lOMoARcPSD|12058459
Textbook Notes- Developmental Psychology
Developmental Psychology (University of South Australia)
Studocu is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
Ch
1:
History,
Theory, & Research
Strategies
1.1 A
Scientific,
Applied
Interdisciplinary Field:
feeling and behaving, ones quite different from those
of adults.
The discontinuous perspective takes place in
STAGES: qualitative changes in thinking, feeling and
behaving that characterise specific periods of
development. Each step corresponds to a more
mature, reorganised way of functioning. Change is
sudden.
and
-Research about development has been stimulated by
social pressures to improve people’s lives (address
practical problems), as well as scientific curiosity.
-The beginning of public education in the early 20 th
century led to a demand for knowledge about what
and how to teach children of different ages.
-Info about development is interdisciplinary. (Due to
the need for solutions to everyday problems at all
ages).
1.2 Basic Issues
-Studies of children did not begin until the late 19th &
early 20th centuries and investigations into adult
development, aging and change over the lifespan
emerged only in the 1960s and 70s.
THEORY: an orderly, integrated set of statements that
describes, explains, and predicts behaviour.
-Good theories will describe (a behaviour), explain
(how and why) and predict (the consequences of the
behaviour).
Theories provide organising frameworks for our
observations of people (guide and give meaning to
what we see) AND- if they are verified by researchprovide a sound basis for practical action.
Three basic issues
1) is the course of development continuous or
discontinuous?
2) does one course of development characterise all
people or are there many possible courses?
3) what are the roles of genetic and environmental
factors- nature and nurture- in development?
CONTINUOUS / DISCONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT:
CONTINUOUS: a process of gradually expanding the
same skills that were there to begin with.
Development is a smooth, continuous process.
Gradually add more of the same types of skills.
DISCONTINUOUS: a process in which new ways of
understanding and responding to the world emerge at
a specific time. People change rapidly as they step up
onto a new level and then change very little for a
while. With each new step, the person interprets and
responds to the world in a reorganised, qualitatively
different way. Children have unique ways of thinking,
ONE COURSE OF DEVELOPMENT OR MANY?
No one follows the same sequence of development;
everyone lives in distinct contexts.
CONTEXTS: unique combinations of personal and
environmental circumstances that can result in
different paths of change. E.g. a shy individual who
fears social encounters develops in very different
contexts from those of an outgoing agemate who
readily seeks out others. These different
circumstances foster different intellectual capacities,
social skills, and feelings about the self and others.
Personal: heredity and biological makeup
Environmental: immediate settings (home, school)
and circumstances more remote from everyday life
(community resources, societal values and historical
time periods)
Mutually influential relations (between individuals
and their contexts): People not only are affected by
but also contribute to the contexts in which they
develop.
RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF NATURE AND NURTURE?
NATURE-NURTURE CONTROVERSY: disagreement
among theorists about whether genetic or
environmental factors are more important influences
on development.
Nature: hereditary information we receive from our
parents at the moment of conception
Nurture: the complex forces of the physical and social
world that influence our biological make up and
psychological experiences before and after birth.
-theorists who emphasize stability (That individuals
who are high or low in a characteristic will remain so
at later ages) stress the importance of heredity
-if they emphasize early experiences as establishing a
lifelong pattern of behaviour they usually stress
environment.
Stability vs plasticity: powerful negative events in the
first years cannot be fully overcome by later, more
positive ones vs the idea that development is open to
change in response to influential experiences.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
1.5
Mid
Theories *
Twentieth
Century
European concern: individuals inner thoughts and
feelings, contrasts with
North American: academic focus on scientific precision
and concrete, observable behaviour.
PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE:
Personality perspective: emphasized each individuals’
unique life history
PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE: people move
through a series of stages in which they confront
conflicts between biological drives and social
expectations. How these conflicts are resolved
determines the person's ability to learn, to get along
with others and to cope with anxiety.
society. A basic psychosocial conflict which is resolved
along a continuum from positive to negative,
determines healthy or maladaptive outcomes at each
stage.
1.Basic trust vs Mistrust (birth-1)
2. Autonomy vs Shame & Doubt (1-3)
3.Initiative vs Guilt (3-6)
4.Industry vs inferiority (6-11)
5.Identity vs role confusion (adolescence)
6. Intimacy vs Isolation (early adulthood)
7. Generativity vs Stagnation (Middle Adulthood)
8. Integrity vs Despair (Old age)
FREUD'S PSYCHOSEXUAL THEORY: emphasises that
how parents manage their child's sexual and
aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for
heathy personality development (id, ego, superego,
Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency Genital psychosexual
stages)
STRENGTHS: first to stress the influence of the early
parent-child relationship on development.
WEAKNESSES: overemphasized the influence of sexual
feelings in development. Based on the problems of
sexually repressed well-off adults in the 19 th century,
doesn’t apply to other cultures, also, Freud had not
studied children directly.
STRENGTHS: emphasis on individual's unique life
history as worthy of understanding, accept the
clinical/case study method (obtaining a complete
picture as possible of one individual’s psychological
functioning), inspired research on development
WEAKNESSES: isolated, failed to consider other
methods, too vague to be tested
BEHAVIOURISM AND SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY:
BEHAVIOURISM: an approach that regards directly
observable events- stimuli and responses- as the
appropriate focus of study and views the development
of behaviour as taking place through classical and
operant conditioning.
ERIKSON'S PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORY: emphasises that
the ego makes a positive contribution to
development, acquiring attitudes and skills that make
the individual an active, contributing member of
WATSON, inspired by PAVLOV and his dogs, wanted to
see if classical conditioning could be applied to
children’s behaviour so he traumatised Little Albert for
shits and gigs! However, he concluded that
environment is the supreme force in development and
that adults can mould children’s behaviour by carefully
controlling stimulus-response actions.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
B.F SKINNER- operant conditioning theory: the
frequency of a behaviour can be increased by
following it with a reinforcer (food/praise), or
decreased
through
punishment
(Disapproval/withdrawal
of
privileges).
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY-BANDURA: Stresses the
role of (social) COGNITION. an approach that
emphasises the role of modelling, also known as
imitation or observational learning, as a powerful
source of development.
Children come to develop personal standards for
behaviour and a sense of self-efficacy. Diverse factors
affect children’s motivation to imitate: their own
history of reinforcement or punishment for the
behaviour, the promise of future reinforcement or
punishment, and observations of a model being
reinforced or punished.
STRENGTHS: helpful in treating a wide range of
adjustment problems, helpful in eliminating
undesirable behaviours and increasing desirable
responses
WEAKNESSES: too narrow a view of important
environmental influences, underestimates people's
contributions to their own development.
PIAGET'S COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY:
-Children actively construct knowledge as they
manipulate and explore their world. Dev is in stages.
Cognitive development begins in the sensorimotor
stage, with the baby's use of the senses and
movements to explore the world. (Birth -2)
These action patterns evolve into the symbolic but
illogical thinking of the pre-schooler in the
preoperational stage. (2-7)
Then cognition is transformed into the more
organised, logical reasoning of the school aged child in
the concrete operational stage. (7-11)
Finally, in the formal operational stage, thought
becomes the abstract, systematic reasoning system of
the adolescent and adult. (11+)
STRENGTHS: convinced the field that children are
active learners, sparked research on children's
conceptions of themselves and others.
WEAKNESSES: underestimated the competencies of
infants and pre-schoolers. Pays insufficient attention
to social and cultural influences on development.
HORIZONTAL DÉCALAGE is a concept in Jean Piaget's
Theory of Cognitive Development and refers to the
observation that once a child has the capability to
perform a certain task or function they don't know
how to immediately apply the concept to other
functions or tasks that share the same conceptual
ideation.
1.6
Recent
Perspectives *
Theoretical
INFORMATION PROCESSING:
(Cognitive psychology) human mind viewed as a
symbol- manipulating system through which
information flows. Flow charts are used. Regards
people as actively making sense of their own thinking.
Thought processes studied are similar at all ages but
present to a lesser or greater extent -- CONTINUOUS
change (perception, attention, memory, categorisation
of information, planning, problem solving and
comprehension of written and spoken prose).
STRENGTHS: commitment to rigorous research
methods.
WEAKNESSES: better at analysing thinking into
components than putting them back together into a
comprehensive theory. Not much information on
imagination/ creativity.
DEVELOPMENTAL NEUROSCIENCE:
DEVELOPMENTAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE: brings
together researchers from psychology, biology,
neuroscience, and medicine to study the relationship
between changes in the brain and the developing
person's cognitive processing and behaviour patterns.
DEVELOPMENTAL SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE: studies
relationship between changes in the brain &
emotional & social development.
ETHOLOGY & EVOLUTIONARY DEV PSYCH
Aims to understand the person-environment system
throughout the lifespan.
ETHOLOGY: concerned with the adaptive/ survival
value of behaviour and its evolutionary history. Roots
can be traced to the work of Darwin.
IMPRINTING: the early following behaviour of certain
baby birds that ensures the young will stay close to
the mother and be fed and protected from danger.
CRITICAL PERIOD: limited time span during which the
individual is biologically prepared to acquire certain
adaptive behaviours but needs the support of an
appropriately stimulating environment.
SENSITIVE PERIOD: a time that it is biologically
optimal for certain capacities to emerge because the
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
individual is especially responsive to environmental
influences.
EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY:
seeks to understand the adaptive value of specieswide cognitive, emotional and social competencies as
those competencies change with age.
VYGOTSKY'S SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY:
SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY: Vygotsky's theory, in which
children acquire the ways of thinking and behaving
that make up their community's culture through social
interaction- in particular cooperative dialogues with
more knowledgeable members of society- which is
necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking
and behaving that make up a community's culture.
CULTURE: values, beliefs, customs, skills of a social
group
Vygotsky agreed with Piaget that children are active,
constructive beings, but whereas piaget emphasised
children’s independent efforts to make sense of their
world, Vygotsky viewed cognitive development as a
socially mediated process, in which children depend
on assistance from adults and more expert peers and
they tackle new challenges.
Children undergo certain stage-wise changes.
ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY:
Bronfenbrenner
EGOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY: views the person as
developing within a complex system of relationships
affected by multiple levels of the surrounding
environment. Because the child's biologically
influenced dispositions join with environmental forces
to mould development, Bronfenbrenner characterised
his perspective as a bioecological model.
MICROSYSTEM: innermost level of the environment,
consisting of activities and interaction patterns in the
person's immediate surroundings
Relationships are bidirectional, adults and children
affect each other's behaviour
Third parties also affect the quality of any two person
relationship. If they are supportive, interaction is
enhanced.
MEOSYSTEM: encompasses connections between
microsystems. (a child's academic progress depends
not just on activities that take place in classrooms, but
also on parent involvement in school life and on the
extent to which academic learning is carried over to
the home.
EXOSYSTEM: consists of social settings that do not
contain the developing person but nevertheless affect
experiences in immediate settings. (workplace,
community, flexible work schedules, social networks,
MACROSYSTEM: consists of cultural values, laws,
customs, and resources.
ECOLOGICAL TRANSITIONS: whenever individuals add
or let go of roles or settings in their lives, the breadth
of their microsystems changes. The shifts in context
are called ecological transitions, which are important
turning points in development (starting school,
becoming a parent etc).
CHRONOSYSTEM: chrono means time. Life changes
can either be imposed externally or, alternatively can
arise from within the person.
1.7
Comparing
theories
and
evaluating
STANCES OF MAJOR THEORIES ON BASIC ISSUES IN
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
EMPHASIS
ON
EMOTIONAL
AND
SOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT: psychoanalytic perspective, ethology.
EMPHASIS ON CHANGES IN THINKING: Piaget's
cognitive-developmental
theory,
information
processing, Vygotsky's sociocultural theory.
MANY ASPECTS: behaviorism, social learning theory,
evolutionary developmental psychology, ecological
systems theory, the lifespan perspective
PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE
Continuous or Discontinuous Development?
Discontinuous: Psychosexual and psychosocial
development takes place in stages.
One Course of Development or Many
One course: Stages are assumed to be universal.
Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture?
Both nature and nurture: Innate impulses are
channelled and controlled through child-rearing
experiences. Early experiences set the course of later
development
BEHAVIORISM AND SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
Continuous or Discontinuous Development?
Continuous: Development involves an increase in
learned behaviours.
One Course of Development or Many?
Many possible courses: Behaviours reinforced and
modelled may vary from person to person.
Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture?
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
Emphasis on nurture: Development is the result of
conditioning and modelling. Both early and later
experiences are important.
PIAGET’S COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY
Continuous or Discontinuous Development?
Discontinuous: Cognitive development takes place in
stages.
One Course of Development or Many?
One course: Stages are assumed to be universal.
Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture?
Both nature and nurture: Development occurs as the
brain grows and children exercise their innate drive to
discover reality in a generally stimulating
environment. Both early and later experiences are
important.
INFORMATION PROCESSING
Continuous or Discontinuous Development?
Continuous: Children and adults change gradually in
perception, attention, memory, and problem-solving
skills.
One Course of Development or Many?
One course: Changes studied characterize most or all
children and adults.
Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture?
Both nature and nurture: Children and adults are
active, sense-making beings who modify their thinking
as the brain grows and they confront new
environmental demands. Both early and later
experiences are important.
ETHOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY DEVELOPMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
Continuous or Discontinuous Development?
Both continuous and discontinuous: Children and
adults gradually develop a wider range of adaptive
behaviours. Sensitive periods occur, in which
qualitatively distinct capacities emerge fairly suddenly.
One Course of Development or Many?
One course: Adaptive behaviors and sensitive periods
apply to all members of a species.
Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture?
Both nature and nurture: Evolution and heredity
influence behavior, and learning lends greater
flexibility and adaptiveness to it. In sensitive
periods, early experiences set the course of later
development.
VYGOTSKY’S SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY
Continuous or Discontinuous Development?
Both continuous and discontinuous: Language
acquisition and schooling lead to stagewise changes.
Dialogues with more expert members of society also
lead to continuous changes that vary from culture to
culture.
One Course of Development or Many?
Many possible courses: Socially mediated changes in
thought and behavior vary from culture to culture.
Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture?
Both nature and nurture: Heredity, brain growth, and
dialogues with more expert members of society jointly
contribute to development. Both early and later
experiences are important.
ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY
Continuous or Discontinuous Development?
Not specified.
One Course of Development or Many?
Many possible courses: Biologically influenced
dispositions join with environmental forces at multiple
levels to mold development in unique ways.
Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture?
Both
nature
and
nurture: The
individual's
characteristics and the reactions of others affect each
other in a bidirectional fashion. Both early and later
experiences are important.
LIFESPAN PERSPECTIVE
Continuous or Discontinuous Development?
Both continuous and discontinuous: Continuous gains
and declines and discontinuous, stagewise emergence
of new skills occur.
One Course of Development or Many?
Many possible courses: Development is influenced by
multiple, interacting biological, psychological, and
social forces, many of which vary from person to
person, leading to diverse pathways of change.
Relative Influence of Nature and Nurture?
Both
nature
and
nurture: Development
is
multidimensional, affected by an intricate blend of
hereditary and environmental factors. Emphasizes
plasticity at all ages. Both early and later experiences
are important.
Ch
4:
Physical
Development
in
Infancy & Toddlerhood
4.5 Learning Capacities
Learning refers to changes in behaviour as the
result of experience. (Classical and operant
conditioning.)
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING: a form of learning
that involves associating a neutral stimulus with a
stimulus that leads to a stimulus that leads to a
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
reflexive response. Once connection is made
between the two stimuli, the neutral stimulus
alone produces the behaviour.
Newborn
reflexes
make
classical
conditioning possible in a young infant.

Helps infants recognise which events
usually occur together in the everyday
world, so they can anticipate what is about
to happen next. As a result, the
environment becomes more orderly and
predictable.

Young infants can be classically
conditioned most easily when the
association between two stimuli has survival
value.

Fear is difficult to condition in young
babies. No motor skills to escape unpleasant
events, no biological need to form
associations.
OPERANT CONDITIONING: a form of learning in
which a behaviour is followed by a stimulus that
changes the probability that the behaviour will
occur again.
REINFORCER: a stimulus that increases the
occurrence of a response. (sweet liquid reinforces
the sucking response in newborns)
PUNISHMENT: removal of a desirable stimulus or
presentation of an unpleasant one to decrease
the occurrence of a response.
- Operant conditioning with mobiles is
frequently used to study infants memory
and their ability to group similar stimuli
into categories.
Also plays a vital role in the formation of social
relationships, as the baby looks at the adult the
adult smiles back and it keeps happening. As the
behaviour of each partner reinforces the other
both continue their pleasurable interaction
HABITUATION:
Refers to a gradual reduction in the strength of a
response due to repetitive stimulation- indicating
a loss of interest.
RECOVERY: following habituation, an increase in
responsiveness to a new stimulus, assesses an
infant’s recent memory
- Make learning more efficient by focusing
our attention on those aspects of the
environment we know least about
A baby who first habituates to a visual pattern
and then recovers to a new one appears to
remember the first stimulus and perceive the
second one as new and different from it.
Habituation research has greatly enriched our
understanding of how long babies remember a
wide range of stimuli and their ability to
categorise stimuli
IMITATION:
Learning by copying the behaviour of another
person. Difficult to recognise.
Harder to induce in babies 2-3 months old than
just after birth.
MIRROR NEURONS: specialised cells that may
underlie early imitative capacities by firing
identically when a primate hears or sees an action
and when it carries out the action on its own
Imitation helps babies recognise other people are
like them and they can learn about themselves.
Biological basis of a variety of interrelated,
complex social abilities
Ch
5:
Cognitive
Development
in
Infancy & Toddlerhood
5.1,2 & 3: Piaget’s Cognitive
Development Theory*
-Piaget inspired a vision of children as motivated
explorers whose thinking develops at they act
directly on the environment. Believed that the
child's mind forms and modifies psychological
structures so that they achieve a better fit with
external reality.
PIAGET'S IDEAS ABOUT COGNITIVE CHANGE
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
SCHEMES: specific psychological structures, organised
ways of making sense of experience, that change with
age
ADAPTATION: Involves building schemes through
direct interaction with the environment, consisting of
assimilation and accommodation.

ASSIMILATION: using our current schemes to
interpret the external world. (calling a truck a
car)

ACCOMODATION: creating new schemes/
adjusting old ones after noticing our current
ways of thinking do not capture the
environment completely (realising the truck is
different)
COGNITIVE EQUILIBRIUM: When children are not
changing much, they assimilate more than they
accommodate- a steady, comfortable state
DISEQUILIBRIUM: During times of rapid cognitive
change, children are in a state of cognitive discomfort.
This shift between the two allows more effective
schemes to be produced.
ORGANISATION
In piaget's theory; The internal rearrangement and
linking of schemes to create a strongly interconnected
cognitive system.
Schemes truly reach equilibrium when they become
part of a broad network of structures that can be
jointly applied to the surrounding world
THE SENSRIMOTOR STAGE:
Piaget's first stage, spanning the first two years of
life, during which infants and toddlers 'think' with
their eyes, ears, hands and other sensorimotor
equipment

Has 6 substages
1.Reflexive Schemes: birth-1 month
2.Primary Circular Reactions: 1-4 months, simple
motor habits centred around infant’s own body,
limited anticipation of events.
3.Secondary Circular Reactions: 4-8 months, actions
aimed at repeating interesting effects in the
surrounding world; imitation of familiar behaviours.
4.Coordination of Secondary Circular reactions: 8-12
months, intentional or goal directed behaviour, object
permanence, improved anticipation of events,
imitation of behaviours.
5.Tertiary Circular Reactions: 12-18 months,
exploration of the properties of objects by acting on
them in novel ways, imitation of novel behaviours,
ability to search in several locations for a hidden
object (accurate a-b search)
6.Mental Representation: 18 months- 2 years,
internal depictions of objects & events, indicated by
sudden solutions to problems, ability to find an object
that has been moved while out of sight (invisible
displacement), deferred imitation, & make-believe
play.
CIRCULAR REACTION: A means of building schemes in
which infants try to repeat a chance event caused by
their own motor activity. Initially centres on the
infant's own body but later turns outward toward
manipulation of objects
REPEATING CHANCE BEHAVIOURS
Substage 1- babies suck, grasp, look in much the
same way, no matter what experiences they
encounter
Substage 2- gain voluntary control over their actions
through the primary circular reaction, by repeating
chance behaviours largely motivated by basic needs
(sucking thumb), babies also begin to vary their
behaviour in response to environmental demands.
Substage 3- infants sit up and reach for and
manipulate objects, strengthening the secondary
circular reaction, through which babies try to repeat
interesting events in the surrounding environment
that are caused by their own actions
INTENTIONAL BEHAVIOUR AKA goal directed behaviour
INTENTIONAL BEHAVIOUR: a sequence of actions in
which schemes are deliberately coordinated to solve a
problem
In substage 4- combine schemes into new, more
complex action sequences. As a result, actions that
lead to new schemes no longer have a random hit or
miss quality
Retrieving hidden objects reveals that infants have
begun to master- OBJECT PERMANENCE: the
understanding that objects continue to exist when out
of sight. This awareness is not yet complete. Babies
still make the A-not B search error: if they reach
several times for an object at a first hiding place (A),
then see it moved to a second (B), they still search for
it in (A).
Substage 5- tertiary circular reaction, in which
toddlers repeat behaviours with variation. e.g twisting
a shape till it falls through the hole in a container --capacity to experiment leads to a more advanced
understanding of object permanence.
MENTAL REPRESENTATION
Internal depictions of information that the mind can
manipulate.
Our
most
powerful
mental
representations are 1) images and 2) conceptscategories in which similar objects or events are
grouped together
Representation enables older toddlers to solve
advanced object permanence problems involving
invisible displacement - finding a toy moved while out
of sight
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
It permits DEFERRED IMITATION: the ability to
remember and copy the behaviour of models who are
not present
And MAKE-BELIEVE PLAY: in which children act out
every day and imaginary activities.
FOLLOW UP RESEARCH ON INFANT COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Many studies suggest that infants display a wide array
of understandings earlier than Piaget believed
VIOLATION OF EXPECTATION METHOD: researchers
show babies an expected event (one consistent with
reality) and an unexpected event (variation of the first
that violates reality)

Heightened attention to the unexpected event
suggests that the infant is 'surprised' by a
deviation from physical reality and, therefore is
aware of that aspect of the physical world.
OBJECT PERMANENCE: claims to have found
evidence for object permanence in the first few
months of life. (infants looked longer at the
unexpected event)

Infants look longer at a wide variety of
unexpected events involving hidden objects
4 and 5 month olds are aware of object permanence
5-9 month olds engaged in predictive tracking
whereabouts. In studies of deferred imitation and
problem solving, representational thought is evident
even earlier.
DEFERRED AND INFERRED IMITATION: lab research
suggests that deferred imitation is present at 6 weeks
of age- imitating an adult's face. Lots happens before
18 months :)
PROBLEM SOLVING: as piaget indicated, around 7
months, infants develop intentional means-end action
sequences that they use to solve simple problems,
such as pulling on a cloth to obtain a toy resting on it's
far end. Out of these explorations of object-object
relations, the capacity for tool use in problem solvingflexibly manipulating an object as a means to a goalemerges. These findings suggest that at the end of the
first year, infants form flexible mental representations
of how to use tools to get objects. They have some
ability
to
move
beyond
trial-and-error
experimentation, represent a solution mentally, and
use it in new contexts.
Compared with looking at reactions in violation of
expectation tasks, searching for hidden objects is far
more cognitively demanding as the baby must figure
out where the hidden object is.
Mastery of object permanence is a gradual
achievement. - success at object search tasks
coincides with rapid development of the frontal lobes
of the cerebral cortex
MENTAL REPRESENTATION: in piaget's theory, before
about 18 months of age, infants are unable to
mentally represent experience, yet 8-10 month olds'
ability to recall the location of hidden objects after
delays of more than one minute indicate that babies
construct mental representations of objects and their
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
SYMBOLIC UNDERSTANDING: realisation that words
can be used to cue mental images of things not
in early childhood. Psychological knowledgeunderstanding of intentions, emotions, desires
and beliefs & Numerical knowledge- can
discriminate quantities up to three and use that
knowledge to perform simple addition and
subtraction.
PIAGET'S LEGACY
First, many cognitive changes of infancy are gradual
and continuous rather than abrupt and stagelike, as
Piaget thought (Bjorklund, 2012). Second, rather than
developing together, various aspects of infant
cognition change unevenly because of the challenges
posed by different types of tasks and infants' varying
experiences with them. These ideas serve as the basis
for another major approach to cognitive development
—information processing.
5.4: Information Processing
physically present- a symbolic capacity called
DISPLACED REFERENCE. This greatly enhances the
capacity to learn about the world through
communicating with others. Observations of 12 month
olds reveal that they respond to the label of an absent
toy by looking at and gesturing toward the spot where
is usually is.
ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS

Unlike Piaget, most researchers now believe
that infants have some built-in cognitive
equipment for making sense of experience

Some believe that newborns begin life with a
set of biases for attending to certain information
and with general-purpose learning procedures—
such as powerful techniques for analysing
complex perceptual information. Together, these
capacities enable infants to construct a wide
variety of schemes.

Others, convinced by violation of expectation
findings believe that infants start out with
impressive understandings
CORE KNOWLEDGE PERSPECTIVE: a perspective that
states that infants are born with a set of innate
knowledge systems, or core domains of thought,
each of which permits a ready grasp of new, related
information and therefore supports early, rapid
development of certain aspects of cognition.

Kids have physical knowledge- object
permanence, solidity and gravity. Linguistic
knowledge- enables swift language acquisition
Information processing researchers agree with Piaget
that children are active, inquiring beings. But instead
of providing a single, unified theory of cognitive
development they focus on many aspects of thinking,
from attention, memory, and categorisation skills to
complex problem solving.
The information processing approach frequently relies
on computer-like flowcharts to describe the human
cognitive systems. Attractive bc explicit and precise.
First, information enters the
SENSORY REGISTER: where sights and sounds are
represented directly and stored briefly. (by attending
to some information, you increase the chances it will
transfer to the next step of the information-processing
system.
SHORT TERM MEMORY STORE: where we retain
attended to information briefly so we can actively
work on it to reach our goals (basic capacity/short
term memory= 7 +/- 2)
WORKING MEMORY: the number of items that can be
briefly held in mind while also engaging in some effort
to monitor or manipulate those items- a mental
workspace, that we use to accomplish many activities
in daily life. A contemporary view of the short term
memory store.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
CENTRAL EXECUTIVE: The conscious reflective part of
our mental system that directs the flow of
information, coordinating incoming information with
info already in the system and selecting, applying and
monitoring strategies that facilitate memory storage,
comprehension, reasoning and problem solving.
include controlling attention by inhibiting impulses
and irrelevant actions and by flexibly directing thought
and behaviour to suit the demands of a task,
coordinating information in working memory, and
planning. The reason for investigators’ great interest is
that measures of executive function in childhood
predict important cognitive and social outcomesincluding task persistence, self-control, academic
achievement, and interpersonal acceptance- in
adolescence and adulthood.
EVALUATION
FINDINGS
OF
INFORMATION
-
PROCESSING
This perspective underscores the continuity of human
thinking from infancy into adult life. Findings on
memory and categorization join with other research in
challenging Piaget's view of early cognitive
development.
Infants' capacity to recall events and to categorize
stimuli attests, once again, to their ability to mentally
represent their experiences.

Contributed to our view of infants as
sophisticated cognitive beings.

Difficult to put components back into a broad,
comprehensive theory

One approach is to combine piaget's and the
IP approach (chap 9)
AUTOMATIC PROCESSES: cognitive activities that are
so well learned that they require no space in working
memory, and therefore permit an individual to focus
on other information while performing them.

The more effectively we process information
in working memory the more likely it will
transfer to LONG TERM MEMORY: the largest
storage area containing our permanent
knowledge base.

We store a lot of info in LTM so RETRIVAL:
getting information back from the system- can
be problematic. Therefore, information is
categorised.
Information-processing researchers believe that
several aspects of the cognitive system improve
during childhood and adolescence: (1) the basic
capacity of its stores, especially working memory;
(2) the speed with which information is worked on;
and (3) the functioning of the central executive.
Together, these changes make possible more
complex forms of thinking with age
EXECUTIVE FUNCTION: the diverse cognitive
operations and strategies that enable us to achieve
our goals in cognitively challenging situations. These
DYNAMIC SYSTEMS VIEW: researchers analyse each
cognitive attainment to see how it results from a
complex system of prior accomplishments and the
child's current goals. Once these ideas are fully tested,
they may move the field closer to a more powerful
view of how the minds of kiddies develop
5.7: The Social Context of Early
Cognitive Development
Vygotsky's sociocultural theory emphasises that
children live in rich social and cultural contexts that
affect the way their cognitive world is structured. He
believed that complex mental activities have their
origins in social interaction- through joint activities
with more mature members of their society, children
master activities and think in ways that have meaning
in their culture.
ZONE OF PROXIMAL (OR POTENTIAL) DEVELOPMENT:
a range of tasks too difficult for a child to handle alone
but possible with the help of more skilled partners –
Scaffolding: adult guides at first, but then steps back.
Ideas applied MORE to pre-school & school age
children who are more skilled in language and social
communication.
Says that many aspects of cognitive development are
socially mediated
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
Piaget concluded that toddlers discover make-believe
independently, once they are capable of
representational schemes. Vygotsky challenged this
view, pointing out that society provides children with
opportunities to represent culturally meaningful
activities in play.
When adults participate, toddlers’ make-believe is
more elaborate.
Make-believe play is a major means through which
children extend their cognitive and social skills and
learn about important activities in their culture.
Vygotsky's theory, and the findings that support it,
tells us that providing a stimulating physical
environment is not enough to promote early cognitive
development. In addition, toddlers must be invited
and encouraged by more skilled members of their
culture to participate in the social world around them.
Ch 6: Emotional & Social
Development in Infancy
& Toddlerhood
6.1 Erikson’s Theory of Infant and
Toddler Personality
BASIC TRUST VS MISTRUST

Importance of parent-infant relationship.
Depends on the quality of caregiving: relieving
discomfort promptly and sensitively, holding the
infant gently.
- Many factors affect parental responsivenesspersonal happiness, family conditions, and
culturally valued child-rearing practices.
When the balance of care is sympathetic and loving,
basic trust vs mistrust- is resolved positively.

The trusting infant expects the world to be
good and gratifying, so feels confident about
venturing out to explore it.

The mistrustful infant cannot count on the
kindness of others so protects herself by
withdrawing from people and things around her.
AUTONOMY VS SHAME AND DOUBT

Freud: toilet training! Erikson- toilet training is
only one of many influential experiences.

Newly walking/talking toddlers 'no!" "do it
myself!" - reveal that they have entered a period
of budding selfhood- they want to decide for
themselves.
Resolved favourably when parents provide young
children with suitable guidance and reasonable
choices. Set reasonable expectations for impulse
control.

A self-confident-secure 2 year old has parents
who do not criticise or attack him when he fails
at new skills- using the toilet, eating with a
spoon, or putting away toys. And they meet his
assertions of independence with tolerance and
understanding

When parents are over or under controlling,
the outcome is a child who feels shamed and
who doubts his ability to control impulses and
act competently on his own.
IN SUM:
- Basic trust and autonomy grow out of warm,
sensitive
parenting
and
reasonable
expectations for impulse control
- If children emerge from the first few years
without sufficient trust in caregivers and
without a healthy sense of individuality, the
seeds are sown for adjustment problems.
- Adults who have difficulty establishing
intimate ties, who are overly dependent, or
who continually doubt their own ability to
meet new challenges, may not have fully
mastered these tasks.
6.2
&
6.3
Development*
Emotional
Emotions play powerful roles in organising the
attainments that Erikson regarded as so important:
social relationships, exploration of the environment,
and discovery of the self.

Because infants cannot describe their feelings,
determining exactly which emotions they are
experiencing is a challenge. Cross cultural
evidence reveals that people around the world
associate photographs of different facial
expressions with emotions in the same way
BASIC EMOTIONS
Emotions such as happiness, interest, surprise, fear,
anger, sadness, and disgust are universal in humans
and other primates and have a long evolutionary
history of promoting survival.
Babies' earliest emotional life consists of little more
than two global arousal states: attraction to pleasant
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
stimulation and withdrawal from unpleasant
stimulation.
The DYNAMIC SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE helps us
understand how this happens: children coordinate
separate skills into more effective, emotionally
expressive systems as the central nervous system
develops and the child's goals and experiences change

Sensitive,
contingent
caregiver
communication, in which parents selectively
mirror aspects of the baby's diffuse emotional
behaviour, helps infants construct emotional
expressions that more closely resemble those of
adults.

4 basic emotions- happiness, anger, sadness
and fear.
HAPPINESS:

Expressed first in blissful smiles and later
through laughter

The baby’s smile encourages caregivers to
smile responsively and to be affectionate and
stimulating, and then the baby smiles even
more.

Creates a warm and supportive relationship
that fosters baby's development

SOCIAL SMILE: infant's broad grin, evoked by
the parent's communication, that first appears
between 6 and 10 weeks of age. Allows the
human face to become better organised

By the end of the first year, the smile has
become a deliberate social signal
ANGER AND SADNESS

Babies respond with generalised distress to
hunger, pain, changes in body temperature and
too much or too little stimulation.

Angry reactions increase with age--- as infants
become capable of intentional behaviour, they
want to control their own actions and the
effects they produce

Sadness is less frequent than anger. But when
caregiver- infant communication is seriously
disrupted, infant sadness is common- a
condition that impairs all aspects of
development
FEAR:



Fear arises from the second half of the first
year into the second year
STRANGER ANXIETY: the infant's expression of
fear in response to unfamiliar adults. This
depends on the baby's temperament, past
experiences with strangers, and the current
situation.
Keeps newly mobile babies' enthusiasm for
exploration in check.

SECURE BASE: the familiar caregiver as a point
from which the baby explores, venturing into
the environment and then returning for
emotional support. (leads to either approach or
avoidance)
UNDERSTANDING AND RESPONDING TO THE
EMOTIONS OF OTHERS

Infants' emotional expressions are closely tied
to their ability to interpret the emotional cues of
others. Start to view others 'like me'

By 4-5 months infants distinguish positive
from negative emotion in voices and in facial
expressions.

At 8-10 months infants engage in SOCIAL
REFERENCING: actively seeking emotional
information from a trusted person in an
uncertain situation.
EMERGENCE OF SELF-CONSCIOUS EMOTIONS

EMOTIONS
involving
injury
to
or
enhancement of the sense of self, including
guilt, shame, embarrassment, envy and pride.

Appear in the middle of the second year as
they become aware of the self as a separate,
unique individual.

Require adult instruction on when to feel
proud ashamed or guilty. - plays an important
role in children's achievement related and moral
behaviours.
BEGINNINGS OF EMOTIONAL SELF-REGULATION

Refers to the strategies we use to adjust our
emotional state to a comfortable level of
intensity, so we can accomplish our goals.

Requires voluntary, effortful management of
emotions.

Crawling and walking foster more effective
emotional self-regulation

Individual differences in control of emotion
are evident in infancy, and by early childhood,
play such a vital role in adjustment that- as we
will see later- they are viewed as a major
dimension of temperament, called effortful
control.

More effective functioning of the prefrontal
cortex increases the baby's tolerance for
stimulation.

From 3 months on, the ability to shift
attention helps infants control emotion. Babies
who more readily turn away from unpleasant
events or engage in self-soothing are less prone
to distress.

Infants whose parents respond contingently
and sympathetically to their emotional cues
tend to be less fussy and fearful.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459

Males are less expressive than females= social
concept promoted at tender age
6.4 Temperament and Development
TEMPERAMENT: a person's nature, especially as it
permanently affects their behaviour.

Early appearing, stable individual differences
in reactivity (quickness and intensity of
emotional arousal, attention, and motor
activity) and self-regulation (strategies that
modify reactivity).

Temperament can increase a child's chances
of experiencing psychological problems, or
alternately protect a child from the negative
effects of a highly stressful home life
THE STRUCTURE OF TEMPERAMENT:

EASY CHILD: (40%) quickly establishes regular
routines in infancy, is generally cheerful, and
adapts easily to new experiences

DIFFICULT CHILD: (10%) is irregular in daily
routines, is slow to accept new experiences, and
tends to react negatively and intensely. Places
children at high risk for adjustment problems
(both anxious withdrawal, and adjustment
problems)

SLOW TO WARM UP CHILD: (15%) is inactive,
shows mild, low-key reactions to environmental
stimuli, is negative in mood and adjusts slowly
to new experiences. Tend to show excessive
fearfulness and slow constricted behaviour in
late preschool years when they are expected to
respond actively and quickly.

35% of children showed unique blends of
temperamental characteristics
MARY ROTHBART'S MODEL OF TEMPERAMENT
Rothbart's dimensions represent the three underlying
components included in the definition of
temperament: (1) emotion: “fearful distress,”
“irritable distress,” “positive affect”, (2) attention
“attention span/persistence” and (3) action: “activity
level”
Individuals differ not just in their reactivity on each
dimension but also in the self-regulatory dimension of
temperament,
EFFORTFUL CONTROL: the capacity to voluntarily
suppress a dominant response in order to plan and
execute a more adaptive response

Variations in effortful control are evident in
how effectively a child can focus and shift
attention, inhibit impulses, and manage
negative emotion.
MEASURING TEMPERAMENT
Often assessed through interviews or questionnaires
given to parents. Or by people coming to visit the
home. Or within a lab.
INHIBITED/SHY
CHILDREN:
children
whose
temperament is such that they react negatively to and
withdraw from novel stimuli
UNINHIBITED/SOCIAL CHILDREN: display positive
emotion and approach novel stimuli

Biologically based reactivity- evident in heart
rate, hormone levels, and measures of brain
activity- differentiates children with inhibited
and uninhibited temperaments.

Individual differences occur in the arousal of
the amygdala

In shy, inhibited children, novel stimuli easily
excite the amygdala and its connections to the
prefrontal cortex and the sympathetic nervous
system, which prepares the body to act in the
face of threat. In sociable, uninhibited children,
the same level of stimulation evokes minimal
neural excitation.

shy infants and preschoolers show greater EEG
activity in the right than in the left frontal lobe
of the cerebral cortex, which is associated with
negative emotional reactivity; sociable children
show the opposite pattern
STABILITY OF TEMPERAMENT:
Young children tend to respond consistently, however,
the overall stability of temperament is low in infancy
and toddlerhood, and only moderate from the school
years on.
Temperament isn’t more stable because it develops
with age. Long term prediction is best achieved after
age 3, when children's styles of responding are better
established.
In sum, many factors affect the extent to which a
child's temperament remains stable, including
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
development of the biological systems on which
temperament is based, the child's capacity for effortful
control, and the success of her efforts, which depend
on the quality and intensity of her emotional
reactivity. When we consider the evidence as a whole,
the low to moderate stability of temperament makes
sense. It also confirms that child rearing can modify
biologically based temperamental traits considerably
and that children with certain traits, such as negative
emotionality, are especially susceptible to the
influence of parenting
GENETIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES
Hereditability: moderate role for genetic factors in
temperament and personality.
Environment: children exposed to severe malnutrition
in infancy remain more distractible and fearful. Infants
reared in deprived orphanages are easily
overwhelmed by stressful events.
ETHNIC AND GENDER DIFFERENCES:

Chinese and japanese babies tend to be less
active, irritable, vocal, more easily soothed, and
better at quieting themselves than europeanamerican infants. Although they are also more
fearful. - Supported by cultural beliefs and
practices,
yielding
gene-environment
correlations.

Boys tend to be more active, daring, less
fearful, more irritable, more likely to express
high intensity pleasure in play, and are more
impulsive than girls.

Girls
have
greater compliance
and
cooperativeness, between school performance,
and lower incidence of behaviour problems.
DIFFERENTIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY (responsiveness) TO
REARING EXPERIENCES:

Emotionally reactive toddlers function worse
than other children when exposed to inept
parenting, yet benefit most from good
parenting.
5-HTTLPR gene: interferes with functioning of the
inhibitory neurotransmitter serotonin and greatly
increases the risk of self-regulation difficulties, and
these children display high susceptibility to effects
of parenting quality AND their brains show high
early plasticity.
SIBLING'S UNIQUE EXPERIENCES:

This tendency to emphasise each child's
unique qualities affects parenting practices.
TEMPERAMENT AND CHILD REARING: THE
GOODNESS-OF-FIT MODEL
A model proposed by Thomas and Chess to explain
how favourable adjustment depends on an effective
match, or good fit, between a child's temperament
and the child-rearing environment.
Difficult children frequently experience parenting
that fits poorly with their dispositions, increasing
the child's irritable, conflict ridden style

An effective match between rearing
conditions and child temperament is best
accomplished early, before unfavourable
temperament–environment
relationships
produce maladjustment. The goodness-of-fit
model reminds us that children have unique
dispositions that adults must accept. Parents
can neither take full credit for their children's
virtues nor be blamed for all their faults. But
parents can turn an environment that
exaggerates a child's problems into one that
builds on the child's strengths. Goodness of fit is
also at the heart of infant–caregiver attachment.
This first intimate relationship grows out of
interaction between parent and baby, to which
the emotional styles of both partners
contribute.
6.6 & 6.7
Attachment *
Development
of
ATTACHMENT:

Strong affectionate tie we have with special
people in our lives that leads us to feel pleasure
when we interact with them and to be
comforted by their nearness in times of stress.
Freud suggested that the infants’ emotional tie to
the mother is the foundation for all later
relationships. Contemporary research that later
development is influenced not just by early
attachment experiences, but also by the
CONTINUTING quality of the parent-child
relationship.
BOWLBY'S ETHOLOGICAL THEORY OF ATTACHMENT
The most widely accepted view of attachment,
recognises the infant's emotional tie to the caregiver
as an evolved response that promotes survival
According to Bowlby, the infant's relationship with the
parent begins as a set of innate signals that call the
adult to the baby's side. Over time, a true affectionate
bond forms, supported by new cognitive and
emotional capacities as well as by a history of warm,
sensitive care. Attachment develops in four phases:
PREATTACHMENT PHASE (birth to 6 weeks). Built-in
signals—grasping, smiling, crying, and gazing into the
adult's eyes—help bring newborn babies into close
contact with other humans, who comfort them.
Newborns prefer their own mother's smell, voice, and
face, but they are not yet attached to her, since they
do not mind being left with an unfamiliar adult.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
“ATTACHMENT-IN-THE-MAKING” PHASE: (6 weeks to
6–8 months). During this phase, infants respond
differently to a familiar caregiver than to a stranger.
For example, at 4 months, Timmy smiled, laughed, and
babbled more freely when interacting with his mother
and quieted more quickly when she picked him up. As
infants learn that their own actions affect the
behaviour of those around them, they begin to
develop a sense of trust—the expectation that the
caregiver will respond when signalled—but they still
do not protest when separated from her.
separations from and reunions with the
caregiver in an unfamiliar playroom.
“CLEAR-CUT” ATTACHMENT PHASE: (6–8 months to
18 months–2 years). Now attachment to the familiar
caregiver is evident. Babies display separation anxiety,
becoming upset when their trusted caregiver leaves.
Like stranger anxiety, separation anxiety does not
always occur; it depends on infant temperament and
the current situation. But in many cultures, separation
anxiety increases between 6 and 15 months. Besides
protesting the parent's departure, older infants and
toddlers try hard to maintain her presence. They
approach, follow, and climb on her in preference to
others. And they use the familiar caregiver as a secure
base from which to explore.
FORMATION OF A RECIPROCAL RELATIONSHIP: (18
months to 2 years and on). By the end of the second
year, rapid growth in representation and language
enables toddlers to understand some of the factors
that influence the parent's coming and going and to
predict her return. As a result, separation protest
declines. Now children negotiate with the caregiver,
using requests and persuasion to alter her goals. For
example, at age 2, Caitlin asked Carolyn and David to
read her a story before leaving her with a babysitter.
The extra time with her parents, along with a better
understanding of where they were going (“to have
dinner with Uncle Sean”) and when they would be
back (“right after you go to sleep”), helped Caitlin
withstand her parents’ absence.

INTERNAL WORKING MODEL: a set of
expectations about the availability of
attachment figures and their likelihood of
providing support in times of stress. It becomes
a vital part of personality, serving as a guide for
all future close relationships.
MEASURING THE SECURITY OF ATTACHMENT:

STRANGE SITUATION: a lab procedure used to
assess the quality of attachment between 1 and
2 years of age by observing the baby's response
to eight short episodes involving brief
SECURE ATTACHMENT: These infants use the parent
as a secure base. When separated, they may or may
not cry, but if they do, it is because the parent is
absent and they prefer her to the stranger. When the
parent returns, they convey clear pleasure—some
expressing joy from a distance, others asking to be
held until settling down to return to play—and crying
is reduced immediately. About 60 percent of North
American infants in middle-SES families show this
pattern. (In low-SES families, a smaller proportion of
babies show the secure pattern, with higher
proportions falling into the insecure patterns.)
INSECURE-AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT: These infants
seem unresponsive to the parent when she is present.
When she leaves, they usually are not distressed, and
they react to the stranger in much the same way as to
the parent. During reunion, they avoid or are slow to
greet the parent, and when picked up, they often fail
to cling. About 15 percent of North American infants
in middle-SES families show this pattern.
INSECURERESISTANT
ATTACHMENT:
Before
separation, these infants seek closeness to the parent
and often fail to explore. When the parent leaves, they
are usually distressed, and on her return they combine
clinginess with angry, resistive behaviour (struggling
when held, hitting and pushing). Many continue to cry
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
after being picked up and cannot be comforted easily.
About 10 percent of North American infants in middleSES families show this pattern.
DISORGANISED/ DISORIENTED ATTACHMENT. This
pattern reflects the greatest insecurity. At reunion,
these infants show confused, contradictory behaviors
—for example, looking away while the parent is
holding them or approaching the parent with flat,
depressed emotion. Most display a dazed facial
expression, and a few cry out unexpectedly after
having calmed down or display odd, frozen postures.
About 15 percent of North American infants in middleSES families show this pattern.
ATTACHMENT Q SORT:

A method for assessing the quality of
attachment in children between 1-5 through
home observations of a variety of attachment
related behaviours.
GOOD: May better reflect the parent-infant
relationship in everyday life as it records a wider array
of attachment related behaviours than the strange
situation
BAD: Time consuming and doesn’t differentiate
between types of insecurity.
STABILITY OF ATTACHMENT:

Quality of attachment is usually secure and
stable for middle SES babies experiencing
favourable life conditions.

In low SES families, with many stresses and
little social support, attachment generally moves
away from security or changes from one
insecure pattern to another.

Securely attached babies more often maintain
their attachment status than insecure babies.
FACTORS THAT AFFECT ATTACHMENT SECURITY
1.EARLY AVAILABILITY OF A CONSISTENT CAREGIVER

Fully normal emotional development depends
on establishing a close tie with a caregiver early
in life
2.QUALITY OF CAREGIVING

Sensitive caregiving is moderately related to
attachment security in diverse cultures and SES
group
SENSITIVE CAREGIVING: caregiving that involves
responding promptly, consistently and appropriately
to infants and holding them tenderly and carefully.
Maternal mind-mindedness: tendency to treat the
baby as a person with inner thoughts and feelings,
promotes sensitive caregiving.
INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY: caregiver responds to
infant signals in a well-timed, rhythmic, appropriate
fashion, and both partners match emotional states,
especially the positive ones. Increases babies'
responsiveness to emotional messages and helps
infants regulate emotions
3.INFANT CHARACTERISTICS

Families under stress= attachment insecurity

At risk newborns, good parenting= attachment
security

Emotionally reactive babies = insecure
attachment

Disorganised
newborn
behaviour=
disorganised/ disoriented attachment

Parental mental health & caregiving involved

Babies with certain genotypes are at increased
risk for attachment insecurity when they also
experience insensitive parenting.
4. FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES:

Job loss, a failing marriage, financial
difficulties or parental psychological problems
(anxiety/depression) can undermine attachment
indirectly by interfering with parental sensitivity.

Can also affect babies' sense of security
directly by altering the emotional climate of the
family or by disrupting familiar daily routines.
Parent's internal working models: parents bring to
the family context their own history of attachment
experiences, from which they construct internal
working models that they apply to the bonds they
establish with their children.

Internal working models are reconstructed
memories affected by many factors.

"Our early rearing experiences do not destine
us to become in/sensitive parents. Rather the
way we view our childhoods- our ability to come
to terms with negative events, to integrate new
information into our working models, and to
look back on our own parents in an
understanding, forgiving way- is far more
influential in how we rear our children than the
actual history of care we received."
6.9 Self Development
Over the first year, infants recognise and respond
appropriately to others' emotions and distinguish
familiar and unfamiliar people - leads to them
developing a sense of self.
SELF AWARENESS:

At birth infants sense they are physically
distinct from their surroundings.

Infants capacity for intermodal perception
supports the beginnings of self-awareness.

These early signs of self-experience serve as
the foundation for development of explicit self-
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
awareness- understanding that the self is a
unique object in a world of objects.
EXPLICIT SELF AWARENESS:

During the second year, toddlers become
consciously aware of the self's physical features

Around age 2 SELF RECOGNITION:
identification of the self as a physically unique
being- is well underway.

SCALE ERRORS: when toddlers attempt to do
things that their size makes impossible.
SELF AWARENESS AND EARLY EMOTIONAL AND
SOCIAL DEVELIOMENT

Self-conscious emotions depend on a
strengthening sense of self.

Self-awareness also leads to first efforts to
understand another's perspective.

Older toddlers who have experienced
sensitive caregiving draw on their advancing
capacity to distinguish what happens to oneself
from what happens to others to express first
signs of empathy
CATEGORISING THE SELF:

By the end of the second year, language
becomes a powerful tool in self-development;
between 18 and 30 months, children develop a
CATEGORICAL SELF: classification of the self on
the basis of prominent ways in which people
appear different (sex, physical characteristics,
good v bad, and competencies)
SELF CONTROL:

The extent to which children can inhibit
impulses, manage negative emotion and behave
in socially acceptable ways.

COMPLIANCE: voluntary obedience to
requests and commands. (12/18 months)

Researchers often study the early emergence
of self-control by giving children tasks that
require delay of gratification-- (influenced by
quality of caregiving)
HELPING TODDLERS DEVELOP COMPLIANCE AND
SELF CONTROL:
 respond to the toddler with sensitivity and
encouragement,
 Provide advance notice when the toddler
must stop an enjoyable activity.
 Offer many prompts and reminders.
 Respond to self-controlled behaviour with
verbal and physical approval.
 Encourage selective and sustained attention
 Support language development
 Gradually increase rules in a manner
consistent with the toddler’s developing
capacities.
Ch 7: Physical & Cognitive
Development
in
Early
Childhood
7.5
Piaget’s
Theory:
Preoperational Stage*
The
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE: Piaget's second stage of
cognitive development, extending from about 2-7
years of age, in which children undergo an
extraordinary increase in representational, or
symbolic, activity, although it is not yet logical.
ADVANCES IN MENTAL REPRESENTATION:
-Language is our most flexible means of mental
representation. By detaching thought from action, it
permits far more effective thinking.
-Piaget believed that sensorimotor activity leads to
internal images of experience, which children label
with words. (but he underestimated the power of
language to spur children's cognition)

MAKE BELIEVE PLAY
Development of representation
Piaget believed that through pretending, young
children practice and strengthen newly acquired
representational schemes.
Play detaches from the real-life conditions associated
with it: In early pretending, toddlers use only realistic
objects—a toy telephone to talk into or a cup to drink
from. Their earliest pretend acts usually imitate adults’
actions and are not yet flexible. Children younger than
age 2, for example, will pretend to drink from a cup
but refuse to pretend a cup is a hat. They have
trouble using an object (cup) that already has an
obvious use as a symbol of another object (hat). By
age three they understand that an object may take on
different fictional identities
Play includes more complex combinations of
schemes. Dwayne can pretend to drink from a cup,
but he does not yet combine pouring and drinking.
Later, children combine schemes with those of peers
in sociodramatic play, the make-believe with others
that is under way by the end of the second year and
increases rapidly in complexity during early childhood.
Can create and coordinate several roles in an
elaborate plot. By the end of early childhood, children
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
have a sophisticated understanding
relationships and story lines.
of
role
Play becomes less self-centred. At first, make-believe
is directed toward the self—for example, Dwayne
pretends to feed only himself. Soon, children direct
pretend actions toward other objects, as when a child
feeds a doll. Early in the third year, they become
detached participants, making a doll feed itself or
pushing a button to launch a rocket. Increasingly, preschoolers realise that agents and recipients of pretend
actions can be independent of themselves.
In sociodramatic play, children display awareness
that make-believe is a representational activity—an
understanding that strengthens over early childhood .
Listen closely to a group of preschoolers as they assign
roles and negotiate make-believe plans: “You pretend
to be the astronaut, I’ll act like I’m operating the
control tower!” In communicating about pretend,
children think about their own and others’ fanciful
representations—evidence that they have begun to
reason about people's mental activities.
perceive, think and feel the same way they do. (three
mountains
problem)
prevents
them
from
accommodating.
ANIMISM: belief that inanimate objects have life like
qualities.
CONSERVATION: idea that certain physical
characteristics of objects remain the same, even when
their outward appearance changes. (liquid in glass)
CENTRATION: tendency to focus on one aspect of a
situation while neglecting other important features (in
conservation of liquid, the child centers on the height
of the water, failing to realise that changes in width
compensate for changes in height)
IRREVERSIBILITY: inability to mentally go through a
series of steps in a problem and then reverse
direction, returning to the starting point.
LACK OF HIERARCHIAL CLASSIFICATION: have
difficulty organising objects into classes and subclasses
on the basis of similarities and differences. (class
illusion problem)
BENEFITS OF MAKE BELIEVE PLAY
 Play also contributes to children's
cognitive and social skills
 Makes for better observers & socially
competent kiddos
 Predicts cognitive capacities
 (critics say this is merely correlational)
SYMBOL REAL WORLD RELATIONS
 To understand representation kiddos must
realise that each symbol corresponds to
something specific in everyday life.
 Lil kids didn't realise the model could be
both a toy room and a symbol of another
room had trouble with
 DUAL REPRESENTATION:
viewing a
symbolic object as both an object in its
own right and as a symbol. Children
understand this through experiences with
diverse symbols - picture books, photos,
drawings, make believes, maps.
LIMITATIONS OF PREOPERATIONAL THOUGHT

Young children are not capable of
operations- mental representations of
actions that obey logical rules. Rather
their thinking is rigid, limited to one
aspect of a situation at a time, and
strongly influenced by the way things
appear in the moment
EGOCENTRISM: failure to distinguish other's symbolic
viewpoints from one's own. They think that others
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
7.8 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
Vygotsky's theory stresses the social context of
cognitive development
Rapid expansion of language broadens pre-schooler’s
participation in social dialogues with more
knowledgeable individuals, who encourage them to
master culturally important tasks.
Soon children start to communicate with themselves
in much the same way as they converse with others.
This greatly enhances their thinking and ability to
control their own behaviour.
PRIVATE SPEECH:
Kiddies talking to themselves = piaget thought of it as
egocentric speech.

Vygotsky maintained that language helps
children think about their mental activities and
behaviour and select courses of action, thereby
serving as the foundation for all higher cognitive
processes. Children speak to themselves for selfguidance.
PRIVATE SPEECH: self-directed speech that children
use to plan and guide their own behaviour
SOCIAL ORIGINS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD COGNITION:

Vygotsky believed that children's learning
takes place within the zone of proximal
development: a range of tasks too difficult for
the child to do alone but possible with the help
of others.
SCAFFOLDING: adjusting the support offered during
a teaching session to fit the learner's current level of
performance. As competence increases, effective
scaffolders gradually and sensitively withdraw
support, turning over responsibility to the learner.
EVALUATION OF VYGOTSKY'S THEORY:

Not relevant across cultures- some cultures
will place emphasis on different areas instead of
language

To account for children's diverse ways of
learning through involvement with others->GUIDED PARTICIPATION: broader than
scaffolding. Refers to shared endeavours
between more expert & less expert participants,
without specifying the precise features of
communications (allowing for variations across
cultures and situations)

His theory says little about how basic motor,
perceptual, attention, memory and problemsolving skills contribute to socially transmitted
higher cognitive processes.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
7.11 Information Processing
THE YOUNG CHILD'S THEORY OF MIND
As a representation of their world, memory and
problem solving improve, children start to reflect on
their own thought processes.
METACOGNITION: a theory of mind, or coherent set
of ideas about mental activities. // thinking about
thought
AWARENESS OF MENTAL LIFE
FACTORS CONTIBUTING TO PRESCHOOLER'S THEORY
OF MIND:

Language, executive function, make believe
play and social experiences all contribute

Language ability strongly predicts kiddies false
belief understanding. Children who use mentalstate words in conversation are especially likely
to pass false belief tasks

Social experience makes a difference, securely
attached babies seemed to perform better on
false belief tasks
LIMITATIONS
OF
THE
YOUNG
CHILDS
UNDERSTANDING OF MENTAL LIFE:

3/4-year old’s are unaware that people
continue to think while they are not talking

Children younger than 6 pay little attention to
the processing of thinking (e.g. don’t
understand concepts of know and forget)

Kiddies view the mind as a passive container
of information
Ch 8: Emotional and
Social Development in
Early Childhood
8.1 Erickson’s Theory: Initiative vs
Guilt
INITIATIVE VS GUILT

The psychological conflict of early childhood,
which is resolved positively through play
experiences that foster a healthy sense of
initiative, and through development of a
superego, or conscience that is not overly strict
and guild ridden.

Negative outcome: overly strict superego that
causes children to feel too much guilt because
they have been threatened, criticised and
punished excessively by adults. Play and efforts
to master new tasks break down.

Play is a means through which young children
learn about themselves and their social world. It
permits them to try new skills with little risk of
criticism and failure.

Early childhood is a time when children
develop a confident self-image, more effective
control over their emotions, new social skills,
the foundations of morality, and a clear sense of
themselves as boy or girl.
8.2, 8.3 Self Understanding*

The development of language enables
children to talk about their own subjective
experience of being.

As self-awareness strengthens, pre-schoolers
focus more intently on qualities that make the
self unique
SELF CONCEPT: the set of attributes, abilities,
attitudes and values that an individual believes
defines who they are
FOUNDATIONS OF SELF CONCEPT

Pre-schoolers’ self-concepts consist largely of
observable characteristics (name, appearance,
possessions, behaviours)

By age 3.5, children also describe themselves
in terms of typical emotions and attitudes.

A warm, sensitive, parent-child relationship
fosters a more positive, coherent, early selfconcept.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459


Elaborative reminiscing that focuses on
children’s thoughts feelings and subjective
experiences plays an important role in early self
concept development
By the end of the preschool years, children
can set aside their current state of mind and
take a future perspective.
EMERGENCE OF SELF-ESTEEM:
SELF-ESTEEM: the judgements we make about our
own worth and the feelings associated with those
judgements. These affect our emotional experiences,
future behaviour and long term psychological
adjustment

4 year olds have many self-judgements, but
lack the cognitive maturity to combine these
evaluations into a global sens e of self-esteem.

High self-esteem contributes to pre-schoolers
initiative during a period in which they must
master new skills
EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Gains in representation, language and self
concept support emotional development in
early childhood.

EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE:
1)kids gain in emotional understanding 2)then become
better at emotional self regulation 3)then more often
experience self conscious emotions and empathy
which contribute to their developing sense of
morality.
UNDERSTANDING EMOTION

Children refer to causes, consequences, and
behavioural signs of emotion.

By age 4/5 children correctly judge the causes
of many basic emotions (happy because he is
swinging high). Though tend to emphasise
external over internal factors.

Good at inferring how others are feeling based
on their behaviour. Beginning to realise that
thinking and feeling are interconnected

Difficulty interpreting situations that offer
conflicting cues about how a person is feeling.

The more parents label and explain emotions
and express warmth when conversing, more
emotion words kids use and the better
developed is their emotion understanding.

Discussions of negative experiences are
helpful, because they evoke more elaborative
convo and validate children's feelings.

knowledge about emotion helps children in
their efforts to get along with others.
EMOTIONAL SELF REGULATION

Language, along with pre-schoolers’ growing
understanding of the causes and consequences
of emotion contributes to gains in emotional
self-regulation.

Children use strategies to alleviate emotional
discomfort.

Gains in executive function contribute greatly
to managing emotion

By watching parents manage emotion children
learn strategies for regulating their own.
SELF- CONSCIOUS EMOTIONS:

As their self-concepts develop, pre-schoolers
become increasingly sensitive to praise and
blame or to the possibility of such feedback.
SELF CONSCIOUS EMOTIONS: feelings that involve
injury to enhancement of one's sense of self.

They depend on messages of those who
matter to them to know when to feel
proud/ashamed/guilty

When parents repeatedly comment on the
WORTH of the child and their performance
children experience self-conscious emotions
more intensely- more shame after failure and
more pride after success.
EMPATHY AND SYMPATHY
Empathy
serves
as
a
motivator
of
PROSOCIAL/ALTURISTIC BEHAVIOUR: Actions that
benefit another person without any expected reward
for the self.

Although some children become distressed
when helping others and end up focusing on
their own anxiety.

Temperament plays a role in whether
empathy prompts sympathetic, prosocial
behaviour or a personally distressed, selffocused response.

Empathetic concern strengthens in the
context of a secure parent-child attachment
relationship.
8.4 Peer Relations

Peers provide children with learning
experiences they can get in no other way.
Children must keep a conversation going,
cooperate, set goals in play, and make
friendships.
ADVANCES IIN PEER SOCIABILITY:
Mildred Parten: studied peer sociability, noticed a rise
with age in joint play.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459




NONSOCIAL ACTIVITY: unoccupied, onlooker
behaviour and solitary play
PARALLEL PLAY: a child nears other children
with similar materials but does not try to
influence their behaviour
ASSOCIATIVE PLAY: children engage in
separate activities but exchange toys and
comment on one another's behaviour
COOPERATIVE PLAY: a more advanced type of
interaction, children orient toward a common
goal, such as acting out a make believe theme.
FOLLOW UP RESEARCH ON PEER SOCIABILITY:

These play forms emerge in the order
suggested by Parten, but that later-appearing
ones do not replace earlier ones in a
developmental sequence, rather they coexist.
SOCIODRAMATIC PLAY: an advanced form of
cooperative play. Helps them understand others
feelings and to regulate their own.
CULTURAL VARIATIONS

Peer sociability takes different forms
depending on the importance cultures place on
group harmony as opposed to individual
autonomy
FIRST FRIENDSHIPS

First friendships are important for emotional
and social development
PEER RELATIONS AND SCHOOL READINESS

The ease with which kids make new friends
and are accepted by classmates predicts
cooperative participation in classroom activities
and self-directed completion of learning tasks

Social maturity contributes to academic
performance readiness for kindergarten must be
assessed in terms of not only academic skills but
social skills also

Good teachers= good kiddos
8.5, 8.6 Foundations of Morality &
Aggression

Conscience begins to take shape in early
childhood and the child's morality is externally
controlled by adults, gradually becoming
regulated by inner standards.

Each major theory of development
emphasizes a different aspect of morality.
Psychoanalytic theory stresses the emotional
side of conscience development—in particular,
identification and guilt as motivators of good
conduct.



Social learning theory focuses on how moral
behaviour is learned through reinforcement and
modelling.
Cognitive-developmental
perspective
emphasizes thinking—children’s ability to
reason about justice and fairness.
PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE: SUPER EGO

Children form their superego (conscience) by
identifying with the same sex parent whose
moral standards they adopt. Children obey the
super ego to avoid guilt.

Most researchers today disagree
INDUCTIVE DISCIPLINE

INDUCTION: an adult helps make the child
aware of feelings by pointing out the effects of
the child's misbehaviour on others. Parents who
use this have children who are better behaved.

By emphasising the impact of the child’s
actions on others, it encourages empathy and
sympathetic concern
THE CHILD'S CONTRIBUTION

Twin studies suggest a modest genetic
contribution to empathy.

More empathic children require less power
assertion and are more responsive to induction

Temperament is also influential.

Mild, patient tactics—requests, suggestions,
and explanations—are sufficient to prompt guilt
reactions in anxious, fearful pre-schoolers

But with fearless, impulsive children, gentle
discipline has little impact. Power assertion also
works poorly. It undermines children’s effortful
control, or capacity to regulate their emotional
reactivity.

Parents of impulsive children can foster
conscience development by ensuring a warm,
harmonious relationship and combining firm
correction of misbehaviour with induction.

When children are so low in anxiety that
parental disapproval causes them little
discomfort, a close parent–child bond motivates
them to listen to parents as a means of
preserving
an
affectionate,
supportive
relationship.
THE ROLE OF GUILT

Guilt motivates moral action.

Inducing empathy-based guilt—expressions of
personal responsibility and regret, such as “I’m
sorry I hurt him”—by explaining that the child is
harming someone and has disappointed the
parent is particularly effective

Empathy-based guilt reactions are associated
with stopping harmful actions, repairing damage
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
caused by misdeeds, and engaging in future
prosocial behaviour.
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY: MODELLING

Moral behaviour is acquired through
modelling
IMPORTANCE OF MODELLING

Increases prosocial responses

Warmth, responsiveness, competence and
power, consistency between assertions and
behaviour

Models are most influential in the early years
EFFECTS OF PUNISHMENT:

Yelling/Physical discipline is ineffective

To foster long term goals such as acting kindly
towards others, warmth and reasoning are the
best

The more harsh threats and physical
punishment children experience, the more likely
they are to develop serious lasting problems
such as weak internalisation of moral rules,
depression, aggression, antisocial behaviour,
and poor academic performance in childhood
and adolescence, and depression, alcohol
abuse, criminality, physical health problems, and
family violence in adulthood.
ALTERNATIVES TO HARSH PUNISHMENT

TIME OUT: involves removing children from
the immediate setting until they are ready to act
appropriately.

WITHDRAWAL OF PRIVILIGES: taking away
phone/ not allowing them to watch TV

Effectiveness increased by consistency, a
warm
parent-child
relationship
and
explanations.
POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS , POSITIVE PARENTING

The most effective forms of discipline
encourage good conduct—by building a
mutually respectful bond with the child, letting
the child know ahead of time how to act, and
praising mature behaviour.

When sensitivity, cooperation, and shared
positive emotion are evident in joint activities
between parents and pre-schoolers, children
show firmer conscience development—
expressing empathy after transgressions, playing
fairly in games, and considering others’ welfare

Parent–child closeness leads children to heed
parental demands because the child feels a
sense of commitment to the relationship.
THE COGNITIVE -DEVELOPMENAL PERSPECTIVE:
MORAL REASONING

Regards children as active thinkers about
social rules

Children make moral judgments, deciding
what is right or wrong on the basis of concepts
they construct about justice and fairness
Kids can distinguish
MORAL IMPERATIVES: protect people's rights and
welfare, from
SOCIAL CONVENTIONS: customs determined solely
by consensus- table manners and politeness rituals
&
MATTERS OF PERSONAL CHOICE: choice of friends,
hairstyle and leisure activities, which do not violate
rights and are up to the individual

They view moral violations more wrong than
violations of social conventions

Moral reasoning tends to be rigid.emphasising salient features and consequences
while neglecting other important information.
THE OTHER SIDE OF MORALITY: DEVELOPMENT OF
AGGRESSION

By the second year, aggressive acts with two
distinct purposes emerge
PROACTIVE/INSTRUMENTAL AGGRESSION: children
act to fulfil a need or desire- obtain an object,
privilege, space or social reward- and unemotionally
attack a person to achieve their goal
REACTIVE/ HOSTILE AGGRESSION: angry, defensive
response to provocation or a blocked goal, and Is
meant to hurt another person.

These, in turn, come in three forms
PHYSICAL AGGRESSION: harms others through
physical injury
VERBAL AGGRESSION: harms others through threats
of physical aggression, name calling or teasing
RELATIONAL AGGRESSION: damages another's peer
relationships through social exclusion, malicious
gossip or friendship manipulation

By 17 months, boys are more physically
aggressive than girls; due to biology and
temperamental traits and gender role
conformity.

In early childhood, proactive aggression
declines with preschoolers' improved capacity
to delay gratification, whereas reactive
aggression rises as children become better able
to recognise others' malicious intentions.
THE FAMILY AS TRAINING GROUND FOR AGGRESSIVE
BEHAVIOUR

Parental power assertion, critical remarks,
physical punishment and inconsistency are
linked to aggression from early childhood
through adolescence.

Cycles generate anxiety and irritability

Boys are more likely than girls to be targets of
harsh, inconsistent discipline because they are
more active and impulsive and therefore harder
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
to control. Children like this have low emotional
self regulation, empathic responding and guilt
after transgressions, and they usually lash out
MEDIA VIOLENCE AND AGGRESSION

Many tv programs contain violent scenes,
often portraying repeated aggressive acts that
go unpunished.

TV violence increases the likelihood of hostile
thoughts and emotions, and of verbally,
physically and relationally aggressive behaviour
HELPING CHILDREN AND PARENTS CONTROL
AGGRESSION

Encouraged kids to talk about playmates'
feelings and to express their own
8.9 Child Rearing and Emotional and
Social Development
STYLES OF CHILD REARING
 CHILD REARING STYLES: combinations of
parenting behaviours that occur over a
wide range of situations, creating an
enduring child-rearing climate.
 Effective styles have 1) acceptance and
involvement, 2) control, and 3) autonomy
granting
AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING : GOOD
ACCEPTANCE AND INVOLVEMENT
Is warm, responsive, attentive and sensitive to the
child’s needs
CONTROL
Engages in adaptive behavioural control: makes
reasonable demands for mature behaviour and
consistently enforces and explains them
AUTONOMY GRANTING
- Permits the child to make decisions in accord
with readiness
- Encourages the child to express thoughts,
feelings and desires
- When parent and child disagree, engages in
joint decision making when possible.
AUTHORITARIAN PARENTING : REJECTING
ACCEPTANCE AND INVOLVEMENT
Is cold and rejecting and frequently degrades the child
CONTROL
Engages in coercive behavioural control: Makes
excessive demands for mature behaviour, uses force
and punishment
Often uses psychological control, withdrawing love
and manipulating and intruding on the child’s
individuality and attachment to parents
AUTONOMY GRANTING
- Makes decisions for the child
- Rarely listens to the child’s point of view
PERMISSIVE PARENTING: DO WHAT U WANT
ACCEPTANCE AND INVOLVEMENT
Is warm but overindulgent or inattentive
CONTROL
Is lax in behavioural control: Makes few or no
demands for mature behaviour
AUTONOMY GRANTING
Permits the child to make many decisions before the
child is ready
UNINVOLVED PARENTING: NEGLECTFUL
ACCEPTANCE AND INVOLVEMENT
Is emotionally detached and withdrawn
Neglectful
CONTROL
Is lax in behavioural control: Makes few or no
demands for mature behaviour
AUTONOMY GRANTING
Is indifferent to the child’s decision making and point
of view
WHAT MAKES AUTHORITATIVE CHILD REARING
EFFECTIVE?

Perhaps parents of well-adjusted children are
authoritative because their kids have especially
cooperative dispositions

Other parenting styles can be helped

Authoritative children are granted maturity
and adjustment into adolescence
In sum, authoritative child rearing seems to
create a positive emotional context for
parental influence in the following ways:

Warm, involved parents who are secure in the
standards they hold for their children model
caring concern as well as confident, selfcontrolled behaviour.

Children are far more likely to comply with
and internalize control that appears fair and
reasonable, not arbitrary. By adjusting demands
and autonomy granting to children’s capacities,
authoritative parents convey to children that
they are competent and can do things
successfully for themselves. In this way, parents
foster favorable self-esteem and cognitive and
social maturity.

Supportive aspects of the authoritative style,
including parental acceptance, involvement, and
rational control, are a powerful source of
resilience, protecting children from the negative
effects of family stress and poverty
CULTURAL VARIATIONS

Chinese parenting is more controlling
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459



Hispanic, asian pacitic island and carribbean
families, have a firm insistence on respect for
parental authority / high parental warmth
African american parents expect immediate
obedience
Context of Child rearing types must be taken
into account
Ch 10: Emotional &
Social Development in
Middle Childhood



10.1 Erickson’s Theory: Industry vs
Inferiority




children whose previous experiences have
been positive enter middle childhood prepared
to focus their energies on realistic
accomplishment
INDUSTRY
VS
INFERIORITY:
resolved
positively when experiences lead children to
develop a sense of competence at useful
skills/tasks.
Inferiority is reflected in the pessimism of
children who lack confidence in their ability to
do things well.
Industry - a positive but realistic self-concept,
pride in accomplishment, moral responsibility,
and cooperative participation with others.
10.2 Self-Understanding *
SELF CONCEPT

DURING THE School years, children refine
their self-concept, organising their observations
of behaviours and internal states into general
disposition

Sociologist Geogre Herbert Mead proposed
that a well organised psychological self emerges
when children adopt a view of the self that
resembles others' attitudes toward the child

Instead of specific behaviours children tend to
emphasise competencies, their personality

SOCIAL COMPARISONS: judgments of one's
own appearance, abilities, and behaviour in
relation to those of others

Cognitive development affects the changing
structure of the self. School age children can
better coordinate several aspects of a situation
in reasoning about their physical world. In the
social world they combine typical experiences
and behaviours into stable psychological
dispositions, blend positive and negative


characteristics, and compare their own
characteristics with their peers.
The changing content of self-concept is a
product of both cognitive capacities and
feedback from others
Parental support for self-development
continues to be vitally important. School-age
children with a history of elaborative parent–
child conversations about past experiences
construct rich, positive narratives about the self
and therefore have more complex, favorable,
and coherent self-concepts (
Children also look to more people beyond the
family for information about themselves as they
enter a wider range of settings in school and
community. And self-descriptions now include
frequent reference to social groups: “I'm a Boy
Scout, a paper boy, and a Prairie City soccer
player,” said Joey.
As children move into adolescence, although
parents and other adults remain influential, selfconcept is increasingly vested in feedback from
close friends
Content of self concept varies between
cultures
SELF ESTEEM

Most pre-schoolers have high self-esteem

Feedback helps this adjust to a more realistic
level

Kids usually form broad self evaluations in
forms of academic competence, social
competence, physical/athletic competence, and
physical appearance.

Perceived physical appearance correlates the
strongest with overall self-worth
INFLUENCES ON SELF-ESTEEM

Individual differences in self-esteem become
increasingly stable

A low self-esteem is linked to anxiety,
depression, and increasing antisocial behaviour
CULTURE, GENDER AND ETHNICITY
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459

Chinese and japanese, strong emphasis on
social comparison - low SE, but are good at
praising others

Gender stereotyped expectations also affect
self-esteem, girls lower than boys

African American children have high SE bc of
warm extended families, and a stronger sense of
ethnic pride.

Children who live attend schools/ live in
neighbourhoods where their ethnic/SES groups
are well represented feel a stronger sense of
belonging and have fewer SE problems
CHILD REARING PRACTICES

School age children with a strong sense of
attachment security and whose parents use an
authoritative child rearing style are good ay, lets
the kids know they are accepted as competent
and worthwhile

Controlling parents communicate a sense of
inadequacy to children. Parents that are
repeatedly disapproving and insulting => low SE

Indulgent parenting = > unrealistically high
self-esteem, can lead to adjustment problems

Best way to positive SE is to encourage
children to strive for worthwhile goals

BI DIRECTIONAL RELATIONSHIP: achievement
fosters SE which contributes to further effort
and gains in performance
ACHIEVEMENT RELATED ATTRIBUTIONS

ATTRIBUTIONS: our common everyday
explanations for the causes of behaviour
MASTERY ORIENTED ATTRIBUTIONS: attributions that
credit success to ability, which can be improved
through effort and credit failure to factors that can be
changed and controlled, such as insufficient effort or a
hard task

Kids seek info on how best to increase their
ability through effort, thus their performance
improves over time
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS: attribution of success to
external factors, such as luck, and failure to
individual low ability, which is fixed and cannot be
improved by trying hard.

Focus on obtaining positive and avoiding
negative evaluations of their fragile sense of
ability
INDLUENCES
ON
ACHIEVEMENT
RELATED
ATTRIBUTIONS

Adult communication plays a key role

Children with a learned-helpless style often
have parents who believe that their child is not
very capable and must work harder than others
to succeed. When the child fails, the parent
might say, “You can't do that, can you? It's OK if
you quit”

Similarly, students with unsupportive teachers
often regard their performance as externally
controlled (by their teachers or by luck),
withdraw from learning activities, decline in
achievement, and come to doubt their ability
When a child succeeds, adults can offer PERSON
PRAISE, which emphasizes the child's traits (“You're so
smart!”),
or PROCESS PRAISE, which emphasizes behaviour and
effort (“You figured it out!”).

Children—especially those with low selfesteem—feel more shame following failure if
they previously received person praise, less
shame if they previously received process praise
or no praise at all

Consistent
with
a
learned-helpless
orientation, person praise teaches children that
abilities are fixed, which leads them to question
their competence and retreat from challenges

In contrast, process praise—consistent with a
mastery orientation—implies that competence
develops through effort

Girls attribute poor performance to lack of
ability more than boys

Asian kids view effort as a key to success and
attend more to failure than to success, because
failure indicates where corrective action is
needed

Americans focus more on success bc it
enhances self-esteem
FOSTERING A MASTERY-ORIENTED APPROACH

ATTRIBUTION
RETRAINING:
encourages
learned helpless children to believe they can
overcome failure by exerting more effort and
using more effective strategies. Hard tasks experience failure- feedback that helps them
revise their attributions - succeed- process
praise
10.3 Emotional Development


Greater self-awareness and social sensitivity
support advances in emotional competence in
middle childhood.
Gains take place in experience of selfconscious emotions, emotional understanding
and emotional self-regulation
SELF CONSCIOUS EMOTIONS

Children integrate social expectations
their self concepts.

Children experience pride in a
accomplishment and guilt over failures
when no adult is present.

Pride => take on further challenges

Guilt=> make amends and strive for
improvement
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
into
new
even
self-
lOMoARcPSD|12058459

Excessive guilt=> depressive symptoms
EMOTIONAL UNDERSTANDING

Kids likely to explain emotion by referring to
internal states rather than to external events

Appreciating mixed emotions helps children
realise that people's expressions may not reflect
their true feelings and fosters awareness of selfconscious emotions.

Can reconcile contradictory facial and
situational cues in figuring out another's feelings

Gains in emotional understanding are
supported by cognitive development and social
experiences
EMOTIONAL SELF-REGULATION

Two general strategies for managing emotion

PROBLEM CENTERED COPING: appraise the
situation as changeable, identify the difficulty,
and decide what to do about it.

EMOTION CENTERED COPING: internal,
private and aimed at controlling distress when
little can be done about an outcome.

Children also become more knowledgeable
about socially approved ways to display negative
emotions. Prefer verbal expression to crying
sulking or aggression

Acknowledge concerns for other's feelings
When emotional self-regulation has been developed
well, school-age kids acquire a sense of EMOTIONAL
SELF EFFICACY: a feeling of being in control of their
emotional experience.
10.5 & 10.6 Peer Relations



SOCIETY OF PEERS Becomes an increasingly
important context for development
School age children resolve conflicts
effectively, using persuasion and compromise
Sharing, helping, and other prosocial acts
increase, aggression declines
PEER GROUPS

Collectives that generate unique values and
standards for behaviour and a social structure of
leaders and followers. Organised on the basis of
proximity and similarity.

Most kids believe a group is wrong to exclude
a peer on the basis of unconventional
appearance or behaviour, but they do bc they’re
assholes <3

Adult behaviour holds in check the negative
behaviours associated with children's informal
peer groups
FRIENDSHIPS

Contribute to the development of trust and
sensitivity

Becomes more complex and psychologically
based

A mutually agreed on relationship in which
children like each other's personal qualities and
respond to one another's needs and desires

Children select people who are similar

Learn the importance of emotional
commitment
PEER ACCEPTANCE

Refers to likability- the extent to which a child
is viewed by a group of agemates, as a worthy
social partner. Likability is a one sided
perspective, involving the group's view of an
individual

Popular children are well lliked

Rejected children are disliked, anxious,
unhappy, disruptive, low in self esteem

Controversial children are both liked and
disliked

Neglected children are seldom mentioned
either positively or negatively
DETERMINANTS OF PEER ACCEPTANCE

POPULAR CHILDREN:

POPULAR-PROSOCIAL CHILDREN: a subgroup
of popular children who combine academic and
social competence and are both well-liked and
admired

POPULAR-ANTISOCIAL CHILDREN: a subgroup
of popular children who are admired for their
socially adept but belligerent behaviour.
Includes 'tough' boys- athletically skilled but
poor students who cause trouble and defy
authority- and relationally aggressive kids who
enhance their own status by ignoring, excluding
and spreading rumours about other children

REJECTED CHILDREN

REJECTED-AGGRESSIVE CHILDREN: a subgroup
of rejected children who show high rates of
conflict, physical and relational aggression and
hyperactive,
inattentive
and
impulsive
behaviour, extremely antagonistic, bullies

REJECTED-WITHDRAWN CHILDREN: passive
and socially awkward, overwhelmed by social
anxiety, they hold negative expectations about
interactions with peers and worry about being
scorned and attacked, victimised

CONTROVERSIAL AND NEGLECTED CHILDREN
Blend of positive and negative social behaviours

Have many friends and are happy with their
peer relationships
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459

Often bully others and engage in calculated
relational aggression to sustain their
dominance.
HELPING REJECTED CHILDREN

Coaching, modelling, reinforcing positive
social skills,

Rejected children are often poor students
whose low academic self-esteem magnifies
their negative interactions with teachers and
classmates. Intensive academic tutoring
improves both school achievement and social
acceptance

Another approach focuses on training in
perspective training and in solving social
problems, many rejected-aggressive children
are unaware of their poor social skills and do
not take responsibility for their social failures.
Rejected withdrawn children are likely to
develop a learned helpless approach to peer
difficulties. Both types of children need help
attributing their peer difficulties to internal,
changeable causes.
10.8 & 10.9 Family Influences

Children's well-being continues to depend on
the quality of family interaction
PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIPS

In middle childhood children spend less time
with their parents, as they're more independent

Reasoning is good with authoritative kids, as
they are able to think logically, and have
increased respect for their parents' knowledge
COREGULATION: a form of supervision in which
parents exercise general oversight while letting
children take charge of moment-by-moment
decision making

Both parents devote more time to children of
their own sex
SIBLINGS

Sibling rivalry increases in middle childhood

For same sex siblings who are close in age,
parental comparisons are more frequent,
resulting in more quarrelling and antagonism

School age siblings continue to rely on each
other for companionship assistance and
emotional support.
ONLY CHILDREN

Higher in self-esteem and achievement
motivation, do better in school, attain higher
levels of education

Have closer relationships with parents

May be less well accepted in the peer group
because they have not had opportunities to
learn effective conflict-resolution strategies
through sibling interactions
DIVORCE

If parents argue, sibling arguments will
increase yay

Divorce is stressful for children and increases
the risk of adjustment problems, however many
adjust favourably
IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES

Family conflict often rises in newly divorced
households

Mother
headed
households
typically
experience a sharp drop in income

As children react with distress and anger to
their less secure home lives, discipline may
become harsh and inconsistent

Fathers who see their children only
occasionally are inclined to be permissive and
indulgent, making the mother's task of
managing the child more difficult
CHILDREN'S AGE

Preschool and young children often blame
themselves for a marital breakup and fear that
both parents may abandon them

Older children have the cognitive maturity to
understand they're not responsible, they may
react strongly, declining in school performance,
becoming unruly and escaping into undesirable
peer activities

Some older children—especially the oldest
child in the family—display more mature
behaviour, willingly taking on extra household
tasks, care of younger siblings, and emotional
support of a depressed, anxious mother. But if
these demands are too great, these children
may eventually become resentful, withdraw
from the family, and engage in angry, acting-out
behaviour
CHILDREN'S TEMPERAMENT AND SEX

Exposure to that stuff magnifies the problems
of temperamentally difficult children

Girls often internalise reactions -- crying, selfcriticism, and withdrawal

Children of both sexes show demanding,
attention getting behaviour
LONG TERM CONSEQUENCES

Most children show improved adjustment by
two years after divorce

Some older kids show reduced educational
attainment, troubled romantic relationships,
early sexual activity and yeah have a lot of
problems k thx

If you got good parenting then you'll be right.
BLENDED FAMILIES

A family structure resulting from remarriage
or cohabitation that includes parent, child and
step relatives
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459

Older children and girls seem to have the
hardest time adjusting


MOTHER-STEPFATHER FAMILIES

Because mothers generally retain custody of
children, the most common form of blended
family is a mother–stepfather arrangement.

Boys tend to adjust quickly , welcoming a
stepfather who is warm, who refrains from
exerting his authority too quickly, and who
offers relief from coercive cycles of mother–son
interaction. Mothers’ friction with sons also
declines as a result of greater economic security,
another adult to share household tasks, and an
end to loneliness

Stepfathers who marry rather than cohabit
are more involved in parenting, perhaps
because men who choose to marry a mother
with children are more interested in and skilled
at child rearing

Girls, however, often have difficulty with their
custodial mother's remarriage. Stepfathers
disrupt the close ties many girls have
established with their mothers, and girls often
react with sulky, resistant behaviour.

age affects these findings.

Older school-age children and adolescents of
both sexes display more irresponsible, actingout behaviour than their peers not in
stepfamilies

If parents are warmer and more involved with
their biological children than with their
stepchildren, older children are more likely to
notice and challenge unfair treatment.

Adolescents often view the new stepparent as
a threat to their freedom, especially if they
experienced little parental monitoring in the
single-parent family. But when teenagers have
affectionate, cooperative relationships with
their mothers, many develop good relations
with their stepfathers—a circumstance linked to
more favourable adolescent well-being
FATHER-STEPMOTHER FAMILIES

Remarriage of noncustodial fathers often
leads to reduced contact with their biological
children, especially when fathers remarry
quickly, before they have established postdivorce parent–child routines

When fathers have custody, children typically
react negatively to remarriage.

One reason is that children living with fathers
often start out with more problems. Perhaps the
biological mother could no longer handle the
difficult child (usually a boy), so the father and
his new partner are faced with the child's
behavior problems.
In other instances, the father has custody
because of a very close relationship with the
child, and his remarriage disrupts this bond
Girls, especially, have a hard time getting
along with their stepmothers, either because
the remarriage threatens the girl's bond with
her father or because she becomes entangled in
loyalty conflicts between the two mother
figures. But the longer girls live in father–
stepmother households, the more positive their
interaction with stepmothers becomes. With
time and patience, children of both genders
benefit from the support of a second mother
figure.
MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT AND DUAL-EARNER
FAMILIES

Impact of maternal employment on
development depends on the quality of child
care and the parent-child relationship
MATERNAL
EMPLOYMENT
AND
CHILD
DEVELOPMENT

When employed mothers remain committed
to parenting, children develop favourably,
displaying higher self-esteem and less genderstereotyped beliefs

Allows for fair division of parenting
responsibilities
Ch9:
Physical
and
Cognitive Development
in middle childhood
9.6 Motor Development and Play
Gains in body size and muscle strength support
improved motor coordination in middle childhood,
and greater cognitive and social maturity enables
older children to use their new motor skills in more
complex ways.
GROSS-MOTOR DEVELOPMENT (larger actions)
During the school years, running, jumping, hopping
and ball skills become more refined.
Significant gains in 4 basic motor capacities: flexibility,
balance, agility and force.
More efficient information processing aids improved
motor performance – gains in reaction time, capacity
to react to only relevant information, etc.
Physical fitness predicts improved executive function,
memory and academic achievement in middle
childhood.
FINE-MOTOR DEVELOPMENT (smaller actions)
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
Gains in fine motor skills are especially evident in
writing and drawing.
SEX DIFFERNCES
 Girls have an edge in fine motor skills of
handwriting and drawing, and in gross motor
skills that depend on balance and agility.
 Boys outperform girls on all other gross-motor
skills.
 Social environment plays a significant role.
Parents hold higher expectations for boy’s
athletic performance.
 Middle childhood is a crucial time to
encourage girls’ sports participation because
during this period, children start to discover
what they are good at and make some definite
skill commitments.
GAMES WITH RULES
 Gains in perspective taking- in particular, the
ability to understand the roles of several
players in a game- permit this transition to
rule-oriented games.

They are rarely tests of individual ability,
which allows children to try out different
styles of cooperating, competing, winning and
losing with little personal risk.
 Child organised games serve as rich contexts
for social learning.
ADULT ORGANISED YOUTH SPORTS
 Joining community athletic teams is
associated with increased self-esteem and
social skills.
 Children who view themselves as good sports
are more likely to continue playing in teams
 Coaches and parents who criticise rather than
encourage can prompt intense anxiety in
some children, setting the stage for emotional
difficulties and early athletic drop out.
SHADOWS OF OUR EVOLUTIONARY PAST
ROUGH AND TUMBLE PLAY: a form of peer interaction
involving friendly chasing and play-fighting that
emerges in the preschool years and peaks in middle
childhood. In our evolutionary past, it may have been
important for developing fighting skills.
 Children seem to use play fighting as a safe
context to assess the strength of a peer before
challenging that peer’s dominance.
9.7 Piaget’s Theory:
Operational Stage*
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL THOUGHT:
Concrete
CONCRETE OPETATIONAL STAGE: Piaget's
third stage of cognitive development, extending
from about 7-11 years, during which thought
becomes logical, flexible, and organised in its
application to concrete information, but the
capacity for abstract thinking is not yet present
CONSERVATION: Ability to pass conservation tasks
DECENTRATION: focusing on several aspects of a
problem and relating them
REVERSIBILITY: the capacity to think through a series
of steps, and then mentally reverse direction,
returning to the starting point
CLASSIFICATION: Passing piaget's class inclusion
problem- becoming aware of classification hierarchies
and can focus on relations between a general category
and two specific categories AT THE SAME TIME --flower question
SERIATION: Ability to order items along a quantitative
measure such as length or weight
TRANSITIVE INFERENCE: the ability to serrate
mentally
SPATIAL REASONING: Children create COGNITIVE
MAPS: mental representations of spaces such as
school or neighbourhood.

LIMITATIONS OF CONCRETE OPERATIONAL THOUGHT

Children only think in an organised, logical
fashion when dealing with concrete information
they can perceive directly. Their mental
operations work poorly with abstract ideas.
9.9 Information Processing
EXECUTIVE FUNCTION:

School years are a time of continued
development of the prefrontal cortex, which
increases its connections with more distant
parts of the brain.

Children handle increasingly difficult tasks that
require the integration of working memory,
inhibition, and flexible shifting of attention

Heredity combines with environmental
contexts to influence executive function
INHIBITION AND FLEXIBLE SHIFTING

Children become better at deliberately
attending to relevant aspects of a task and
inhibiting irrelevant responses

Both of those become better controlled and
more efficient over middle childhood.
WORKING MEMORY

Working memory profits from increased
efficiency of thinking. Time needed to process
info on a wide variety of cognitive tasks declines
rapidly between ages 6-12 in diverse cultures
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459

Individual differences in working memory
capacity exist and are of interest because they
predict intelligence scores and academic
achievement
TRAINING EXECUTIVE FUNCTION

Benefits for academic achievement and social
competence

Use of interactive computer games

Exercise, mindfulness training,
PLANNING

By the end of middle childhood, children
engage in advanced planning, predicting how
early steps in their plan will affect success at
later steps, and adjust their overall plan
accordingly

Children learn much about planning from
collaborating with more expert planners
MEMORY STRATEGIES

Deliberate mental activities we use to store
and retain information

REHEARSAL: repeating information to oneself

ORGANISATION: grouping related items
together

ELABORATION: creating a relationship, or
shared meaning, between two or more pieces of
info that do not belong in the same category
KNOWLEDGE AND MEMORY

Children's semantic memory grows larger and
becomes organised into increasingly elaborate,
hierarchically structured networks

Rapid growth of knowledge helps children use
strategies and remember. Knowing more about
a topic makes new info more meaningful so it’s
easier to store and retrieve
9.12 Individual Differences in Mental
Development


Around age 6 IQ becomes more stable
Children with higher IQs are more likely to
attain higher levels of education and enter more
prestigious occupations in adulthood
DEFINING AND MEASURING INTELLIGENCE

All intelligence tests provide an overall score
(IQ_ which represents general intelligence, or
reasoning ability

Factor analysis is used to identify the various
abilities that intelligence tests measure
GROUP ADMINISTERED TESTS: permit large numbers
of students to be tested at once
INDIVIDUALLY ADMINISTERED TESTS: best suited for
identifying highly intelligent children and diagnosing
children with learning problems. Used more often to
assess intelligence.
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, Fifth Edition, for
individuals from age 2 to adulthood.

In addition to general intelligence, it assesses
five intellectual factors:
1. general knowledge,
2. quantitative reasoning,
3. visual–spatial processing,
4. working memory, and
5. basic information processing (such as
speed of analysing information).
Each factor includes both a verbal mode and a
nonverbal mode of testing, yielding 10 subtests in all.
The nonverbal subtests, which do not require spoken
language, are particularly useful when assessing
individuals with limited English, hearing impairments,
or communication disorders. The knowledge and
quantitative reasoning factors emphasize culturally
loaded, fact-oriented information, such as vocabulary
and arithmetic problems. In contrast, the visual–
spatial processing, working-memory, and basic
information-processing factors are assumed to be less
culturally biased (see the spatial visualization item in
Figure 9.6).
The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-V)

Widely used test for 6- through 16-year-olds.

It measures general intelligence and an array
of intellectual factors, five of which are
recommended for a comprehensive evaluation
of a child's intellectual ability:
1. verbal comprehension,
2. visual–spatial reasoning,
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
3.

fluid reasoning (tapping ability to
apply rules in reasoning and to detect
conceptual
relationships
among
objects),
4. working memory, and
5. processing speed
. The WISC-V was designed to downplay
culture-dependent information, which is
emphasized on only one factor (verbal
comprehension). The goal is to provide a test
that is as “culture-fair” as possible.
OTHER EFFORS TO DEFINE INTELLIGENCE
STERNBERG'S TRIARCHIC THEORY
The triarchic theory of successful intelligence
identifies three broad, interacting intelligences:
(1) analytical intelligence, or information-processing
skills;
(2) creative intelligence, the capacity to solve novel
problems; and
(3) practical intelligence, application of intellectual
skills in everyday situations. Intelligent behavior
involves balancing all three intelligences to achieve
success in life according to one's personal goals and
the requirements of one's cultural community.
ANALYTICAL INTELLIGENCE

Analytical intelligence consists of the
information-processing skills that underlie all
intelligent acts: executive function, strategic
thinking, knowledge acquisition, and cognitive
self-regulation. But on intelligence tests,
processing skills are used in only a few of their
potential ways, resulting in far too narrow a
view of intelligent behaviour.
CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE

In any context, success depends not only on
processing familiar information but also on
generating useful solutions to new problems.
People who are creative think more skilfully
than others when faced with novelty. Given a
new task, they apply their informationprocessing skills in exceptionally effective ways,
rapidly making these skills automatic so that
working memory is freed for more complex
aspects of the situation. Consequently, they
quickly move to high-level performance.
Although all of us are capable of some creativity,
only a few individuals excel at generating novel
solutions.
PRACTICAL INTELLIGENCE:

Finally, intelligence is a practical, goal-oriented
activity aimed at adapting to, shaping, or
selecting environments. Intelligent people
skilfully adapt their thinking to fit with both
their desires and the demands of their everyday
worlds. When they cannot adapt to a situation,
they try to shape, or change, it to meet their
needs. If they cannot shape it, they select new
contexts that better match their skills and goals.

reminds us that intelligent behaviour is never
culture-free. Children with certain life histories
do well at the behaviours required for success
on intelligence tests and adapt easily to the
testing conditions and tasks. Others, with
different backgrounds, may misinterpret or
reject the testing context. Yet such children
often display sophisticated abilities in daily life—
for example, telling stories, engaging in complex
artistic activities, or interacting skilfully with
other people.





The triarchic theory highlights the complexity
of intelligent behaviour and the limitations of
current intelligence tests in assessing that
complexity.
For example, out-of-school, practical forms of
intelligence are vital for life success and help
explain why cultures vary widely in the
behaviours they regard as intelligent.
In villages in Kenya, children regarded as
cognitively competent are highly knowledgeable
about how to use herbal medicines to treat
disease.
Among the Yup’ik Eskimo people of central
Alaska, intelligent youths are those with expert
hunting, gathering, navigating, and fishing skills.
And U.S. Cambodian, Filipino, Vietnamese,
and Mexican immigrant parents asked to
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
describe an intelligent first grader emphasized
noncognitive
capacities—motivation,
selfmanagement, and social skills (Okagaki &
Sternberg, 1993). According to Sternberg,
intelligence
tests,
devised
to
predict
achievement in school, do not capture the
intellectual strengths that many children acquire
through informal learning experiences in their
cultural communities.
GARDNER'S THEORY OF MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

Defines intelligence in terms of distinct sets of
processing operations that permit individuals to
engage in a wide range of culturally valued
activities

Dismissing the idea of general intelligence,
Gardner proposes at least 8 independent
intelligences
1. Linguistic (Poet, Journalist)
Sensitivity to the sounds, rhythms, and meaning of
words and the functions of language
2. Logico-mathematical (Mathematician)
Sensitivity to, and capacity to detect, logical or
numerical patterns; ability to handle long chains of
logical reasoning
3. Musical (Instrumentalist, Composer)
Ability to produce and appreciate pitch, rhythm (or
melody), and aesthetic quality of the forms of musical
expressiveness
4. Spatial (Sculptor, Navigator)
Ability to perceive the visual–spatial world accurately,
to perform transformations on those perceptions, and
to re-create aspects of visual experience in the
absence of relevant stimuli
5. Bodily-kinaesthetic (Dancer, Athlete)
Ability to use the body skilfully for expressive as well
as goal-directed purposes; ability to handle objects
skilfully
6. Naturalist (Biologist)
Ability to recognize and classify all varieties of animals,
minerals, and plants
7. Interpersonal (Therapist, Salesperson)
Ability to detect and respond appropriately to the
moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions of
others
8. Intrapersonal (Person with detailed,
accurate self-knowledge)
Ability to discriminate complex inner feelings and to
use them to guide one’s own behaviour; knowledge of
one’s own strengths, weaknesses, desires, and
intelligences

Gardner believes that each intelligence has a
unique neurological basis, a distinct course of
development, and different expert, or “endstate,” performances.

At the same time, he emphasizes that a
lengthy process of education is required to
transform any raw potential into a mature social
role

Cultural values and learning opportunities
affect the extent to which a child's intellectual
strengths are realized and the ways they are
expressed.

Gardner's list of abilities has yet to be firmly
grounded in research.

Neurological evidence for the independence
of his abilities is weak.

Some exceptionally gifted individuals have
abilities that are broad rather than limited to a
particular domain.

And research with mental tests suggests that
several of Gardner's intelligences (linguistic,
logico-mathematical, and spatial) have at least
some features in common.
Nevertheless, Gardner calls attention to several
intelligences not tapped by IQ scores. For example,
Gardner's
interpersonal
and
intrapersonal
intelligences include a set of skills for accurately
perceiving, reasoning about, and regulating emotion
that has become known as emotional intelligence.
Among school-age children and adolescents,
measures of emotional intelligence are positively
associated with self-esteem, empathy, prosocial
behaviour, cooperation, leadership skills, and
academic performance and negatively associated with
internalizing and externalizing problems

These findings have increased teachers’
awareness that providing classroom lessons that
coach students in emotional abilities can
improve their adjustment.
Ch11:
Physical
and
Cognitive Development
in Adolescence
11.4 Puberty: The Physical Transition
to Adulthood
BRAIN DEVELOPMENT:
 Lots of changes in the brain at this time
facilitate adolescents’ gain in diverse cognitive
skills, including executive function, reasoning,
problem solving and decision making.
 Because the prefrontal cognitive-control
network still requires fine tuning, teenagers’
performance on tasks requiring inhibition,
planning and delay of gratification is not yet
fully mature.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459

Neurons become more responsive to
excitatory neurotransmitters and as a result,
adolescents react more strongly to stressful
events and experience pleasurable stimuli
more intensely.
CHANGING STATES OF AROUSAL
 at puberty, revisions occur in the way the
brain regulates the timing of sleep, perhaps
because of increased neural sensitivity to
evening light. As a result, adolescents go to
bed much later than they did as children.
 Sleep deprived teens display declines in
executive function, and both cognitive and
emotional self-regulation. This is a bad thing.
11.6 The Psychological Impact of
Pubertal Events
PUBERTAL TIMING

Early maturing boys- relaxed, independent,
self-confident, attractive, more psychological
stress, depressed mood, and problem
behaviours

Late maturing boys- often experience
transient emotional difficulties

Early maturing girls: unpopular, withdrawn,
low self-confidence, anxious, prone to
depression, more deviant behaviour

Late maturing girls: attractive, lively, sociable,
leaders

Two factors account for these trends
1) how closely the adolescents body matches
cultural ideals of physical attractiveness, and
2) how well young people fit in physically with
their peers.
THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS
BODY IMAGE

conception of and attitude toward one's
physical appearance

Body image is a strong predictor of a young
persons' self-esteem.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FITTING IN WITH PEERS

Hormonal influences on the brain are stronger
for early developers, further magnifying their
receptiveness to sexual activity, drug and
alcohol use and delinquent acts.

Early developers of both sexes more often
report feeling emotionally stressed, and decline
in academic performance.
LONG TERM CONSEQUENCES

Early maturing girls especially are at risk for
lasting difficulties

Early maturing boys showed good adjustment
11.13 Piaget’s Theory: The Formal
Operational Stage
FORMAL OPERATAIONAL STAGE
Piaget’s highest stage of cognitive development,
beginning around age 11, in which young people
develop the capacity for abstract, systematic, scientific
thinking. They no longer require concrete things or
events as objects of thought, instead they can come
up with new, more general logical rules through
internal reflection.
HYPOTHETICO-DEDUCTIVE REASONING
A formal operational problem-solving strategy in
which adolescents begin with a hypothesis, from
which they deduce logical, testable inferences. Then
they systematically isolate and combine variables to
see which of those inferences are confirmed in the
real world.
 Begins with possibility and proceeds to reality.
 Seen in Piaget’s pendulum problem
PROPOSITIONAL THOUGHT
A type of formal operational reasoning involving the
ability to evaluate the logic of propositions, or verbal
statements, without referring to real-world
circumstances.
11.15 Consequences of Adolescent
Cognitive Changes
The development of increasingly complex, effective
thinking leads to dramatic revisions in the way
adolescents see themselves, others, and the world.
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF-FOCUSING
 Adolescents’ ability to reflect on their own
thoughts, combined with physical and
psychological changes, leads them to think
more about themselves.
 Piaget believed that a new form of
egocentrism arises, in which adolescents again
have difficulty distinguishing their own and
others’ perspectives. Piaget’s followers
suggest that two distorted images of the
relation between self and other appear.
IMAGINARY AUDIENCE: Adolescents’ belief that they
are the focus of everyone else’s attention and
concern. This results in self-consciousness.
PERSONAL FABLE: Adolescents’ inflated opinion of
their own importance- a feeling that they are special
and unique.
Although imaginary-audience and personal-fable
ideation is common in adolescence, these distorted
visions of the self do not result from egocentrism, as
Piaget suggested. Rather, they are partly an outgrowth
of advances in perspective taking, which cause young
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
teenagers to be more concerned with what others
think. Recall, also, that changes in the brain’s
emotional/social network spark increased sensitivity
to social feedback.
In fact, certain aspects of the imaginary audience may
serve positive, protective functions. When asked why
they worry about the views of others, adolescents
responded that others’ evaluations have important
real
consequences—for
self-esteem,
peer
acceptance, and social support. The idea that others
care about their appearance and behaviour also has
emotional value, helping teenagers hold onto
important relationships as they struggle to establish
an independent sense of self.
adolescence and as a crucial step toward
becoming a productive, content adult.
People often experience an IDENTITY CRISIS: a
temporary period of distress as they experiment with
alternatives before settling on values and goals.
If young people’s earlier conflicts were resolved
negatively or if society limits their choices to ones that
don’t match their abilities and desires, they are likely
to appear shallow, directionless, and unprepared for
the challenges of adulthood.
 Nowadays this isn’t classified as a crisis, but
rather a process of exploration followed by
commitment.
12.3 Self Understanding *
DECISION MAKING
Good decision making involves:
1. Recognising the range of possible
response options
2. Identifying pros and cons of each
alternative
3. Assessing the likelihood of various
outcomes
4. Evaluating one’s choice in terms of
whether one’s goals were met and, if
not
5. Learning from the mistake and making
a better future decision.
In decision making contexts, adolescents are far more
enticed than adults are by the possibility of immediate
reward, more willing to take risks and less likely to
avoid potential losses.
Teenagers rarely carefully evaluate alternatives,
instead falling back on well-learned intuitive
judgements.
Teenagers who take risks without experiencing
negative consequences may have a heightened sense
of invulnerability.
Ch12: Emotional and
Social Development in
Adolescence
12.1 Erikson’s Theory: Identity vs
Role Confusion
The psychological conflict of adolescence, which is
resolved positively when adolescents achieve an
identity through a process of exploration and inner
soul-searching.
IDENTITY: a well organised conception of the self that
defines who one is, what one values and what
directions one chooses to pursue in life
 Erickson was the first to recognise identity as
the major personality attainment of
PATHS TO IDENTITY
Adolescents’ well-organised self-descriptions and
differentiated sense of self-esteem provide the
cognitive foundation for forming an identity.
James Marcia- 2 key criteria from Erickson’s theory:
exploration and commitment.
IDENTITY ACHIEVEMENT: commitment to values and
goals following a period of exploration
IDENTITY MORATORIUM: exploration without having
reached commitment
IDENTIFY FORCLOSURE: commitment in the absence
of exploration
IDENTITY DIFFUSION: characterised by lack of both
exploration
- One can change between and across domains
IDENTITY STATUS AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING
 Identity achievement and moratorium are
psychological healthy routes to a mature selfdefinition. Long term foreclosure and
diffusion, in contrast, are maladaptive.
 Although young people in moratorium are at
times anxious and depressed about finding
commitments, they resemble identityachieved individuals in using an active,
information-gathering cognitive style to make
personal decisions and solve problems: They
seek out relevant information, evaluate it
carefully, and critically reflect on their views
 Individuals who are identity-achieved or
exploring tend to have higher self-esteem, are
more open to alternative ideas and values,
feel more in control of their lives, are more
likely to view school and work as feasible
avenues for realizing their aspirations, and are
more advanced in moral reasoning and more
concerned with social justice
 But an exception to these favourable
outcomes exists: If exploration becomes
ruminative—excessively
concerned
with
making the right choice so the young person
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459


makes no choice at all—it is associated with
distress and poor adjustment
Although typically low in anxiety and highly
satisfied with life, foreclosed individuals
display a dogmatic, inflexible cognitive style,
internalizing the values and beliefs of parents
and others without deliberate evaluation and
resisting information that threatens their
position.
Long-term diffused individuals are the least
mature. they typically use a diffuse-avoidant
cognitive style in which they avoid dealing
with personal decisions/problems and
instead, allow current situational pressures to
dictate their actions. Sense of hopelessness
about the future.
INFLUENCES ON IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
Identity status is both cause and consequence of
personality characteristics.
- Adolescents who assume that absolute truth
is always attainable tend to be foreclosed,
while those who doubt that they will ever feel
certain about anything are more often
identity-diffused.
- Young people who are curious, open-minded,
and persistent in the face of obstacles, and
who appreciate that they can use rational
criteria to choose among alternatives, are
likely to be in a state of moratorium or identity
achievement
- Identity development is enhanced when
families serve as a ‘secure base’ from which
adolescents can confidently move out into the
wider world. Culture, societal forces, peers
and school opportunities also affect the
kiddo’s identity development.
12.4 Moral Development
KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT



Kohlberg used a clinical interviewing
procedure in which he presented EuropeanAmerican 10- to 16-year-old boys with
hypothetical
moral
dilemmas—stories
involving a conflict between two moral values
— and asked them what the main actor
should do and why.
The best known of Kohlberg’s dilemmas, the
“Heinz dilemma,” pits the value of obeying the
law (not stealing) against the value of human
life (saving a dying person).
Kohlberg emphasized that it is the way an
individual reasons about the dilemma, not the
content of the response (whether or not to
steal), that determines moral maturity.
He believed that moral understanding is
promoted by the same factors Piaget thought
were important for cognitive development:
(1) actively grappling with moral issues and noticing
weaknesses in one’s current reasoning, and
(2) gains in perspective taking, which permit
individuals to resolve moral conflicts in more effective
ways.

PRECONVENTIONAL LEVEL: morality is externally
controlled. Children accept the rules of authority
figures and judge actions by their consequences.
Behaviours that result in punishment are viewed as
bad, those that lead to rewards as good
-
STAGE 1: The punishment and obedience
orientation. Children find it difficult to
consider two points of view in a moral
dilemma. They focus on fear of authority and
avoidance of punishment as reasons for
behaving morally. To the Heinz dilemma, an
individual who opposes stealing the drug
might say, “If you steal, you’ll either be sent to
jail.”
-
STAGE 2: The instrumental purpose
orientation. Children become aware that
people can have different perspectives in a
moral dilemma, but at first this understanding
is concrete. They view right action as flowing
from self-interest and understand reciprocity
as equal exchange of favours: “You do this for
me and I’ll do that for you.” They might argue
that Heinz should steal the drug because
“then he’ll still have his wife to keep him
company.”
CONVENTIONAL LEVEL: individuals regard conformity
to social rules as important, but not for reasons of
self-interest. Rather, they believe that actively
maintaining the current social system ensures positive
relationships and societal order.
-
STAGE
3: The “good boy–good girl”
orientation, or the morality of interpersonal
cooperation. The desire to obey rules because
they promote social harmony first appears in
the context of close personal ties. Stage 3
individuals want to maintain the affection and
approval of friends and relatives by being a
“good person”—trustworthy, helpful, and
nice. The capacity to view a relationship from
the vantage point of an impartial, outside
observer. Individuals now understand ideal
reciprocity: They express the same concern
for the welfare of another as they do for
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
themselves—a standard of fairness summed
up by the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you
would have them do unto you.” An individual
favouring Heinz stealing might explain, “Your
family will think you’re a decent, caring
husband if you do.”
-
STAGE 4: The social-order-maintaining
orientation. At this stage, the individual takes
into account societal laws. Moral choices no
longer depend on close ties to others. Instead,
rules must be enforced in the same evenhanded fashion for everyone, and each
member of society has a personal duty to
uphold them. The Stage 4 individual believes
that laws should never be disobeyed because
they are vital for ensuring societal order and
cooperation between people. Arguing against
Heinz stealing, a person might say, “Heinz has
a duty like everyone else to obey the law. If
he’s allowed to break the law because of a
tough situation, others will think they can,
too. We’ll have chaos, not a law-abiding
society.”
POSTCONVENTIONAL LEVEL: define morality in terms
of abstract principles and values that apply to all
situations and societies.
-STAGE 5: The social contract orientation:
individuals can imagine alternatives to their
own social order, and they emphasize fair
procedures for interpreting and changing the
law. When laws are consistent with individual
rights and the interests of the majority, each
person follows them because of a social
contract orientation—free and willing
participation in the system because it brings
about more good for people than if it did not
exist. A person favouring Heinz stealing might
explain, “Although there is a law against
stealing, it wasn’t meant to violate a person’s
right to life. If Heinz is prosecuted, the law
needs to be reinterpreted to take into account
people’s natural right to keep on living.”
-STAGE 6: The universal ethical principle
orientation. At this highest stage, right action
is defined by self-chosen ethical principles of
conscience that are valid for all people,
regardless of law and social agreement. Stage
6 individuals typically mention such abstract
principles as respect for the worth and dignity
of each person, as in this response defending
Heinz stealing the drug: “It doesn’t make
sense to put respect for property above
respect for life. People could live together
without private property at all. Respect for
human life is absolute and accordingly people
have a mutual duty to save one another from
dying”
RESEARCH ON KOHLBERG’S STAGE SEQUENCE
-
-
Individuals move through his first four stages
in the predicted order.
Moral development is slow and gradual:
Reasoning at Stages 1 and 2 decreases in early
adolescence
Stage 3 increases through midadolescence
and then declines.
Stage 4 reasoning rises over the teenage
years until, among college-educated young
adults, it is the typical response.
Few people move beyond Stage 4. In fact,
postconventional morality is so rare that no clear
evidence exists that Kohlberg’s Stage 6 actually follows
Stage 5. According to one re-examination of
Kohlberg’s stages, moral maturity can be found in a
revised understanding of Stages 3 and 4 (Gibbs, 2014).
These stages are not “conventional”—based on social
conformity—as Kohlberg assumed. Rather, they
require
profound
moral
constructions—an
understanding of ideal reciprocity as the basis for
relationships (Stage 3) and for widely accepted moral
standards, set forth in rules and laws (Stage 4). In this
view, “postconventional” morality is a highly reflective
endeavour limited to a handful of people who have
attained advanced education, usually in philosophy.
Real-life conflicts often elicit moral thinking below a
person’s actual capacity because they involve practical
considerations. Although adolescents and adults
mention reasoning as their most frequent strategy for
resolving these dilemmas, they also refer to other
strategies—talking through issues with others, relying
on intuition, and calling on religious and spiritual
ideas. And they report feeling drained, confused, and
torn by temptation—an emotional side of moral
judgment not tapped by hypothetical situations.
Hypothetical dilemmas evoke the upper limits of
moral thought because they allow reflection without
the interference of personal risk.
The influence of situational factors on moral
judgments indicates that like Piaget’s cognitive stages,
Kohlberg’s moral stages are loosely organized and
overlapping. Rather than developing in a neat,
stepwise fashion, people draw on a range of moral
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
responses that vary with context. With age, this range
shifts upward as less mature moral reasoning is
gradually replaced by more advanced moral thought.
-
12.6 The Family
- Development at adolescence involves striving for
AUTONOMY: a sense of oneself as a separate, selfgoverning individual. 2 parts:
1) Emotional component: Relying more on oneself
and less on parents for support and guidance
2) Behavioural component: making decisions
independently by carefully weighing one’s own
judgement and the suggestions of others to arrive at a
personally satisfying, well-reasoned course of action.
PARENT-ADOLESCENT RELATIONSHIPS
- Puberty triggers psychological distancing from
parents.
- Gradually, adolescents make decisions more
effectively, and an improved ability to reason
about social relationships leads teenagers to
view their parents as “just people.”
Consequently, they no longer bend as easily to
parental authority.
EFFECTIVE PARENTING
- Effective parenting of adolescents strikes a
balance between connection and separation.
- Autonomy is fostered by warm, supportive
parent–adolescent ties that make appropriate
demands for maturity while permitting young
people to explore ideas and social roles
- Consistent parental monitoring of the young
person’s daily activities, through a cooperative
relationship in which the adolescent willingly
discloses information, is linked to a variety of
favourable
outcomes—prevention
of
delinquency, reduction in sexual activity,
improved school performance, and positive
psychological well-being
CULTURE
- In cultures that place a high priority on
interdependence, autonomy remains a central
adolescent motive, but teenagers conceive of
it differently than in Western nations. Rather
than equating it with independent decision
making, they view autonomy as self-endorsed
decision making—engaging in actions that are
consistent with authentic personal values
- Chinese adolescents often accept their
parents’ decisions because they value parents’
opinions, not because they feel pressured to
comply.
-
-
quality of the parent–child relationship is the
single most consistent predictor of mental
health
The mild to moderate conflict that typically
arises facilitates adolescent identity and
autonomy by helping family members learn to
express and tolerate disagreement.
Conflicts also inform parents of teenagers’
changing needs and expectations, signalling a
need for adjustments in the parent–child
relationship
By mid- to late adolescence, harmonious
interaction increases
FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES
- Adult life stress can interfere with warm,
involved parenting and, in turn, with children’s
adjustment
during
any
period
of
development.
- But parents who are financially secure, not
overloaded with job pressures, and content
with their marriages usually find it easier to
grant teenagers appropriate autonomy and
experience less conflict with them
- Teenagers who develop well despite family
stressors continue to benefit from factors that
fostered resilience in earlier years.
SIBLINGS
- as teenagers become more involved in
friendships and romantic relationships, they
invest less time and energy in siblings, who
are part of the family from which they are
trying to establish autonomy.
- As a result, sibling relationships often become
less intense, in both positive and negative
feelings
- Overall, siblings who established a positive
bond in early childhood continue to display
greater affection and caring, which contribute
to more favourable adolescent adjustment
- In contrast, sibling negativity—frequent
conflict, coercive exchanges, and aggression—
is associated with internalising symptoms
12.7 Peer relations
As adolescents spend less time with family members,
peers become increasingly important as they serve as
critical bridges between the family and adult social
roles.
FRIENDSHIPS
CHARACTERISTICS OF ADOLESCENT FRIENDSHIPS
INTIMACY: psychological closeness
A REORGANISED RELATIONSHIP
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING: of each other’s values,
beliefs, and feelings.
LOYALTY: stick up for each other & not leave them for
somebody else.
SELF-DISCLOSURE: sharing of private thoughts and
feelings
Adolescent friends tend to be alike in identity status,
educational aspirations, political beliefs, depressive
symptoms, and willingness to try drugs and engage in
lawbreaking acts. Over time, they become increasingly
similar in these ways, and the more similar they are,
the greater the chances that their friendships will be
long-lasting.
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN FRIENSHIP QUALITY
- Emotional closeness is more common
between girls than boys.
- Girls frequently get together to just talk, boys
usually get together for an activity
- Some boys find it hard to acknowledge
emotional closeness due to gender-role
expectations.
- Girls will co-ruminate more than boys
FRIENSHIPS, CELL PHONES, AND THE INTERNET
- Girls text and call their friends more often
than boys, and they more often use social
media sites to share information.
- Boys are more avid gamers with friends and
other peers.
- Online interaction can contribute to friendship
closeness. For example, in several studies, as
amount of online messaging between preexisting friends increased, so did young
people’s perceptions of intimacy in the
relationship and sense of well-being
FRIENSHIP AND ADJUSTMENT
- Close friendships provide opportunities to
explore the self and develop a deep
understanding of another. Through open,
honest communication, friends become
sensitive to each other’s strengths and
weaknesses, needs and desires—a process
that supports the development of selfconcept, perspective taking, and identity.
- Close friendships provide a foundation for
future intimate relationships. Conversations
with teenage friends about sexuality and
romance, along with the intimacy of
friendship itself, may help adolescents
establish and work out problems in romantic
partnerships
- Close friendships help young people deal with
the stresses of adolescence. By enhancing
sensitivity to and concern for another,
-
supportive friendships promote empathy,
sympathy, and prosocial behaviour. As a result,
friendships contribute to involvement in
constructive youth activities, avoidance of
antisocial acts, and psychological well-being.
Close friendships can improve attitudes
toward and involvement in school. Close
friendships promote good school adjustment,
academically and socially. Teenagers who
enjoy interacting with friends at school may
begin to view all aspects of school life more
positively.
CLIQUES AND CROWDS
- In early adolescence, peer groups become
increasingly common and tightly knit.
They are organized into cliques—groups of
about five to seven members who are friends
and, therefore, usually resemble one another
in family background, attitudes, values, and
interests.
- Unlike the more intimate clique, membership
in a crowd is based on reputation and
stereotype, granting the adolescent an
identity within the larger social structure of
the school.
- Crowd affiliations are linked to strengths in
adolescents’ self-concepts, which reflect their
abilities and interests.
DATING
-
-
-
positive relationships with parents and friends
contribute to warm romantic ties, whereas
conflict-ridden parent–adolescent and peer
relationships
forecast
hostile
dating
interactions
according to ethological theory, early
attachment bonds lead to an internal working
model, or set of expectations about
attachment figures, that guides later close
relationships. Consistent with these ideas,
secure attachment to parents in infancy and
childhood—together with recollections of that
security in adolescence—predicts higherquality teenage friendships and romantic ties.
Parents’ marital interactions make a
difference, too, likely through modelling
important relationship skills.
Ch13:
Physical
and
Cognitive Development
in Early Adulthood
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
13.7 Changes in the Structure of
Thought
EPISTEMIC COGNITION
Refers to our reflections on how we arrived at facts,
beliefs, and ideas.
When mature, rational thinkers reach conclusions that
differ from those of others, they consider the
justifiability of their conclusions. When they cannot
justify their approach, they revise it, seeking a more
balanced, adequate route to acquiring knowledge.
DEVELOPMENT OF EPISTEMIC COGNITION
DUALISTIC THINKING: dividing information, values,
and authority into right and wrong, good and bad, we
and they. Dualistic thinkers approach learning by
accepting what they are given.
RELATIVISTIC THINKING: viewing all knowledge as
embedded in a framework of thought. Aware of a
diversity of opinions on many topics, they gave up the
possibility of absolute truth in favour of multiple
truths, each relative to its context. Each person makes
their own truth. Eventually, the most mature
individuals progress to commitment within relativistic
thinking
IMPORTANCE OF PEER INTERACTION & REFLECTION
- Advances in epistemic cognition depend on
further gains in metacognition, which are
likely to occur in situations that challenge
young people’s perspectives and induce them
to consider the rationality of their thought
processes
- Of course, reflection on one’s own thinking
can also occur individually. But peer
interaction fosters the necessary type of
individual reflection: arguing with oneself over
competing ideas and strategies and
coordinating opposing perspectives into a
new, more effective structure. As at earlier
ages, peer collaboration remains a highly
effective basis for education in early
adulthood.
PRAGMATIC THOUGHT AND COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE
COMPLEXITY
Adulthood involves movement from hypothetical to
PRAGMATIC THOUGHT: a structural advance in which
logic becomes a tool for solving real-world problems.
- The need to specialize motivates this change.
- As adults select one path out of many
alternatives, they become more aware of the
constraints of everyday life. And in the course
of balancing various roles, they accept
contradictions as part of existence and
develop ways of thinking that thrive on
imperfection and compromise.
-
young adults’ enhanced reflective capacities
alter the dynamics of their emotional lives:
They become more adept at integrating
cognition with emotion and, in doing so, again
make sense of discrepancies.
COGNITIVE-AFFECTIVE COMPLEXITY—awareness of
conflicting positive and negative feelings and
coordination of them into a complex, organized
structure that recognizes the uniqueness of individual
experiences. Promotes greater awareness of one’s
own and others’ perspectives and motivations.
Awareness of multiple truths, integration of logic with
reality, and cognitive–affective complexity sum up
qualitative transformations in thinking under way in
early adulthood.
13.8 Expertise and Creativity
EXPERTISE: Acquisition of extensive knowledge in a
field or endeavour.
Compared with novices, experts remember and
reason more quickly and effectively. The expert knows
more domain-specific concepts and represents them
in richer ways—at a deeper and more abstract level
and as having more features that can be linked to
other concepts.
In addition to effective problem solving, expertise is
necessary for creativity
- The creative products of adulthood differ from
those of childhood in that they are not just
original but also directed at a social or
aesthetic need.
- Mature creativity requires a unique cognitive
capacity—the ability to formulate new,
culturally meaningful problems and to ask
significant questions that have not been posed
before
- Movement from problem solving to problem
finding is a core feature of postformal thought
evident in highly creative artists and scientists.
In personality, creative individuals are tolerant of
ambiguity, open to new experiences, persistent and
driven to succeed, capable of deep task involvement,
and willing to try again after failure.
Ch14:
Social
and
Emotional Development
in Early Adulthood
14.1 A Gradual Transition: Emerging
Adulthood
EMERGING ADULTHOOD: A new transitional period of
development, extending from the late teens to the
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
mid- to late twenties, during which young people have
left adolescence but have not yet assumed adult
responsibilities. Rather, they explore alternatives in
education, work, and personal values and behaviour
more intensely than they did in adolescence.
UNPRECEDENTED EXPLORATION- JEFFERY ARNETT
Recognises emerging adulthood as a distinct period of
life.
Feeling in between: neither adolescent nor adult
Identity exploration: especially in love, work, and
worldview
Self-focused: not self-centred but lacking obligations
to others
Instability: frequent changes in living arrangements,
relationships, education, and work
Possibilities: able to choose among multiple life
directions
emerging adults have left adolescence but are still a
considerable distance from taking on adult
responsibilities. Rather, young people who have the
economic resources to do so explore alternatives in
education, work, and personal values and behaviour
more intensely than they did as teenagers.
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
Besides exploring in breadth (weighing multiple
possibilities and making commitments), they
increasingly explore in depth—evaluating existing
commitments
DUAL-CYCLE MODEL: identity formation is a process of
feedback loops between in-depth exploration and
reconsideration until you feel certain of your choices.
College students who move from in-depth exploration
to certainty of commitment provide more coherent
descriptions of themselves and are higher in selfesteem, psychological well-being, and academic,
emotional, and social adjustment.
Those who spend much time exploring in breadth or
depth without making enduring commitments, or who
are identity diffused (engage in no exploration), tend
to be poorly adjusted—anxious, depressed, and higher
in alcohol and drug use, casual and unprotected sex,
and other health-compromising behaviours.
-
Worldview, politics, culture and religion &
spirituality affect one’s identity development
RISK AND RESILIENCE IN EMERGING ADULTHOOD
- Some people’s lack of direction is evident in
persisting low self-esteem; high anxiety and
depression; poor academic performance; and
high levels of risky behaviours
- Resilience will limit risky behaviours
RESOURCES THAT FOSTER RESILIENCE
Cognitive attributes: Effective planning and decision
making, Information-gathering cognitive style and
mature
epistemic
cognition,
Good
school
performance, Knowledge of vocational options and
necessary skills
Emotional and social attributes: positive self-esteem,
Good emotional self-regulation and flexible coping
strategies, Good conflict-resolution skills, Confidence
in one’s ability to reach one’s goals, Sense of personal
responsibility for outcomes, Persistence and effective
use of time, Healthy identity development—
movement toward exploration in depth and certainty
of commitment, Strong moral character, Sense of
meaning and purpose in life, engendered by religion,
spirituality, or other sources, Desire to contribute
meaningfully to one’s community.
Social and financial supports: Warm, autonomysupportive relationship with parents, Positive
relationships with peers, teachers, and mentors,
Financial assistance from parents or others, Sense of
connection to social institutions, such as school,
religious institution, workplace, and community centre
14.2 Erickson’s Theory: Intimacy vs
Isolation
The psychological conflict of early adulthood, evident
in the young person’s thoughts and feelings about
making a long-term commitment to an intimate
partner and in close, mutually gratifying friendships.
- building an emotionally fulfilling romantic
bond is challenging. Most young adults are
still grappling with identity issues. Yet intimacy
requires that they give up some of their
independent self and redefine their identity to
include both partners’ values and interests.
- Without intimacy, young adults face the
negative outcome of Erikson’s early adulthood
stage: loneliness and self-absorption.
- a secure identity fosters attainment of
intimacy
In sum, identity, intimacy, and generativity are
concerns of early adulthood, with shifts in emphasis
that differ among individuals. Recognizing that
Erikson’s theory provides only a broad sketch of adult
personality development, other theorists elaborated
on his stage approach, adding detail.
14.3 &14.4 Other Theories of Adult
Psychosocial Development
LEVINSON’S SEASONS OF LIFE
-
depicted adult development as a sequence of
qualitatively distinct eras (or “seasons”)
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
coinciding with Erikson’s stages and separated
by transitions.
THE LIFE STRUCTURE: a key concept in Levinson’s
theory, is the underlying design of a person’s life,
consisting of relationships with individuals, groups,
and institutions. Of its many components, usually only
a few, relating to family, close friendships, and
occupation, are central.
-
During the transition to early adulthood, most
young people constructed a dream- an image
of themselves in the adult world that guides
their decision making.
-
Young adults also formed a relationship with a
mentor who facilitated realisation of their
dream
Around age 30, a second transition occurred: Young
people who had been preoccupied with career and
were single usually focused on finding a life partner,
while women who had emphasized marriage and
family often developed more individualistic goals.
EARLY ADULT TRANSITION: (17-22) a person leaves
adolescence and begins to make choices about adult
life
ENTERING THE ADULT WORLD: (22-28) a person
makes more concrete decisions regarding their
occupation, friendships, values and lifestyles.
AGE 30 TRANSITIONS: (28-33) lifestyle changes
(marriage, children, own house)
SETTLING DOWN: establish a routine, makes progress
on goals for the future, begins behaving like an adult.
MID LIFE TRANSITION (40-45) crisis, values may
change, some people make drastic life changes
(divorce, career change) people begin to think about
leaving a legacy.
VALLIANT’S ADAPTATION TO LIFE
- Built on Erickson’s stages
After focusing on intimacy concerns in their twenties,
the men turned to career consolidation in their
thirties. During their forties, they became more
generative. In their fifties and sixties, they extended
that generativity; they became “keepers of meaning,”
expressing a deep need to preserve and pass on
cultural traditions and lessons learned from life
experience. Finally, in late adulthood, the men
became more spiritual and reflective about the
meaning of life.
-
development is far more variable today- so
much so that researchers increasingly doubt
that adult psychosocial changes can be
organized into distinct stages. Rather, people
may assemble the themes and dilemmas
identified by these theorists into individualized
arrangements, in a dynamic system of
interacting biological, psychological, and
social forces.
THE SOCIAL CLOCK
—age-graded expectations of society for major life
events, such as beginning a first job, getting married,
birth of the first child, buying a home, and retiring.
- These conditions can create intergenerational
tensions if parents expect their young-adult
children to attain adult milestones on an
outdated schedule.
- Following a social clock of some kind seems to
foster confidence and social stability because
it guarantees that young people will develop
skills, engage in productive work, and gain in
understanding of self and others.
In contrast, “crafting a life of one’s own,”
whether self-chosen or the result of
circumstances, is risky—more prone to
breakdown
14.5 Close Relationships
ROMANTIC LOVE
SELECTING A MATE
intimate partners generally meet in places where they
are likely to find people of their own age, level of
education, ethnicity, and religion, or they connect
through online dating services.
People usually select partners who resemble
themselves in other ways—attitudes, personality,
educational plans, intelligence, mental health, physical
attractiveness, and even height.
Place a high value on attributes that contribute to
relationship satisfaction: mutual attraction, caring,
dependability, emotional maturity, and a pleasing
disposition
COMPONENTS OF LOVE
Sternberg’s (2006) triangular theory of love identifies
three
components—passion,
intimacy,
and
commitment—that shift in emphasis as romantic
relationships develop. Passion, the desire for sexual
activity and romance, is the physical- and
psychological-arousal component. Intimacy is the
emotional component, consisting of warm, tender
communication and caring, self-disclosure, plus a
desire for the partner to reciprocate. Commitment,
the cognitive component, leads partners to decide
that they are in love and to maintain that love.

Passionate love: strong feelings of longing
and excitement toward a special person
(lust)
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
Companionate love: mutual
understanding and caring.
STERNBERGS TRIANGLE

PASSION: emotional state with high bodily
arousal

INTIMACY: feelings of closeness, mutual
understanding and concern

COMMITMENT: conscious decision that
remains constant.

-
-
-
FRIENDSHIPS
-
-
adult friends are usually similar in age, sex,
and SES—factors that contribute to common
interests, experiences, and needs and
therefore to the pleasure derived from the
relationship.
Trust, intimacy, and loyalty, along with shared
interests and values and enjoyment of each
other’s company, continue to be important in
adult friendships, as they were in adolescence
14.7 The Family Life Cycle*
- a series of phases characterising the development of
most families around the world.
In early adulthood, people typically live on their own,
marry, and bear and rear children. In middle age, as
their children leave home, their parenting
responsibilities diminish. Late adulthood brings
retirement, growing old and death of one’s spouse.
LEAVING HOME
- Departure from the parental home is a major
step toward assuming adult responsibilities.
- Compared with the previous generation,
fewer North American and Western European
young people leave home to marry; more do
so just to be “independent”—to express their
adult status.
Nowadays many people still live with their
parents until they’re at least 30; as young
people encounter unexpected twists and
turns on the road to independence, the
parental home offers a safety net and base of
operations for launching adult life.
Parents of young adults living at home are
usually highly committed to helping their
children move into adult roles. Many provide
wide-ranging assistance—not just financial
support, but material resources, advice,
companionship, and emotional support too
Leaving home very early can contribute to
long-term disadvantage because it is
associated with lack of parental financial and
emotional support, job seeking rather than
education, and earlier childbearing.
MARRIAGE
- Marriage is more than the joining of two
individuals. It also requires that two systems—
the spouses’ families—adapt and overlap to
create a new subsystem.
- Consequently, marriage presents complex
challenges. This is especially so today because
husband–wife roles are only gradually moving
toward
true
partnership—educationally,
occupationally,
and
in
emotional
connectedness.
- Among same-sex couples, acceptance of the
relationship by parents, inclusion of the
partner in family events, and living in a
supportive community where they can be
open about their bond benefit relationship
satisfaction and durability
- Because many couples live together
beforehand, marriage has become less of a
turning point in the family life cycle. Still,
defining marital roles can be difficult
PARENTHOOD
- In the past, having children was, for many
adults, a biological given or a compelling social
expectation. Today, in Western industrialized
nations, it is a matter of true individual choice.
- The choice of parenthood is affected by a
complex array of factors, including financial
circumstances, personal and religious values,
career goals, health conditions, and
availability of supportive government and
workplace family policies
- a vital personal factor called childbearing
motivations—each person’s disposition to
respond positively or negatively to the idea of
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
-
parenthood—affects the decision to have
children. In Western nations, these
motivations have changed over time,
increasingly emphasizing individual fulfillment
and de-emphasizing obligation to society
Postponing childbearing until the late twenties
or thirties, as more couples do today, eases
the transition to parenthood. Waiting permits
couples to pursue occupational goals, gain life
experience, and strengthen their relationship.
-
Ch15:
Physical
and
Cognitive Development
in Middle Adulthood
15.6 Adapting to the Physical
Challenges of Midlife
STRESS MANAGEMENT
- Psychological stress has negative effects on
the
cardiovascular,
immune,
and
gastrointestinal systems. Stress management
in middle adulthood helps limit the agerelated rise in illness.
(1) problem-centred coping, in which she appraised
the situation as changeable, identified the difficulty,
and decided what to do about it
(2) emotion-centred coping, which is internal, private,
and aimed at controlling distress when little can be
done about a situation.
- Research reveals that adults who effectively
reduce stress move flexibly between problemcentred and emotion-centred techniques,
depending on the situation Their approach is
deliberate, thoughtful, and respectful of both
themselves and others.
Facilitate each other. Effective problem-focused coping
reduces emotional distress, while effective emotionfocused coping helps people face problems more
calmly and, thus, generate better solutions. Ineffective
coping, in contrast, is largely emotion-focused and
self-blaming, impulsive, or escapist.
- Teaching people to be assertive rather than
hostile and to negotiate rather than explode
interrupts the intense physiological response
that intervenes between psychological stress
and illness. Sometimes it is best to delay
responding by simply leaving a provocative
situation, taking time to think through how to
handle it.
EXERCISE:
- has a range of physical and psychological
benefits—among them, equipping adults to
handle stress more effectively and reducing
the risk of many diseases.
HARDINESS:
- consisting of control, commitment and
challenge which motivate people to try their
best to turn life’s stressors into opportunities
for resilience.
-
15.8 & 15.9 Changes in Mental
Abilities*
COHORT EFFECTS
- intelligence inevitably declines in middle and
late adulthood as the brain deteriorates.
- However, some results differ
- Cohort effects are largely responsible for this
difference.
- In cross-sectional research, each new
generation experienced better health and
education and more cognitively stimulating
everyday experiences than the one before it.
- Also, the tests given may tap abilities less
often used by older individuals, whose lives no
longer require that they learn information for
its own sake but, instead, skilfully solve realworld problems.
CRYSTALISED AND FLUID INTELLIGENCE
CRYSTALISED INTELLIGENCE: skills that depend on
accumulated knowledge and experience, good
judgement, and mastery of social conventions.
On intelligence tests, vocabulary, general information,
verbal comprehension, and logical reasoning items
measure crystallized intelligence.
FLUID INTELLIGENCE: depends more heavily on basic
information-processing skills—ability to detect
relationships among visual stimuli, speed of analysing
information, and capacity of working memory.
Intelligence test items reflecting fluid abilities include
spatial visualization, digit span, letter–number
sequencing, and symbol search.
- crystallized intelligence increases steadily
through middle adulthood, whereas fluid
intelligence begins to decline in the twenties.
- The midlife rise in crystallized abilities makes
sense because adults are constantly adding to
their knowledge and skills at work, at home,
and in leisure activities.
SCHAIE’S SEATTLE LONGITUDINAL STUDY
The five factors that gained in early and middle
adulthood—verbal ability, inductive reasoning, verbal
memory, spatial orientation, and numeric ability—
include both crystallized and fluid skills.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
-
adults who maintained higher levels of
perceptual speed tended to be advantaged in
other cognitive capacities
15.10 Information Processing
EXPLAINING CHANGES IN MENTAL ABILITIES.
- Some theorists believe that a general slowing
of central nervous system functioning
underlies nearly all age-related declines in
cognitive performance
- first, the decrease in basic processing, while
substantial after age 45, may not be great
enough to affect many well-practiced
performances until quite late in life. Second,
as we will see, adults can often compensate
for cognitive limitations by drawing on their
cognitive strengths. Finally, as people discover
that they are no longer as good as they once
were at certain tasks, they accommodate,
shifting to activities that depend less on
cognitive efficiency and more on accumulated
knowledge. Thus, the basketball player
becomes a coach, the once quick-witted
salesperson a manager.
INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP DIFFERENCES
- Adults who use their intellectual skills seem to
maintain them longer.
- cognitively high-functioning partner), and
absence of cardiovascular and other chronic
diseases were also likely to maintain mental
abilities well into late adulthood
- In early and middle adulthood, women
outperformed men on verbal tasks and
perceptual speed, whereas men excelled at
spatial skills
- On verbal memory, inductive reasoning, and
spatial orientation, baby boomers performed
substantially better, reflecting generational
advances
in
education,
technology,
environmental stimulation, and health care
SPEED OF PROCESSING
- in both simple reaction-time tasks (pushing a
button in response to a light) and complex
ones (pushing a left-hand button to a blue
light, a right-hand button to a yellow light),
response time increases steadily from the
early twenties into the nineties. The more
complex the reaction time task, the more
disadvantaged older adults are.
- Researchers agree that changes in the brain
are responsible but disagree on the precise
explanation. According to one view, aging is
accompanied by withering of the myelin
coating on neural fibres within the cerebral
cortex, leading to deteriorating neural
connections, especially in the prefrontal
cortex and the corpus callosum.
- Another approach to age-related cognitive
slowing suggests that older adults experience
greater loss of information as it moves
through the cognitive system. As a result, the
whole system must slow down to inspect and
interpret the information.
Processing speed predicts adults’ performance on
many tests of complex abilities. The slower their
reaction time, the lower people’s scores on tests of
memory, reasoning, and problem solving, with
relationships greater for fluid- than crystallized-ability
items
Other factors—declines in vision and hearing and in
executive function, especially working-memory
capacity—also predict diverse age-related cognitive
performances
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
-
processing speed is a weak predictor of the
skill with which older adults perform complex,
familiar tasks in everyday life, which they
continue to do with considerable proficiency.
EXECUTIVE FUNCTION
As in childhood, studies of executive function in
adulthood focus on how much information individuals
can manipulate in working memory; the extent to
which they can inhibit irrelevant information and
behaviours; and the ease with which they can flexibly
shift their focus of attention as the situation demands.
Research confirms that all three executive function
components decline with age.
- From the twenties into the nineties, working
memory diminishes steadily.
- Spatial performance declines at double the
rate of verbal performance
- Reduced processing speed limits the amount
of information a person can focus on at once.
- As adults get older, INHIBITION—resistance to
irrelevant information and impulses—is
harder
- flexibly shifting one’s focus of attention
becomes more challenging with age and is
especially evident in situations where people
must divide their attention between two
activities.
- Memory strategies such as elaboration and
organisation can aid these effects.
Ch16: Emotional and
Social Development in
Middle Adulthood
16.1 Erickson’s Theory: Generativity
vs Stagnation
GENERATIVITY: involves reaching out to others in
ways that give to and guide the next generation.
(encompasses everything generated that can outlive
the self and ensure society’s continuity and
improvement)
Generativity expands greatly in midlife, when adults
focus more intently on extending commitments
beyond oneself (identity) and one’s life partner
(intimacy) to a larger group—family, community, or
society. The generative adult combines the need for
self-expression with the need for communion, integrating personal goals with the welfare of the larger
social world.
STAGNATION: once people attain certain life goals,
such as marriage, children, and career success, they
may become self-centred and self-indulgent. Adults
with a sense of stagnation express their selfabsorption in many ways—through lack of interest in
young people (including their own children), through a
focus on what they can get from others rather than
what they can give, and through taking little interest in
being productive at work, developing their talents, or
bettering the world in other ways
- Just as Erikson’s theory suggests, highly generative
people appear especially well-adjusted—low in
anxiety and depression; high in autonomy, selfacceptance, and life satisfaction; more open to
different viewpoints; and more likely to have
successful marriages and close friends
- Having children seems to foster generative
development in both men and women
16.2 & 16.3 Other theories of
psychosocial development in midlife
LEVINSON’S SEASONS OF LIFE
Adults become more aware that from now on, more
time will lie behind than ahead, so they view the
remaining years as increasingly precious. This leads
some to make drastic revisions in their life structure:
divorcing, remarrying, changing careers, or displaying
enhanced creativity. Others make smaller changes in
the context of marital and occupational stability.
YOUNG-OLD: The middle-aged person must seek new
ways of being both young and old. This means giving
up certain youthful qualities, transforming others, and
finding positive meaning in being older.
DESTRUCTION-CREATION: With greater awareness of
mortality, the middle-aged person focuses on ways he
or she has acted destructively. Past hurtful acts
toward parents, intimate partners, children, friends,
and co-workers are countered by an intensified desire
to be generative, through charitable giving,
community volunteering, mentoring young people, or
fashioning creative products.
MASCULINITY–FEMININITY: The middle-aged person
must better balance masculine and feminine parts of
the self. For men, this means greater acceptance of
“feminine” traits of nurturance and caring, which
enhance close relationships and compassionate
exercise of authority in the workplace. For women, it
generally means greater openness to “masculine”
characteristics of autonomy and assertiveness.
ENGAGEMENT–SEPARATENESS: The middle-aged
person must forge a better balance between
engagement with the external world and
separateness. For many men, and for women with
successful careers, this may mean reducing concern
with achievement in favour of attending more fully to
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
oneself. But some women who have been devoted to
child rearing or an unfulfilling job may feel compelled
to move in the other direction, pursuing a longdesired ambition.
- People who flexibly modify their identities in
response to age-related changes yet maintain
a sense of self-continuity are more aware of
their own thoughts and feelings and are
higher in self-esteem and life satisfaction and
they are more successful in a supportive social
context.
VAILLANT’S ADAPTATION TO LIFE
Vaillant reported that the most-successful and bestadjusted entered a calmer, quieter time of life.
“Passing the torch”—concern that the positive aspects
of their culture survive—became a major
preoccupation.
As people approach the end of middle age, they focus
on longer-term, less-personal goals, such as the state
of human relations in their society. And they become
more philosophical, accepting the fact that not all
problems can be solved in their lifetime.
IS THERE A MIDLIFE CRISIS?
Levinson (1978, 1996) reported that most men and
women in his samples experienced substantial inner
turmoil during the transition to middle adulthood. Yet
Vaillant (1977, 2002) saw few examples of crisis but,
rather, slow and steady change.
By late midlife, with less time ahead to make life
changes, people’s interpretation of regrets plays a
major role in their well-being. Mature, contented
adults acknowledge a past characterized by some lost
opportunities, have thought deeply about them, and
feel stronger because of them. At the same time, they
are able to disengage from them, investing in currently
attainable, personally rewarding goals.
not being “a burden to my family” or “without enough
money to meet my daily needs”
What explains these shifts in possible selves?
Because the future no longer holds limitless
opportunities, adults preserve mental health by
adjusting their hopes and fears. To stay motivated,
they must maintain a sense of unachieved possibility,
yet they must still manage to feel good about
themselves and their lives despite disappointments
SELF-ACCEPTANCE,
AUTONOMY
AND
ENVIRONMENTAL MASTERY
SELF-ACCEPTANCE: More than young adults, middleaged people acknowledged and accepted both their
good and bad qualities and felt positively about
themselves and life.
AUTONOMY: Middle-aged adults saw themselves as
less concerned about others’ expectations and
evaluations and more concerned with following selfchosen standards.
ENVIRONMENTAL MASTERY: Middle-aged people saw
themselves as capable of managing a complex array of
tasks easily and effectively
COPING WITH DAILY STRESSORS
STUDY: early- to mid-adulthood plateau in frequency
of daily stressors, followed by a decline as work and
family responsibilities ease and leisure time increases
- Compared with older people, young and
midlife adults also perceived their stressors as
more disruptive and unpleasant, perhaps
because they often experienced several at
once, and many involved financial risks and
children.
- However midlife brings an increase in effective
coping strategies.
16.6 Relationships at midlife
BETWEEN: spouses, parent-child, as grandparents,
aging parents, siblings, friendships,
16.4&16.5 Stability and change in
self-concept and personality
POSSIBLE SELVES:
future-oriented representations of what one hopes to
become and what one is afraid of becoming. Possible
selves are the temporal dimension of self-concept—
what the individual is striving for and attempting to
avoid.
Most middle-aged people no longer desire to be the
best or the most successful in life. Instead, they are
largely concerned with performance of roles and
responsibilities already begun—“being competent at
work,” “being a good husband and father,” “putting
my children through college,” “staying healthy,” and
Ch17: Physical and
Cognitive
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
Development in
Late Adulthood
17.7 Health, Fitness and Disability
MENTAL DISABILITIES
when cell death and structural and chemical
abnormalities are profound, serious deterioration of
mental and motor functions occurs.
DEMENTIA refers to a set of disorders occurring
almost entirely in old age in which many aspects of
thought and behaviour are so impaired that everyday
activities are disrupted.
The two most common forms of cortical dementia are
Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.
ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE:
the most common form of dementia, in which
structural and chemical brain deterioration is
associated with gradual loss of many aspects of
thought and behaviour.
About 5 to 15 percent of all deaths among older
adults involve Alzheimer’s, making it a significant
cause of late-life mortality
SYMPTOMS AND COURSE OF THE DISEASE
The earliest symptoms are often progressively
worsening memory problems
- At first, recent memory is most impaired
- As serious disorientation sets in, recall of
distant events and such basic facts as time,
date, and place evaporates. Faulty judgment
puts the person in danger.
- Personality
changes
occur—loss
of
spontaneity and sparkle, anxiety in response
to uncertainties created by mental problems,
aggressive outbursts, reduced initiative, and
social withdrawal.
- Depression often appears in the early phase of
Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia and
seems to be part of the disease process.
- Skilled
and
purposeful
movements
disintegrate
BRAIN DETORIATION
Two major structural changes in the cerebral cortex,
especially in memory and reasoning areas, are
associated with Alzheimer’s
- Inside neurons, NEUROFIBRILLARY TANGLES
appear—bundles of twisted threads that are
the product of collapsed neural structures and
that contain abnormal forms of a protein
called tau.
- Outside neurons, AMYLOID PLAQUES, dense
deposits of a deteriorated protein called
amyloid, surrounded by clumps of dead
neurons and glial cells, develop.
-
Although some neurofibrillary tangles and
amyloid plaques are present in the brains of
normal middle-aged and older people and
increase with age, they are far more abundant
in Alzheimer’s victims
- major culprit seems to be abnormal
breakdown of amyloid remaining within
neurons
In both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease,
disruptions occur in a key neuronal process
responsible for chopping up and disposing of
abnormal proteins (Sagare et al., 2013). These
damaged proteins (including amyloid) build to toxic
levels. Abnormal amyloid causes the generation of
signals within neurons and their transfer across
synapses to malfunction (Kopeikina et al., 2011).
Eventually, damaged amyloid induces heightened,
abnormal electrical activity throughout the brain,
contributing to broad neural network malfunctioning.
- As synapses deteriorate, levels of
neurotransmitters decline, neurons die in
massive numbers, and brain volume shrinks.
Destruction of neurons that release the
neurotransmitter acetylcholine, involved in
transporting messages between distant brain
regions, further disrupts neuronal networks. A
drop-in serotonin, a neurotransmitter that
regulates arousal and mood, may contribute
to sleep disturbances, aggressive outbursts,
and depression
RISK FACTORS
Alzheimer’s disease comes in two types: FAMILIAL,
which runs in families, has an early onset and
progresses rapidly; and SPORADIC, which has no
obvious family history.
- Researchers have identified genes on
chromosomes 1, 14, and 21, involved in
generation of harmful amyloid, that are
related to familial Alzheimer’s. In each case,
the abnormal gene is dominant; if it is present
in only one of the pair of genes inherited from
parents, the person will develop early-onset
Alzheimer’s.
- At present, the abnormal APOE &4 gene is the
most widely known risk factor for sporadic
Alzheimer’s: Those who inherit one APOE &4
allele have a threefold greater risk; those who
inherit two alleles have an eight- to twelvefold
greater risk
PROTECTIVE FACTORS
Among promising drug therapies are compounds that
interfere with amyloid and tau breakdown and that
suppress brain inflammation resulting from these toxic
proteins, which worsens neuronal damage
- insulin therapy, Mediterranean diet, education and
an active lifestyle will help.
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
VASCULAR DEMENTIA
a series of strokes leaves areas of dead brain cells,
producing step-by-step degeneration of mental ability,
with each step occurring abruptly after a stroke.
- Vascular dementia is the combined result of
genetic and environmental influences. The
effects of heredity are indirect, through high
blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and
diabetes, each of which increases the risk of
stroke. And environmental factors—including
cigarette smoking, heavy alcohol use, high salt
intake, very low dietary protein, obesity,
inactivity, and psychological stress—also
heighten stroke risk
- Signs that a stroke might be coming are
weakness, tingling, or numbness in an arm, a
leg, or the face; sudden vision loss or double
vision; speech difficulty; and severe dizziness
and imbalance.
- Doctors may prescribe drugs to reduce the
tendency of the blood to clot.
- Once strokes occur, paralysis and loss of
speech, vision, coordination, memory, and
other mental abilities are common.
17.9 Cognitive Development
- difficulties with memory, verbal expression, reduced
speed of processing, reduced efficiency of thinking,
declines in inhibition of irrelevant information and
impulses, in flexibly shifting between tasks and mental
operations, in use of memory strategies, and in
retrieval from long-term memory continue in the final
decades of life, affecting many aspects of cognitive
aging.
The more a mental ability depends on fluid
intelligence (biologically based information-processing
skills), the earlier it starts to decline. In contrast,
mental abilities that rely on crystallized intelligence
(culturally based knowledge) are sustained longer. But
maintenance of crystallized intelligence depends on
continued opportunities to use and enhance cognitive
skills. When these are available, crystallized abilities—
vocabulary, general information, and expertise in
specific endeavours—can offset losses in fluid
intelligence.
How can older adults make the most of their
cognitive resources? According to one view, those
who sustain high levels of functioning engage in
SELECTIVE OPTIMISATION WITH COMPENSATION:
Narrowing their goals, they select personally valued
activities to optimize (or maximize) returns from their
diminishing energy. They also find new ways to
compensate for losses.
17.11 Language Processing
Language and memory skills are closely related. In
language comprehension (understanding the meaning
of spoken or written prose), we recollect what we
have heard or read without conscious awareness.
Two aspects of language production show age-related
losses.
1) RETRIEVING WORDS FROM LONG
TERM MEMORY. had trouble finding
the right words to convey their
thoughts—even well-known words
they had used many times in the past.
Consequently, their speech contained
more pronouns and other unclear
references than it did at younger ages.
They also spoke more slowly and
Apaused more often, partly because
they needed time to search their
memories for certain words.
2) PLANNING WHAT TO SAY AND HOW
TO
SAY
IT
IN
EVERYDAY
CONVERSATION. displayed slightly
more hesitations, false starts, word
repetitions, and sentence fragments
as they aged. Their statements were
also less grammatically complex and
less well-organized than before.
What explains these changes? Whereas the meanings
older people want to convey have many “mental
connections” with other meanings, the sound of a
word has only one mental connection to the word’s
underlying concept. Consequently, as associative
memory declines with age, memory difficulties in
everyday conversation are especially apparent in word
retrieval (Burke & Shafto, 2004). Also, diminished
working-memory capacity is involved. Because less
information can be held at once, older adults have
difficulty coordinating the multiple tasks required to
produce complex, coherent speech.
- Most aspects of language production,
including its content, grammatical correctness,
and pragmatics (social appropriateness), are
unaffected by aging.
17.13 Wisdom
One group of researchers summed up the multiple
cognitive and personality traits that make up wisdom
as “expertise in the conduct and meaning of life”
Wisdom—whether applied to personal problems or to
community, national, and international concerns—
requires the “pinnacle of insight into the human
condition
5 INGREDIENTS OF WISDOM
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
1) Knowledge
about
fundamental
concerns of life, including human
nature, social relations, and emotions
2) Effective strategies for applying that
knowledge to making life decisions,
handling conflict, and giving advice
3) A view of people that considers the
multiple demands of their life
contexts
4) A concern with ultimate human
values, such as the common good, as
well as respect for individual
differences in values
-
-
-
5) Awareness and management of the
uncertainties of life—that many
problems have no perfect solution
In addition to age and life experience, having faced
and overcome adversity appears to be an important
contributor to late-life wisdom.
Compared to their agemates, older adults with the
cognitive, reflective, and emotional (compassionate)
qualities that make up wisdom are better educated,
forge more positive relations with others, and score
higher on the personality dimension of openness to
experience.
Wisdom is also linked to personal growth (continued
desire to expand as a person), sense of autonomy and
purpose in life (enabling resistance to social pressures
to think and act in certain ways), generativity, and
favourable adjustment to aging
Ch18: Emotional
and Social
Development in
Late Adulthood
18.1 Erickson’s Theory: Ego
Integrity vs Despair*
involves coming to terms with one’s life. Adults who
arrive at a sense of integrity feel whole, complete, and
satisfied with their achievements.
- Ego integrity, in turn, was associated with
more favourable psychological well-being—a
more upbeat mood, greater self-acceptance,
higher marital satisfaction, closer relationships
with adult children, greater community
involvement, and increased ease in accepting
help from others when it is needed.
With the realization that the integrity of one’s
own life is part of an extended chain of human
existence, Erikson suggested, death loses its
sting.
In support of this view, older adults who
report having attained intrinsic (personally
gratifying) life goals typically express
acceptance of their own death
The negative outcome of this stage, despair,
occurs when aging adults feel they have made
many wrong decisions, yet time is too short to
find an alternate route to integrity. Without
another chance, the despairing person finds it
hard to accept that death is near and is
overwhelmed with bitterness, defeat, and
hopelessness. According to Erikson, these
attitudes are often expressed as anger and
contempt for others, which disguise contempt
for oneself.
18.2 Other Theories of Psychosocial
Development in Late Adulthood
PECK’S TASKS OF EGO INTEGRITY AND JOAN
ERIKSON’S GEROTRANSCENDENCE
According to Robert Peck attaining ego integrity
involves three distinct tasks:

Ego differentiation: For those who invested
heavily in their careers, finding other ways to
affirm self-worth—through family, friendship,
and community life

Body transcendence: Surmounting physical
limitations by emphasizing the compensating
rewards of cognitive, emotional, and social
powers

Ego transcendence: As contemporaries die,
facing the reality of death constructively
through efforts to make life more secure,
meaningful, and gratifying for younger
generations
Erikson’s widow Joan Erikson suggested that these
attainments actually represent development beyond
ego integrity (which requires satisfaction with one’s
past life) to an additional psychosocial stage that she
calls GEROTRANSCENDENCE—a cosmic and
transcendent perspective directed beyond the self to
affinity with past and future generations and oneness
with the universe
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
-
18.3 Stability and Change in SelfConcept and Personality
SECURE AND MULTIFACETED SELF CONCEPT
Older adults have accumulated a lifetime of selfknowledge, leading to more secure, multifaceted
conceptions of themselves than at earlier ages
The firmness and multifaceted nature of Ruth’s selfconcept enabled her to compensate for lack of skill in
domains she had never tried, had not mastered, or
could no longer perform as well as before.
Consequently, it allowed for self-acceptance—a key
feature of integrity.
AGREEABLENESS, ACCEPTANCE OF CHANGE, AND
OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE
-
-
-
-
older adults gain modestly in agreeableness
into their seventies, becoming more generous,
acquiescent, and good-natured. However,
declines in agreeableness tend to occur after
age 80 as more people face physical and
cognitive challenges
older adults show age-related dips in
extroversion, perhaps reflecting a narrowing
of social contacts as people become more
selective about relationships
Another
late-life
development
is
greater acceptance of change—an attribute
older adults frequently mention as important
to psychological well-being
Most aging adults are resilient, bouncing back
in the face of adversity—especially if they did
so earlier in their lives. And their generally
positive outlook contributes to their resilience
by protecting them from stress and enabling
them to conserve physical and mental
resources needed for effective coping
SPIRITUALITY AND RELIGIOSITY
How do older adults manage to accept declines and
losses yet still feel whole, complete, and calmly
composed in the face of a shrinking future? One
possibility, consistent with Erikson’s and Peck’s
emphasis on a transcendent perspective in late
adulthood, is the development of a more mature
sense of spirituality—an inspirational sense of life’s
meaning. But for many people, religion provides
beliefs, symbols, and rituals that guide this quest for
meaning.
-
The late-life increase in religiosity, however, is
usually modest, and it is not universal.
Religious involvement is associated with
diverse benefits, including better physical and
psychological well-being, more time devoted
to exercising and leisure activities, increased
sense of closeness to family and friends,
greater generativity (care for others), and
deeper sense of meaning (or purpose) in life.
-
18.4 Contextual Influences on
Psychological Well-Being
most adults adapt well to old age, yet some feel
dependent, incompetent, and worthless. Personal and
situational factors combine to affect aging adults’
psychological well-being.
CONTROL VS DEPENDENCY
Observations of people interacting with older adults in
both private homes and institutions reveal two highly
predictable, complementary behaviour patterns.
1) DEPENDENCY–SUPPORT
SCRIPT:
dependent behaviours are attended
to immediately.
2)
INDEPENDENCE–IGNORE SCRIPT:
independent behaviours are mostly
ignored.
Notice how these sequences reinforce dependent
behaviour at the expense of independent behaviour,
regardless of the older person’s competencies
In Western societies, which highly value
independence, many older adults fear relinquishing
control and becoming dependent on others. This is
especially so for those with a high need for selfdetermination.
PHYSICAL HEALTH
- physical health is a powerful predictor of
psychological well-being. Physical declines and
chronic disease are among the strongest risk
factors for late-life depression
18.5 A Changing Social World
Extroverts continue to interact with a wider range of
people than do introverts and people with poor social
skills.
SOCIAL THEORIES OF AGING
DISENGAGEMENT THEORY:
older people decrease their activity levels and interact
less frequently, becoming more preoccupied with
their inner lives in anticipation of death. Although,
most adults don’t disengage!
ACTIVITY THEORY:
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
Attempting to overcome the flaws of disengagement
theory, activity theory proposes that social barriers to
engagement, not the desires of older adults, cause
declining rates of interaction. Older people who lose
certain roles and relationships (for example, through
retirement or widowhood) try to find others in an
effort to stay active—conditions that promote life
satisfaction.
CONTINUITY THEORY:
According to continuity theory, most aging adults
strive to maintain a personal system—an identity and
a set of personality dispositions, interests, roles, and
skills—that promotes life satisfaction by ensuring
consistency between their past and anticipated future.
As much as possible, they choose to use familiar skills
and engage in familiar activities with familiar people—
preferences that provide a secure sense of routine and
direction in life.
SOCIOEMOTIONAL SELECTIVITY THEORY:
According to socioemotional selectivity theory, social
interaction in late life extends lifelong selection
processes. As people age, contacts with family and
friends are sustained until the eighties, when they
diminish gradually in favour of a few very close
relationships
What explains these changes? Socioemotional
selectivity theory states that aging leads to changes in
the functions of social interaction. You also choose
social partners to regulate emotion, approaching
those who evoke positive feelings and avoiding those
who make you feel sad, angry, or uncomfortable.
In sum, socioemotional selectivity theory views older
adults’ preference for high-quality, emotionally
fulfilling relationships as largely due to their
contracting future and the preciousness of time. But
the meaning of relationship quality and, therefore, the
number and variety of people to whom older people
turn for pleasurable interaction and self-affirmation
vary with culture.
Ch 19: Death,
Dying, and
Bereavement
19.2 Understanding of and Attitudes
toward Death
An accurate, biological understanding of death is
based on five sub concepts:
1. Non functionality. All living functions,
including thought, feeling, movement, and
bodily processes, cease at death.
2. Finality. Once a living thing dies, it cannot be
brought back to life.
3. Universality. All living things eventually die.
4. Applicability. Death applies only to living
things.
5. Causation. Death is caused by a breakdown of
bodily functioning, which can be brought
about by a wide variety of internal and
external causes
19.3 Thinking and Emotions of
Dying People*
KUBLER- ROSS’ THEORY OF TYPICAL RESPONSES TO
DYING -- DABDA
1. DENIAL—refusing to accept the diagnosis
and avoiding discussions with doctors and
family members, as a means of escaping
from the prospect of death
2. ANGER—resentment and fury that time is
short, that goals may be left unattained,
and at the unfairness of death
3. BARGAINING—striking bargains with
doctors, nurses, family members, friends,
or God for extra time
4. DEPRESSION—with realisation of the
inevitability of death, despondency about
the impending loss of one’s life
5. ACCEPTANCE—the weakened patient
reaches a state of peace, usually in the
last few days, and disengages from all but
a few family members, friends, and
caregivers.
Rather than stages, the five reactions Kübler-Ross
observed are best viewed as coping strategies that
anyone may call on in the face of threat.
CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON ADAPTATIONS TO
DYING
According to recent theorists, a single strategy, such as
acceptance, is not best for every dying patient. Rather,
an APPROPRIATE DEATH is one that makes sense in
terms of the individual’s pattern of living and values
and, at the same time, preserves or restores
significant relationships and is as free of suffering as
possible.
When asked about a “good death,” most patients are
clear about what, ideally, they would like to happen.
They mention the following goals:
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459





Maintaining a sense of identity, or inner
continuity with one’s past
Clarifying the meaning of one’s life and death
Maintaining and enhancing close relationships
Achieving a sense of control over the time
that remains
Confronting and preparing for death
In sum, dying prompts a multitude of thoughts,
emotions, and coping strategies. Which ones are
emphasized depends on a wide array of contextual
influences. A vital assumption of the lifespan
perspective—that development is multidimensional
and multidirectional—is just as relevant to this final
phase as to each earlier period.
19.4 A place to Die
In the large, impersonal hospital environment,
meeting the human needs of dying patients and their
families is usually secondary, not because
professionals lack concern, but because their work
focuses on saving lives. A dying patient represents a
failure.
HOME
-
Preference of about 80% of Americans
The home can offer an atmosphere of
intimacy and loving care in which the
terminally ill person is unlikely to feel
abandoned or humiliated by physical decline
or dependence on others.
- Health problems of aging spouses, work and
other responsibilities of family members, and
the physical, psychological, and financial strain
of providing home care can make it difficult to
honour a terminally ill person’s wish to die at
home.
HOSPITAL
- Hospital dying takes many forms. Each is
affected by the physical state of the dying
person, the hospital unit in which it takes
place, and the goal and quality of care.
- Sudden deaths, due to injury or critical illness,
typically occur in emergency room and little
time is available for family contact.
NURSING HOME
- care emphasizes rehabilitation rather than
high-quality terminal care.
- many patients suffer from inattention to their
emotional and spiritual needs, high levels of
untreated pain, and aggressive end-of-life
medical intervention
HOSPICE APPROACH
-
-
aims to reduce profound caregiving failures in
hospitals and nursing homes
a comprehensive program of support services
for terminally ill people and their families.
It aims to provide a caring community
sensitive to the dying person’s needs so
patients and family members can prepare for
death in ways that are satisfying to them.
Quality of life is central to the hospice
approach
Besides reducing patient physical suffering,
hospice contributes to improved family
functioning. The majority of patients and
families report high satisfaction with quality of
care
19.6 Bereavement: Coping with
the death of a loved one
BEREAVEMENT is the experience of losing a loved one
by death. The root of this word means “to be robbed,”
suggesting unjust and injurious theft of something
valuable. Consistent with this image, we respond to
loss with GRIEF—intense physical and psychological
distress. When we say someone is grief-stricken, we
imply that his or her total way of being is affected.
MOURNING is the culturally specified expression of
the bereaved person’s thoughts and feelings.
-
Customs—such as gathering with family and
friends, dressing in black, attending the
funeral, and observing a prescribed mourning
period with special rituals—vary greatly
among societies and ethnic groups. But all
have in common the goal of helping people
work through their grief and learn to live in a
world that does not include the deceased.
GRIEF PROCESS:
Theorists formerly believed that bereaved individuals,
both children and adults, moved through three phases
of grieving—avoidance, confrontation, and restoration
—each characterised by a different set of responses.
In reality, however, people vary greatly in emotional
reactions, behaviour, and timing.
Grievers generally move back and forth between
emotional reactions, with many ups and downs.
Rather than phases, the grief process is best
conceived as a set of tasks—actions the person must
take to recover and return to a fulfilling life:
(1) to accept the reality of the loss,
(2) to work through the pain of grief,
(3) to adjust to a world without the loved one, and
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)
lOMoARcPSD|12058459
(4) to develop an inner bond with the deceased and
move on with life
Downloaded by IzaKim Vlog (kimberlypalco24@gmail.com)