artificial mothers
were terror-stricken
when placed in
strange situations
without their
surrogate mothers
Causes of Secure Attachment
• Body Contact (Harlow’s studies)
• Familiarity
• Responsive Parenting
Body Contact
• Harlow’s Surrogate
Mother Experiments
– Monkeys preferred
contact with the
comfortable cloth
mother, even while
feeding from the
nourishing wire mother
Familiarity
• Critical Period for imprinting
• Imprinting: at 12 hours after birth,
ducklings attach to objects that move
Responsive Parenting
• Responsive parents: are sensitive to child’s
needs and meet them quickly
• Unresponsive parents: attend to baby when
they feel like it, and ignore the baby at other
times
Parenting Styles
Warm
Cold
Lots of
Authoritative
Punitive
Guidance (High Self-Esteem (Aggression)
and Achievment)
Little
Permissive
Neglectful
Guidance (Low Self-Control) (Low SelfEsteem)
The Continuity Question
• Do neglected children become unresponsive
parents?
• The answer: it’s common but not inevitable
The Child: Cognitive
Development
• Cognitive: to know
• Scheme: a unit of knowledge
• Three Kinds of Schemes
– motor
– images
– symbolic
Stages of Cognitive
Development
• All Children go through 4 stages
• Stages are sequential
• Rate depends on Maturation and
Experience
Stage 1: Sensorimotor (0-2)
• Child knows world mostly through
motor schemes
Knowing through Motor Schemes
• After sucking on one of these, babies looked longer at
the nipple they had felt in their mouth
Stage 1: Sensorimotor (0-2)
• Child knows world mostly through
motor schemes
• Child is learning connections between
sensations and motor actions
(sensorimotor)
• Key development: Object Permanence
– objects continue to exist even when not
visible
Object Permanence
Stage 2: Preoperational
(2-6)
• Child is not logical
• Key development: Egocentrism
– incapable of seeing another point of view
Stage 3: Concrete
Operational (7-11)
• Thinks logically about concrete events
• Key development: Conservation
– objects stay the same even when their
form changes
Stage 4: Formal Operational
(11-)
• Able to think logically
• Key development: Abstract thinking
Piaget’s Theory and
Education
• To teach effectively, you must know
how the child is thinking
Moral Development
Postconventional
level
Right vs wrong
is decided
by universal values
Conventional
level
Right vs wrong
depends on following
rules and laws
Preconventional
level
Right vs wrong
depends on whether you get
punished or rewarded
Adolescence
• Begins with Puberty
(ability to reproduce)
• Ends with ?
Adolescence
• Physical (growth)
• Psychological (identity)
• Social (peers)
Physical:
Growth Spurt
Height in
centimeters
190
170
150
130
110
90
70
50
0
2
Boys
4
6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Age in years
Girls
Adolescence:
Physical Development
1890, Women
10
7.2-Year Interval
20
Age
1988, Women
11.8-Year Interval
10
20
Age
• In the 1890s the
average interval
between a woman’s
menarche and
marriage was about
7 years; now it is
nearly 12 years.
The Psychological Issue: Identity
• Who am I?
• Where am I going?
• What is my purpose?
Identity
Resolved
Unresolved
Crisis
No Crisis
Identity
Achieved
Identity
Foreclosed
Identity
Search
Identity
Confusion
Adult Development
and Aging
Adulthood:
Physical Changes
• The 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 Changes
• The Senses
90
Percent correct when
Identifying smells
70
50
10
30
50
Age in years
70
90
Adulthood:
Physical Changes
• The Aging Senses
90
Percent correct when
identifying spoken
words
70
50
10
30
50
Age in years
70
90
Adulthood:
Physical Changes
Fatal
accident 12
rate
10
8
6
Fatal accidents
per 100 million miles
Fatal accidents
per 10,000 drivers
4
2
• Slowing
reactions
contribute to
increased
accident risks
among those 75
and older.
0
16 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 and
over
Age
Adulthood:
Physical Changes
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 Changes
100
Percent
90
of names
recalled 80
• Recalling new
names introduced
once, twice or three
After three
introductions times is easier for
younger adults than
for older ones
(Crook & West,
1990).
Older age groups have
poorer performance
70
60
50
40
After two
introductions
30
20
After one
10 introductions
0
18
40
50
60
Age group
70
Adulthood:
Cognitive Changes
Number
24
Of words
remembered
20
Number of words
recognized is
stable with age
16
12
8
4
Number of words
recalled declines
with age
0
20
30
40
50
Age in years
60
70
• The ability to recall
new information
declines during
adulthood, but the
ability to recognize
new information does
not.
Adulthood:
Cognitive Changes
Intelligence
(IQ) score
105
• Verbal intelligence
scores hold steady
with age, while
nonverbal
intelligence scores
decline.
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 70
Adulthood:
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
Percentage
“satisfied”
with life
as a whole
• Multinational
surveys show that
age differences in
life satisfaction are
trivial (Inglehart,
1990).
80
60
40
20
0
15
25
35
45
Age group
55
65+