P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 1, p. 1
EPISODE 1.1 – WHAT IS LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT?
I love teaching lifespan development. Itʼs a class that you can connect to your real life quite
easily. Because we've all been children, and because we are all currently adults, and because I
certainly hope we all make it several years - even decades - into the future, this class is directly
relevant to everything around you: your life, your friendsʼ lives, your family of origin, the family that
you have created or plan to create in the future, your friends across the world, and people you've
never even met.
Just because the material is endlessly relevant, that doesn't mean the content is easy to master.
In fact, much of the content is really challenging, partially because all of us come into this class
with a whole bunch of assumptions about human behavior. Our assumptions are biased by our
own experiences, though, so we must rely on the vast store of knowledge that keeps flowing in
from the empirical research to tell us whatʼs really going on in human development.
What you will be learning about is things that make us completely similar to one another as
members of the human species, and things that make each of us completely unique. Get used to
this tension between sameness and uniqueness. In some ways, the story of lifespan development
is very similar whether we are talking about an American, Kenyan, or Swedish infant. All of these
children are going to utter their first words somewhere around 12 months of age, for example. But
there are many different contexts and influences that have a strong impact on us as well, such as
culture, socioeconomic group, education, political events, historical events, and events specific to
the family in which we grew up. Do you have any brothers or sisters? If so, itʼs interesting to see
if you have the same memories, impressions, and reflections on your parents. Growing up in the
same family does not mean we had the same experiences. Each of us as individuals brings with
us our own tendencies, our predispositions, and those special things about us evoke particular
responses from our parents. If you are a parent, and especially if you have more than one child,
you already know this is true. You've learned that what worked for one child may not work for the
next. What one child needed may be different from what another child needed.
Defining Development
Lifespan development is the scientific study of how we change or remain the same in various
areas of our lives from conception until death. We look to the empirical data to give us the best
understanding of what's really going on during development. We use the same steps of the
scientific method that you may have learned about already in a biology course or some other
science class, because life span development is a science. To that end, we do things like develop
and test hypotheses. We do this by collecting and analyzing data. From this data we've collected,
we draw conclusions, figuring out whether the hypothesis was supported or rejected. Next, we
report our results, which is probably more complicated than you think. It involves a pretty stringent
process of peer review, where other scientists anonymously review the report, looking for any
possible bias, alternative interpretations, omissions, or anything else they think may skew the
findings. Through this process, an editorial team decides whether the report will be printed in the
journal or not. Why go through all of this hassle? Scientists realize that every human being has
biases, even the smartest, most careful thinkers. But most of us arenʼt fully aware of our biases.
The peer review process safeguards against human bias by requiring other experts in the field to
critique the work before it is published.
Letʼs say the report is published. Hurray! Itʼs still not over. The results of one study are never
enough for us to draw strong conclusions. A study could point us in an interesting direction, but
we need to see whether future research produces similar findings. This is called replication. Were
the findings replicated? This is an important question. Replication gives us confidence that the
findings really are accurate. If we see the same findings across 10 different studies, for example,
itʼs hard to believe itʼs just a fluke. Something real is going on.
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Chapter 1, p. 2
Decades of scientific research on lifespan development have revealed themes, recurrent topics
that still keep scientists busy testing new hypotheses.
One theme is the nature and nurture debate. Nature is all that we are born with – our biology, our
genetics. Nurture is everything else, from the prenatal environment in the womb, to parenting
styles, experiences, and circumstances. The nature/nurture debate was once a debate about
which one had the greater influence on development: nature OR nurture. Philosopher John
Locke, writing in the 1600s, emphasized nurture. He believed that we are born as blank slates,
with experience shaping who we become. In contrast, philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau
thought nature drove development. He believed we are born with everything we need to maximize
our potential, and that, when things go wrong, itʼs because the environment got in the way.
Today itʼs clear that genes and environment work together; they are continuously interacting, and
both are equally important. Research shows us that nature and nurture are even more
complicated than we ever thought. Take genetics, for example. Scientists predicted that there
must be at least 100,000 different genes in the human genome to account for all the amazing
diversity that we see among us. Well, it turns out that they grossly overestimated that number.
The Human Genome Project revealed that we actually have only 20,000 genes. On top of that,
you and I are 99.5% genetically similar. Weʼre practically identical twins! How can we have so
few genes, be so genetically similar, yet be so completely unique at the same time?
Genes influence other genes, and you can think of your genome as the unique recipe for YOU.
You and I may have the same gene, but have a different gene that interacts with it and turns into
a unique characteristic. Substitute a few ingredients, and you may end up with a very different
dish! There are also genes that serve the purpose of turning other genes on or off. You could
have a gene that never gets expressed because you had another gene that turned it off. And
perhaps even more fascinating is the fact that the environment can influence the expression of
genes as well, turning some on or off. What Iʼm saying is that the environment actually influences
the expression of genes. These exciting scientific advances show us just how tightly intertwined
genes and environment are, and itʼs a field of study bursting with opportunities for new
discoveries. The study of the continual interaction of genes and environment is called
epigenetics, and youʼll hear so much more about this in this class.
Another big theme has to do with changes in development, and when theyʼre most likely to occur.
Critical and sensitive periods are times in development when certain changes are particularly
likely to happen. Critical periods are very specific: A particular change must occur within a
particular window of time. Once that window closes, there is no going back. Prenatal
development contains many critical periods, times when certain developments take place. From
weeks 3-8 after conception, all major body systems and facial features are developing. Mothers
who consume alcohol during this time may irreparably impact the infantʼs facial features and/or
brain. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome occurs in these cases, and one of the telltale signs is the unusual
facial features the baby has: widely-spaced eyes, small eyelids, and a lack of a dip above the
upper lip. Brain damage is also common as well. No matter what we do, once this damage has
occurred, we canʼt go back and reverse it. Thatʼs a critical period. Sensitive periods are times
when change is likely to occur, but the changes arenʼt as abrupt or irreversible. The window
doesnʼt shut as tightly. Take attachment, the close emotional bond that develops between an
infant and a caregiver. The first year of life is a sensitive period when infants are particularly
responsive to parenting. Ideally, of course, parents provide sensitive care. But what if the child
has lived in an poorly-run orphanage, and is adopted at the age of 2? Itʼs likely that the child will
have some challenges developing an attachment to his adoptive parents, but, with patience and a
lot of care, he very well may become attached. Sure, attachment would have been easier to
establish if the child was with his adoptive parents for the first year of life. And yes, this makes
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things more difficult. But any potential damage from the orphanage is not irreversible. Significant
change can still occur, although it depends on the adoptive parents and the genetic
predispositions of the child. The window does not shut as tightly for sensitive periods as it does
for critical periods, but both involve the issue of change.
The third big theme of lifespan development is a mouthful: the differences-equals-deficits error.
Remember how every human being is biased? This is clear looking back at the history of science,
lifespan development included. For a long time, the dominant group (which was usually
Caucasians) was studied, and results were assumed to apply to all others as well. When cultural
differences were uncovered, it was assumed that these differences indicated deficits. In other
words, those who deviated from the assumed norm were considered inferior in some way.
Consider this question: Should an infant sleep in the same bed with her parents? Your response
to this question is very likely influenced by your cultural background. In many areas of the world
(such as India, for example) it's the norm for infants to sleep with their parents. To suggest that
the infant should sleep in her own room by herself would seem barbaric and cruel. In the United
States, up until very recently, the norm was that infants should sleep in a crib in a room separate
from mom and dad. To suggest that infants should sleep in mom and dadʼs bed would seem
harmful to the childʼs development of independence, that their self-reliance may be stunted. For
many years, it was assumed that this difference indicated a deficit – that it was inferior and even
dangerous for infants to sleep with their parents. Today, thankfully, scientists are more likely to
investigate differences instead of assuming inferiority. In the case of infant sleep, the research
tells us that there are benefits and risks to both arrangements – sleeping alone in a crib, or
sleeping in bed with mom and dad. We know this because todayʼs scientists are much more
aware of the value of investigating differences. If they discover interesting findings in one group,
itʼs now more common that others will see if findings are replicated across different groups as
well, whether culture, gender, income, or ability is the differentiating factor. By doing this,
scientists help us come to a very rich understanding of many topics.
Three Domains
Have you ever noticed that things don't seem quite so overwhelming if we can sort data into
categories? In a typical college course, you may have been required to learn 200 terms or so.
That sounds like so much. But those terms are categorized into chapters, with perhaps 20 terms
per chapter. This helps us make sense of a lot of information. We can do this with lifespan
development, not only by organizing material in chapters, but also by considering which of the
three domains of development the term fits in: biosocial, cognitive, or psychosocial. Biosocial
development is about the physical development of our bodies, such as growth patterns, physical
skills, and also the brain. Cognitive development refers to all of our thought processes and the
ways that we reason about things, including language development and intelligence.
Psychosocial development is focused on the self and the social world, including emotional
development, personality, relationships, and roles. When you are studying, remind yourself of
which domain the content fits and file it in the appropriate filing cabinet in your brain. Itʼs a way of
organizing the material so you can recall it more easily later.
These domains do overlap and influence one another, though. Biological changes may trigger
cognitive changes, influencing our relationships as well. For example, as our brain matures in
adolescence (biosocial), we become more skilled at abstract reasoning (cognitive), and we start
to expect more from our friends (psychosocial). We look not just for people who have similar
interests, but we also want friends who are honest and loyal and stick us through thick and thin.
Experiences within these more intense friendships can, in turn, influence our cognitive
development and the maturation of our brain.
Now that you have a very broad idea of what this course entails, we will dive more deeply into the
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specifics!
EPISODE 1.2 – LIFESPAN PERSPECTIVES AND THEORIES
Developmental psychology was not always focused on the entire lifespan. In fact, until fairly
recently, developmental psychology focused on infancy, childhood, and the teenage years (what
we refer to as adolescence). The implicit assumption was that all the interesting action happens
early in life, that development follows a pattern of continual gains until adulthood, and then we just
live out our adult lives, kind of holding steady, until we decline in old age and eventually die.
Perhaps it's understandable that adulthood wasn't given much attention back in the days when
we didn't live so long. The average life expectancy in the early 1900s was about 50 years of age.
We've seen a dramatic increase in average lifespan- which is now 78 in the U.S. And, the whole
age structure of our population is shifting, as the proportion of those 65 and older continues to
grow.
In the 1960s some academic disciplines emerged that helped push us toward an awareness that
development occurs across the lifespan. Gerontology focused on the factors that lead to decline
or thriving in older adulthood. Life course sociology focused its attention on the events of
adulthood, like marriage and parenting. Also, some ongoing studies started in the early 1900s
continued as research participants progressed further into their adult lives. The conclusion?
Development occurs across the lifespan. There is action at every phase! And we now know
enough to describe several important insights about lifespan development, which we refer to as
"The Lifespan Perspective."
The Lifespan Perspective
Development is multidirectional. Change happens in every possible direction. Losses and gains
occur at each phase, although the balance of losses and gains shifts as we get older. Infancy is
mostly about gains, and older adulthood involves many losses. Nevertheless, there still are
losses in infancy and gains in older adulthood. As infants, we are born with the capability to
master any language we are exposed to. It's quite remarkable. If you've ever tried to learn a
second language at an older age, beyond the childhood years, you know how hard it is. But you
didn't have to study really hard when you were an infant, right? Why? Infants have a remarkable
ability to be able to tell the difference between slightly different speech sounds, differences that
are so subtle that you and I as adults would not be able to tell the difference. You can understand
why this would be useful; it helps the infant figure out whatever language they are exposed to.
Infants begin to lose this ability at about nine months of age, and it's a loss that actually adaptive.
What's happening is the infant's brain is growing specialized toward the native language, which
obviously helps them continue to master that language. At the same time, though, their total ease
at learning languages begins to diminish. It's still much easier to learn a second language as a
child rather than an adult, but never again is it as seemingly effortless as it was during those first
nine months of life! So that's a loss in infancy. What about gains in older adulthood? Well, older
adults do a better job regulating their emotions. Younger adults are not so skilled at this quite yet.
Especially in the late teens and early 20s, emotion may still overwhelm our reasoning abilities so
that it's difficult for us to adjust when were going through something really emotional. One thing to
look forward to is that in older adulthood most of us will regulate our negative emotions batter.
The research shows us that when older adults experience negative emotions - when they're
angry, worried, upset - those emotions are lower in intensity and shorter in duration than they
were in younger adulthood. Basically, we get over things a little bit faster; we can put things in
perspective more readily as older adults. See? There are some things to look forward to as we
age.
Development is multicontextual. In other words, development is influenced by many
environmental contexts, like history and socioeconomic status.
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Chapter 1, p. 5
Let's talk about history first. The people who were born at about the same time as you were are
referred to as your cohort. Cohort is sort of like another word for generation. That cohort grows up
at about the same historical period in time, and so the historical events that are occurring are
hitting them all at about the same age. Some of the most obvious examples would be the Great
Depression or the 911 terrorist attack. But it doesn't have to be a salient event. For example, the
role of technology in our lives is a historical factor that is most certainly affecting development.
We expect things to move quickly today. We anticipate that tv shows and movies will be fastpaced, for example. I am already old enough to tell you about a cohort difference that I've
experienced. I grew up watching tv shows like Little House on the Prairie. Loved it. I own several
seasons on DVD, I'm not ashamed to admit! But as I watch these older tv shows today, I notice
that they move really slowly. I bet that many of today's 18 and 19-year-olds, perhaps some of
you, would find these shows to be excruciatingly slow. What kind of impact is that going to have a
development? There are a lot of hypotheses being tested, but it's difficult to come to any
conclusions while you're in the midst of the historical change. We will have to wait and see what
the research shows us. Perhaps rapid-paced media will help us think faster. Or may be it will
interfere with our ability to sit still, focus, and pay attention. Loads of tv in childhood is not good
for anyone (and you'll learn about this later in the course), but the full impact of our media on
develop remains to be discovered! Time and research will tell us.
The socioeconomic context has a strong impact on development. This includes things like
income, occupation, education, neighborhood of residence…those types of things. Really, what
you see is that all of these factors have a strong influence on the kinds of opportunities that a
child is exposed to. In high socioeconomic status families, children tend to have opportunities and
advantages, such as high-quality schools and safe streets. In lower socioeconomic status
families, though, children are exposed to more dangerous neighborhoods, poorer-quality schools,
and other factors that often result in fewer opportunities and greater stress. This is a current topic
of great importance because poverty rates are increasing here in the United States. In 2008 about
11.5% of American families were living in poverty. That's an increase from 2007, when the rate
was 10.8%. That may not sound like a huge change to you, but when you look at the actual
numbers of families affected it becomes clear. It's an increase of about 2 million families. From
2007 to 2008, 2 million more families found themselves in poverty. What influence will this context
have on development? It has a strong impact, as you will learn about later in the class.
Development is multicultural. Really, we could have talked about culture as another context, but it
is so important that it deserves its own separate attention! The formal study of culture in
psychology began with a Russian theorist named Lev Vygotsky. He focused on how, within a
given society, the adult members of that society guide children to learn the skills and habits and
abilities and interests that would most benefit them within their culture. Take shyness. It is less
adaptive to be shy in the United States than it is in Eastern Asian countries like China. Most
American families would worry about a child being too shy, whereas Chinese families may view it
as an asset. When your cultural context values independence, as is the case here in the U.S.,
shyness is a detriment. But, when the culture emphasizes group harmony, shyness may be an
asset. Remember the differences-equals-deficits error? We try very hard not to make that error,
understanding that culture is a vital contextual influence on lifespan development.
Development is multidisciplinary. Multiple disciplines (fields of study) contribute to our
understanding of the ways in which we change and stay the same from conception until death.
Take the discipline of genetics, for instance - it is absolutely essential to our understanding of
lifespan development. Genes alone do not determine our characteristics. All of the other factors
that surround our genes - from the cellular level, to the physical environment, to family
interactions - influence the expression of genes. Consider the case of violence in the home.
Research tells us now that there's a certain allele of a gene(that means a certain variation of a
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gene) that, when combined with violence in the family, contributes to a high risk of violent
behavior. In other words, a child with this gene is more vulnerable to the influence of a violent
family environment. This multidisciplinary work can help us understand why some children in a
violent family become quite violent themselves - acting out, getting into trouble - whereas children
in that same family do not. Other disciplines, like anthropology, sociology, and history, shed
useful light on the topic of lifespan development as well.
Development is plastic. Plastic. Why choose that word? Well, plastic is something that can be
molded, so it's changeable. But plastic also hold its shape, so it's durable. We are interested in
how changeable humans can be, given their age, experiences, and other factors. Plasticity is so
central to lifespan development that it applies to all other aspects of the lifespan perspective as
well. So, how plastic are we? Does it depend on our age? Does it matter whether we're talking
about biosocial, cognitive, or psychosocial development? If damage has been done, like
deprivation or abuse, how much recovery is possible? These questions all deal with the topic of
plasticity. In general, we are most plastic when we are young. The earlier we intervene to help out
a child who has a physical ailment, is in a dangerous situation, or has been deprived of attention,
the more likely we will be able to help trigger significant, positive change. Consider epilepsy, a
disorder that involves brain seizures. In some cases, the child's seizures are so severe that the
only solution is to literally remove one of the halves of the brain. The earlier that happens in the
child's life, the more likely that the child will be able to recover. If you are removed one of my
hemispheres at my age, I would never regain all of my functioning. But, if you see a child who's
had a brain hemispherectomy (a hemisphere removed), with the proper physical training and
attention and patience and rehabilitation, in a few years time you may not able to tell that child
apart from other children who have both sides of their brain. Why? Plasticity. The real estate of
the brain becomes more specialized with age and experience. The more specialized our brain,
the less flexible it is. The younger the individual, the less specialized the brain has become, and
the more adaptable and plastic the brain will be. Plasticity decreases across the lifespan, but we
keep hearing encouraging news from scientists studying this topic. "Older adult" rats in one study
showed significant brain growth after having the chance to live in a stimulating environment.
Plasticity happens across the lifespan, but it is especially likely early in life.
Theories of Human Development
I'm sure that in many of the other classes you've taken you've discussed theories, and even in our
casual everyday language we might throw the word in here and there. “Well, I have a theory
about why men do what they do.” And then we are talking about an opinion, right? When we
discuss science, as we do in this class, we are talking about a different kind of theory. In scientific
terms theories are not talking about opinions or guesses. Scientific theories make sense of a
collection of findings that have emerged from the research. From theories we develop
hypotheses, which are testable predictions that drive future research. As we address four main
theories, remember that each looks at a different aspect of development. There is no one,
unifying theory that covers it all.
Psychoanalytic theory focuses on the inner drives and motives that influence our development.
These drives may not be fully conscious. In fact, from Freud's perspective, most of what drives
us as humans is unconscious - that means we aren't aware of these drives. Speaking of Freud,
he is certainly the most famous psychoanalytic theorist. He's so famous, in fact, that people
mistakenly believe he is the father of psychology, or that most psychologists are Freudians.
Nope. Freud was an important figure in the history of psychology for opening our eyes to some
key concepts that had not yet been considered in psychology. Before Freud, there was very little
consideration of how a child's emotional experiences might influence her development. There
was very little consideration of how the events of someone's life could influence their personality.
And there was very little information on how we can recover from psychological problems. But and here's the big qualification I have to make - Freud's work was not scientific by today's
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standards. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Freud was doing most of his work, the
science of psychology was just barely beginning. There wasn't yet an established norm that
required psychologists to conduct scientific research, report findings in peer-reviewed journals,
and look for replication. That wasn't a formal part of psychology until the 1940s.
Freud wasn't the father of psychology, but he was the father of talk therapy. He wrote up detailed
case studies of the clients he saw in therapy, and this was the information he used to form his
theory. We understand today that case studies, while interesting, are not truly scientific studies
because they are too detailed to be generalizable to the public at large.
Freud suggested a stage theory of psychosexual development considering how our unconscious
drives and motives shift from one age to the next, and how certain experiences we have can
leave a mark on our personality. For example, an adult who is very picky - what we might refer to
as anal-retentive - was likely treated too harshly by his parents during the anal stage of
psychosexual development. Perhaps his parents expected too much from him while he was
being toilet trained. Remember, there is no scientific support for this idea, but the general notion
that parenting impacts development is now widely supported. So we have Freud to thank for
opening scientists eyes, even if the details of his theory sound odd.
Erik Erikson was influenced by Freud, but was significantly different in his approach. He was
interested in development across the lifespan, and he was interested in conscious conflicts (i.e.,
conflicts we are aware of). The main conflict of the teenage years, Erikson believed, was figuring
out who you really are. "What is my identity? Who am I? What do I want to be?" We struggle to
develop a sense of identity, but we also struggle against a feeling of role confusion. That's the
conflict. Erikson identified eight basic stages, each with its own conflict, that we face across the
lifespan. Experiences in past stages stick with us and impact on our experiences in future stages.
Now that might seem dangerous because what if something bad happens? Is the rest of the
lifespan ruined? No. Erikson theorized that experiences in later stages can help us rework some
of the conflicts left over from previous stages. In contrast to Freud, Erikson's theory is testable, it
has been tested, and much of his theory is supported by scientific, replicated research. You're
going to visit with Erikson at every stage in the life span.
Behaviorism is a theory that began with Pavlov's dogs and that is still very useful for
understanding much of human behavior today. The focus of behaviorism was very different from
that of psychoanalytic theory. Behaviorism focused on observable behavior, which is obviously
quite different than the deep inner focus of Freud. Research on behaviorism has revealed a
number of laws of behavior that have to do with conditioning. Conditioning is just another word
for learning, and there are two main types: classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning started with Pavlov's research and has to do with anticipating what is to
come, and operant conditioning emerged from BF Skinner's work and considers how we learn
from consequences. One consequence is reinforcement. When our behavior is reinforced, we
usually repeat it. Whatever we get reinforced for, we are likely to continue. Take a child's
tantrum. Children throw tantrums because they want something. Parents get overwhelmed and
want the screaming to stop, so they give in. What has the child been taught? "If I just make a big
scene whenever they're not giving me what I want, they will give in! Hooray!" The child's tantrum
behavior is reinforced when the parent gives in. Something in the environment - in this case, the
parent's behavior - has shaped the child's learning. That is the main idea behind behaviorism,
that the environment influences our learning in ways that are observable. What has the parent
learned? Well, the parent has been reinforced as well. The parent is relieved when the tantrum
is over - the screaming and yelling have stopped, and there is peace. So, it's a mutually
reinforcing series of behaviors. The only problem is that the pattern is highly likely to repeat itself
in the future. Nevertheless, whatever has been learned can also be unlearned if the
environmental influences are changed (e.g., if the parents stop giving in). In the case of children
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and tantrums, I can guarantee change won't happen overnight! But, if the parents consistently
stop rewarding the tantrums, they are likely to decrease and may even - eventually - disappear.
Behaviorism contributed not only to the knowledge base in psychology but also to methodology
because behaviorism was one of the earliest fields in psychology that took a very strict approach
to collecting data and systematically analyzing it. Behaviorism helped shape psychology into a
science.
Cognitive theory is focused on our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, language development … all things
related to cognitive development. There are a couple of main theorists that we discuss in the
class in regards to cognitive development: Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. We will focus on Piaget
in this episode. Piaget was remarkable - arguably the most influential developmental psychologist
that has ever lived. Although his research was not as rigorous as we would expect it to be today,
he was definitely ahead of his time in the way he investigated the workings of children's minds.
Piaget was interested in how children think and how their thinking tends to be different from that
of older children and adults. Children are not just miniature versions of adults, in other words, but
the way that they think is fundamentally different from the way that we think. At the same time,
there are some basic processes that are true of our thinking at any stage. For instance, we like to
make sense of our world through schemas. Schemas are categories of experience. So you could
have a schema for a chair, for dogs, for exercise. You have a schema for a college course. You
know what to expect. Well, we like our world to match our schemas. We like to feel like we
understand the things that are happening in our world. Whenever we're hit with a new experience,
like maybe taking your first online class, we may be forced to revisit our schemas. Let's say it's
your first online course. You probably operate at first from your schema for college course, but
pretty soon you realize, "Wait a second! This is really different. I have to remember all of my
assignments and due dates, I have to log into the website often, I have to remember to stay on
top of my reading…and all without the regular reminders I get when I attend my face-to-face
classes." Basically, new information throws off our cognitive equilibrium. We are off balance. This
new experience doesn't quite fit our current schemas, so we might have to change our schema or
create a new one. When we are able to fit the new experience into an existing schema, that's
called assimilation. When the new experience is too different to fit, we have to adjust the schema
or come up with a new one. This is called accommodation. Piaget believed we are born with a
natural curiosity. Infants are encountering all kinds of things for the first time. We want to figure
things out. We construct knowledge out of our own experiences, assimilating and accommodating
as we encounter new information. This process propels us through stages of cognitive
development, helping to explain, for example, why preschool children have such an odd way of
viewing the world! Piaget is addressed at many stages in the life span up and through
adolescence, so you will come to know him and his theory quite well.
Our final theory to consider today is systems theory. We can use the broad term of systems
theory to explore the multiple influences that can have an impact on development. Specifically,
consider dynamic systems theory, the idea that we are operating within the midst of a bunch of
overlapping systems, each of which is continually changing and influencing other systems. We
have social factors, cultural factors, individual issues, genes and environment. At any point in
development, in regards to any issue we are interested in learning more about, we will find that
there are multiple interacting systems involved. Dynamic systems theory reminds us that the
answer to almost any question in lifespan development is "It depends." Will a child growing up in
a violent home become violent himself? It depends. It depends upon culture, that child's
genetics, the particulars of the family environment, whether the child had at least one family
member who was attentive to his needs, etc., etc., etc. It depends. There is never a simple
answer for how complex psychological characteristics developed. That makes lifespan
development a challenge to learn, but keeps things quite interesting along the way!
EPISODE 1.3 – THE SCIENCE OF LIFESPAN DEVELOPMENT
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 1, p. 9
I know you have heard about the scientific method before, and hopefully you remember some of
what you learned in general psychology. The basic point about using the scientific method is that
there are a number of ways to collect data and a number of ways to learn about what's really
going on with human development. It's best for science if a number of different strategies are
used. Then, if we can look at the pattern of results and see that we have a lot of similar findings
across different kinds of studies, that makes us even more confident about those findings.
Using the Scientific Method
Let's say that we are interested in studying whether violent media has an impact on child
development. Do children who consume a lot of violent media tend to behave more aggressively
as a result? We could look at this question through scientific observation, watching how children
behave after they view violent media. We could carefully observe their behavior and mark any
instances of aggression that we see. Or we could add a comparison or control group, randomly
assigning kids to those different groups to see if they have different outcomes as a result. This
would be an experiment, where we manipulate variables and see what impact it has on the
outcome. Or, we could use surveys. If the child is old enough, we can ask the child to report how
much violent media he or she consumes. We could ask parents to report on how much violent
media their child is exposed to. We can also ask both to tell us about the child's behavior, looking
for information on signs of aggression. If we really wanted to get fancy, we could also survey the
children's teachers as well and get all of these different accounts to help us find out if there is any
kind of relationship between violent media and children's aggression. Well, everything I just
mentioned has been done, and the results are very consistent. Yes, violent media influences
childhood behavior. Children who consume more violent media tend to behave in a more
aggressive manner than other children. Media violence is not THE cause, but it is an important
influence. We can be reasonably confident in this result because different studies - using
observation, experimentation, and survey methods - reveal similar findings.
In lifespan development though we are often particularly interested in change over time, and there
are different methods to assess that as well. If we look at age-related differences in a
characteristic, we want to know whether we are seeing developmental change, or whether we are
just seeing a cohort effect. Consider attention span. Let's say we wanted to study attention span
and we wanted to see how long a person would continue to work on some rather mundane task.
Basically, how long will a person sits still and engage in this boring activity? So let's get people of
different ages: 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80 year olds. We'll get them all to sit down individually,
one at a time, work on this boring task, and see how long they'll sit there and do it. The great
thing is that it doesn't take that long to collect the data, so we can make important discoveries and
help advance the science of lifespan development more rapidly. Well, let's say that our study
reveals that the younger participants have shorter attention spans than the older participants. Can
we conclude from this that attention span increases as we age, that it's a developmental change?
Not necessarily. Think about some of the cohort differences that could be involved. The group of
20-year olds grew up in a very different time than the 60-year olds or 80-year olds, for example.
The 20-year olds were exposed to more media, and the media they consumed was faster-paced
than that experienced by the older cohorts. So, we can't tell whether it's a developmental change,
or a cohort difference. By the way, I just described a cross-sectional study, where we take
groups of people from different ages, we assess them on some characteristic, and we try to come
to some conclusions about developmental change. But the problem is that we can never know if
the change we see is truly developmental. Maybe we are just seeing cohort differences. So, what
should we do?
Well, we could just follow one cohort over time. We could get a bunch of 20-year olds now, and
assess them every ten years until they are 80. We would start with 20-year olds today, and keep
assessing them every ten years. Now, that's developmental change! But, wait. Do the findings
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 1, p. 10
apply to other cohorts as well? We don't know. Also, how many of the original group of 20 year
olds are still alive and interested in participating by the time they are 60, 70, or 80? Maybe those
who are still living at 80 are just healthier overall, something that could affect our results. And, if
they have participated all of these times across their life, by this point are they just getting really
good at the task? I've just described a longitudinal study, a great method for assessing
developmental change, but a challenge because we're looking at only one cohort.
All right. How about this? Start with different age groups - 20-year olds through 80-year olds and assess each group every ten years. This is a combination of the cross-sectional and
longitudinal methods, and it's a method with its own name: the cross-sequential study. This
method lets you assess developmental change AND cohort differences. Problem solved, right?
Not necessarily. Because we're assessing people over time, we still have the problems of people
leaving the study, getting accustomed to the task, and of a potentially skewed sample at the end.
There is no perfect study. Our methods of assessing change over time are imperfect, as are our
methods of observation, experimentation, and surveys. The best we can do - the best any
science can do - is to conduct studies in a number of different ways, and look for replication that
reveals patterns of similar results. Now, in case you feel discouraged about these imperfections, I
want to emphasize that it's just part of the scientific process. Science is a process of inquiry. We
conduct studies to find things out. We can't possibly know enough to create a flawless study.
The only way we could do this is if we already knew everything about the topic, in which case,
why would we be studying it?
Doing Research Right
After we conduct a study and report our results, things can still get messed up. One problem is
how results get interpreted, and most prominent mistake-maker is the media. The main mess-up
with interpretation has to do with correlations. Take, for instance, a study that found a correlation
between self-esteem and brain size. One study found that the lower one's self esteem, the
smaller their brain. So, what was the title of the article in the press? "Low self-esteem shrinks
brain." This would make you think that every time you feel bad about yourself, your brain gets a
little bit smaller. This will certainly worsen your mood! This is a mistake. Just because two things
are correlated does not mean that one caused the other. And, even if one caused the other, we
don't know what the direction of effects is. Let's address the direction of effects first. If there is a
cause-and-effect relationship between self esteem and brain size (and, may I remind you, we
don't know that there is) which variable caused the other one to occur? Did low self-esteem cause
the brain to shrink, or did brain shrinking cause low self-esteem? In addition to the direction of
effects issue, there is also the possibility of a third variable. Correlations are always about two
variables, and whenever we make the jump to assuming correlation equals causation we are
acting as if nothing else is playing a role. How likely is that? The third variable interpretation
requires us to think about other things that could be going on behind the scenes in this
correlation. Maybe depression is a third variable. Perhaps depressed people have smaller brains
AND lower self-esteem, for example. I couldn't tell you. We would have to investigate whether
the finding was replicated, and we would have to study whether depression is related to brain size
as well. The point is to remember not to assume that correlation equals causation. Pay attention
to the news, and notice how often the headlines make this interpretive error.
The next potential problem with research is in the hands of the scientists themselves. In order to
do research right, scientists must make sure that they are conducting their studies in an ethical
manner. All scientists are held to a very high standard these days, but unfortunately it wasn't
always this way. The history of science is full of shameful evidence of disrespect toward study
participants, and this is true of psychology, too. Since the 1960s there has been a swift and
strong movement to ensure that high ethical standards are met in research. A code of ethics must
be followed, and universities have institutional review boards that must approve a detailed study
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 1, p. 11
proposal before they are permitted to collect their data. The key issue is to make sure that
participants are not harmed, that they understand that their participation is voluntary, that the
results will be kept confidential, that any risks that they might be exposed to will be disclosed to
them before they participate so they can decide whether or not they want to. This is called
informed consent: the participant must be fully informed before they decide whether or not they
will participate in the study. Developmental psychology research often involves infants and
children, and the informed consent of the parents is absolutely necessary. If the child is old
enough, his or her consent is needed as well.
Now let's say the research is finished and it's time to present the results. Scientists are ethically
bound to present results as accurately as possible. What if some scientist wants to make a big
name for himself, and he "makes up" his data? It happens, but it is exceedingly rare. Scientists
who break this ethical code are strongly reprimanded, losing their respect among the academic
community for sure, and almost always losing their academic job as well. What if the scientist
has been completely honest, has collected his data very carefully and accurately, but is funded by
an outside agency that has an agenda? For example, what if a drug company has funded
research on the effectiveness of the drug? The scientist leading that study must disclose in their
report where their funding came from. If future scientists are suspicious of the findings, the report
contains enough detail that they could try to replicate the study later. If the study is never
replicated, the finding loses validity. If there are alternative interpretations of the findings, those
need to be discussed and presented in the paper. These rules and regulations are policed pretty
carefully by the journals and also by the peer review process that determines whether the results
are reported in an academic journal at all.
Ethical considerations also extended to our decisions about which topics we should study.
Sometimes people struggle to understand why scientists are even studying a certain topic. Or
perhaps people believe that some topics should never be studied because they touch upon
controversial, moral issues, like sexual behavior among teenagers. Ultimately, scientists are
driven by a desire to generate knowledge that will be help us live longer, happier lives.
Sometimes the questions we need to have answered are difficult and make us squirm.
Sometimes the findings contradict our beliefs and make us feel defensive. Sometimes the way
things really are is not the way we hoped they would be, but that knowledge gives us the best
chance of conquering the challenges we face across the lifespan.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 2, p. 1
EPISODE 2.1 – GENES AND ENVIRONMENT
Did you know that you and I share 99% of our genes? We do. Did you know that scientists once
believed there must be 100,000 genes in the human genome, just to account for all the diversity,
But then they found out we actually have only 25,000-30,000 genes? Itʼs true. Yet somehow,
with fewer genes then originally expected and so many of our genes in common, you and I turn
out to be so completely different in so many ways. None of the genes that we have would be able
to do anything without an environment. It takes nature and nurture. This episode will mark our
first in-depth look at nature and nurture, but it will certainly not be the last. In order to get off to a
good start though, letʼs cover some of the basics first.
The Very Beginning - Genes
Genes are segments of DNA that code for the production of specific proteins, proteins that
influence everything about us, from our height to our personality. But genes are not as powerful
as you may think. Or, maybe I should say, a single gene is not as powerful as you may
think…but you have about 20,000 of them, give or take, and all together, with the influence of the
environment as well, amazing things happen.
Now, if you have Huntingtonʼs Disease, a disorder named PKU, or some other dominant genetic
disorder, that one gene is extremely powerful. But hardly any genes operate that way. One gene
rarely has the power to control a certain outcome. What matters more is the collection of genes
you have, and the ways those genes interact with each other and with the environment.
The way genes work is kind of like a recipe. The specific ingredients you use will have a strong
impact on the outcome, but it also depends upon the particular mix of ingredients. For example,
eggs do different things whether theyʼre paired with oil and flour to make a cake, or whipped with
sugar and until you get meringue. Imagine a completely unique recipe with 20,000 ingredients –
like your 20,000 genes, and think of all of the ways those ingredients might interact. That gives
you a bit of an idea of how genes really work. When genes work together, we refer to this as a
polygenic interaction.
Back to the cake analogy. Youʼll never get a cake if you just leave the batter sitting on the kitchen
countertop. Youʼll just have batter. You need to bake the batter at a certain temperature for a
certain period of time. In other words, the batter needs certain environmental conditions in order
to become a cake. Similarly, your genes, like those cake ingredients, do not have ultimate power
and canʼt become you without environmental influences. Genes are influenced by everything that
surrounds them – everything in the environment, from the prenatal environment, to nutrients, to
how others interact with us. When genes and environment work together, this is called a
multifactorial interaction.
Let me give you an example of a multifactorial interaction. Due to genes, some of us are more
vulnerable to stress than others. The genes may predispose a more rapid stress hormone
response, for example. More glucocorticoids released. Those who are predisposed will find that
they feel stressed out easily. Regardless, we do have some control over our stress reaction – we
can learn how to relax or meditate, and perhaps we could even take medication for anxiety. But
the one thing thought to be unchangeable was the genes. Recent research suggests this is an
inaccurate view. Research on rats suggests that the environment can actually trigger changes in
the expression of genes.
Rats get stressed out, too. And they are similar enough to us genetically that we can learn
important things from them. Some rats are predisposed to high stress rates because of genes
that code for the production of glucocorticoid receptors in the brain. But the behavior of rat moms
has been shown to actually change the expression of those genes. Mothers who regularly
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 2, p. 2
nurture their rat pups through licking trigger a change in the expression of genes related to stress
hormones. Furthermore, scientists at McGill, a college in Canada, chemically manipulated rat pup
genes and found that their stress response changed as well. Basically, through environmental
influence, these scientists changed the expression of genes. Once they figure out how it all
works, the hope is that it might one day be possible to help stress-prone humans by manipulating
the expression of their genes as well. Perhaps highly nurturing parenting is already influencing
the expression of genes in ways that we have not yet been able to detect in humans.
The point to remember is that everything around the gene – other genes, hormones,
environmental factors – may influence the expression of the gene. This is epigenetics. Epi
means “around”, so epigenetics means “around the genes.” Already, epigenetics is affecting the
way we think about medicine. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, perhaps we will move to a
model where an individualʼs genes dictate which medications will be most effective. For example,
there are certain types of cancer that are triggered because a gene that normally functions to stop
a tumor from growing is shut off by another gene, a regulator gene. And, at the same time, other
genes that promote the growth of the tumor are turned on by a different regulator gene. These
are polygenic interactions, by the way. Medicine is being developed right now, designed to help
shut off the cancer-promoting gene and turn on the cancer-inhibiting gene. Itʼs like tweaking a
recipe to get things just right. In the meantime, through this research weʼre going to learn much
more about how a genotype results in a phenotype.
Genetic Diversity
Remember how I talked about the pull between sameness and uniqueness that youʼd hear a lot
about in this class? Well, here it is again. Letʼs talk about the similarities and differences we see
among biologically related siblings to get a picture of the genetic diversity and sameness that
exist.
Have you ever noticed that biological siblings may seem both incredibly similar to one another
and incredibly different from one another as well? In some respects, you would have no trouble
figuring out that Iʼm related to my sister and two brothers. But each of us could quickly tell you
exactly how we differ as well, as could our parents!
Look, if youʼre like most people, you donʼt necessarily want to think about your parentsʼ gametes,
but letʼs do so anyway. Itʼs mind-boggling if you do the math. Out of their 46 chromosomes, Mom
could make about 8 million unique ova, and dad could make about 8 million unique sperm. And
for you, just one of those sperm and one of those ovum combined. You got 10,000 genes from
mom, and 10,000 genes from dad. So did your biological siblings. But who knows WHICH
10,000 they got and which you got. Some may be the same as yours, but others are undoubtedly
different.
This is true for fraternal twins as well, who are no more genetically similar to each other than any
other two siblings in a biological family. We call them dizygotic twins because they came from
two zygotes. A zygote is a fertilized egg, the very first step in prenatal development. Dizygotic
twins happen when two zygotes form at the same time. Mom released two ova, and two of dadʼs
sperm were able to fertilize them. Why would Mom release more than one ovum? Some women
are genetically predisposed to this. Also, women nearing the end of their reproductive years may
have cycles where two ova are released (and, perhaps, then cycles where none are released –
the point is that ovulation becomes more erratic as we age). And then also today, reproductive
technology has increased the incidence of fraternal twin births.
For identical twins it all starts with one zygote, so we call them monozygotic twins. They have the
same DNA (meaning they have the same genotype), but they will not have exactly the same
phenotype. They may have been exposed to slightly different prenatal environments, based upon
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 2, p. 3
whether they shared the same placenta or not. Not all identical twins share the same placenta.
Also, they may have had different experiences outside of the womb that could interact with those
genes in different ways.
Think about how multifactorial interaction could affect the development of biological siblings. If
theyʼre not monozygotic twins, then each child is genetically unique, right? And letʼs say that
each child was raised by the same two parents. The type of parenting each child receives is not
just a matter of the parents though; itʼs also a matter of the child. Different children require
different approaches, in large part due to each childʼs genetic predispositions. A difficult child
with colic elicits a difference response than a calm baby who sleeps through the night at 2 months
of age. An outgoing, boisterous, and daring toddler triggers a very different response from
parents than a quiet and reserved toddler.
Itʼs my hope the next time you are having a conversation with someone about whether genes or
environment makes a person have a certain characteristic, you will say, “Itʼs always both!”
EPISODE 2.2 – PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT
We never see more rapid and fascinating development than what occurs during the 38 weeks of
pregnancy after sperm meets egg.
From Zygote to Newborn
It takes 38 weeks to make a baby, from zygote to newborn. Sometimes youʼll hear people talk
about a 40-week pregnancy. Whatʼs the difference? It depends on when you starting counting.
If you start with the date of the womanʼs last period, itʼs a 40-week pregnancy; if you start with the
date of conception, itʼs a 38-week pregnancy. Sometimes doctors prefer to use the 40-week
schedule because they feel that day of the womanʼs last period is more easily determined than
the exact day conception occurred. It could take several days for sperm to reach the egg, so just
because a couple had sex, it no way indicates that thatʼs the day conception occurred. In fact we
can be pretty confident that is not the day that conception occurred.
We follow the scientistsʼ lead in this class, referring to a 38-week pregnancy that can be broken
down into three distinct periods of development: zygotic, embryonic, and fetal. This isnʼt the
same thing as trimesters, by the way, although itʼs easy to learn how they overlap: All three
prenatal periods – the zygote, the embryo, and the fetus – occur during the first three months, the
first trimester. The last period, the period of the fetus, begins during the first trimester, yes, but
extends from the end of the first trimester all the way through to birth. The nice thing about
prenatal periods, in contrast to trimesters, is that they are divided by the activities going on. The
period of the zygote extends from conception to implantation, the period of the embryo involves
the beginnings of all major bodily systems (organs, circulatory system, etc.), and the period of the
fetus is when all major body systems become fully functional. Letʼs talk more in depth about
each.
Most pregnant women donʼt even know theyʼre pregnant until after the germinal period has
passed. Nausea and other symptoms of pregnancy typically donʼt begin until after the zygote has
become embedded in the uterus lining around 2 weeks after conception (and this is the event that
ends the germinal period). But, rewinding a little bit, after conception and prior to implantation,
the main action of the germinal period is cell division. Lots and lots of cell division. Very early on,
before the zygote reaches the 8-cell stage, the cells could become anything at all. They are
called stem cells. Scientists hope someday to be able to use stem cells to generate cells to cure
many of our most vexing disorders and diseases. After the 8-cell stage, DNA instructions for the
cells kick in, and cells start to differentiate (specialize) and then move where they are needed.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 2, p. 4
The embryonic period follows the germinal period. It begins once implantation is completed,
which is around two weeks, and lasts through week 8. Remember, weʼre still in the first trimester
here. Some women will experience “morning sickness” during this time, although itʼs really more
accurate just to call it nausea because many women feel it at different times of the day. Some
women will not even experience much nausea at all, or any. Others may notice their sense of
smell or taste becomes unbearably acute, which, in it itself, can also bring on feelings of nausea!
The embryo is really busy developing the start of all major body systems. The cardiovascular
system begins to function. All organs get their start. Regardless of gender, the embryo at this
point in time has a genital tubercle right now, which is a little flap of tissue between the legs that
will develop into the sexual organs during the fetal period. Throughout pregnancy, development
proceeds in a proximodistal fashion, meaning that the inner parts (organs) are maturing earlier
than the outer parts (fingers).
Moving along onto the fetal period. The fetal period is long. It lasts from 9 weeks to 38 weeks.
Notice again the start of the fetal period is within the first trimester and then it extends throughout
the entire remainder of the pregnancy. The fetal period is a time for all major body systems and
organs to gradually, gradually reach maturity. Fetuses with chromosomes XY develop testes,
which begin to produce testosterone, which turns the genital tubercle into male sexual organs and
influences brain development as well. You know that sense of ʻI am a boyʼ or ʻI am a girl,ʼ that the
vast majority of us just feel when we donʼt have confusion about our gender? That has to do with
the way that hormones influence our brains during prenatal development. A very small portion of
individuals have different experiences where their hormonal production during this time is not
gender typical. That can help you understand why a person can honestly feel like they are a
different gender then their body dictates. But like I said, for the majority of us this all lines up
together. The testosterone influences the development of organs, and also influences brain
development. Without testosterone, female sex organs develop and a female-ish brain develops
as well. By the way, let me just stop here though and clarify that although there are some
differences between the male and female brain, there are fewer differences than you probably
think, Weʼll talk about what things differ and what things donʼt across the semester. The fetus
experiences dramatic growth, from .25 oz (on average) at week 8 to 7.5 lbs (on average) at week
38. Fat layers develop near the very end of the pregnancy as well.
The organ that takes the longest to develop is the brain, as neurons are created, sent to their
designated positions, and begin making connections with other neurons. Brain development
progresses gradually from back to front, so gradually, in fact, that the very front portion of the
cortex (the prefrontal cortex) does not become fully mature until late adolescence or early
adulthood! Prenatal development, in general, is cephalocaudal, meaning that the brain is a
priority. The age of viability, a time when a preterm baby might be able to survive outside of the
womb, is determined largely by brain development. This occurs somewhere between 22-26
weeks after conception, so thatʼs during the fetal period. Thinking about the cephalocaudal
development, the priority of the brain, notice how the proportion of the fetusʼs body is so different
from ours, with a huge head compared to the rest of the body. That huge head is containing that
prioritize brain. Eventually, as the infant develops into childhood, the rest of the body will catch
up to the brain and we will see more adult-like proportions.
The priority of brain development, and our enormous heads that go with it, can make birth much
more difficult for us compared to other species. And, the fact that we walk upright (instead of on
all fours) led us to evolve with more narrow hips than our primate ancestors. A large fetus head
and narrow maternal hips = a challenging birth. Luckily, in the vast majority of cases today, birth
proceeds with a hitch. Although this certainly was not the case in the past when it was much
more common for the mother or the baby or both to die during childbirth. Thankfully we have csections and other medical interventions to help if there are problems during birth. Some, though,
would suggest that the modern hospital birth, with hormones used to hasten contractions, etc.,
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Chapter 2, p. 5
may actually prolong and complicate the birth process and lead to more c-sections than would be
necessary. Itʼs true that c-section births have increased, and thatʼs something to be aware of and
to keep investigating, but itʼs also true that without procedures like c-sections, many lives
wouldʼve been lost.
Complications
One troubling aspect of the birthing experience in the United States is the increasing rates of
babies born weighing less than 5.5 lbs, a marker for low birthweight. A low birthweight baby may
be preterm (born early). Some are not born early, but are born small for their gestational age.
They may be 38 weeks of age, but still less than 5.5 lbs. This is often due to substance abuse
(including smoking) or malnutrition thatʼs occurred during the pregnancy. In general, nurture plays
a stronger role in the low birthweight experience than nature does, especially considering that
rates of low birthweight are decreasing in other developed nations while they increase here in the
U.S. Stress may also impact prenatal development. When a pregnant mother is extremely
stressed out, her bodyʼs resources are diverted to her brain and to her muscles for survival. Itʼs
like the body prioritizes things and says, “We canʼt focus that much on this developing baby in the
uterus; weʼve got to make sure to keep mom alive.” So what does this mean for the motherʼs
body? Well, blood flow to the uterus is decreased when a mother is extremely stressed out and
the fetus, then, is deprived of oxygen and nutrients.
One final reason for an increased rate of low birthweight is infertility treatments that result in
multiple births. A fetus who has had to share the uterus with others is almost always smaller than
one who had the whole place to him- or herself. Sometimes itʼs just a matter of space.
I mentioned how substance abuse can impact prenatal development. Letʼs look more closely at
things like that. Today, the idea that the developing human is affected by whatever the mother
ingests or is exposed to seems obvious. But it wasnʼt always that way. For a long time, scientists
incorrectly believed that the placenta shielded the developing human against harmful substances.
It wasnʼt until 1941 that the first teratogen was identified: rubella (German measles). In the early
1960s, the thalidomide disaster occurred. Thalidomide was a drug prescribed to relieve morning
sickness during pregnancy. Thousands of children across the world were born with limb
deformities due to thalidomide. After this, scientists started looking more closely at other potential
teratogens, such as alcohol. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was officially recognized in 1973. Even a
small amount of alcohol can take a toll on prenatal development (especially on the brain), as
evidenced by the fact that alcohol is the leading teratogenic cause of mild mental retardation.
Teratogens that influence the brain, by the way, are called behavioral teratogens.
The impact a teratogen has on the developing human depends upon three key factors: genetic
vulnerability, the timing of the exposure, and the amount of the exposure. The embryo or fetusʼs
genes may make them more vulnerable to the effects of a teratogen. Take alcohol, for example.
Some of us metabolize alcohol more quickly than others, and this is influenced by our genes. An
embryo without such genes metabolizes alcohol more slowly, meaning that it stays in his/her
system longer and has a more devastating impact on development. So, genetic vulnerability
certainly matters, although the best advice for a pregnant woman is to avoid this risk altogether
by not drinking during pregnancy. How about the timing of the exposure? Again, letʼs focus on
alcohol. Maternal drinking during the embryonic period will impact the development of facial
features and the brain. In fact, children with FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) have unique facial
features because of this. But, if a mother drinks during the fetal period only, the child may be
born with typical facial features but have significant brain damage nevertheless. The amount of
the teratogen the developing human was exposed to plays an important role as well. With
alcohol, sustained heavy drinking results in FAS, whereas light or moderate drinking may have a
lesser impact (although that impact – usually mental retardation – is still quite significant). Some
substances do not become teratogenic at all until they reach a certain dosage, something referred
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Chapter 2, p. 6
to as a threshold effect. Take vitamin A, which is healthy in small doses but can result in extreme
birth defects if taken in large doses. Accutane is a medication for acne and itʼs basically a
megadose of vitamin A, which is why many doctors require women on Accutane to be on birth
control at the same time.
Even if the beginning of life involves complications, thatʼs not the end of the story. With low
birthweight babies and those exposed to teratogens, we still have all of the years ahead for a
positive environment and responsive parenting to make a difference.
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Chapter 3, p. 1
EPISODE 3.1 – THE FIRST TWO YEARS: BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
The pace of growth during the first two years of life is phenomenal. We will focus on physical growth in
this chapter, with a special emphasis on brain development.
Remember how prenatal development is cephalocaudal? The brain is the priority, right? In infancy, the
priority of the brain continues with head-sparing. Fat nourishes the brain first. So, even if a child eats less
than normal (maybe because of teething pain), stored fat is devoted to brain development first. As a
result, brain weight triples from birth until age two! All that nourishment is put to good use because the
brain is going through an amazing growth spurt.
Body Changes: Brain Development
Brain development in infancy occurs at a rapid pace. Neurons, the basic communication cells of the
brain, become connected into a massive web of neural networks. The connections between neurons are
called synapses. Actually, neurons donʼt touch each other. The axon of the sending neuron gets really
close the dendrites of the receiving neuron, but the synapse itself is the little gap between the two.
Neurons communicate by passing neurotransmitters back and forth. Neurotransmitters are chemical
messages that have specific functions. For example, acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that enables our
bodies to move. Endorphins are neurotransmitters that work as the bodyʼs natural painkillers (and, by the
way, are 100 times stronger than morphine!). There are around 100 different substances that function as
neurotransmitters, and they are released by the sending neuronʼs axon into the synapse, to be picked up
by the dendrite on the receiving neuron.
You now know how important synapse growth is for infant brain development, but such growth occurs in
two different ways. Some growth is programmed to happen, given adequate environmental stimuli. Our
brain “expects” that we will hear things, for example, and such auditory stimulation sets brain
development in motion that will aid with language learning. This type of synaptic growth comes from
typical, everyday experiences that almost all infants have. It helps us develop normative brain functions.
Our brain also responds and grows synapses from our widely varying experiences that often help us
develop specific and sometimes unique functions. For example, my years of training in piano helped
develop synapses that control motor movements of my fingers, which now helps me type like the wind.
We build up loads of synapses during infancy - more than we need, in fact. Now, you would think that itʼs
best to have as many synapses as possible, right? Surprisingly, thatʼs not true. The loss of synapses is
actually adaptive, if the child is otherwise receiving adequate attention and stimulation. Consider the
analogy of a houseplant. When some of the leaves turn brown, that means theyʼre dead and itʼs best to
prune them off. Otherwise, if you leave the dead leaves on the plant, the water and sunlight is at least
somewhat wasted. Prune off the dead leaves, and the sun and water are focused entirely on the most
important parts of the plant – the leaves that are healthy and thriving. Itʼs a similar thing in the brain: We
make lots of synapses, but we donʼt end up using them all equally. The rarely-used synapses are like
dead leaves on a plant. At around age 2, the brain goes through a pruning process. Unnecessary
synapses are pruned so the brainʼs energy can focus on the most important synapses. This allows our
brain to become a finely tuned information processing machine. A lack of pruning may lead to information
processing difficulties. In fact, an intellectual disability called Fragile-X is thought to stem in part from an
under-pruned brain.
The cortex is the outermost layer of the brain, 4-6 layers of tissue where neurons connect. Some parts of
the cortex are specialized for certain tasks, like vision and hearing. The majority of the cortex contains
neurons that help the various specialized areas communicate. Itʼs like a network of information
superhighways in the brain. The cortex develops from back to front, with the maturity of the frontal lobes
taking the longest to complete. The very front of the frontal lobes – the prefrontal cortex – helps us
regulate our emotions, plan ahead, control our impulses, pay attention, and solve complex tasks. It
develops gradually from infancy through adolescence and young adulthood.
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By the way, while weʼre talking about the cortex and its functions, I wonder if you have ever heard that we
use only 10% of our brains. If so, let me clarify. This is not true. Itʼs a myth often spread by self-help
authors who want to convince you that you have massive amounts of untapped potential, brain matter just
sitting around waiting to be used. Thatʼs not accurate. Yes, there are certain areas highly specialized for
one task or another, but those areas have to link up and communicate with other areas of the brain. At
any given moment, numerous areas in our brain and active and are quickly sending messages back and
forth, across the two hemisphere, from lobe to lobe, and in between the cortex and lower-level brain
structures. Our brains are buzzing with activity. There is no evidence that 90% of it is just sitting there
empty. If youʼve ever known a stroke victim, think about how it sometimes just takes damage to only one
tiny part of the brain for us to see major deficits in the personʼs functioning. Now, if the question is
whether we reach our intellectual potential, thatʼs a different story. Could we make more synapses? Yes.
Absolutely. Research suggests that we are making new synapses continually, but those synapses are
adding up within brain regions that have already been active.
So yes, we can create new connections among our neurons at any age, but brain plasticity is still the
greatest in infancy and decreases gradually with age. In other words, our brains are still plastic in older
adulthood, just much less plastic than in infancy. Infancy is a sensitive period for brain development,
then, and the shocking story of Romanian orphans communicates this better than any other story I know.
Without adequate stimulation, these orphansʼ early years of brain development were atypical. When we
donʼt get the typical interaction with caregivers, the impact is felt in the brain. Physical body growth not
affected as much (catch-up growth occurs), but brain affected greatly. Emotional problems. Orphanages
may take care of the childʼs physical needs, but they may not realize how the physical brain suffers from
the lack of emotional interaction. This brain “damage” can last a lifetime and leave the individual more
vulnerable to stressful life events.
Motor and Perceptual Development
Where are you listening to this podcast? Did you turn your computer on, go the website, and click play?
Or are you listening in your car on your iPod while you drive to work? You probably didnʼt think much
about the highly coordinated series of actions required for you to get to this point. We take for granted our
ability to tell our body what to do. If you need something, you just reach out a grab it, right? Well before
you can remember, you had to repeatedly practice moving your hands in just the right directions, using
your sense of sight to help you, before you would wrap your fingers around the object. You had to
practice this over and over again, but, thankfully, you were naturally curious and highly motivated to do so
– probably because you really wanted to stick that teething ring or that rattle in your mouth!
We begin life with a set of reflexes that get us started moving our bodies. Reflexes are inborn and
automatic behaviors in response to certain particular stimuli. When you touch an infantʼs mouth with an
object, for example, she opens her mouth and begins sucking. You didnʼt have to teach her this. If you
touch your finger to the palm of an infant, he grips your finger tightly. Again, no teaching required. It is
adaptive that infants start with reflexes, though, because they often promote behavior that aids survival.
Automatically moving the mouth to suck and swallow allows the infant to be nourished by breast milk or
formula. Eventually, infants gain voluntary control over these reflexes. You can see this development by
tracking how long it takes to feed an infant. It can take quite a long time at first because the infant is
struggling to control his reflexes. But, by six months or so, feeding is a breeze because the infant is much
more skilled at controlling the movements of his lips, mouth, and tongue. Itʼs a similar experience with
grasping at objects using the palmar grasp. The grasp of a newborn may feel quite strong, but the infant
doesnʼt have much control over her hand and finger movements until much later in infancy. Coordinated
movements involving large muscles, like legs and arms, are gross motor skills, and coordinated
movements involving smaller muscles, like the mouth and fingers, are fine motor skills.
But we wouldnʼt be able to grasp very well without our senses and perceptions. Senses bring information
into the body, and perception occurs once the brain gets involved and helps us interpret the experience.
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Chapter 3, p. 3
That rattle the infant wants to grasp is an object she must first notice through the sense of vision, but she
must perceive the objectʼs distance to know how far to reach her hand out in order to get it. Or, consider
another example. A baby hears a voice and smiles. The sense of hearing allowed that information to
enter the brain, but the brain is needed to perceive the sound and realize that itʼs momʼs voice. Perception
allows the infant to organize and interpret sensory information. The perceptual skills that infants master
early in life permit them to make cognitive discoveries about their world, which you will hear more about in
the next episode.
Surviving in Good Health
We are lucky to live during a time in history when death in infancy and childhood is relatively rare.
Diseases that once routinely took the lives of infants and children have now been largely conquered
through immunizations. The data clearly show us that immunizations save lives. See Table 3.3 in the
text for a detailed list of immunizations. Note that each has a risk of side effects, but those side effects
are rare and well worth the risk when you consider the alternative. You may have heard media reports of
parents concerned that certain vaccines cause brain-related problems like autism. Fear of autism, in fact,
has led some parents to skip certain vaccines entirely, like the MMR vaccine. They do this in the hopes of
lowering their childʼs risk of developing autism, although there is no empirical evidence to suggest a link
between vaccines and autism. In fact, parents who skip certain vaccines increase the risk that their child
will become very ill or will die from a disease they are no longer protected against – like measles. Also
children who have not been properly vaccinated may carry and spread diseases to other children,
perhaps an infant who is too young to have been immunized, or a child who is too ill to be vaccinated.
The risks of skipping vaccinations (suffering severe brain damage or death) are much higher than the
vaccinesʼ well-researched side-effects. Again, check out the side effects listed in Table 3.3 in Chapter 3
of the text for more information.
Nutrition is also very important for infant health. Regarding diet, the most convenient way for the
caregiver to provide the infant with the proper balance of nutrients is through breastfeeding. Breast milk
is clearly correlated with improved physical health. When it comes to intelligence, though, the findings are
mixed. Some studies show a slight IQ benefit for breastfed babies (e.g., 10 IQ points), where others
studies show no difference at all. The research on emotional development shows no difference either,
suggesting that breast- and bottle-fed infants are equally likely to bond with their caregivers. However,
there could be some collateral learning that goes on with breastfeeding, because breast milk is a actually
a mild sedative that leaves the infant feeling nice and relaxed.
That brings us to the end of this episode on physical development during infancy. We will turn next to the
infantʼs cognitive development.
EPISODE 3.2 – THE FIRST TWO YEARS: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Why do infants love to throw things off their highchair during meals? Why canʼt we remember anything
that happened during the first two years of our life? How are infants able to absorb language so quickly,
when it takes adults years of difficult practice to learn a new language? These and other interesting
questions will be addressed in this episode.
Infant Cognition
Jean Piaget is arguably the most important psychologist in the history of developmental psychology. We
are lucky Piaget chose to apply his intellectual skills to the study of children because his theory is still
being actively researched by many scientists today. Piaget suggested that the way infants and children
think is very different from the way that adolescents and adults think. His goal was to document these
differences in thought across the infancy and childhood years.
Remember assimilation and accommodation? These processes are at work across the lifespan as we
encounter new experiences. Obviously, infants have many new experiences. They act on the world, and
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Chapter 3, p. 4
then they notice what happens in response. They explore the world using their senses and their motor
skills, so perhaps thatʼs why Piaget referred to this stage as the sensorimotor stage.
The first four months of the sensorimotor stage involve primary circular reactions, where the infant is
learning how to use her own body. It starts with reflexes like sucking, and then it moves to first acquired
adaptations, like when an infant realizes that she has to move her mouth differently if sheʼs sucking on a
bottle than if she is being breast-fed. To stick with the sucking example, if the infant learns that she can
use the same mouth movements to suck on a new object, then she is assimilating the schema for sucking
in response to that new experience. But, if she has to change her sucking method or if she realizes
something like momʼs angora sweater is yucky when you try to suck it, then she changes her schema for
sucking through accommodation.
Stages three and four occur from months 4 to 12 and involve secondary circular reactions. During this
time, the infant is learning how to make interesting experiences last longer. They are figuring out how to
make things happen. Letʼs consider the development of the art of conversation. At first infants just make
noise, especially for the first few months. They are cooing, and it may not seem directed at any particular
person. Sometimes they donʼt seem to be trying to communicate anything in particular; theyʼre just trying
out the vocal cords. At around four months of age, though, an infant begins to understand that when he
makes a noise other people may respond to him. In fact, right around four months of age babies begin to
stay quiet while others are talking to them. Theyʼve adjusted their scheme for making noise to incorporate
their realization that others will listen and respond, and this is something theyʼve learned through
experience. Now their behavior has become more goal oriented: they make noise in the hopes that others
will listen and make noise back.
Around eight months of age, the infant begins to show the first signs of object permanence. This is when
the infant realizes that objects exist even when he canʼt see them. To be able to understand that, the
infant has to be able to take a mental picture of things, or what Piaget referred to as mental
representations. The classic example is when we have a toy, we show it to the infant, and then we put it
underneath a cloth. In early infancy, the infant will not even look for the toy underneath the cloth. He will
think that the toy has disappeared. Out of sight means out of mind. But as his ability to make mental
representations improves, we will see that he understands object permanence better and better. The
development of object permanence occurs gradually, and we know this because of research conducted in
recent years. Piaget originally thought that object permanence didnʼt truly develop until about two years of
age. His methods for assessing object permanence, though, were a lot more basic than what we can do
today thanks to the power of technology, and video recording equipment in particular. Object
permanence develops more gradually then Piaget thought.
During the last part of the sensorimotor stage, from 12 to 24 months, the infant is in stages five and six of
the sensorimotor stage. Tertiary circular reactions are being learned. The baby is in an experimental
phase during this time, noticing through trial and error why things happen, and then making decisions to
try to make those things happen again in the future. They are also playing around to experiment and see
what happens in response to certain behaviors. Itʼs almost as if they start to ask themselves, what else
could I do with this? Letʼs say that a child is sitting in her high chair, eating the small pieces of banana her
father has cut and put on a plate for her. She gets excited and bangs her hands on the top of the
highchair. And, oops, the bananas go rolling off the plate. She is fascinated by this and watches carefully.
Itʼs like sheʼs realizing, wow, the bananas moved - what happens if I pick them up and throw them on the
floor? What happens if I pick him up and squish them in my hand? Piaget referred to infants in this stage
as little scientists because of their experimentation in everyday life. This is the kind of stuff that drives
parents and caregivers crazy. The infant never seems to tire of throwing things on the floor just to see
what will happen. As the child nears 24 months of age, she begins to think about the consequences of
future behaviors, and she may plan out a series of events in advance. Dad may notice that whenever he
gets his keys his daughter grabs her coat and walks toward him as if to say, “Iʼm coming with you.” Think
about all of the planning this involved. The child notices dad is getting his keys. She realizes this might
mean that heʼs about to leave. She doesnʼt want him to leave her. She wants to go with him. So, she
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Chapter 3, p. 5
makes a decision to go over and pick up her coat and walk toward her dad as if to say, Iʼm going with you.
The infant is able to do some thinking before she acts, although this doesnʼt mean that she will always
think before acts! It just means that she is capable of thinking through a series of basic behaviors ahead
of time. By the way, being able to do this requires that infants have developed mental representations.
You are going to learn a lot more about Piaget in the chapters ahead. His theory was a stage theory,
meaning that he believed that cognitive development occurs through distinctly different phases as we
grow older. In contrast, information processing theory views cognitive development as very continuous,
very gradual, and shaped by brain maturation and experience. Remember what I said about the brain
becoming a finely tuned machine? Imagine the synapses that form through experience as helping wire up
this machine, the brain. As the brain matures and as we have lots of experiences that help us build
synapses, we begin to process information more effectively and efficiently. But it takes time. Lots of time.
Information processing theory helps us understand how infants combine information across their senses.
For example, the research on walking shows us that the youngest walkers are actually the walkers willing
to take the greatest risks. Itʼs as if they donʼt really understand depth well enough to realize they might fall
while walking on an uneven surface, for example. Older walkers are more cautious when theyʼre walking
on some new and unusual surface. They are capable of considering all of that information at once, and
using the information to guide their decisions.
Why canʼt we remember anything from the first couple of years of our life? Information processing theory
sheds light on this question. Perhaps our brain isnʼt mature enough to be able to create the kind of
memories that we can recall later. Obviously, weʼre learning during those first two years of life. But how
many of us can honestly say that we remember what that was like? Memories that we can talk about,
memories that we can discuss and describe, are called episodic or declarative memories. Most scientists
think that we canʼt make these kind of memories until weʼre about two or 2 ½ years old. Thatʼs when our
information processing system is capable of making those kinds of memories.
But declarative and episodic memories are not the only kind of memories we make. We also remember
things weʼve seen, and we can imitate behavior weʼve seen later on. If the infant imitates behavior, that
indicates theyʼve learned something. When theyʼre grown up they wonʼt be able to say, “Oh yeah, mom I
remember when I was 18 months old watching you talk on the phone, and I remember pretending I was
talking on the phone, too.” But we see this learning in the childʼs behavior. Deferred imitation occurs when
an infant imitates some behavior that they observed previously. Iʼm not talking about behavior that theyʼre
observing right at that moment. Iʼm talking about behavior they may have observed yesterday or the day
before. This requires mental representations. This requires that the infant has seen something and is able
to make a memory of it. Deferred imitation appears around 1 ½ years of age and itʼs especially likely to
occur if the experimental conditions are very similar to the infantʼs real life, and when they are particularly
motivated to remember. Remember, it isnʼt that infants never make any memories. Itʼs just that when we
think of memories as adults, we imagine the kind of memories we can recall, kind of like telling someone
a story of what happened. Those are episodic and declarative memories, and those memories do not
appear until two or two and half years. The memories that we form before then are not the kind that we
can consciously remember and describe later, even though that learning may be clear from watching the
infantʼs behavior in the moment.
Language Development
Language development is one of the most amazing achievements of the first two years of life. Without
cracking a book and studying vocabulary, infants are somehow able to translate strings of sounds into
words. All throughout language development, comprehension occurs before production (i.e., infants
understand more than they can speak), and research suggests that the skill of careful listening starts
during the first months of life. Infants are born with the capacity to notice subtle differences among
various sounds in languages; in fact, they can “hear” more than we can as adults. An infant notices the
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Chapter 3, p. 6
difference between two types of “da” sounds: one that we have in English (e.g., Dah), and one that exists
in the Hindi language – a sound that I canʼt even produce for you. Even if I could make that sound, unless
youʼre a native speaker of Hindi, you probably wouldnʼt be able to tell the difference between it and our
English “Dah.” But infants can tell the difference, at least for the first nine months of life. As their brains
become specialized for their native language, though, they lose the ability to distinguish the sounds of all
other languages. It is a matter of efficiency. This can help explain why it seems almost effortless for
infants to pick up a new language, while we older folks have to study it very, very carefully. And often, no
matter how hard we try, we canʼt fully master those sounds that didnʼt exist in our native language.
Second-language accents are very difficult to lose, especially if the second language was learned in
adolescence or later.
Iʼm going to quickly describe the process of language learning in infancy, and then weʼll discuss the innate
and environmental influences on this process. The earliest form of communication that the infant is
involved with is cooing and gurgling and crying and making other vocalizations. When we speak to
infants, we often use child directed speech, slowing down the pace of our speech and emphasizing
certain words with variations in our intonation. The simple, high-pitched, slow nature of child-directed
speech is actually very helpful to infants. In-depth analyses even show that parents adjust their childdirected speech gradually as the childʼs language skills improve. Think about it. If we spoke to infants the
same way we speak to adults, imagine how hard it would be for them to figure things out. Itʼs like
someone walking up to you and speaking in a completely foreign language to you, as though you fully
understand that language. Youʼd probably give up and withdraw quickly, right? For infants our use of child
directed speech actually helps them begin to figure out language. Itʼs easier to break down long streams
of speech into distinct words when more space is put in between the words and when certain words are
emphasized. On top of that, itʼs simply more interesting for them to listen to.
Somewhere around six months of age infants begin to babble, using vowel and consonant pairings that
they repeat over and over again. You know what this is. This is stuff like ba-ba-ba and stuff like that. By
the way, babbling before nine months of age sounds very similar whether youʼre listening to an infant in
India or in the United States. But after nine months of age, when most infants are starting to lose that
easy ability to distinguish all speech sounds, they also began to babble more exclusively in the sounds of
their native language only. A trained linguist would be able to tell the difference between a babbling 10
month old in India and one in the United States.
The first word comes out of an infantʼs mouth somewhere around 12 months of age, although this is an
average. Some babies speak earlier, and some babies speak much later. When a child is using one word
to communicate a complete thought we refer to that word as a holophrase. I was babysitting for my
friends son when he pointed to the door and simply said, Mama? Iʼm pretty sure he was asking me, when
is mommy coming home? And I responded by saying sheʼll be home a little bit later. I knew what he
meant. The naming explosion comes next, when the infant begins to learn a bunch of words very quickly.
Finally, around the age of two most infants begin to put words together. They start to understand
grammar, which helps us communicate meaning when we speak to each other. They begin to
demonstrate that they know the right order to put words in. Letʼs say the infant asks the sitter, Mommy
go? That probably means, “Did mommy leave?” or “Where did mommy go?” Somehow the infant knows
that they have to say mommy first, and go second. They never say, “Go, mommy?” So, in two years most
infants move from random vocalizations to short phrases that communicate meaning with proper word
ordering. How does this happen so quickly?
Good question. There are three basic theories that help us understand the rapid development of
language in the first two years of life. The first idea is that infants have to be taught how to speak, and that
parents and caregivers take care of this job of teaching language to infants during the first years of life.
This is a behaviorist perspective. BF Skinner was a behaviorist who believed that language is just another
behavior. Infants make noises, for example, when they are babbling. Parents reinforce their babbling
behavior by responding to them, and by responding with great enthusiasm when the babbling starts to
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Chapter 3, p. 7
sound like a word. Parents get a lot more excited when the baby is babbling da-da-da then when the baby
is babbling ga-ga-ga. The infant notices they get a much bigger reaction when they say da-da-da. Thatʼs
reinforcing. They like the attention, so they repeat that behavior. Parents gradually shape their infants
speech behavior into words, and then phrases, and then sentences.
A second idea about language development is that infants teach themselves because theyʼre born with a
lot of innate abilities and skills that help them quickly acquire language. Noam Chomsky is the theorist
most closely associated with this idea. In the 1960s when he was in his 30s, Chomsky challenged
Skinnerʼs behaviorist theory of language. Chomsky argued that reinforcement isnʼt enough of an
explanation for language development. We learn language so quickly, and there is also a universal
grammar that we see across all languages. The specifics vary greatly, of course, but languages all have
words for objects, and words for actions, and rules for how words must be combined in order to make
sense. They suggest thereʼs something about the human brain that allows us to put our ideas together in
a similar way regardless of where we happen to have been born, and regardless of what language we
happen to have been exposed to. Chomsky proposed that we have a language acquisition device, which
really just means that we are born with brains that are particularly well-tuned and well-suited to be able to
pick up language quickly. Itʼs like the brain is ready for language; itʼs just ready and waiting to hear noises
that it will then translate and compute to understand the native language.
A third and final idea about how language develops so quickly has to do more with the social impulses
that infants have. This referred to as the social pragmatic approach. The idea is that we are social
animals who want to communicate with each other, that we are naturally motivated to try to communicate
our ideas. You can see this with infants in the way that they try to participate in a conversation even if
they donʼt yet really have the words to do so. Thereʼs a curiosity and a motivation thatʼs just there. Infants
pick up a whole lot about language, too, just through intonation and from the contexts, before they can
ever really understand the meanings of all those words. Finally the social importance of language and the
role that that motivation plays is clear when we see research that shows us that infants learn language
more quickly through face-to-face communication, talking with another live human being, than they learn
from watching some video or television program.
Ultimately, we now know that all three of these explanations play a role in the development of language.
We need others around us to reinforce the sounds that we make. But we would never learn so quickly and
so thoroughly without having these wonderful brains that are ready and waiting for language. Our social
motivation to be able to communicate with other human beings drives us to be very curious and interested
in figuring out how to communicate, how to use language.
Weʼve covered many cognitive developments in this episode, but those developments occur with and the
social and emotional context as well. We discussed that in the next podcast episode.
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Chapter 4, p. 1
EPISODE 4.1 – THE FIRST TWO YEARS: EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The first couple of weeks of life can be very difficult for new parents for a bunch of completely obvious
reasons, including sleep deprivation! But it can also be surprising to fully realize that infants do not arrive
pre-programmed with smiles and self-awareness. A phenomenal transition takes place during those first
two years of psychosocial development.
Emotional Development
We are born with the capacity to experience two very simple emotions: pleasure and displeasure. We
feel drawn toward pleasant stimuli (like food!), and we are repulsed by unpleasant stimuli (like the painful
feeling of gas). We might think we are witnessing our infant experiencing pleasure if we see a smile, but
if the smile appears during the first few weeks of the infantʼs life, itʼs probably not a real smile. They just
happen to be moving their mouth in a smile-like manner perhaps. A real smile, which is what scientists
call a social smile, appears for the first time around 6 weeks of age. Laughter begins around 3 months of
age, usually when the infant is very curious about something. Itʼs as if they find their new discoveries
about the world to be absolutely delightful.
As infants mature, their repertoire of emotions expands. Responsive parents play a role by providing an
emotional “mirror” of infantsʼ experiences. Just think of how a parent responds to a fussy baby. They
often use words and a tone of voice that identifies the bad mood (“Ohhhh, are you feeling fussy today?”)
and then they take actions to help alleviate the problem.
The development of anger occurs alongside the development of intentional behavior, around 6 months of
age to begin with. Think about it: What makes us angry? When our goals are thwarted in some way. The
infant doesnʼt have many goals until she is able to plan ahead and make some decisions on her own.
The infantʼs decision might be to pick up the remote control. The parent takes the remote control away
from the infant, and the infant starts to scream because her intentional behavior has been impeded.
Anger is actually a healthy emotion, even though it can be exhausting for parents. The key thing is that
the infant is learning to make plans and direct her own behavior. When her plans are stopped, she gets
angry.
Sadness in infants is not as common as anger, and thatʼs a good thing. The hormone cortisol is released
when an infant is sad, suggesting that the infant is stressed out by the experience. With chronic sadness,
the infantʼs brain development may be negatively affected. This sometimes happens among infants of
depressed caregivers. The mirroring of emotions that is typical of the bond between a responsive
caregiver and the infant is largely missing among infants whose parents are depressed, and this has
strong effect on the emotional development of the infant.
As infants become more accustomed to their primary caregivers, and as they experience cognitive
development enough to realize which faces are familiar and which are unfamiliar, they start to show fear
in certain situations. This begins around 9 months of age. Imagine what itʼs like for the infant. He sees a
new face, but canʼt assimilate it into his “familiar faces” schema. He responds with caution at the very
least, and often fear as well. Before 6 months of age, infants prefer being near their caregivers but donʼt
get too upset when they meet a stranger or are separated from their mother or father. Sometime between
6-9 months, the infant strongly prefers the caregivers to strangers, and makes this very clear through
separation anxiety behaviors – clinging to the caregiver when a stranger is near, crying when the
caregiver leaves, and things like that.
By the end of the second year of life, the infant becomes more aware of herself as a separate person.
This might seem weird to you, but we are not born with the knowledge of ourselves as separate people.
Watch a young infant looking into a mirror; they think the reflection in the mirror is just another infant to
play with. Around 18 months of age, most infants understand that theyʼre looking at themselves in the
mirror. A simple test makes the point clearly. Put a dot of red lipstick on an infantʼs nose, and place him
so heʼs facing a mirror. A 12-month old will probably babble and touch the mirror, paying no attention to
the red mark on the nose of the individual he presumes is a different child. Do the same thing at 18
months, and the infant will probably laugh and touch his nose. He realizes he has something funny on his
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Chapter 4, p. 2
nose! By the way, this procedure is called the mirror test. With this self-awareness comes self-aware
emotions like pride, embarrassment, guilt, and shame, as well as the use of first-person pronouns like “I.”
Isnʼt it cool how all this stuff develops together?
But wait…thereʼs more! The brain is obviously developing during this time as well, as you already know,
making all of those synapses. Emotional development is affected by this. The regions of the brain are
still pretty permeable and very plastic in infancy. Emotions can easily morph into other emotions. An
infant is laughing one second, and the laugh instantly switches into crying. Infants are also more likely to
experience connections between sensory stimulation of different sense, an experience called
synesthesia. Basically, these brain developments explain why infant emotion is sometimes unpredictable.
Infants begin making associations between experiences or people and certain emotions, and this is
because of their past experience. If they had a scary time at the doctorʼs office, for example, the neurons
that produced that fear helped the infant make an emotional memory. The next time they see that doctor,
itʼs likely the infant will feel scared again. Brain development is influenced by stress, as well, in ways that
can be seen in infant emotion. We donʼt know exactly how stress influences the brain, but we do know
that certain brain structures – like the hypothalamus – tend to grow at a slower pace among infants who
have experienced lots of stress.
Theories of Infant Psychosocial Development
What are the experiences that shape infantsʼ emotions? There are four basic perspectives on that topic –
psychoanalytic theory, behaviorism, cognitive theory, and systems theory.
Psychoanalytic theory includes both Freud and Erikson. Their theories are similar in many ways, but also
quite different in very important respects. Freud focused on how parents help infants manage conflicts
stemming from unconscious urges, like the urge to seek pleasure. The first year of life he called the oral
stage because pleasure is experienced through the mouth. Notice, itʼs true, how infants are always
sticking things in their mouths. Pleasure shifts to the anus in the second stage, according to Freud, as
infants learn to gain control over their bowel movements. Freud thought this was all unconscious.
Parents have to find the right level of structure by encouraging the infant not to overindulge in the oral
stage, and promoting healthy toilet training in the anal stage. If parents are too punishing OR too lenient,
Freud said, the result is a mark on the infantʼs personality, a trait that develops related to their
unconscious struggle at the time. This mark is referred to by Freud as fixation. Oral fixation? The child
may become gullible, “taking in” everything without discriminating. Anal fixation? The child may become
a very controlling person, “holding on” excessively. These details are not scientifically testable…and so
they havenʼt been supported by any research. We should thank Freud, however, for being among the first
of the psychological professionals to suggest that events during infancy can have a long-lasting influence
on personality. That broad idea is an important one. Whether the anus plays a key role? Probably not.
Eriksonʼs psychoanalytic theory, in contrast to Freudʼs, is focused on conscious conflicts, is scientifically
testable, and has been tested quite thoroughly. The first two stages of his theory – Trust vs. Mistrust and
Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt – provide the foundation for a lifespan of emotional development. Our first
conscious conflict is between trust and mistrust. We struggle to determine whether the world is a good
place, whether people can be trusted, whether our needs will be met. Next, as toddlers we face a conflict
between autonomy and shame or doubt. The toddlerʼs budding sense of self is apparent as the word
“NO!” is heard more frequently. Parents often refer to this as the terrible twoʼs. The infant wants to feel
autonomous, to make her own decisions. But, if things donʼt go well, she feels ashamed and doubts her
abilities. Erikson believed that the experiences of one stage remain with us and affect all subsequent
stages. At the same time, Erikson recognized the possibility for change, and he believed that
experiences during subsequent stages could help us resolve problems from challenges experienced
during past stages. An infant who learns to mistrust others is likely to have problems with autonomy as
well, for example. If things change for that child, perhaps because her parents become more responsive
and caring, she can learn to trust others and repair some of the damage from her first year of life.
Behaviorism views emotional development as learned behavior shaped by parents and other caregivers.
There arenʼt any stages in this theory. Itʼs just the general idea that infants repeat behaviors that theyʼve
been rewarded for, and they stop behaviors that they have been punished for. An infant who is given
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Chapter 4, p. 3
attention only when he cries may become a child who throws fits in an effort to get more attention. In
contrast, an infant whose parents reward her with attention for positive behaviors are reinforcing those
behaviors and making it more likely the child will repeat them in the future. Of course, itʼs never that
simple, is it? No. In addition, we learn things from observation as well. Why do parents have to tell their
kids, “Do as I say, not as I do”? Because parents realize their children have picked up behaviors simply
by observing. This is supported by the behaviorist theory called social learning theory. Parents are often
the key models for their children, but books, the media, and other children may act as models to imitate
as well.
An infantʼs thought patterns impact emotional development, an idea supported by cognitive theories.
Based on experience, infants develop a set of expectations called a working model. The working model
includes thoughts about how others are likely to respond to us. Itʼs like a schema for relationships. The
working model influences the way we perceive our relationships. But what is most important is the
infantʼs interpretation of early experiences, not necessarily the facts of those early experiences. If
experiences change, the working model may change as well. If later as an adult a person learns to
reinterpret those early experiences (maybe through therapy or in the context of a healthy romantic
relationship), the working model may change. Whatever it is, though, the working model has a significant
impact on all of our close relationships throughout the lifespan.
Systems Theory
Systems theory is always a very broad perspective, looking at how genes and our biology interact with
everything that has to do with our environment. Related to the emotional development of the first couple
years of life, itʼs interesting to take a systems theory approach to understanding the development of
personality and the development of temperament.
Temperament is a distinct reactivity style that is largely present at birth and is thought to be strongly
influence by genes. You can think of temperament as falling into three basic categories: easy, difficult,
and slow-to-warm-up. Easy babies are exactly like they sound. Theyʼre easy. They get along fairly well.
They might get upset, but they get over it quickly. These kind of babies have regular schedules, and they
tend to have a pretty sunny disposition. Itʼs different raising an easy temperament baby then raising a
difficult temperament baby. Babies with difficult temperament are a lot more reactive, a lot more
sensitive. They respond more strongly to stimuli, and this could be in a positive or negative way. Itʼs
really more notable when weʼre talking about the negative reactions. Difficult temperament babies are
more irritable. They are more easily overly stimulated. They tend not to have regular schedules, and this
could make such a child more difficult to raise. A slow-to-warm-up baby is a bit reserved. They hang
back, a little shy. They like to check the situation out first before they decide how to act. So parents of
slow-to-warm-up children wouldnʼt want to push them into some brand new day care setting without giving
that child a lot of chance to get used to the situation. Those are the three main types of temperament.
Also, there are a portion of infants who are hard to classify. They donʼt really fit into any of these
particular categories. Parents are very familiar with temperament and itʼs really interesting if you take a
look at parents who have had only one child and compare them to parents who have had two or three or
more children. Parents who only have one child tend to think they have more control over their childʼs
personality development, but once they have the second child and often times notice how different the
infants were, even from the earliest moments of life, it can really be an awakening moment of
understanding the influence of genes. Even though genes are obviously very important, I donʼt want you
to get the mistaken impression that itʼs all about genes. Temperament is not all about genes. It starts out
with genes but temperament is also influence by the experiences that the infant has.
Temperament and personality are sometimes mixed up or thought to be the same thing. In the past, we
typically thought of temperament as more the genetically influence characteristics that are there that you
can see very early in life and that personality comes more from experience and learning. Systems theory
teach us, though, not to think about things as being in such separate categories. Temperament with its
genetic influences obviously influences our personality development, but our personality development is
also going to be linked to some of these genetic basic qualities that we have been predisposed to.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 4, p. 4
One way to understand personality is by looking at the Big Five personality characteristics. These are
some of the most fundamental characteristics that have been noted in research across many different
cultures and many different language groups, and across time. An acronym to remember the Big Five is
OCEAN – O…C…E…A…N. Openness, which has to do with our interest in trying new things.
C…conscientiousness, which deals with being orderly and discipline. E...extroversion, that has to do with
how outgoing a person is, how assertive, how energetic. A…agreeableness. Agreeableness is a quality
which has to do with how soft-hearted and warm and genuine a person is. And “N” for neuroticism.
Neuroticism has to do with negative emotions and a personʼs tendency to feel very anxious and
overwhelmed. The Big Five personality characteristics are not directly tied to temperament but you can
imagine possible links. A child with a difficult temperament may be especially prone to becoming an adult
with high levels of neuroticism. A child with a slow-to-warm-up temperament could be particularly likely to
develop low levels of extroversion, meaning they will be more reserved and more quiet.
Itʼs clear that the environment plays a role in the development of personality even though we may have
these temperamental beginnings that influence us as well. This is clear when you look at some
interesting research lately conducted showing us there are actually state-to-state differences in the Big
Five characteristics. Where we grow up has an impact on our personality. But how changeable is our
temperament or personality? It depends on when weʼre looking at the lifespan. I mean, if weʼre looking at
the first few years of life, for example, there could be a lot of change. Temperament shows the greatest
stability, meaning the least change from age 3 onward. It also depends on which temperament we start
out with. Fearful infants are more likely to change over time and become less fearful. Exuberant and outgoing infants are least likely to change over time. Parents can have, and do have, a strong impact. Most
parents will tell you they had to take a different approach to some of their children based upon the childʼs
temperament and personality.
There are two types of parenting that are often very interesting to look at in how they can impact a childʼs
development – proximal parenting and distal parenting. Cultural context influences which type of
parenting is important. Basically, parents tend to raise their children with an emphasis on characteristics
that are most helpful toward thriving in that particular culture.
Proximal parenting involves a lot of contact, a lot of physical contact between the infant and the caregiver.
In these kinds of societies where proximal parenting is common, mothers may not put their infant down
much at all and thereʼs not as much face-to-face contact. This kind of parenting tends to encourage
obedience, but it tends to result in lower levels of self-awareness. These are good characteristics to be
developing if you are growing up in a collectivist society.
Distal parenting, on the other hand, which involves more face-to-face conversation and more time where
the infant is separate from the parents, even if itʼs just the infantʼs across the room playing with something
different. That kind of parenting helps promote self-awareness, but tends to result in lower levels of
obedience among the children that are raised. And this is adaptive for infants raised in more
individualistic societies. Parents behavior is influence by culture and by values and infants developed
different strengths and weaknesses as a result, but the infantʼs biological tendencies are still there and
are still important and still interact with the parenting they receive. For example, if you think about crosscultural differences, being raised in a collectivistic society, if a child has a naturally exuberant and
independent kind of temperament, then that child is probably going to be a little bit more difficult to parent
in a proximal manner. Similarly, in societies where distal parenting is emphasize, like here in the United
States, a child who is more reserved and shy and perhaps even clingy, may stand out as a more difficult
child to raise here than in a collectivistic society. Again, the point is itʼs never environment by itself, and
itʼs never genes by itself. Thatʼs the systems theory perspective. Environment and genes are constantly
influencing each other.
Weʼve talked a lot about the infant in this episode on psychosocial development. In the next episode on
psychosocial development, weʼll move out a little more broadly to consider important relationships in the
infantsʼ lives having to do with caregivers, and how those caregivers interact and influence the
development of the infant.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 4, p. 5
EPISODE 4.2 – THE FIRST TWO YEARS: SOCIAL BONDS
An infant goes from expressing pleasure and displeasure to being able to experience embarrassment and
pride by the end of their infant years. They also develop from being a being that doesnʼt really
understand that theyʼre separate from others to a toddler who can recognize him or herself in the mirror.
These developments, which we talked about in the last episode, are all influenced greatly by the
experiences that the infant has with the important people in his or her life.
The Development of Social Bonds
Infant temperament is an important aspect of a childʼs development. A child might be difficult in their
temperament, easy, or slow-to-warm-up. But its not just the temperament that determines how to a child
will turn out. Itʼs also important, too, how well the childʼs temperament is match with an appropriate
environment. One that encourages the constructive aspect of the temperament as best as possible. In
this way, nature and nurture, again, both interact. An infant with a difficult temperament will likely develop
quite differently whether she has responsive parents or harsh parents. Science may eventually show us
that parentʼs impact on the expression of infantʼs genes. Weʼre not there yet, but earlier I mentioned that
there is research showing that the way rats nurture their rat pups does have an impact on the expression
of those pupʼs genes. Some day we may find the same thing is going on with human beings. Whenever
the childʼs temperament is well-matched by an environment that encourages the most constructive
elements of that temperament, we refer to that as “goodness of fit.” So itʼs not so much what
temperament a child has, itʼs more about how well that childʼs temperament is matched by the
environment. Is it a good fit or not?
Emotional development occurs in the midst of a lot of interactions, itʼs not just an individual experience.
The baby and the caregiver spend a lot of time in face-to-face contact. While weʼre doing this, the parent
is often paying very close attention, reading the infantʼs cues, their emotions, their facial expressions, all
of their signals. Itʼs like theyʼre really trying to figure the infant out. And the caregiver responds
accordingly, mirroring back emotions, and saying back to the infant what we think the infant is
experiencing. This is called synchrony, this face-to-face, carefully timed interaction. Infants learn a lot
about emotion through synchrony. Think of how it is for the infant, the infant feels an emotion and
expresses it. The adult mirrors that emotion back, labels it, and we hope takes action to remedy the
situation. This is a lesson in emotion regulation for the infant. Synchrony is so important to the infant that
itʼs incredibly upsetting when synchrony gets disrupted. Thereʼs a method in research that shows this
very fairly, itʼs called the still-face technique. The still-face technique involves the parent establishing
synchrony with their infant, like they do a lot, but then abruptly stopping that synchrony and just looking
directly at the infant with a blank face, with a still face. This is very, very disruptive to the infantʼs
emotional experience. Most infants get very upset when their caregiver has stopped synchrony. They
may cry, or fuss, or look away. The disruption of synchrony is so upsetting that itʼs even more upsetting
than if the caregiver leaves the room. In other words, an infant would rather have mom or dad not be in
the room than be in the room giving them this still face. Responsiveness of parents, then, is incredibly
important. We may not think a whole lot is going on when we share these face-to-face moments with
infants, but these moments are crucial for the infantʼs psychosocial development. Thereʼs also good
reason to believe that these interactions influence the different development of the brain as well.
Moving close to the first year of life, somewhere around 8 or 9 months of age, infants start to show a very
strong preference for being with their caregivers. Theyʼre indicating early signs of attachment.
Attachment is a strong emotional bond that forms between two people. Our first attachment experience is
between us as infants and our caregivers. Attachment is an important foundation of our emotional
experiences and itʼs related to many other important outcomes, such as the ability to make friendships
and the ability to have healthy romantic relationships later. Attachment, then, is one of the most important
concepts that we cover in this class. Developmental psychologists has put a great emphasis on learning
about attachments because it has such an important role on our development. Creating a situation where
attachment gets triggered involves making a situation a little bit stressful for an infant. Mary Ainsworth
developed the strategy that is used most often these days and itʼs called the strange situation. We put
infants and their caregivers in a strange but not unsafe environment. Basically itʼs a play room with a
bunch of toys, but itʼs a new place the infant never has been to before so they feel a little bit uneasy
about being there. A series of separations and reunions with the caregiver and a friendly stranger is part
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Chapter 4, p. 6
of the strange situation. The caregiver and the infant start out playing in the room together and scientists
who are looking very closely at the infantʼs behavior. Does the infant explore the room freely whenever
their caregiver is there with them? Then the series of departures and reunions occur. The stranger
comes in the room, itʼs a friendly stranger, but a stranger nonetheless, sits down and starts playing. Then
mom gets up and leaves the room. We watch at this point for the infantʼs behavior when mom leaves and
the infantʼs behavior in interaction with the stranger. After a short period of time, the caregiver comes
back and we watch carefully to see how the infant reacts with the caregiverʼs return. After a few of these
interactions, we can get a pretty good idea of which attachment styles the infant best fits within. Securely
attached infants explore the room whenever they are first there with their caregiver. They might get upset
when the caregiver leaves and they tend to be very happy when the caregiver returns. Itʼs unequivocal.
Mom walks in the room and the infant holds up her hands as if to say, “Iʼm really glad to see you mom.”
Often times, the infant has gotten upset by the fact that mom left, and we see that with securely attached
infants, the caregiver is usually able to quickly sooth the infant and get them feeling okay again. Happily,
about 65% of babies in the United States are securely attached to their caregiver.
There are a few different types of insecure attachment styles. Insecure/avoidant attachment occurs
whenever we see an infant who is acting somewhat indifferent throughout the whole procedure. What I
mean is, for example, whenever they come into the play room for the first time, the infant may explore
freely, no big deal. The infant though, when the caregiver leaves, may act like they donʼt really care, like
they havenʼt even really notice. Some research have shown that infants may have physiological stress
while this is happening, but their outward appearance is if theyʼre not too bothered by this. Whenever the
caregiver comes back, an insecure avoidant baby often acts no differently. This baby often will not go up
to mom and reach for her and will not be upset and seems to act as if nothing weird has happened.
Insecure/resistant/ambivalent babies show a different pattern although itʼs still insecure. Itʼs like they want
to stay close to mom and are easily upset and frustrated. What happens in the strange situation is when
they first arrive in the room, the baby may show a reluctance to leave the caregiverʼs side. They donʼt
explore the room fully. When the caregiver leaves, the baby may be upset, but when the caregiver
returns, weʼll often see mixed emotions on the part of the infant. The infant may reach for the caregiver,
the caregiver picks the infant up and the infant may push away in anger or in frustration. In general, the
baby is not well soothed by the caregiver.
The most insecure attachment style is the disorganized attachment style. In this case, what we probably
have is the infant that is very scared of the caregiver and feels no security whatsoever in the presence of
the caregiver. In fact, the caregiver may actually make the infant feel less secure than a stranger. Such
infants are cautious and afraid to explore. And whenever the caregiver leaves, the infant may look
confused or frightened. When the caregiver returns, the baby may show a wide range of reactions, from
showing no emotion at all to freezing in the presence of the caregiverʼs return. Sadly, itʼs often the case
that infants with disorganized attachment are victims of abuse. Theyʼve learned that they have no idea
what to expect from their parents, that any moment something very scary may happen. Perhaps thatʼs
why they are more insecure around their caregiver then they are around other people.
With each of these attachment styles, think about how the infantʼs proximity to the caregiver and the
infantʼs interest in maintaining contact with the caregiver vary. With securely attached infants we have a
baby who feels secure enough in the caregiverʼs presence to be able to explore the room. When the
infant explores the room, he or she usually every once in a while checks in back with mom (Is mom over
there? Okay, there she is. Alright, she seems happy and relaxed so I guess this is okay). When the
caregiver leaves, of course that is a separation thatʼs very distressful to most securely attached infants,
but when the caregiver comes back, the infant is happy and relieved and easily soothed. With the
insecure/avoidant infant, though, itʼs as if the baby does not count on the parent to be a secure base.
They donʼt care to maintain close contact to the caregiver. Insecure/resistant/ambivalent, however, is a
different story. Those infants seem to want to stay close to mom. They want to stay close to the
caregiver. They seem preoccupied with the caregiver. Itʼs like thereʼs a lot of anxiety in the
insecure/resistant/ambivalent profile. And with the disorganized style, like I was saying a moment ago,
we have the greatest insecurity, with the caregiver not being a secure base at all and in some cases the
caregiver is actually the one that harms the infant.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 4, p. 7
Attachment styles are not necessarily life sentences. Some children may change their attachment status
with age. Also, temperament can have an influence on attachment style as well. Difficult temperament
babies have a higher rate of insecure attachments to their caregivers. Some of that is probably because
of parental behavior, but some of that is also due to what the infant brings to the interaction. That difficult
temperament can be very challenging to work with.
Parenting can also change. If parenting changes, the attachment status may also change. Remember
working models, we just discussed that as one of the cognitive theories for understanding childrenʼs
emotional development. Working models change if experience changes. Perhaps parenting was really
rocky in the first year of that infantʼs life but things got more stable. Maybe mom and dad got better jobs
and stress was reduced in the household and now theyʼre being much more sensitive and responsive to
their baby. Itʼs entirely possible that the infantʼs attachment style could change from insecure to secure.
The relationship with a caregiver provides the infant with a lot of information about emotion, how to
experience them and how to regulate them. You heard this already when we discussed synchrony. But
even more than synchrony, infants become very much aware of how their caregivers are reacting to
situations. They learn from watching adults in certain situations. This is called social referencing. In
situations where the infant in not so sure of how to feel, she will often check in with mom or dad for
evidence for how she should feel. In the strange situation, for example, social referencing could be going
on. Letʼs say we have a securely attached infant who is a little bit nervous being in this brand new room
with these toys and this stranger comes in and that makes things a little more stressful. The baby maybe
thinking, “Iʼm not sure how I should be feeling right now.” What do they do? They look at the caregiver.
Okay, mom looks relaxed. Mom seems okay with this, so I guess this is a safe situation.
There are some interesting gender differences that emerge of how infants tend to use social referencing.
Itʼs like they understand that mom provides certain social referencing information and dad may be an
expert on other kinds of social referencing information. Moms are looked to more in situations where
comfort might be required. For example, if the infant is concerned and is scared and they need some
comforting, they tend to socially reference mom more than dad. But dads get more socially reference
when itʼs a situation of excitement and fun and something unexpected is about to happen. This does not
mean that these differences are genetic. We donʼt know. It could be just the patterns that moms and
dads tend to use when they play with their infants kind of teaches infants who is most expert in which kind
of emotion. The research does show us that when it comes to parenting, moms tend to do more of the
comforting, more of the close-connected, face-to-face type nurturing. Dad, on the other hand, tend to be
more involved with more active play, high intensity play, creating exciting moments. How many times
have you seen a father toss his infant into the air? I have not seen many mothers do this. And the
research bears this out as well. Infants are picking up on our cues and are figuring out who is the best
person to watch in what situation.
Who is primarily responsible for taking the infant during the day? This could be a very contentious issue,
raising questions about priorities and about values, but itʼs also an issue that is far more complex then
you usually hear in the media or on a talk show. They may seem the choice on how to care for an infant
is a very individual one, bases on the familyʼs interest and economic values. These are important factors
to be sure, but we often forget that these decisions are heavily shaped by the larger cultural context as
well. For example, in nations where there is more support provided to new parents, in the form of paidtime-off-work for example, we tend to see fewer infants in some kind of non-familial care situation.
You may have heard some research suggesting there are some negative outcomes on infants being in
day care, especially during infancy. Something that can get very confusing thought is that we can never
create the perfect experiment where we can control all of the factors to determine what kind of impact day
care has on an infant then and on their development thereafter. The research we are able to conduct on
daycare mixes a bunch of factors together. For example, one study in England took a look at infants who
were in non-maternal care and found that they developed into less emotionally matured children
compared to those that have been cared for predominantly by their mother in their infancy. But those in
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 4, p. 8
non-maternal care were also more likely to be lower income and younger in age. We canʼt separate these
factors out so itʼs hard to tell what the impact of day care alone would be.
Take for instance the variety of care that is available. It varies dramatically in quality. Family daycare is
different from center daycare. Family day care is where an individual, usually in their home, cares for a
mix of different children, usually of different ages. And younger children may not get the attention they
need. In center daycare, usually children are group by age and thereʼs often a larger staff so children are
getting more attention, but quality varies greatly. Some daycare centers are amazingly wise about
development, where the professionals working there have taken courses in child development and are
doing their best to provide a developmentally appropriate experience for the infants in their care. Others,
on the other hand, may be poorly staff, there may not be enough attention paid to each infant, and the
focus maybe more on the infantʼs physical needs than on stimulating the infantʼs emotional and cognitive
development. High quality daycare centers tend to have a positive impact on a childʼs development,
especially on their cognitive and language development. Perhaps because those infants are spending so
much time with other infants and thereʼs a lot of interaction going on while theyʼre there. Even though this
is the case, the best predictor of the childʼs development, even when theyʼre looking at hours of daycare
and quality daycare, the best predictor is the warmth of the mother-infant relationship. But some
differences do emerge in the research having to do with the gender of the child. And also with the income
level of the family. Regarding emotional adjustment, there tends to be a negative impact of non-maternal
care in boys from high socio-economic status homes, but a positive impact on boys from low socioeconomic homes. We donʼt see such a different in socio-economic status and the development of girls.
Weʼre not exactly sure why this is the case but this finding has emerge in several different studies.
Remember though, we canʼt control for all the other factors so we still canʼt pin it on one or two things.
Interestingly, one of the big complaints that you often hear about childcare is that the parents arenʼt
spending enough time with the infants. The idea is that presumably, since the parents are working,
theyʼre not spending very much time playing with their baby. Studies have shown that working moms
spend about 14.5 hours a week playing with their baby. Mothers who donʼt work outside of the home
spend about 16 hours per week doing so. Itʼs a difference of about 1.5 hours a week. That surprises a lot
of people. What they may not realize is that most working mothers are sacrificing leisure time and time
with their husbands to be able to spend more time with their infant. Perhaps thatʼs one of the reasons
why the warmth of the mother-infant relationship stands out as the strongest predictor of the infantʼs
development.
When it comes to infant psychosocial development, and for that case just about any other kind of
development, we canʼt boil it down to simple answers. We canʼt point the finger at one single thing that
went wrong, or the one thing that was right that led the child to develop in a healthy manner. Itʼs just not
that simple. Genes, culture, parenting…it all has an influence and each of those factors influences all the
other factors as well.
The foundation for emotional and social development is created in infancy, but as you would expect in a
lifespan development class, itʼs definitely not the end of the story.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 5, p. 1
EPISODE 5.1 – EARLY CHILDHOOD: PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
In early childhood, ages two through six, children look much less like infants and more like little
boys and girls. This is thanks in part to the combination of growth in height and change in
proportion. Many parents are worried that their children are too thin during the early childhood
years. But as long as there isn't some kind of medical deficiency, most children at this age are
naturally thin and that's okay.
Eating and Growing
Parents also worry about their children's eating habits. I know a mother whose daughter would
eat only refried beans in a certain colored bowl for a long period of time during early childhood. It
was such a battle to get her to eat anything else. It's actually quite common for children ages 2 to
6 to have a lot of “just right” preferences: they may insist on eating only certain kinds of foods, will
only eat if their food is on a certain color plates, and other kinds of really picky preferences. Most
kids will outgrow this so it's usually not anything to be worried about.
A potential problem worthy of attention, though, is undernutrition. Are our children getting the
healthy balance of nutrients that are recommended? Children need fewer calories in early
childhood than they needed in infancy, but they still need essential nutrients. We may think that
giving our children fortified cereal will take care of everything, but that is not the case. First of all,
that cereal is usually chock full of sugar, and we don't know if it contains all of the vitamins that a
child needs for healthy development. We don't even know all that there is to know about nutrition
yet, so, just because the cereal is enriched, that doesn't mean it contains all of the nutrients that
are critical for child health. The best plan is to encourage a well-balanced diet. Of course, this can
be very challenging if the child has their “just right” demands. As long as we can find something
healthy that the child will eat, though, that's better than relying on fortified cereal to do the job. It's
also better than relying on fast food, which is unfortunately very common. It's especially common
in low socioeconomic status families where obesity is a growing problem. In fact, some experts
predict that current generations of young children may not live as long as their parents because of
the increases in heart disease and diabetes that stem from a high-fat diet.
Children have amazing energy during this phase of development. They love to practice their
motor skills again and again, usually through play. Gross motor skills are developed quite well
during these years, as children run around and use their larger muscle groups to play. By the age
of three or four, children have become much better at handling the movement of their bodies. Just
compare the toddler–appropriately named for his hearing, precarious walking abilities–to the
preschool child, and you will notice how much more confident the movements of the older child
seem.
Fine motor skills, on the other hand, take longer to develop and require more patience and control
of the smaller muscles, like those of the fingers. But they're getting much better. Just compare
how a toddler and preschooler approach holding a paintbrush: the toddler grips it in his fist, while
the preschooler holds it more like a writing utensil. The development of fine motor skills is also
apparent in the variety of crayons available to small children: crayons for the youngest children
are much larger and wider than crayons for older children. This is due to the fact that younger
children have a hard time getting a grip on those skinny little crayons.
The physical development of children can be hampered by environment hazards like air pollution,
secondhand smoke, pesticides, and other dangers. We need a lot more research in this area.
Currently, one of the best understood hazards for children is lead. Lead is correlated negatively
with intelligence and positively with behavior problems. In other words children who are exposed
to lead tend to have lower intelligence scores and higher levels of problem behaviors. At high
levels of lead exposure, it can even cause mental retardation or death. There are things that
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 5, p. 2
parents can do to protect their children from lead, though. Calcium reduces lead levels, so making
sure the child has enough calcium is one tip. Parents should also take care to try to reduce the
amount of lead the child is exposed to by removing lead paint and checking for products that they
have in the home, including toys, that may contain lead.
Brain development
Many of the brain developments of infancy continue in early childhood, as children continue to
form new synapses between neurons. Synaptic pruning continues as well, as unused synapses
are removed so that the neurons can return to an unassigned state. These changes in the brain
are accompanied by increases in attention, memory, coordination, and more. The frontal lobe is
the location of much of the spring growth. One of the tasks of the frontal lobe is to inhibit
impulsivity. Growth in this area is evident when you compare the emotional regulation skills of the
two-year-old and a five-year-old. The former is far more likely than the latter to throw an all-out
temper tantrum. This is because, from age 2 to age 5, the frontal cortex becomes more mature
and can direct the functioning of the emotional regions of the brain. Incidentally, this part of the
frontal cortex does not reach complete maturity until the early adult years, which also helps
explain why we are better at handling emotions and our 30s than we were as teenagers.
Children's brains are getting faster, more coordinated, and better regulated. There's still a long
way to go, but it's clear that preschoolers have made great strides. Myelination gradually
increases during these years. The axons of our neurons are coated in myelin and that insures
that messages are sent more quickly and efficiently between our neurons. This is so essential to
our functioning. If you have ever seen the movie Lorenzo's oil, you know how important
myelination is. Lorenzo is a child who suffered from a degenerative disorder where myelination is
stripped from the neurons. Eventually, this condition results in paralysis and death if not treated.
The movie focused on one father's efforts to find a cure, and although the substance he helped
discover has shown mixed results in the research, it did seem to slow the progress of Lorenzo's
disease. He was paralyzed and could not talk, but he communicated by wiggling his fingers.
Sadly, Lorenzo died in May of 2008 at the age of 30, but he lived 20 years longer than doctors
predicted. So we should be very thankful if we are lucky enough to have myelin that is developing
properly.
Our left and right hemisphere are becoming better coordinated in early childhood, thanks to the
development of the corpus callosum. The corpus callosum is a massive body of neurons that
connects the two hemispheres and allows them to communicate. Our hemispheres tend to
specialize in certain functions. The left hemisphere specializes in the movement of the right side
of her body, for example, and also specializes in noticing details and helping us produce
language. It doesn't mean that the right hemisphere is incapable of doing these things. But it
means that certain areas of our brain are really good at performing certain functions and tend to
do them rapidly. It's a myth that a person could be right brained or left brained. We are whole
brained, thanks to the corpus callosum. We don't even notice any kind of lag between our left and
right hemispheres communicating because of the corpus callosum, and it is developing rapidly
during early childhood.
The brain is becoming better regulated, thanks to the development of the prefrontal cortex. This
part of the brain helps focus our attention and checks our impulses. Now, it's developing in early
childhood but is far from mature. A four-year-old can pay attention longer then a four-month old,
but a 10-year-old can pay attention much longer than a four-year-old. The development of the
prefrontal cortex is very gradual, but the maturation that occurs during the early childhood years
allows children to manage their emotions better and have fewer temper tantrums, and helps them
be able to shift their attention from one task to another. But again, they have a long way to go in
developing their attention in the years ahead.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 5, p. 3
The prefrontal cortex is challenged by the activity of the emotional area of the brain. The
amygdala is the brain structure that processes gut level emotions, especially fear. When it's very
active, especially in early childhood, it overwhelms the functioning of the prefrontal cortex. This
means that it's very hard for children at this age to regulate their emotions; they feel something
and they express it. How often do you express everything you feel? Well, once we are about 25
years old or so, scientists think that our prefrontal cortex has matured. So we get much better at
regulating our emotions. Imagine how far the preschool child has to go. Another structure that
works with the amygdala is the hippocampus, which helps process memories for storage.
Together with the amygdala, hippocampus helps the child figure out when to be afraid and when
to feel relaxed. When the child is afraid, just like when you or I are afraid, a structure called the
hypothalamus alerts the hormonal system to release stress hormones. If the child is exposed to a
lot of very scary experiences early in life, their brains could be regularly inundated with stress
hormones, which could affect the development of their brain.
EPISODE 5.2 – EARLY CHILDHOOD: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Thinking During Early Childhood
The mind of the preschool child is a magical place. They are able to make mental
representations, and they understand things exist even when they can't be seen, thanks to object
permanence. They're getting so good with words and mental representations and objects, that
they can pretend that one object is a symbol for something else. In pretend play, a plastic banana
could suddenly become a telephone. The child's friend could suddenly become the teacher as
they prepare to play school. Symbolic thinking has advanced. But the preschool child also shows
clear limitations in their thought processes. Children tend to focus on one aspect of an object,
person, or situation. This is called centration. They often center their thinking on their own
perspective, a phenomenon called egocentrism. This isn't the kind of selfishness that we think of
when we call an adult egocentric. Rather, it's a cognitive limitation, an inability to be able to take
the perspective of another person. This can explain why preschool children are not so great at
hide-and-seek. They have their eyes covered and they're bent over. And so, since they can't see
you, they think you can see them, and they don't realize that half of their body is hanging out
there in plain sight. The appearance of things can also throw them off. Children might become
confused after meeting a girl with short hair, because in their mind only boys have short hair.
Static reasoning is a limitation where the preschooler believes that things always change all at
once. Irreversibility is yet another limitation, where the child has difficulty working backwards after
a series of behaviors have occurred. Let's say that Dad put a tomato on their hamburger, the child
complains, and Dad says, “OK. Well, I'll just take it off.” That might not be enough for the child,
because they have a hard time understanding that now it's just a hamburger once the tomato has
been taken off. They have difficulty understanding that you can reverse that action and return the
burger to its original state.
In early childhood, they have trouble understanding logical operations, like conservation.
Conservation is kind of a funny word, I think, but in this context it means the ability to understand
that the amount of the substance hasn't changed just because its appearance has changed. If we
take two clay balls of the same size, and I smash one in front of you, you know that I haven't
taken away any of the clay. I just changed its appearance and shape. Preschoolers have a hard
time with this. They think if the appearances changed, this means that the amount of the
substance has changed as well. The classic example involves showing a preschool child two
glasses of water that clearly have the same amount in them. Then, take one of his glasses and
pour it into a taller, skinnier class. Now, the appearance has changed. The water level is higher in
the skinnier and taller glass, right? But you and I know it's still the same amount of fluid. The
preschool child has difficulty with this, in part because they get thrown off by the appearance.
They usually think that there's more in the taller skinny glass, even though they watched you pour
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 5, p. 4
that original same-sized glass of water into the tall skinny glass. See, they're having trouble with
reversibility, too. Finally, preschool children tend to project their egocentrism on to inanimate
objects and assume that those objects operate like human beings do. The child may ask, “Why
are the clouds crying?” when it's raining, assuming the clouds operate like human beings. This is
called animism.
Anyone who has ever helped a child work a puzzle has experienced the social context of their
learning and cognitive development. A child can complete a much more challenging puzzle with
the help of someone older and wiser than they can complete by themselves. A little bit of
structure and a little bit of hinting can go a long way. This is what Vigotsky noted, that social
interaction facilitates learning. Children are the apprentices of adults and others who are older or
wiser than them. It's like they are apprentices in thinking. We structure the learning environment
in certain ways to help children figure things out. Scaffolding occurs when we structure the
learning environment so that the child is operating just outside of the level of skill they could do by
themselves. This is called the zone of proximal development, that range of task that they can
complete with the help of others. To help with this social interaction,Vygotsky believed language
was an important tool. You can see this happening with children as they begin to move out of
their zone of proximal development, and into a range of being able to do it by themselves. Private
speech can often be heard. This is when the child is talking to him or herself, reminding
themselves of what they need to do next in order to complete a task. In this way, language serves
a role as a social mediation tool, connecting the past experience they've had in the social context
with their future ability to do it by themselves.
Children develop their own theories about the way things work. They're trying to figure out what's
going on. How often do you hear a child between the ages of two and six asked the question,
“Why?” They want to learn more. They're searching for explanations. This is called the theory
theory. Eventually, they begin to understand how other people's minds work. Remember, with
egocentrism, they are incapable of taking the perspective of others. But, as they observe events
in their lives and as they develop their cognitive skills, they begin to see that others have their
own thought processes, and that others' thoughts might be different from their own. This can be
really weird to understand from our perspective as adults, because of course we know that other
people have minds and think different things than we think. This was not obvious to us until
probably around 4 1/2 years or five years of age. Understanding the minds of others and how
they operate is called theory of mind. We can test theory of mind by asking children to imagine
situations where they know something that someone else doesn't know. For example, imagine
that they've just been shown that a box of crayons actually contains M&Ms inside. If you ask a
three-year-old what someone else is likely to think is in that crayon box, she will probably say
M&Ms. She thinks that because she knows there's M&Ms in the box, that everyone else knows it,
too. She hasn't figured out that other people will have a different perspective because they've not
yet seen inside the box. Around five years of age, most children come to this realization. In the
scenario I described, a five-year-old who already knows there's M&Ms in that crayon box would
probably say that someone else think there are crayons in the box, even though he knows that
there are actually M&Ms in the box. The maturation of the brain influences this development.
Theory of mind is influenced not only by brain development, but by other influences as well.
Children who have excellent language skills tend to develop theory of mind earlier. Children who
have older siblings tend to develop it earlier as well. Culture also plays a role. In cultures where
the perspectives of others are emphasized more greatly than here in the United States, theory of
mind occurs a little bit earlier. And, in children with autism, an absence of theory of mind is
usually seen. These children may always have difficulty understanding the perspective of others.
Language Development
Language development continues in the early childhood years, but it's not as critical a period of
change as infancy was. Think of early childhood as a sensitive period in language development, a
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Chapter 5, p. 5
time when vocabulary rapidly increases and children show that they're learning the grammar of
their native language. Fast mapping occurs when children are able to quickly map a new word on
to their pre-existing vocabulary. If they know the word horse, then learning what a zebra is may
not take very long because they can fast map it. Imagine a network of neurons in the brain related
to the vocabulary that the child has learned, and think about how a new word can get connected
right into that network very quickly. Furthermore, myelination helps speed the process of being
able to make these connections. Chinese children have an advantage when learning the words
that represent numbers, because their number system is more logical than ours. They go from 10
to the equivalent of 10-1, to represent what we would call 11. This lets them fast map new
numbers rapidly, and may help explain some of their progress over other countries (including the
United States) in mathematics scores. The words that children still struggle with in early
childhood, though, are comparison words like near and far. And they're beginning to demonstrate
their ability to use grammar, although (paradoxically) their grammar skills sometimes show up in
the mistakes that they make. Overregularization is when a child incorrectly applies a rule of
grammar. We see this when there is some kind of exception to a rule that the child hasn't yet
learned, yet their mistake shows us that they've internalized a rule. Imagine a child has just been
told that mommy is going to the store. Mommy leads. Then the child may say, “Mommy goed to
the store.” Think about what this represents. They know that they want to talk about mom's
behavior in the past tense. They know that you add “ed” to the end of a verb to make it past
tense. Mom and Dad never say goed; Mom and Dad say “Mommy went to the store.”
Overregularization reveals that the child has internalized rules of grammar. They just haven't
figured out all the exceptions yet.
We live in a nation where it's common for children to grow up with exposure to more than one
language, but is this good for their language development? Yes, it can be, especially if their
exposure to both languages is fairly even. Sometimes such kids are referred to as balanced
bilinguals, meaning that they had equal exposure to their two languages growing up. Research
has shown that there are advantages to being bilingual, such as excellent executive control skills,
the kind of skills that help the child switch between one way of thinking to a different way of
thinking. And, for most bilinguals, if they learn their second language before the age of six, it's
processed in the very same area of the brain as their native language. This indicates that the
brain is ready and prepared to be capable of learning more than one language at a time. But it
can also give us clues as to why it's so difficult to learn a second language after the childhood
years. It's more of a cognitive exercise like learning a brand new subject in school.
Schooling Experiences
Speaking of school, what kind of school is most appropriate for early childhood? There are two
main ways of teaching children at this age: child centered programs, and teacher directed
programs. Child centered programs are very focused on child development. Teachers often have
to take courses in child development before they can work at such programs. Teachers are not
passive, but are instead very involved and aware of the different developments going on in the
children's lives. For example, there's a lot of emphasis on the theories of Piaget and Vygotsky in
a child centered program. You will see teachers scaffolding learning experiences for children. You
will see teachers creating centers where children can discover things on their own, like a science
area where children are encouraged to mix different substances just to see what would happen.
Of course, there's always a strong emphasis on safety, and I can verify that this is true because
I've worked at a child centered program. It's great all that you can do to stimulate the child's mind.
Montessori schools are also child centered programs, and they focus especially intently on
children's curiosity and activities that help the child feel like an independent person, developing a
sense of pride in their own work. The Reggio Emilia approach is very similar as well, with an
emphasis on creativity again, but with more attention placed on the actual physical space where
the child is playing: lots of open space, big glass walls, lots of greenery.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 5, p. 6
In contrast to these child centered programs, teacher directed program are more of what you
would expect to see in a typical grade school setting, where students sit quietly and work, and the
teacher instructs in the front of the room. These programs are more affordable, partially because
they require fewer staff. There is a higher child to teacher ratio in teacher centered programs,
because there isn't so much chaos and freewheeling activity that the adults have to supervise, as
there often is in a child centered program. Research shows us that child centered programs are
more supportive and encouraging of children's development than teacher centered programs. For
example, it just isn't developmentally appropriate to expect a child between the ages of two and
five to be able to still for a long period of time. You end up spending a lot of time in a teacher
centered program just getting the children to sit still, time that could be spent instead encouraging
their creativity and sense of pride.
Injuries and Maltreatment
The curiosity and the motor skills of children between the ages of two and six allow them to do
amazing things, but the risk is that children at this age are also at a great risk of having accidents.
The number one cause of death in early childhood is accidents. That's why it's best to focus on
ways of reducing harm through three levels of prevention: primary, secondary, and tertiary
prevention. Primary prevention focuses on changing the conditions in which the child lives in
order to reduce the risk of injury in the first place. Secondary prevention is about focusing on
children who are already in high risk situations and helping them avoid harm that they face in
those conditions. Tertiary prevention is kind of a misnomer, because it's about what you do after
accidents have occurred. Tertiary prevention occurs when we try to limit damage after an injury
occurs. This can happen whenever we realize after an accident that there's something unsafe
about a certain playground, so we go back and we fix the playground to try to prevent any such
accidents from happening again in the future. These harm reduction strategies have helped us
reduce the number of accidents that young children experience.
Unfortunately, some children are harmed within their own homes at the hands of their own
parents or caregivers. Child maltreatment refers to any kind of intentional harm that is done to a
child under the age of 18, including any kind of avoidable endangerment. If the child is living in a
home with an alcoholic parent, and the other parent is aware of this, and that leads to child alone
with the alcoholic parent, for example, that is an avoidable endangerment. When a child is directly
harmed in a physical, emotional or sexual way, that's referred to as child abuse. But sometimes
maltreatment occurs because no one is paying attention and the child's needs are not being met.
This is called child neglect, and it can involve caregivers who do not meet a child's needs, like
their physical, emotional, or educational needs.
It's hard to get an accurate estimate of how much child maltreatment occurs. Not all cases are
reported, investigated, and verified. Substantiated maltreatment is maltreatment that's been
investigated and verified, but it's estimated that about two thirds of reported cases are never
substantiated, and we don't even know how many cases weren't reported to begin with. We also
have the problem of the child's awareness of what's going on, because sometimes children don't
realize that they're going through maltreatment when it's happening. The responsibility lies on the
adults in the scenario to notice the signs of maltreatment. Caregivers and teachers and anyone
who works with children must be trained to recognize potential signs, like delays in development,
adult themes coming out and pretend play, or injuries that are unusual or difficult to explain.
Obviously, child maltreatment can have devastating impacts on the long-term development of a
child, not just in their biological development, but also regarding their cognitive and social
development as well. If maltreatment has occurred and the child is considered to be at risk of
future harm, a decision may be made–a tertiary prevention effort, in fact–to remove the child from
the home. The child may be placed in foster care, whether they're being cared for by another
family member or by a non-related adult. The tough thing is that most foster children do not find a
permanent home right away; the average foster child has about three placements before they are
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 5, p. 7
placed in a permanent home.
You can see that the early childhood years are full of possibility, as these little human being are
making rapid connections between brain cells, learning more and more about their native
language, using their bodies in a more coordinated and skillful way. But, when damage occurs at
this time, it can still have a dramatic impact on the rest of the child's life. That's why we must
make it a priority as adults to be on the lookout for the welfare of young children.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 6, p. 1
EPISODE 6.1 – EARLY CHILDHOOD: EMOTIONS, PLAY, AND PARENTING
I was a preschool teacher once, and let me tell you, it was one of the most rewarding and difficult
jobs I've ever had. Children have so much energy at this age and so much confidence. They want
to try new things, but at the same time they can still fall apart in an emotional tantrum at the drop
of a hat. This is the first of two episodes about psychosocial development in early childhood, and
this one will examine emotional development, play, and parenting.
Emotional Development
Erikson believed that children were struggling with the challenge of initiative versus guilt. They
want to try new things, they want to do things well, and they have incredibly high self-esteem. In
fact, their self-esteem is unrealistically high. That's okay, though, because this high self-esteem
pushes them to be brave enough to try new things. As they get into the middle childhood years,
they'll have a better understanding of their true skills and a more realistic self-esteem. The risk
during this stage is that the child may try things but not succeed. Maybe they make mistakes.
Maybe their parents are impatient and yell at them for being so adventuresome. The outcome
could then be guilt and shame. Guilty feelings come from within the child herself, whereas shame
comes from the recognition that the child has that they have disappointed others in their social
world.
Children are learning slowly how to regulate their emotions. Remember, their prefrontal cortex is
developing but is still relatively immature. So they are gaining some control over the expression of
their emotions, but they don't have complete control yet. I don't know, do any of us ever have
complete control over our emotions? Anyway, the motivation behind children's behaviors in
regards to expressing their emotions may come from within (intrinsic motivation) or may come
from external pressures (extrinsic motivation). At first, the child may not want to cry at preschool
because he is worried that the other kids will make fun of him. That's extrinsic motivation.
Eventually, we hope that his emotional expression becomes more and more guided by intrinsic,
internalized motivation. Think about the role this plays when a child is having fun. Why do the
child play? Because she's intrinsically motivated. She enjoys it. She does things because they're
fun.
It can be a danger if the child is having trouble with emotional regulation. We need to learn how to
regulate emotions, but we don't want to overregulate our emotions. Problems with emotional
regulation can reflect an early warning sign for future psychopathology. Problems occur when the
child regulates too much, and also when the child doesn't regulate enough. Externalizing
disorders tend to arise among children who do not regulate their emotions enough. These are
children who are prone to lashing out, often in anger. But it's also a problem to hold in emotions
too much. This can result in internalizing problems, where there's a lot of fear and the child
withdraws as a way of managing his emotions. Externalizing disorders would involve things like
conduct disorder. Internalizing disorders would include anxiety and depression and other
psychological disorders. Both boys and girls can have both of the kinds of problems, but in
general girls tend to internalize and boys tend to externalize. We don't have any specific brain
related differences we can point to to explain this difference as of now, but the difference also
holds in adulthood. Think about it. Internalizing disorders like depression are much more common
among women than among men. Externalizing problems like drug and alcohol abuse or
criminality are much more common among men than in women.
So it's clear that we need to place a high priority on helping children learn how to regulate their
emotions, and this is where caregivers come in. Interestingly, a parent with a difficult
temperament child may actually end up having many more opportunities to teach their child to
regulate emotions. But, regardless of temperament, parents play an important role in walking their
child through the experience of an emotion. Think about that child's amygdala firing full force, and
her relatively weak prefrontal cortex is hardly any kind of match. Emotions overwhelm her. She
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Chapter 6, p. 2
needs a caregiver to patiently and kindly help talk her through the experience, from identifying the
emotion to thinking of ways to handle the situation. Many parents are doing a great job at this, but
when there is child abuse or neglect in the home the child is getting the wrong kind of training:
they're learning how not to regulate emotions. But a child could have terrific parents and still
develop internalizing or externalizing disorders. Parents do not deserve all of the blame when
things turn out badly, but parents also do not deserve all of the praise when things turn out well.
We always have this child who brings with him his genetic predispositions, and goodness of fit
between that temperament and the environment matters greatly.
Play
What was our job as preschoolers? To play. Play is the work of the child. But play isn't just a way
to have fun; play provides loads of opportunities for learning. Take emotional regulation, for
example. Sure, children learn about emotional regulation from their parents, but they learned
different kinds of emotional regulation skills with their friends in play. They have to figure out how
to negotiate, how to interact with someone and make decisions when you are on the same level.
Parents usually go along with everything that the child has requested in play. If the child says,
“You play the doggie!” The parent says, “Okay.” That isn't always the case with friends. A child's
friend may not want to be the doggie this time because she was the doggie last time. Maybe she
wants to be the kitty this time. How do you come to a decision when there are two people at the
same level of authority? Children begin to face this challenge in the early childhood years, and it's
a challenge that will continue to be important to master in the grade school and adolescent years
as well.
Children have always been motivated to play, although today children watch a lot more television
than they used to. What they see on television often comes out in their play, and they pick up on
a lot of what they see. Even by the age of six, children begin to show knowledge about sex
because of what they've seen on TV. It used to be the case that knowledge about sex in
childhood was an indicator of child sexual abuse. It could still be, so concerned caregivers,
friends, or neighbors should always look into a suspicious situation. But, it is also the case that
children today are likely to have a certain amount of knowledge about sex simply by being
exposed to television programs. This doesn't mean that they understand correct things about sex;
in fact, their sexual understanding tends to be very confused.
When they step away from the television, there are many types of play children may engage in.
They may play by themselves, which is called solitary play. They may spend their time watching
other kids play, which is referred to as onlooker play. Sometimes children will play in the same
room with other children but they're playing with different toys and not directly interacting with
each other. This is called parallel play. As they get a little bit older, children engage more in
associative play where they interact directly with others. Play becomes more collaborative and is
called cooperative play when the children are engaged in an activity in a very reciprocal and
mutual way. Let me make sure that this difference between associative play and cooperative play
is very clear. Have you ever seen children playing together, watching each other, sharing some of
the same toys, but not directly incorporating each others' observations or behaviors into the
overall play experience? That's associative play. Contrast that with play where the children are
clearly working together on some kind of joint activity, taking turns and incorporating each other's
behaviors or statements into the play. That's cooperative play. But it's interesting to note that the
research behind these types of play was conducted a long time ago, and more recent research
suggests that it's becoming more and more common for children to prefer solitary play. This may
be a very Western phenomenon, having to do with our cultural emphasis on individualism. In fact,
in some cultures it's quite normal for children to begin sharing and cooperating earlier than we
see here in the United States, even at the age of two or three. Remember, development is
multicontextual and multicultural.
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Chapter 6, p. 3
Children like to run around a lot. This is good for developing their motor skills and for allowing
them to release some of their boundless energy. Sometimes it may almost look like children are
fighting, when they're actually just engaged in rough-and-tumble play. We see this happening all
across the world. It's a universal phenomenon that is especially common among boys. look at the
children's faces and that will tell you whether they are really fighting or just playing around. You'll
see a play face, a smile on the faces of the children as they wrestle and tumble around, if it's
rough-and-tumble play. It's like building their own little playground where aggression and activity
are okay. Children regulate themselves. Imagine children playing tag. They realize that a child
has been "it" too long so they slow down so someone else can get tagged and be "it." Sure,
there's always the possibility that a child may take it too far and play too rough. In most cases,
children realize when they've hurt someone, they apologize, and they see what they need to do to
make amends. If that doesn't happen, it's likely that that child will not be invited into rough-andtumble play as much in the future. We should notice when and if this is happening frequently,
because it could be an early warning sign of a child with emotional regulation problems. If we
intervene now and try to teach that child some social skills, perhaps it will prevent them from
becoming a child who is rejected by the peer group later.
Playing pretend is another favorite activity in early childhood. This is called sociodramatic play,
because it takes place among friends in a social context and involves acting out certain roles like
teacher, baby, and so forth. In this case, it's like they're making their own theater productions that
allow them to explore roles and things that they've seen in the world happening around them.
They learn about emotions as well, when they pretend to be upset or happy or scared as they
play their role. Children are interacting with equals, other children, during sociodramatic play.
They have to communicate their ideas persuasively in order to get other children to go along with
the story they're telling. Negotiation skills and other social skills are important for this. The stories
told in sociodramatic play are really simple when children are two or three years old, but the
stories become incredibly complex with elaborate roles and plots and situations as the children
develop. There are gender differences to note as well. Boys' sociodramatic play tends to focus
on themes of good and evil, whereas girls' sociodramatic play involves more domestic themes
(like playing house).
Challenges for Parents
What's the best way to parent a child? Good question. You can get in pretty heated discussions
with people by asking them what they think is the best way to parent a child. Although there have
been many attempts to figure out the different ways adults can parent and which of these are
most effective, parenting styles vary by historical period and by culture as well. Research
conducted before I was born is still used as the primary basis for understanding parenting styles.
This research was conducted by Diana Baumrind, who interviewed and observed many preschool
children and their parents. Her work uncovered for basic parenting styles. How many of you have
heard parents say, “Because I said so!”? You might've been listening to an authoritarian parent.
Authoritarian parents rule with an iron fist. They decide what the rules will be, and they enforce
them strictly. There is no room for discussion; the child is simply expected to obey. It's good that
the child is given some structure and knows what the consequences will be for his or her actions.
But the trouble with authoritarian parenting, especially here in United States, is the lack of
emotional warmth. The parents clearly love their children, but their interactions with their children
are focused mostly on making sure that the rules are enforced. It can make children feel distant
from their parents and like their parents don't care. These children tend to grow up to be obedient,
but unhappy or even depressed.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are permissive parents. They are very warm. They listen to
their children and are very responsive to them. The problem is that they don't provide any
structure. Anything goes. Children get the sense that they are loved and that they are permitted to
express themselves, which is great. But it can be very tough on kids when they are raised without
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Chapter 6, p. 4
any structure. The risk is that children with permissive parents may not develop the self-control
that's needed to become a mature and fully functioning individual. Permissive parents may also
step in to defend their child inappropriately if there's been a problem at school. I'm not talking
about simply looking out for your child's best interests. I'm talking about always assuming that the
child is right and that others who had different perspectives must be wrong. Imagine that a fight
has broken out at school, and the child is identified as the instigator (the one who started it), but
the permissive parent simply can't accept that that's possible and defends the child even when
the evidence clearly shows he was at fault. See how it would be hard to develop that internal
sense of responsibility and self-control if you were raised this way?
Authoritative parenting falls somewhere in between authoritarian and permissive parenting. You'll
want to keep in mind that it sounds a lot like authoritarian, so do what you have to to distinguish
these two terms in your mind. Authoritative parenting involves warmth shown to the child and
structure. Children learn that there are rules that need to be followed, but they also learn that it's
okay to speak up and ask why. Authoritative parents don't say, “Because I said so.” The parents
listen to what the child has to say, but make the decision in the end. This doesn't mean that the
children run the show. Not at all. Authoritative parents are very much the authority figure, but they
allow for the child to express him or herself. They place a high premium on communication. I had
a student once who told me that her parents would require her to write an argumentative essay
defending her position when she disagreed with their rule. This was when she was a teenager,
but I still think it's a great example of authoritative parenting. They would read her paper and
consider her position. Sometimes they were persuaded to change their mind or to bend on a
certain rule, but sometimes they stuck to their original decision. In the United States, authoritative
parenting tends to be the best for child development. But it's not a guarantee. None of these
parenting styles offer guarantees. The child's devleopment also depends on the child's
temperament, cultural influences, and interpretations.
Neglectful or uninvolved parenting is the fourth style and the worst style for child development.
These are parents who are simply checked out. They don't know what is going on in their child's
life. They don't set many rules, but they also don't show much warmth. It's as though they really
don't care, so you can imagine that this parenting style is not healthy for child development. Being
involved with children is the most important thing, even if you're an authoritarian parent who is too
harsh, or a permissive parent who is too lenient.
Ok, so you know that the neglectful and uninvolved parenting style is the worst, but which style is
the best? We discussed how authoritative parenting tends to be the best in the United States,
given our culture that emphasizes independence. It's a great idea to emphasize independence in
your children when you're raising them in a culture where they are expected to become very
independent people. We place a premium on the importance of our children growing up with the
idea that they should be permitted to speak their mind. This style may not go over so well in
cultures where individualism is not emphasized. Authoritarian parenting tends to result in negative
outcomes in the United States, but may not have the same negative impact in other cultures
where the parental behaviors are interpreted differently due to the cultural context. A child raised
in an Asian culture may interpret their parents' demands as evidence that their parents care. It's
not exactly what we would call warmth here in the United States, but we make our interpretations
based in part on our cultural context. If you take a systems approach to the issue of parenting,
you realize it's very difficult to come to a conclusion that one parenting style is always the best.
What is the child's temperament? Let's say we have a boy with an easy temperament who is
raised by permissive parents. And let's say he's the kind of child who is very outgoing and kind
and likes to please others. His permissive parents may not have a negative impact on his
development. Perhaps this boy has already had a predisposition toward high self-control. Imagine
a girl raised by the same parents, a girl who is rambunctious and strong-willed. Raised by
permissive parents, she may exert her will and get her way again and again and again. She may
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Chapter 6, p. 5
become a very selfish, self-centered, and demanding person. Her parents didn't make her that
way, but there was a lack of goodness of fit. Consider a very emotionally sensitive child, let's say
a boy who needs a lot of reassurance and is fairly quiet, if you pair him with authoritarian parents
he may become a very withdrawn and depressed individual. Parenting styles have different
impacts depending upon the temperament of the child. Also, parents sometimes change their
style over time, or a child's two parents may have two different parenting styles.
Parents are challenged these days by figuring out how much media to expose their child to. It's
inescapable. Media is everywhere. Were also living in an age where it's important to expose
children to technology because it will most certainly play a fundamental role in their lives. So we
don't want to keep our kids sheltered away from media entirely, but we also need to be careful
and thoughtful about the media they consume, to whatever extent we are capable. Children really
like to watch TV, so they will sit there for a long time feeling very content. During the early
childhood years, research tells us that children are watching around three hours of television
every day. This research was conducted in 2004, though, so the number may even be higher
today. We have to remember that children do not have the same cognitive skills that we have, so
they may take different things away from media than we do. We may understand that a television
program is just pretend, that what we see on the television screen isn't really the way things really
are. Why should we expect young children to be able to come to the same conclusions, especially
given the fact that they have difficulty at this age with logical thinking and are quite egocentric in
their perspective? A finding that has been replicated many times is that watching violent television
programs is correlated with an increase in violent behavior among children, and this tells us that
media has a considerable impact on children's development.
What about educational television? There are some good programs available today, it's true. But
there's still the issue of how much time the child spends in the relatively passive mode of
watching TV compared to the more interactive experience of talking or playing with another
human being. Take language development, for example. Language development is helped more
by face-to-face interaction than by a child watching a video or a television program. And
emotional regulation is especially dependent upon face-to-face interaction with caregivers. Think
about it. The more a family relies on media as entertainment, the fewer hours there are left for
face-to-face interaction. So, turn off the TV, turn off the computer, face each other, and get
interactive!
EPISODE 6.2 - EARLY CHILDHOOD: MORAL AND GENDER DEVELOPMENT
Welcome to the second episode on psychosocial development in early childhood. This episode
focuses on moral development and gender development.
Moral Development
What is right and what is wrong? Most parents are very concerned that their children learn about
this. Moral development speaks to a person's character, the guidelines that they use to judge
their behavior in the behavior of others. There's no doubt that temperament and personality play a
role. Early in life, when children are playing, we see evidence of empathy and antipathy. Empathy
is the ability to be able to understand what another person is feeling. Empathy is most obvious
whenever we realize that someone feels differently right now than we feel. Maybe somebody is
really sad. We are not sad, but we feel empathy in that we understand they feel sad. In our
brains, mirror neurons help us understand how empathy is at least somewhat hardwired. Mirror
neurons fire in response to what other people are doing, and these mirror neurons fire in similar
areas where brain activity is going on in the person they're observing. Empathy provide the basis
from which prosocial behavior can develop. Prosocial behavior is when we do something nice for
somebody else without any payoff. We do something nice just because we want to. On the other
hand, antisocial behavior can stem from antipathy. Antisocial behavior is when we behave in a
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Chapter 6, p. 6
harmful way toward others, and this can include physical harm or emotional or verbal harm. It can
also involve exclusion. Thankfully, across the early childhood years, most children show an
increase in prosocial behavior and a decrease in antisocial behavior. But children will have
aggressive impulses. The question is how they will handle those aggressive impulses. It also
depends on making judgments about when aggression is justified and when it is not.
Patterns of aggressive behavior show developmental change for most children. When we are
babies, we want what we want. Think of that very immature prefrontal cortex allowing the urges of
the limbic system to spill out full force. If the two-year-old takes a toy from another two-year-old,
there is likely to be some instrumental aggression. This is aggression directed at someone
because you want what they have. This is really normal, and it increases from ages 2 to 6.
Instrumental aggression usually isn't something for parents to worry about; it's an indicator of
egocentrism more than antisocial tendencies. Reactive aggression usually decreases from ages 2
to 5. It's the kind of aggression where a child hits or yells at another person because they've been
hurt in some way, even if it was accidental. Imagine a two-year-old who gets bumped into
accidentally by another two-year-old. If in response, he purposefully hits the child back, that's
reactive aggression. When I worked in childcare I spent some time in the one and two-year-old
room, the toddler room, and you would see instrumental and reactive aggression ping-ponging
back and forth. One child hits another because he wants a toy (instrumental aggression), and the
other child retaliates by hitting him back (reactive aggression). As children grow older and
become more aware of the social world, they may start to use relational aggression, insulting
other children or trying to get children to take sides against another child. This can really escalate
into the school years and even into adolescence. Bullying aggression is a sign of a problem with
emotional regulation. Children who bully often misread the signals of others and they seek out the
weaker children to pick on. Interestingly, bullies don't realize how much they are disliked, and it's
very important to intervene before the school-age years so that the bullying does not escalate.
So, in general, aggression decreases as the child ages, but the aggressive acts that continue into
childhood tend to be more severe than those that occur during early childhood years.
So, what can we do to try to prevent aggression from escalating? Parenting does play a role.
Parents are always trying to figure out the best way to discipline their child, and a common
reason is because they want to teach their children right and wrong. It's especially difficult in early
childhood because children's poor emotional regulation skills make them likely to blow up at any
time. It doesn't matter how strongly and securely attached the child is to her parents, though.
What seems to make the biggest difference is the way the parents handle those conflicts. It's best
when parents act as emotional coaches in these situations, realizing the children have limited
abilities to regulate their own emotions and trying to use that realization to increase their own
patience when dealing with their child. It helps when parents explain why certain behaviors are
unacceptable. It helps when parents remind children that other people have different viewpoints.
“Sam is sad because you took his toy. How would you feel if Sam took your toy? You'd feel sad,
right?” Remind the child frequently. They are unlikely to understand everything after just one
explanation. And explain these matters before bad behavior occurs, and after bad behavior has
occurred.
It may seem like scientists are suggesting that parents should go really easy on their kids. That's
too simplistic. The research shows us that it's vitally important that parents set rules and follow up
consistently on those rules. But we have to consider that the child's mind operates very differently
from our own, and that what the child takes away from the experience may be very different from
what we intended. Take physical punishment, for example. Spanking often works in the moment,
but the research shows us that there are some long-term risks of regular spanking. Those who
are spanked as children, and especially those who are spanked frequently, tend to grow up to
become more aggressive than other children. It seems as though they've learned that violence is
an acceptable way to deal with their frustrations. Of course, it's not just spanking that matters,
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Chapter 6, p. 7
though. The child's temperament matters, and other factors like the environment in which they
grew up matter as well. But we don't know for sure how the temperament of our child will interact
with spanking behavior, so the best advice is to try to avoid spanking if at all possible.
There are consequences to other kinds of punishment as well. Some parents use guilt as a
method of controlling their children. This is called psychological control. It may seem like a great
technique because it doesn't involve any physical punishment, but the risk is that the child's selfesteem will be depleted as a result. Basically, we're trying to make the child feel really bad about
what they've done, but not so much in an effort to explain why what they've done is wrong, but
more as a way of threatening the child with the idea that their parent will withdraw love. The idea
that's communicated to the child is, "You are a bad person, and you won't be loved as much if you
keep doing those bad things." Timeout is another popular technique, where the child is removed
from some activity for a brief period of time as a way of trying to punish them. This can work
reasonably well, especially if parents stick to the rule that timeout should last about 1 min. per
year of life, so a four-year-old gets 4 min. of time out but a two-year-old gets 2 min. of timeout.
This is really a behaviorist method, because what parents are trying to do is to remove something
the child was enjoying as a way of letting them know their behavior was unacceptable. Let's say
the child is playing at her childcare center, will not share her toys, and starts a big fight over it.
Timeout would involve removing her from that play situation that she was presumably enjoying for
a period of time. You have to be careful though, to make sure that you're removing the child from
something he or she really likes, otherwise it doesn't function as a punishment. Another technique
that shows promise is time in, where the child is removed from the situation in order for the
caregiver to patiently and calmly have a conversation about the behavior and what is
unacceptable about it. It's really important during these conversations that parents and caregivers
remember the child's cognitive limitations, and keep their remarks very focused and
straightforward so that the child can understand.
Becoming Boys and Girls
I wonder if this heading struck you as odd. Becoming boys and girls. Aren't we just born boys and
girls? Yes, most of us are born with a clear biological sex, although there are some variations and
some children are born with a mix of physical characteristics from both sexes. But that's a
different topic for a different class. We are not born with a fully formed sense of gender, though.
Gender has to do with social roles and cultural ideals for what's acceptable behavior from boys
and girls, and men and women. It's a lot more subjective than biological sex, and it is influenced
by the environment. It's very difficult to separate the nature and the nurture of gender
development. Clearly, like with everything else in this class, the two interact. Even though we
have become a far more open-minded society when it comes to thinking about gender roles,
children still tend to develop a very strong sense of gender appropriate behavior during the early
childhood years, sometimes even when their own parents have painstakingly tried to keep their
upbringing as gender neutral as possible. I remember the daughter of our family friends going
through a change around three or four years of age. Before then, in line with her parents' wishes,
we tried to give her gender-neutral gifts whenever possible. And she liked them. But by the time
she was three or four, her parents told us that all she wanted these days were pink things and
other stereotypically feminine things. So, we obliged, and bought her a little dress up kit that year,
complete with a princess gown that she loved.
How do we understand this gender development during early childhood? Let's talk about what the
four main theories have to say about gender. Psychoanalytic theory provides perhaps the most
provocative explanation of gender differences and their development. Again, let me remind you
that Freud's work was not scientific in today's standards. So keep that in mind as you learn about
his ideas. Freud referred to the early childhood years as the phallic period of development, when
the pleasurable urges relate to the development of the genitals. He believed that children at this
age unconsciously have sexual desires for their opposite sex parent. This is the Oedipus complex
for boys and the Electra complex for girls. It's a key time for moral development, Freud believed,
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Chapter 6, p. 8
because the child has to learn how to manage these unacceptable urges. As a result, they
develop their superego, which Freud believed is the part of the personality that tells us what's
right and what's wrong, the lessons we've learned from our parents and from society at large.
This relates to gender because, in the process, the child identifies with their same-sex parent as a
coping mechanism for dealing with their unconscious sexual desire toward their opposite sex
parent. The idea is, “If you can't beat them, join them.” In the girl's unconscious, it goes like this,
"If I can't have dad, then I will try to be as much like mom as I can be, so that one day I can get
someone who's like my dad." In the boys' unconscious, it's "If I can't have mom, then I will try to
be as much like dad as I can be, so that one day I can get someone who's like my mom.” And
thus, Freud believed, the development gender roles occurs.
Behaviorists took a very different point of view on gender development, which shouldn't surprise
you because behaviorists usually take a very different point of view than psychoanalytic theorists
do. Behaviorists would say it's all about simple reinforcement or punishment. We tend to reward
those behaviors that fall in line with our societal gender norms, and punish those behaviors that
fall outside of our gender norms. Imagine how parents react, most parents I should clarify, when
their boy wants to try on a dress. It's a freak out moment for many parents. Children pick up on
these reactions and learn from them. In the early childhood years, most parents are most
concerned about their boys being gender appropriate. Boys get more pressure during this age
than girls do. They also get more pressure from their fathers than from their mothers. Early
childhood is a very intense time for boys' gender socialization. Social learning theory suggests
that children don't even need to be directly rewarded or punished to learn gender appropriate
behavior. They pick up quite a lot from simply observing others. Children have lots of role models
available to them at this age, from their parents, to their teachers, to the characters in the books
that they have been read to them, to the behaviors shown in the movies or cartoons that they
watch.
There is considerable overlap across some of these theories, and that's the case with
behaviorism and cognitive theory. I was just telling you that children are very much aware of how
men and women behave in the world around them. One of the reasons why they pay so much
attention is because of their cognitive development. They have developed a schema for gender,
their gender schema. It's like their all-purpose gender related category, and it helps them quickly
pick up gender information going on in their world. But children have a very simplistic
understanding of the world, so it makes sense that their understanding of gender is really
simplistic as well, really black and white. The difference between cognitive and behavioral
theories is more about the emphasis than the outcome. Behaviorists suggest that the
environment shapes the child's ideas about gender, and cognitive theory suggests that the child's
cognitive development helps drive her awareness of and interpretation of her environment.
Systems theory is always interested in how nature and nurture interact. And we have a lot to say
about that when it comes to gender development. Focusing on the biology of gender, it's true that
there are some sex differences in our biological reactions. When boys are stressed out (and when
men are stressed out) they release more testosterone, which gets them ready for a fight-or-flight
reaction. In contrast, when girls are stressed out (and when women are stressed out) they tend to
release more oxytocin, which triggers more of a tend-and-befriend response. This means that
girls and women are more likely to respond to stress by taking care of others and focusing on
their relationships. But what are the situations that stress us out? That's going to vary depending
upon our history and our culture and other contextual factors. It isn't just about the biology, in
other words. It's also about the larger environment around us and how it interacts with our
biology.
This concludes our coverage of early childhood. Who's ready to go to grade school? That's the
next stop.
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Chapter 7, p. 1
EPISODE 7.1 – MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
In today's episode, we will discuss the development of body and mind during middle childhood,
focusing specifically on physical health and cognitive development.
Physical Development
Most children are pretty healthy during middle childhood. If there is some kind of inherited genetic
disorder, that tends to strike a person when they're very young or very old. Once we survive
infancy, it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective that we would stay healthy until we are
old enough to reproduce at least. Nevertheless, some children do face significant health problems
during middle childhood. The two most common causes of health problems in middle childhood
are asthma and obesity.
Asthma is a condition where the airways are inflamed, and this makes it hard for the child to
breathe. Asthma very rarely causes death, but it certainly can create many complications. Asthma
is a common reason why children miss school, and those who have a genetic predisposition are
especially likely to develop the condition. Why do some kids with a genetic predisposition get it,
while other people don't? Environmental factors can make a difference. In fact, one of the
reasons why experts think that asthma rates have increased so greatly is because of the fact that
we spend more time inside, with our windows closed, in homes that are insulated so well that
allergens get trapped inside. These factors together can create an increased environmental risk
of asthma. In addition, we may be overprotecting our children. When we keep things so incredibly
sanitized, using antibacterial hand wash, for example, this may leave our children with an
underdeveloped immune system. Basically, their body hasn't had to fight off many germs in the
past. Their immune system hasn't been put to the test and hasn't had the opportunity to build up
immunity. Small allergens, then, might end up being more disruptive to their health as a result.
Ironic, isn't it? We try to protect our kids so much that we actually may be leaving their immune
system weaker as a result.
Obesity is another condition children may struggle with. Like asthma, obesity rates have
increased greatly. Today, about 19% of children are obese, using the BMI calculation. BMI stands
for body mass index. 19%. It's especially shocking when you compare that rate to the rate in the
late 1960s, when only about 5% of children were obese. What has happened? It's true that some
people are genetically predisposed to becoming obese. But it's also true that lifestyle factors play
a strong role. Children are less physically active than they used to be, for a number of reasons.
They get less exercise at school, because many schools decide to cut down on physical
education in order to make time for topics that are assessed on standardized achievement tests.
At home, children watch more TV than they used to, and they are less likely to play outside. More
children live in big cities today than ever before, and this adds to the problem because there are
fewer areas where children can play safely in densely populated urban neighborhoods. Diet
matters as well. Our children are drinking more sugary drinks, and these empty calories add up
quickly. Plus, affordable and healthy food is harder to find in densely populated urban areas,
especially in low socioeconomic status neighborhoods. You're more likely to find a convenience
store or a fast food restaurant than a good grocery store. Obesity in children is a major risk factor
for other physical problems, like heart disease and stroke. Even if obese children lose weight as
they grow up, their risk for these health problems later in life still remains elevated compared to
those who were never obese. One of the best things adults can do, and parents in particular, is to
model and encourage healthy eating and physical activity themselves. Children pay attention to
what their parents do, and they are more likely to learn through observation than through being
scolded or lectured about their eating habits and physical exercise.
Theories about Cognition
Our main job during middle childhood is to learn. What's the best way to make sure our children
are learning? Well, we need to understand how their minds work, and we need to think about the
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Chapter 7, p. 2
best ways to set up our schools to motivate and encourage their best thinking. We've already
talked a little bit about Piaget and Vygotsky, and their work is relevant to understanding cognition
in middle childhood. Piaget focused on the individual child and her process of discovery. He was
interested in how the child's encounter with new experiences helps them build their schemas, and
in middle childhood the main advancement that occurs is in logical thinking. Remember,
"operations" in Piaget's terminology refer to logical thought processes. The child is no longer held
back by their egocentric thinking, or by the focus on appearance that was common during the
preoperational stage. Now, they are able to reason logically about concrete things, things that are
real. They certainly are capable of conservation, but they also gain skills in classification. Children
can understand how objects of different sizes could be organized and ordered, from shortest to
longest, or skinniest to fattest, and so forth. This is called seriation. Their logical thinking also
allows them to consider the relationship between objects. For example, transitive inference is the
ability to understand that two things are related because of the way each is related to a third
thing. They're making a transfer of logical information. The example in the text is a good one, so
I'll use it here. Let's say one child is told, “John is taller than Jim. Jim is taller than David. So, who
is taller, John or David?” In middle childhood, we can make that leap. We have not been directly
told that John is taller than David, but we can infer that by knowing the relationship between John
and Jim, and the relationship between Jim and David. Transitive inference. It's clear that we
become more objective thinkers in middle childhood, but Piaget's original claim that we make a
fairly distinct shift toward logic in middle childhood is not quite accurate. It is more of a gradual
development. We see the beginnings of it near the end of the preoperational stage, and it
increases into the grade school years.
Vygotsky was also interested in how children think, but he emphasized how children learn
through the help of others. The more communal experience is his view point. Children can learn
more when they are helped by an older person or a wiser person in their community. The older
and wiser person structures the learning environment so it brings the child into what Vygotsky
called the zone of proximal development. This is a range of tasks that the child is able to
complete with the help of others, but wouldn't be able to do on his or her own. Instruction matters,
in other words. Instead of being so focused on the child's individual discoveries, Vygotsky
emphasized the role of others and the role of culture. Culture influences what a community
considers to be important, which then influences how parents and teachers instruct children.
Within our communities, we develop different knowledge bases. The knowledge base is a
collection of knowledge that builds up over time and through experience. The larger our
knowledge base on a given topic, the easier it is for us to learn new information about that topic.
In other words, whatever has been emphasized the most within a given culture is absorbed and
learned by children, building their knowledge base, and making it easier for them to continue to
learn about that topic. This is what happens with any kind of expertise. I used to wonder how my
professors could retain all of that information. They just seem to know so much, and I wasn't sure
I could ever get to that point. Now I understand. You study a topic for such a long time, and you
get faster at learning new things about that topic because of the knowledge base you developed.
You don't have to have a PhD for this to happen, of course, because we're talking about how this
happens even in children. It's about repeated exposure to the kinds of learning activities and
topics that are most valued within a given culture. Of course, it's clear to modern developmental
psychologists that we have to pay attention to the discoveries of the individual child, discoveries
the child makes on his or her own, and the learning context and cultural context in which the child
has been raised. Piaget and Vygotsky took different approaches to cognitive development, but
both approaches help us understand the child's experience. Both approaches help us learn how
best to interact with children and stimulate their cognitive development.
Information Processing and The Brain
Between our ears, we have a finely tuned device: the brain. Even before we were born, the brain
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 7, p. 3
was an amazing organ. As we develop, neural pathways form and get refined: pathways that are
used often are retained, and new pathways are built based upon experience. It's a gradual
development, although we've already discussed how there are spurts of change that occur.
Infancy, for example, is an important time when there is a proliferation of synapses forming
between neurons. And then there's pruning, with unused synapses disconnecting so that the
brain can focus on the connections that are most important. With this gradual brain development,
we also gradually see improvements in children's ability to pay attention, to sit still, to remember
things, and to develop strategies to improve their thinking and memory. The prefrontal cortex
continues to gradually develop over the childhood years. Remember, this is the part of the brain
that serves as the central executive, helping to direct the functioning of all other areas of the brain
and allowing us to become better and better problem solvers. In addition, the corpus callosum
has developed to such an extent by this point that there is more coordinated communication
across the hemispheres of the brain.
Thanks to these improvements in brain development, we end up with a brain that is much more
capable of handling the demands of the classroom. Have you ever tried to get a three-year-old to
sit still? It's very, very difficult. But by the age of five, children are getting better at this. The older
the grade school child, the easier it is for that child to sit still and pay attention. It also helps if the
classroom that they're working in is structured, and if they have a quiet space at home to do their
schoolwork. There are certain patterns of responses that we use so often that they become
automatic. This is referred to as automatization. Imagine learning how to write your name. At first,
it took you a very long time and a lot of very focused effort. If you look back on my baby book,
you'll see that I used to have a really hard time with the Y on Amy. It was usually backwards. That
was back when writing my name was not yet automatic. Once you have to write your name over
and over again, thanks to the neural networks connecting the neurons involved in that task, and
thanks to the repeated practice that strengthen those connections, writing your name becomes
automatic. The brain, the information processing machine, becomes finely tuned and can
complete tasks far more quickly than it used to be able to. This frees up brain space so we can
contemplate higher-level tasks, so that you don't have to painstakingly think out every little letter
when you're printing words. But you get better at writing and spelling so that you have the brain
space to be able to think of more complex ideas and write those down. Some experts suggest
that summer vacation puts children at a disadvantage because it's a break in the regular practice
that they had engaged in with all of those mental activities during school. The brain really is like a
muscle in that way: if you work out on a daily basis but then skip three months in a row, you lose
some of your muscle tone. We may lose quite a bit in those summers when there are a couple of
months in a row with much less cognitive stimulation and exercising of the information processing
machine.
When we encounter information it enters through our senses and stays for just a few seconds in
sensory memory. We can't pay attention to every single thing that enters our senses at every
moment, so we choose to focus on some things more than others and bring that information into
our working memory. Working memory is where were doing our conscious thinking right now. You
are using your working memory right now as you listen to me. You're hearing me talk about
something, that information is entering your ears, and you are connecting it with other things you
already know or that you are familiar with. As we develop, our working memory gets larger. It can
hold more and more information in a given moment as we get older. Then, after we reach
adulthood and move into older adulthood, working memory begins to decrease. But during the
middle childhood years, we see a steady increase in working memory capacity. When we attend
to information in working memory, some of it gets transferred to long-term memory. That's where
we store our memories for a certain length of time, whether it's for 10 minutes or 10 years. As far
as we know, there is no limit to how much information we can hold in our long-term memory. But
the trick is retrieving that memory later. It doesn't really matter how much we stored there if we're
not able to retrieve it all later. This is where strategies become important. We begin to develop
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 7, p. 4
strategies for remembering things, tricks that will later help us retrieve information. The prefrontal
cortex helps us develop, remember, and successfully apply strategies. When we think about our
thinking, that's called metacognition. It's an important part of building and using strategies. We
need to be able to have an awareness of how we are thinking in order to evaluate our thinking
and try out strategies. One particular component of metacognition is metamemory, which involves
learning how to best use our memory, figuring out what it takes to be able to remember
something. Children's brains make them capable of doing this in grade school, and the continued
maturation of their brains will result in improvements in this ability as they age. But we can help
them too. And we often do help them, with sayings and reminders and other tricks. When share
reminders and tips to help them with their memory, we're giving them lessons in metacognition
and metamemory.
EPISODE 7.2 – MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: EDUCATION, INTELLIGENCE, AND
DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
This is the second episode about the development of the body and mind in middle childhood.
The focus is on education, intelligence, and developmental psychopathology.
Learning Language and Math
It may be hard to believe, but there was once a time when experts thought that it was a bad idea
for children to learn a second language. They were worried that it would be too difficult for the
young mind to keep track of two different languages, and that it might slow down their overall
cognitive development if they tried to do so. That's not the case, recent research shows us. But
we have a big challenge in the United States right now. We have 4 million students who are
currently learning English as a second language. These are referred to as English Language
Learners. It really presents a challenge in the classroom, because we want to do our best to
teach these children - understanding that it's going to be difficult for them - while at the same time
not holding back the native English speakers in the classroom. The biggest trouble is when
immigrant children do not learn the language used at school, or at least when they don't learn it
very well. It can become a problem that is compounded as they develop. So we need to do the
best we can to teach as much English as possible, and to teach it as well as possible, during the
middle childhood years, so we can avoid the negative snowballing effect. It's especially true once
we reach middle childhood. Younger children, like children in preschool, pick up a lot more just by
being around the different language that's being spoken. But the older we are when we start to
learn our second language, the more difficult it is for us to learn simply from context. The more it
becomes a separate cognitive task that requires a lot of effort. So what do we do? There are a
few different approaches that have been attempted. What seems to matter more than the specific
approach is the child's experience of learning a second language. Regardless of whether the
child is experiencing bilingual education, ESL instruction, or immersion, what matters most is
whether they feel confident and up to the task. If classroom practices or policies or teacher
attitudes lead students to feel inferior or stupid as they are learning English as their second
language, this can have a detrimental impact on their ability to learn. Just think of how you feel as
you sit down to take an exam on a topic that has always made you feel nervous. For me that
would be math. Whether it's really true or not that I'm bad at math, I have this idea that I'm bad at
math. I have an idea that I'm inferior when it comes to math. Those kinds of thoughts are playing
in the back of my mind as I try to complete some kind of math problem. That's the kind of thing
that some children who are learning English as a second language have to deal with, and if this is
a problem they experience in middle childhood, and it's not resolved, it becomes a constant
source of struggle for them. At least with me, as soon as I could, I stopped focusing on math. But,
the English language is so central to everything that we learn in school that it is a significant
hindrance if a child during grade school has developed a sense of inferiority about their Englishspeaking abilities.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 7, p. 5
The text refers to "the education wars." Sounds pretty dramatic, doesn't it? What's the best way to
teach our children how to read? What's the best way to teach our children math? Well, one thing
is for sure: there are no simple answers. And we tend to go through phases where we think
certain techniques are superior to others, but then further research may reveal a new technique
that becomes popular and trendy for a while. Sometimes the trouble is that we look for a magic
bullet, something that's going to make a big change on its own. In the end, we usually end up
finding that it's a mix of different approaches that works best. Take the phonics approach versus
the whole language approach. I remember learning phonics. We were repeating sounds of the
English language, what linguists would call phonemes (like the TH sound in the word "truth", or
SP sound in the word "spell"). The idea was that by learning those sounds, phonics, they would
help us build words. Phonics involves rote memorization and it's a very piecemeal approach to
language. A different approach is the whole language approach, which is focused on how
language is used in context. I have experience with this as a preschool teacher, where we would
encourage children to write when they wanted to, but we wouldn't give them instruction on what
was correct or what was incorrect. The focus was to encourage their motivation to communicate.
We would also ask the child to tell us a story, then we would write their story down in their exact
words. It's a very natural, holistic way of looking at language. But children don't come in just one
variety. Some children benefit greatly from whole language approaches, whereas others really
need the bit-by-bit focus of phonics. Why can't we do both? Yes, we should encourage children's
motivation to communicate. We don't want to discourage them with early and repetitive
corrections to everything they write or say. At the same time, it can be very useful for them to
practice the sounds of the language. So it's best for us not to take an extreme view on either side,
but to consider the particular child that we are dealing with and what he or she seems to need the
most.
There are some parallels to the language war in math instruction. It's a similar kind of dichotomy
between a method based on rote memorization (old math) and a process of self-motivated
discovery (new math). Add to this divide the anxiety that we feel as a nation when we notice that
our math scores are significantly lower than those of children in other nations. It makes us
nervous thinking that our math instruction is inferior. Guess what? The research suggests that a
strictly old math approach is ineffective, and a strictly new math approach is also ineffective.
Instead, what tends to happen is children learn strategies and use these strategies in waves.
They learn a new strategy and begin to use it gradually and build up until they're using it more
and more and more. The strategy becomes more automatic. And then they gradually use the
strategy less and less as they adopt more sophisticated strategies. Similar to phonics, we need
the bit-by-bit instruction that comes from memorizing multiplication tables, for example. But that's
very boring to most children on its own, so we also need to think of math more holistically and set
problems up so that it's an experience of discovery for the child. As with all educational matters,
what we really need is good long-term research to find out which combinations of techniques
work best. It's quite a challenge, though, because education quickly becomes politicized. And
once things become politicized, we tend to lose our patience, patience that really is required to
study things as carefully and is in-depth as possible.
Measuring the Mind
There are many good reasons for wanting to understand the grade school child's current level of
academic achievement and their potential to learn new material. IQ tests assess aptitude, which
is the child's potential to learn new material. This is not the same thing as an achievement test,
which assesses how much a student has learned (in the past) about a particular topic. So,
aptitude is all about potential to learn. We make a pretty big deal about IQ, probably a bigger deal
than the original creators of the first IQ test intended. IQ tests were created in France in the late
1800s when the French Ministry of education decided that all children needed to attend school,
regardless of their background. The French recognized that this was going to be a challenge,
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 7, p. 6
because teachers we now have a much wider range of abilities present in their students, and
teachers would need to know I had of time which students were likely to need extra help. By now
we've used IQ tests so extensively, and their scores have been misinterpreted and
misunderstood quite often, so that there is a lot of understandable skepticism amongst the
general public about what IQ tests are really showing us. Perhaps the biggest question is about
how much control we have over our IQ? How much control do we have over our children's IQ?
What impact can the environment have on IQ scores? For years, experts thought that IQ is
basically a product of our genes, something you're just born with. Now we know that, even though
it's true the genes play a significant role in IQ, the environment most certainly makes a difference.
The Flynn effect shows this very clearly. The Flynn effect is the phenomenon that a scientist
named–guess what?–Flynn discovered as he looked at raw IQ scores over the past 100 years.
These scores have increased consistently, and not just in the United States but all across the
world. It's not that the smarter people are mating and producing even smarter offspring, though.
Evolution doesn't happen that quickly. No, what's happening is that we are healthier, we have
greater access to information, we spend more time in school, and we tend to have fewer kids in
each family. All of these factors of the environment correlate with intelligence.
As I stated earlier, the original authors of the first IQ test were hoping that it would help teachers
identify students with mental retardation, so that those students could receive extra help instead
of being punished or overlooked. By the way, I want to explain that the technical term that we still
use is “mental retardation.” This phrase may hit you the wrong way. I don't blame you if it's a term
that you dislike. And, times are changing, and I wouldn't be surprised if very soon we are referring
to mental retardation as intellectual disability instead. If, on the other hand, this whole discussion
is irritating and you wish we weren't so politically correct, I'd like to draw your attention to a
historical comparison. Words like imbecile and moron and feeble-minded all used to be technical,
scientific terms used to refer to individuals with lower scores on intelligence tests. Could you
imagine if today scientists referred to a child as an imbecile? Of course that is offensive. And we
may be moving into a time when mental retardation becomes an obviously offensive term. We're
not quite there yet. But I imagine were pretty close. My goal is to teach you, and in so doing I
need to stick with the terms that are still currently in use. Speaking of mental retardation, we used
to have really straightforward way of identifying it: if the child had an IQ below 70, they were
considered mentally retarded. That's no longer enough information to make a diagnosis these
days. Scientists have learned a lot more about functioning at the lower levels of intelligence, and
now the mental retardation designation is not used unless the child has an IQ lower than 70 and
has difficulty with activities of daily life (ADLs). ADLs are basic activities of daily life, like dressing
yourself, recognizing your classmates by name, and taking care of personal hygiene. At the other
end of the scale are the so-called gifted children. Usually, we consider children with an IQ of 130
or higher to be gifted and talented, and, depending upon the state in which they are growing up,
they may or may not have access to special gifted and talented classes.
Of course, IQ tests are not free of criticism. A low IQ score may reflect a low potential to learn, or
it may also reflect cultural differences. IQ tests involve items that use language and scenarios
common to the culture within which they were developed. It's also quite possible that IQ tests do
not capture all of intelligence. What if there's more than one kind of intelligence? An IQ test is not
assessing that. Robert Sternberg suggested that there are three different kinds of intelligence.
Academic intelligence is the kind that is measured on IQ tests and achievement tests, but
creative intelligence and practical intelligence are not. Creative intelligence reflects an individual's
ability to come up with very original ideas, and practical intelligence refers to the ability to problem
solve in real life situations. Do you know someone who's really smart at school but doesn't make
good decisions in daily life? That might be someone with high academic intelligence but low
practical intelligence.
Beyond Sternberg, another type of intelligence that has been proposed is emotional intelligence. I
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 7, p. 7
think this is a really interesting concept. Emotional intelligence has two parts to it: the ability to
understand and regulate your own emotions, and the ability to understand what other people
might be feeling. Let me just focus on that first part: understanding and regulating your own
emotions. This is so important for success in life. There could be 1000 other things you'd rather
do than work, and, if you are incapable of regulating your emotions, you might consistently
procrastinate or even fail to do the important things you need to do because you're so motivated
to follow all of your emotional whims. Someone might even have really high IQ scores, but might
hold themselves back because they have such difficulty regulating their emotions and pushing
through the tasks that they don't really enjoy. Now, the whole intelligence situation can start to
seem a little ridiculous by the time we talk about Howard Gardner, who at this point has identified
about nine intelligences. But maybe he's on to something. Based on research looking at people
who are amazingly talented in certain areas, Gardner suggests that there are many different ways
to express intelligence. We can be intelligent in terms of our musical abilities, for example.
Perhaps we are intelligent in terms of how to move our bodies, something he called bodilykinesthetic intelligence. Think of athletes or actors or dancers on this one. Gardner thinks that we
all have some ability in all nine intelligences, but we vary from person to person. I would guess
that my musical intelligence is pretty high, for example, but that my spatial intelligence is quite,
quite low. Think about where you would fall on these different intelligences. Gardner's multiple
intelligences have really caught on in certain areas of education, where schools have even been
founded on the principle of providing children with opportunities to find out which of the nine
intelligences they excel at. Critics of Gardner, on the other hand, are concerned that the definition
of intelligence has been stretched too far. I think critics get particularly suspicious because
Gardner adds a new intelligence to his list every once in a while. There used to be seven
intelligences, and then there were eight, and now there are nine. That doesn't mean there are
limitless kinds of intelligences, but I do understand why scientists are cautious. Perhaps it's best
to think about these intelligences as potential talents, and certainly to keep in mind that an IQ
score is just one facet of a person's abilities.
Achievement tests are different from IQ tests. Achievement tests are designed to measure how
much a child has learned about a particular topic. We have all taken some kind of achievement
test. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has certainly stimulated lively debate about the proper
role of achievement testing in the United States. In addition, our achievement test scores do not
compare very well to other nations, especially when it comes to science and math scores.
Children who grow up in East Asia outperform us and the rest of the world in math and science.
Why is this the case? It might be tempting to think this reflects some kind of innate ability in
science or math, but aptitude tests do not show differences across countries. Our potential is the
same, so why is our achievement different? We're not going to come up with one answer for this
question. There are a few likely candidates, a few reasons that probably work together to explain
the difference. In East Asian countries, the school year last longer and the school day last longer.
It may also have to do with the training of our teachers. East Asian teachers of math and science
have more extensive training in teaching itself, whereas in the United States we are more
concerned that our teachers have content expertise. We provide relatively less direct instruction
on how to teach math and science. There are some cultural issues that also are likely to play a
role, including confidence and attitudes. Paradoxically, high confidence may not be such a great
thing. In the United States, our children are more confident in their math abilities than their scores
indicate. It's the opposite in East Asian nations, were children have lower confidence than their
scores indicate. In other words we think we're good at math here in the U.S., but we really aren't,
and they think they're not so good at math, but they really are. Why does this matter? Scientists
think that it leads East Asian children to work harder and persist in the face of difficulty. Attitudes
about intelligence matter as well. In the United States, we tend to think that intelligence is largely
genetic and that we either have a certain talent or we don't. I know that I have fallen prey to this
idea when it comes to my own math abilities. I find myself saying things like, “I'm not a math
person.” That makes it sound like it's some sort of fixed ability, written into my genes. The
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 7, p. 8
research shows us that this attitude can cause us to stop trying. We think, why bother? Math just
isn't my thing. Imagine having a much different attitude, thinking that math ability isn't in the
genes, but that it is largely the result of hard work. Then, if we fail at a math problem, our strategy
would be to work harder. Some cross-cultural research suggests that East Asian children, and
East Asian cultures in general, adopt the attitude that it's about hard work. Maybe that's another
reason why they do so well on these math achievement tests.
Developmental Psychopathology
We all understand how important it is to accurately assess achievement in school, but it's equally
important to investigate whether children have special needs that might interfere with their ability
to learn. We have seen an increase in children with special needs in the United States, and it's
not clear whether we're just doing a really good job of identifying problems or whether we are
overdiagnosing our children. A field of study that helps us figure this stuff out is developmental
psychopathology, where normative development–and that means development that is typical–is
used to provide us insights so that we can identify atypical development. For example, it's really
quite normal for children to behave abnormally sometimes. It's also quite normal for children with
disabilities to show different symptoms at different ages. A child's attention deficit disorder may
come out in very different ways when they are in grade school than it does when they are
teenagers, for example. As we grow up, change is a guarantee. This is true of special needs as
well. They will change, but they may improve or get worse. The only thing we know for sure is
that they will change. In trying to diagnose children, we also have to consider the children's
behavior is influenced by cultural context, historical context, and other aspects of the
environment. These factors have to be considered when professionals are determining a
diagnosis.
One disorder that gets a lot of publicity is Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. It can be
confusing because you may hear it referred to as ADD or as ADHD. Technically, the diagnosis as
listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is AD/HD. So what we used to
refer to as just Attention Deficit Disorder would now be considered part of the AD/HD diagnosis.
Most children diagnosed with an attention deficit disorder are boys, but there is evidence that
girls' experience of attention deficit is significantly different than boys' experience. As a result, we
may be missing the symptoms in our girls. But, the attention deficit that most of us have heard
about is the kind that's more common among boys, and involves not only difficulty paying
attention, but also impulsive behaviors and overactivity. These are the children who end up being
very disruptive in class, and that's one reason why attention deficit disorders often become very
apparent in the grade school years, perhaps for the first time. Think about it. This is when we
expect children to sit still and focus on tasks. But that inattentive aspect of attention deficit
disorders can also come out in a child's behavior in ways that aren't so obvious. Maybe the child
tends to daydream, or perhaps the child has difficulty screening out irrelevant stimuli. Let's say
there's a projector in the room that's making a persistent humming sound. Most kids just tune it
out, and they may not even notice the sound at all. Other children, on the other hand, maybe
incapable of screening out that distraction. They're not necessarily running around or tapping the
table or talking to their neighbors. Their experience of attention deficit might be very private, just
going on in their own mind, but making it difficult for them to focus and do their best at school.
Like other special needs, diagnoses of attention deficit disorders occur a lot more often here in
the United States compared to other nations. Obviously, this is cause for concern. But let's not
jump to the conclusion that we must just be over diagnosing our children. Yes, that's one
possibility, and a possibility we need to take seriously. But, attention deficit disorders are real.
They do exist. And they are quite challenging for children to deal with. Properly diagnosing them
and treating them can make a world of difference for children. Oftentimes, medication is
prescribed. Stimulant medication is most commonly used for children and adults with AD/HD. This
can seem confusing at first glance; I mean, why are you giving a hyperactive child a stimulant?
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 7, p. 9
Well, this helps you understand the unique physiology of an individual with AD/HD. The best
research we have so far suggests that the brain of a person with AD/HD is actually
understimulated. The reason why the child may pick up on every tiny little distraction, or the
reason why the child feels the need to jiggle his leg nonstop or tap the desk with his pencil, could
be that child's way of trying to keep himself alert and interested and not completely bored out of
his mind. Stimulant medication acts on neurotransmitters that help increase brain activity,
bringing it up to a more typical level so that the child is able to actually calm down and focus. You
can understand why parents are concerned about putting their child on medication, and
medication is not required for all children with AD/HD. The most important thing is that the child
goes through a very thorough diagnosis process with a trained professional. You don't just want a
general practitioner diagnosing this in the child. You want a child psychologist or child psychiatrist
who specializes in AD/HD. And there are treatment options. It's true that most children benefit
from stimulant medication, but it's also true that children can benefit greatly from behavior
modification and other forms of therapy as well. In many cases, it takes a combination of the two.
Another set of disorders that get a lot of attention these days are Autistic Spectrum Disorders.
Autistic spectrum. The word spectrum indicates that there is a range of possibilities. A child may
be mildly autistic, which we refer to as Asperger syndrome. A child with this disorder has great
difficulty with social relationships. They may have a very hard time understanding the social cues
that the rest of us just seem to already know. There was a student in one of my classes who told
me in private that she was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. She told me because she wanted
me to know that when she stayed after class to talk and ask questions, I would have to very
directly tell her when it was time for us to stop. Imagine what I mean by this. If you've ever stayed
after class to talk to your professor, you pick up on the signals. The professor might be talking as
she's putting away her things, and eventually she's got all her stuff packed up, and she's walking
toward the door. By now you know that the conversations is going to end soon. The social cues
are obvious to you, but they wouldn't necessarily be obvious to a person with Asperger syndrome.
They may be so absorbed paying attention to the details of the conversation that they are not
even noticing the social cues. Indeed, individuals with Asperger syndrome tend to be highly
intelligent in certain areas. So it's really the social cues that they struggle with.
Moderate or severe autism is quite different than Asperger syndrome, however. Children with
moderate or severe autism may not develop language skills. The child may seem to be in his or
her own world, almost unaware of others. The things that most children like, such as getting hugs
and kisses and attention, can feel completely overwhelming to the child with autism. There's been
great concern in the United States because the number of children diagnosed as autistic has
risen quickly in the last few decades. One explanation is that we've gotten much better at
identifying autism. Children who might have been diagnosed as mentally retarded 30 years ago
may now be correctly diagnosed with autism instead. There has also been a lot of questioning
about whether environmental causes could be involved in this increase. As we discussed before,
some still believe that vaccines cause autism, even though the research has shown repeatedly
that there is no increase in rates of autism among children who have been immunized.
Furthermore, the ingredient originally believed to be the link between vaccines and autism no
longer exists in today's vaccines. That ingredient is thimerosal. Since this ingredient has been
taken out of vaccines, rates of autism have not dropped. In fact, they have risen. Perhaps some
other environmental agent plays a role, but we just haven't yet identified it. But the best evidence
so far suggests that there is a genetic component. Do we know exactly what that genetic
component is? No. Do we have some ideas? Yes. This is an area that scientists from many
different disciplines are working on quite intensely.
That's it for the development of the body and mind in middle childhood. Next, we turn to the social
and emotional world of the grade school child.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 8, p. 1
EPISODE 8.1 – MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: INDUSTRY, RESILIENCE, AND FAMILY
INFLUENCES
The question of “Who am I?” is often answered in middle childhood with “What I like to
do,” or “What Iʼm good at.” As preschool kids, we thought we were good at everything.
We didn't have a very realistic understanding of our abilities, but it didn't seem to bother
us too much then. Grade school kids have a growing sense of who they are, what they
really like to do, and what they're pretty good at. It helps that kids have all kinds of
physical energy at this age, energy they can direct toward a million activities to keep
them busy discovering their skills.
Industry
Erikson believed that middle childhood was a time of energetic activity, as children strive
to figure out what makes them special. If all has gone well in psychosocial development
up to this point, the child will enjoy trying out new things and will learn from experience
how his/her skills compare to those of others (especially peers). The potential negative
outcome is that a child will feel cynical about his/her skills and will not feel motivated to
engage in meaningful activity. Erikson refers to this stage as industry versus inferiority.
Industry refers to a sense of being engaged in some kind of meaningful activity that uses
our skills. The child will enjoy trying out new things and will learn from experience how
his or her skills compare to those of others. Children are especially interested in how
their skills compare to their friends' skills. They make social comparisons to figure out
how they fit amongst their peers in terms of their abilities. Cultural influences are
certainly playing a role, because children are most interested in mastering the types of
skills that they have learned are important in their culture. It's not easy to figure this all
out, though. But children at this age are much better at regulating their emotions, and
they have to regulate their emotions as they try new things and deal with the outcome.
They have to learn how to tolerate not being good at everything. Grade school children
are eager to do a good job at whatever they try, so it's a challenge for them to manage
their feelings of inferiority when they find out they're not so great at a certain skill. We
also don't want children to just give up immediately after one bad experience. Just
because they had one bad day at softball practice doesn't mean they have no talent for
athletics. The ability to persist even when you feel doubtful, and to eventually realize if a
particular task just isn't your thing - this is a skill. Effortful control helps: It has been
developing thanks to the prefrontal cortex, and it is kind of like industry used toward
emotional regulation. Parents are an important influence. Ideally, parents nurture the
child's curiosity and energy and interest in trying new things, and parents help guide the
child's emotional regulation when things don't turn out as they hoped. The risk of the
child developing an overall sense of inferiority is increased when parents are inattentive
to the child's interests or even seem annoyed at the high energy level of their child. And
of course, the child's genetic predispositions bring something to the situation as well.
Highly sensitive children who are prone to anxiety are most likely to have a very difficult
time managing their feelings of disappointment and self doubt.
I bet that if I were to ask you, "When in the lifespan are we most concerned about
figuring out who we are?" You would probably say, "The teenage years." And you
wouldn't be wrong. But the quest to figure out who we are, what we're good at, and how
we fit in compared to everyone else, begins in middle childhood. We start to think about
our thoughts more often, analyzing them, mulling over our perspectives, considering
ourselves as people who are different from our parents. Most children at this age are still
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Chapter 8, p. 2
rather close to their parents, but they are increasingly aware of the fact that they are
autonomous individuals who have their own interests and abilities apart from their
parents or anyone else in their family. They're also making comparisons between
themselves and their friends to figure out their place in the social hierarchy. This can put
a big wrench in their self-esteem, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. In preschool, our
self-esteem is unrealistically high. It's cute then, and it helps fuel our sense of initiative.
But, by the time were in grade school, it's important as we mature to start developing a
more realistic understanding of our abilities and our goals. Please understand that I am
not suggesting that children should aim low. Not at all. Rather, by building a sense of
industry and understanding our skills, we gain a more realistic self-esteem. Self-esteem
is one of those things that's kind of like Goldilocks and the porridge: we don't want it to
be too high, we don't want to be too low, but we wanted to be just right. I think it's clear
the problems that can come from low self-esteem, right? If we have an unrealistically low
evaluation of ourselves, we may not even try. It's kind of like presuming we're going to
fail at something, so maybe we don't even go for it and all. Low self-esteem is correlated
with depression. But unrealistically high self-esteem also carries with it some significant
risks. In fact, some of the risks are the same as those of unrealistically low self-esteem.
In both cases, children struggle with effortful control. They find it challenging to regulate
their emotions related to their achievements. A child with low self-esteem who has a
minor setback may interpret it as a catastrophic failure. A child with unrealistically high
self-esteem who has a minor setback may retaliate and blame others for his or her
shortcomings, a reaction sometimes fueled by aggression. So, in both cases, unrealistic
self-esteem is connected to emotionally reactive tendencies. All of this research, by the
way, comes from a Western cultural perspective where self-esteem is highly valued.
Think about it. In cultures where independence is so highly valued, self-esteem makes a
big difference. You're supposed to figure out who you are and forge your own unique life
path in Western societies, which means that your attitude about what you are capable of
doing is critical to success in life. But we can take that too far sometimes. Self-esteem
doesn't magically lead to achievement. The research does not support this. It's the other
way around, actually. Once we've had meaningful successes, our self-esteem rises.
Resilience and Stress
We would certainly like to spare children of chronic stress, and it's hard to imagine how a
child can cope with a traumatic experience. They cope in a variety of different ways. One
of the tricky things about it, though, is that you can't always tell by the child's reaction
how he or she is really coping. When anyone faces significant adversity, their resilience
is put to the test, their ability to adapt. Some children are blessed with psychological
characteristics that enhance their resilience, although there are no guarantees.
Resilience isn't a single, stable personality trait, although children in grade school show
more resilience at this age than ever before. Grade school children manage the
emotions, and the often significant changes that come with adversity, better than they
would have as preschool children. Also, adapting to a situation might involve dreaded
changes that lead to unexpected, positive outcomes. Living through a parent's bout of
alcoholism, for example, is tremendously difficult for a child. That child may have to go
live with her aunt for a while, a change she isn't happy about. But, as a result, let's say
she ends up growing closer to her aunt and other members of her extended family. The
strength of that new relationship may help her adapt to the stress. Now she has a
stronger relationship with another family member, a relationship that perhaps never
would have grown so strong without the necessity created by her mother's alcoholism.
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Chapter 8, p. 3
Any child is going to have trouble managing significant adversity, but the smaller,
everyday stresses add up and take a significant toll. Daily hassles are the minor
problems and irritations that come and go on a regular basis. Perhaps a child lives in a
neighborhood where there's lots of noise, where it's impossible to have a long stretch of
quiet. Or maybe he walks to school and has to pass through a dangerous neighborhood.
Let's say he has a mentally ill parent and he has to take over some of the adult roles in
the house, like making breakfast for himself and his little sister. It might seem to an
outsider that the boy is coping quite well, but we should not be too easily deceived. It's
often the case for children that one small thing on top of all of these other accumulated
problems can be the straw that breaks the camel's back. In other words, a child may
seem resilient as he handles a number of significant challenges, but the toll on his
mental health may not become apparent until later. Let's say the child has survived
Hurricane Katrina and seems okay, but several years later while dealing with the daily
hassles of living in a poor neighborhood - like walking through a dangerous area on the
way to school - he has a panic attack. The point is not to assume that everything is fine
just because the child hasn't yet had a breakdown. Rather, we need to be perpetually
aware and observant of children's well-being, understanding that some new stress might
be the tipping point that uncovers the extent of the toll that those earlier event had on his
coping skills.
During the time of dealing with stress, the larger community may become involved in the
child's care, and this is often a very helpful source of support. Children's social world is
already getting larger in grade school, as they make new friends at school and begin to
spend more and more time with their friends. Their friends' parents may become
important influences, allowing a child to stay over when things are not going well at
home or perhaps even acting as a model of how parents can be if the child's own
parents are not healthy. The extended family can also act as an important part of the
child's larger social world. Often times when a crisis has occurred, the extended family
gets more involved in the child's life than they were before. The child's other social
connections may come through institutions like their church, where they get to meet
adults who care for them and adults who provide another positive role model.
Furthermore, the belief system that's part of the spiritual community can help the child
manage the stress of coping and consider alternative interpretations for what is
happening in their life.
Family Influences
I'm sure by now you are very well aware that genes and environment influence
everything about us. What is the first thing we think of when we imagine a child's
environment? Parenting. Obviously, parents matter, but the scientific research suggests
that parents contribute less and less of the environmental influences on our development
as we grow older. It looks like they have their strongest influence in infancy. By middle
childhood our environments have widened. For example, one big difference has to do
with our experiences at school and our experiences with friends. These are clear
examples of nonshared environmental influences - the influences that differ among
children raised in the same family. My brother and I had very different experiences at
school and with our friends, so, even though we had the same two parents - which
comprised our shared environmental influences - there were significant nonshared
environmental influences that were different for the two of us. And the research shows
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Chapter 8, p. 4
us that the proportion of influence shifts with age, where shared environmental
influences have a smaller and smaller impact on our development over time, and
nonshared environmental influences have a larger and larger impact on our development
over time. But let's think more about the shared environmental influences that
supposedly have a diminishing impact on our development. Is it really about parents
having less and less of an influence? Or could it be that some of what seems to be
shared really isn't shared? Let me explain. Yes, my brother and I have the same two
parents. But he and I are not the same people. Yes, we have some personality
similarities, but we also have many personality differences. We also have unique
interests and talents. The experience I had growing up in my family during the late 70s
as a young child was undoubtedly quite different than his experience as a teenager
during those years. Plus, he was a boy and I was a girl, and gender certainly influences
family experiences as well. The best we could really say is that parents' influence varies
from one child to the next, so, just because we see differences among siblings in a given
family, that doesn't mean that our parents had only a small influence. It's just that their
influence on us was not uniform. We may have grown up in the same family with the
same parents, but our experience of our parents is not exactly the same.
Families have various functions, and families have different structures. Family function
refers to the patterns of interaction that go on amongst family members, specifically the
ways that the parents address children's needs. Those needs change with age, and
those needs may differ from child to child, depending upon each child's predispositions.
Obviously, healthy families serve the function of meeting the most fundamental needs,
like keeping children fed, clothed, and safe. Children also benefit if parents are involved
in their development, which, during the grade school years is going to include an
emphasis on the child's education. Parents go to parent-teacher conferences, stay on
top of children's school activities, ask about the child's homework on a nightly basis, and
encourage learning through other kinds of activities at home or in the community.
Children are struggling to figure out how they fit in, and they're vulnerable to feelings of
inferiority, so healthy families encourage the child's sense of self-respect and
competence, helping to point out and reinforce the child's strengths while also helping
the child regulate difficult emotions that arise whenever things don't go as planned.
Friends are becoming incredibly central to the lives of children during the school years,
and families function ideally to encourage peer relationships, perhaps by suggesting play
dates, getting to know the parents of their child's friends, and asking about how things
are going with their friends. Children also thrive whenever they know what to expect in
the household; in other words, it's best when children can count on a basic routine.
There's a routine in the morning, a routine after school, a routine during the weekends.
Life doesn't have to be 100% predictable, and children often enjoy a surprise or a
change every once in a while. I remember the days when I took the school bus to
Grandma's house instead of home. That was a fun change in the routine. But
otherwise, I knew that when I arrived home after school, my mother would be there.
Routines provide a sense of security. Children do not do well if life is so chaotic that they
can never predict what will happen on a given day. Children do best when they
understand that there's a basic stability to their lives, that there are predictable events
that happen most of the time that they can count on. It helps them feel secure.
Children are raised in families with different combinations of adults as parents. A family
household is defined as people who lived together in the same home, where there's at
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Chapter 8, p. 5
least one child and at least one person who serves as a parent. About 68% of
households in the United States are family households, and many of these households
have children in grade school. The different combinations of relationships between
people in a family, combinations that may vary because of legal reasons or because of
genetic reasons, define the family structure. For example, the child may not live with his
father. He may live only with his mother in a single parent household, seeing his father
every other weekend. The majority of children are raised in a two parent family, although
there are different kinds. The nuclear family is composed of at least one child raised by
two parents, both of whom are genetically related two the child. Perhaps the child's
parents have divorced, but one or more parents have remarried. The child may live in a
stepparent family then. Divorced dads are most likely to remarry; divorced moms are
less likely to remarry. When divorced moms do remarry, the children are more likely to
live with her then with their biological father. A specific type of stepparent family is a
blended family, where there are children from more than one family living together in the
same household. Perhaps mom got remarried, and the stepfather had children from his
previous marriage as well, and now both sets of children are living together in one
household. This is the Brady Bunch scenario, although, as is often the case, what's
depicted on TV may not match reality. The research tells us that blended families
present a special kind of challenge for school-age children because kids are adjusting
not only to a major change in their parental relationships, but also must deal with the
challenge of managing new relationships with new, non-biological siblings. Technically
speaking, parents who adopt a child are referred to as an adoptive family. It may
surprise you to learn that only 2% of families are adoptive families. This number used to
be much higher. The main reason for the decrease is that fewer pregnant women
choose to give their children up for adoption. It was much more common in the 50s, 60s,
and 70s than it is today. The vast majority of adoptive families are two-parent families,
although it is possible for a single adult to adopt a child. However, today with the
relatively small supply of adoptable children, expectant mothers have quite a long list of
hopeful adoptive parents to choose from. And most expectant mothers would rather their
child be adopted into a two parent family.
We haven't yet talked much about single-parent families. About 28% of school aged
children in the United States live in single-parent families. This means that there's one
parent, one adult, in the family and no others. Single-parent families are particularly
common among African-Americans, and single-parent families are most often headed by
mothers. For a number of reasons, single-parent families tend to be less stable
environments for children. But again, it's unclear how much of this is specifically linked to
single parenthood, and how much is linked to other factors that usually (but not always)
go along with single parenthood. Economic hardship is common, especially when the
single parent is a mother. The research also shows us that single parent homes whether the parent is mom or dad - are more likely to have new people coming in and
out, such as significant others. Also adding to the risk is the parent's stress. Single
parents have a lot of pressure to fulfill all of the family roles for their child or children.
There is only so much time in a day, and many single parents are stretched to the max.
Certain aspects of family functioning are particularly challenging for child development.
There are many aspects we could discuss, but I'm going to follow your text author's lead
and focus on low income, instability, and social cognitive connections. Across all of
these, the most influential impact stems from stress. Low income leads to stress.
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Chapter 8, p. 6
Instability leads to stress. If the child's social cognitive interpretation of the family is
distorted, this causes stress. So let's talk about the ways that each of these can
contribute to stress. This is referred to as the family stress model.
Low income may not have a huge impact on child development if there was just a year
or two in the child's life when the family was under significant financial strain. But the
truth is that when poverty strikes it's usually very long-lasting. Most children in low
income families spend many years in poverty. Also, the places where they can afford to
live tend to be places where the neighborhoods aren't safe, the schools aren't well
funded, and there are fewer opportunities for children in general. It's also difficult for
parents to be at their best when they're managing the stress of poverty. Some are able
to manage it quite well and minimize its impact on children. But many parents are worn
down by poverty, and you can see the outcome of this coming out in strained
relationships in the family, whether it's marital conflict or conflict between parents and
their children. Interestingly, the family stress model is not limited to low income families.
Very high income families are also at risk because of stress that stems from pressure
parents put on their children. It's interesting because you might think that children in high
income families have it made; they don't have to worry about having enough to eat, they
live in a nice neighborhood and go to a great school. But the competition and pressure
that stem from trying to measure up to the other families may generate a lot of stress
between children and parents. Indeed, the rates of emotional disorders are higher in high
income families compared to middle class families.
Back to low income families, escaping poverty can have a dramatically positive impact
on child development. For example, Native American families who experienced a
significant increase in income after a new casino was opened had children who showed
a decrease in problem behavior. Research shows us that poverty is correlated with child
psychopathology, this study of Native American families showed that lifting the strain of
poverty can have dramatic, positive effects. By the way, there was no specific program
to educate parents on different parenting techniques, or to educate children on their
coping skills. All we know is that the financial stress decreased, and that problem
behaviors decreased as well. This lends support to the family stress model. Presumably,
with the increase in income came a decrease in the stress in the family, so that parents
were able to forge healthier relationships with their children.
Change makes most of us feel unstable, and adults sometimes don't realize how difficult
it is for children to manage change. Children like things to stay predictable, and when
there are too many transitions, children tend to feel a sense of instability that can
negatively impact their development. Change can come in many different ways. Perhaps
children have to move to a different city, state, or even country. This means they're going
to have to go to a new school, make new friends, and deal with all kinds of changes.
Let's say there's some kind of natural disaster or political conflict that requires a very
drastic and immediate change. When such change happens, the research tells us that
physical health and mental health are negatively impacted among children. If parents
leave for significant portions of time, this is another major disruption. Military families
have specific challenges that they must face, with one or more parents leaving for tours
of duty, or, even during peacetime, dealing with the stress of the multiple moves that are
common in military families. We see the biggest challenges when a child is forced to
deal with several changes in a row. Let's say that parents get divorced, the children live
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Chapter 8, p. 7
with mom, mom gets remarried, the family moves to a new city, the children have to
change schools, make new friends, and learn how to get along with stepparent. When
changes pile up like this, it's very taxing on the child's ability to cope.
We are all individuals, and each of us sees the world in our own unique way because of
our social world and our unique interpretations (or cognitions). This is true of children as
well. One situation may be interpreted very different by each child in a family.
Interpretation matters. What influences children's interpretations? Certainly, each child
has a temperament and other predispositions. Some are simply more resilient than
others for a variety of reasons. But there are other factors that influence their
interpretations as well. Parents' approach to the situation can make a huge difference in
children's interpretation. One study of marital distress and children's functioning found
that the strongest impact on the child's psychological and academic adjustment was the
child's feelings of self blame and instability. It mattered less exactly how much conflict
was going on in the home. It mattered more how the child experienced that conflict. In
other words, there could be just a moderate amount of conflict in the home, but perhaps
because parents have fought openly in front of their child, or maybe one parent has tried
to get the child to take his or her side, or the child somehow believes that he is the
reason why his parents are unhappy… all of these can contribute to a strong sense of
self blame and vulnerability in the child. One of the best things parents can do when they
are having conflict with one another is to do their best to keep the child out of it. Of
course, this isn't always practical. Parents are sometimes going to argue in front of a
child. Even if parents manage not to argue in front of the child, the child is still going to
pick up on tension and discontent. How parents handle it matters greatly. Sometimes
parents can't work through it, for a number of reasons, some of which may be very
legitimate. Let's say that one parent has been unfaithful to the other. Divorce is
inevitable, perhaps. If parents can do their best not to involve the child in the conflict,
that's best for child development. Don't let the child hear you badmouth the other parent.
Do your best not to sigh and roll your eyes when dad arrives at the door to take the child
for the weekend visit. What I'm saying is, to whatever extent possible, if parents can
refrain from dragging their child into the conflict, that helps the child maintain a healthy
perspective on what's going on in the family. We may not be able to prevent conflict from
occurring, but we can do a lot to lessen its impact on the child.
EPISODE 8.2 – MIDDLE CHILDHOOD: PEERS AND MORALITY
This is the second episode about psychosocial development during middle childhood. This
episode focuses on peers and morality.
The Peer Group
Do you remember how important friends were to you in grade school? It's like there was this
whole new world that you entered when you went to school. You got to hang out with people who
were the same age as you, people at the same level of cognitive development as you, people
who had limitless amounts of energy like you did. That all sounds great, right? And it is, for most
of us most of the time. But we have a lot to learn from her peer relationships in the grade school
years, and some of that learning can be painful. In grade school we no longer have the blessing
of egocentrism to protect us from understanding others' opinions about us. We become more
aware of what other people think of us, and, if we behave in a way that other people don't like, we
are going to hear about it. Our peers are probably going to tell it more like it is than our parents
will. Our parents are motivated to soften the blow. Our parents also see the good in us. But, on
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Chapter 8, p. 8
the playground, if you did something not so nice, your peer is likely to turn around and yell at you,
“You are mean! I don't want to play with you!” That is some pretty harsh feedback. Most of us
learn from this feedback and gain important social skills in the meantime.
This group of children, this world of children, that we enter in grade school carries with it norms
and assumptions and its own set of values. In that way, it really is its own culture. A culture of
children. We looked to older children for the clues about what's cool and how we should behave
and what we should play. I remember looking up to the older grade school children when I was in
first or second grade. They seemed so mature and so with it. It's hilarious to think back now,
because they were only 10 years old! The culture of children exerts a strong influence. Suddenly,
the child may start to care about the clothes the he wears to school, or the notebook that he takes
to school. When I was in grade school, scratch-and-sniff stickers were a big deal. I'm guessing
they're not so big now. But it was really important to have a sticker book, with an impressive
display of all of your stickers. And there was this whole system of trading stickers. So if I had a
brand-new sheet of pepperoni scratch-and-sniff stickers, and you had a brand-new sheet of
bubblegum scratch-and-sniff stickers, we could trade and enhance each other's collections. A
certain way of talking often becomes part of the culture as well, with the informal code of slang
becoming important. It's a sign of fitting into the group that a child knows the special words or
phrases approved by the culture of children.
Everybody needs at least one close friend in grade school. Really, that's true well beyond the
grade school years, but it's especially true in middle childhood. Friendship in middle childhood is
more intense than it was in the preschool years. We don't demand much of our friends in
preschool. We just need someone to play with and have fun with. It's not hard to make a new
friend in preschool, but it's much harder to make new friends in grade school. We get pickier. We
expect more. It's more upsetting when a friendship ends. And it's more important to us that our
friends are similar to us in their interests. Some children emerge as popular, some are widely
rejected, and the rest fall somewhere in between. Across the years, children's popularity among
their peers often changes. This is good news because it means that just because a child had a
very bad year doesn't mean he'll be rejected forever. And, what makes a child popular or
unpopular anyway? Popular children tend to be children who have good social skills, although as
we get older the overly confident and perhaps even arrogant kids also rise in social status. Many
times there are two types of popular kids: the ones that everyone likes, and the ones that
everyone is a little bit afraid of. The social skills that are necessary for being a good friend require
social cognition, which is simply the ability to understand our experiences with each other and to
imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. This means that we not only understand
that others may have a different perspective than us, but also what their perspective is and how it
may influence their behavior. Furthermore, we sometimes realize that our behavior can make a
difference, or that we need to change our behavior to consider that other person's perspective or
situation. If Jane has just started using her brand-new jump rope at recess, a child with a good
sense of social cognition realizes that Jane is not going to want to let her borrow the jump rope
right away. Jane just got that jump rope and she's excited and wants to use it for a while first, so
the other child decides to wait and watch for a while, asking Jane if she can use it later. The idea
of social cognition is not too terribly different from emotional intelligence. You could think of it as a
very early form of emotional intelligence. But it certainly is important for building healthy
friendships. Without social cognition skills, children make a lot of social mistakes. They might feel
awkward and not know how to join a group. A girl may run right up to Jane and try to grab the
jump rope away from her, not thinking about how Jane will respond. Or, let's say something
accidental happens, and a boy bumps into another boy as they're lining up to go inside after
recess. This kind of stuff happens all the time, right? If the one who got bumped interprets that
interaction as "on purpose" and retaliates against the child who bumped him, that's a mistake in
social cognition. Children who lack social cognition often jump to a very negative interpretation of
others' behaviors, without considering how others' behaviors might have been influenced by other
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Chapter 8, p. 9
factors. The boy who bumped into him was just running too fast and didn't slow down soon
enough. That's it. Children who tend to make these misinterpretations on a regular basis are
children who are often rejected by the peer group. The culture of children collectively decides that
they don't approve of this behavior. And remember, peers are less likely to sugarcoat things than
our parents are. So the repercussions of these negative interactions can have devastating
impacts on the child who lacks social cognition. Children are rejected for two main reasons. Some
are rejected because of their aggressive behavior, like if the child who was bumped into turns
around and slaps the other kid. Others are rejected because of their awkward or insecure
behaviors, like if the child who was bumped into bursts into tears and starts whining about how
nobody likes him. Not only do rejected children share that tendency to misinterpret events, but
they also have problems regulating their emotions. These things can really take on a snowball
effect unless someone intervenes to help the child. By the way, there's another group of children
who aren't rejected, but are neglected. These are children who are basically ignored by the peer
group, but they're not actively disliked. Neglected children tend to develop without much trouble.
Sometimes they are just late bloomers when it comes to social skills, that they don't behave
inappropriately but that they're very reserved and shy and keep to themselves. In terms of
development, it's worse to be actively rejected than to be neglected.
Both types of rejected children are at risk for becoming victims of bullying. Bullying involves
repeated attacks on a person who doesn't have a social network or interpersonal skills to defend
himself. These attacks are incredibly intentional; bullies are very skilled at identifying and
targeting the rejected children. Most victims of bullying are withdrawn rejected children, but some
are aggressive rejected children. These are bully victims, children who seem to want to start
conflicts because they're so prone to take things very personally. They tend not to have any
friends, and they tend not to have anyone who understands their situation. Bullying can be
physical, verbal, or relational. The physical kind of bullying is obvious; it involves some kind of
hitting, punching, or other physical violence. Verbal bullying is basically name-calling, and
relational bullying is meant to harm a person's reputation by getting others to gang up on the
individual or by spreading rumors or by instructing others not to be that child's friend. As we'll
discuss later in the semester, technology has widened the arena for bullying. Verbal and
relational bullying can now over the Internet and across cell phones. We call this cyber bullying.
There is something to be done about bullying. If we can help that rejected child make at least one
good friend, someone who will stick up for him or her, this can make a dramatic difference in the
victim's life. The culture of the school matters as well, with schoolwide education regarding
bullying and the participation of teachers. In some cases, teachers do not intervene when bullying
is taking place. They may not even be fully aware that it's going on. Educating teachers on how to
spot bullying and how to help stop it can make a big difference. Children can be taught how to
intervene as well.
Morality in Middle Childhood
Children become really interested in right and wrong during the middle childhood years.
Advances in social cognition certainly move this along, as do advances in concrete operational,
logical thinking. It's interesting because in some ways children at this age show a sense of justice
and morality that's even stronger, in some respects, than what you see in many adults. When it
comes to ethnicity or religion, for example, children express greater tolerance than some adults
do. It's different with gender, though. Even though children would tell you they think that it's wrong
to discriminate because of gender, in their own behaviors they show extreme preference for
same-sex friends. During the grade school years, children are very interested in playing with
members of their own sex and not very interested at all in playing with opposite sex peers.
They're pretty gender segregated, but not as much ethnically segregated. Lawrence Kohlberg
was a psychologist who wanted to identify the different stages of moral development that we go
through as we mature. His work was inspired by Piaget. Kohlberg found that morality was very
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Chapter 8, p. 10
self-centered in the years before grade school. We are more concerned about avoiding
punishment and getting what we want. It makes sense if you think about how children are
egocentric at this time. Their thinking about morality is very focused on their personal perspective.
This is the preconventional stage of moral reasoning. Once we get into grade school, we lose our
egocentrism, gain social cognition skills, and start to think more logically. With this comes an
awareness that there are certain rules that are supposed to be followed. This is called the
conventional stage of moral reasoning. Why do we behave in a moral way? We do so because
we want to please others and gain their approval, or because we think it's important to follow the
rules. It's a focus on the group and the norms of the group. There's another stage that comes
after conventional moral reasoning, but why? Isn't there value in doing things that others accept?
Isn't it important to follow the rules? Most of the time. But not all of the time. Think about the laws
during Rosa Parks' time. She broke the law by refusing to give up her seat and move to the back
of the bus. As adults, we understand the moral reasoning behind her decision even though she
technically broke the law. In the postconventional stage of moral reasoning we move beyond the
rigid notions of concrete operational thought and we understand that the rules are based on
abstractions - like the abstract concept of justice. We think more about ideals in the
postconventional stage of moral reasoning, considering principles over laws or rules. We
understand that human beings make the laws, and that human beings sometimes fall short of the
ideals. Furthermore, we understand that one's personal ethical values may conflict with those of
the larger society as a whole. This is the idea that each individual has to decide his or her own
values. In middle childhood, children move from preconventional to conventional moral
reasoning. But not all adults make it to postconventional moral reasoning. It's interesting to see
some adults still claiming that the laws are always the highest representation of our ideals.
How would you determine what level of moral reasoning a person has reached? Kohlberg thought
it was important to present someone with a moral dilemma and to carefully examine how they
reason through that dilemma. It's not so important what decision they come to; it's more important
how they came to that decision. Why did they come to that decision? The most famous scenario
that's used to assess moral development is the Heinz dilemma, where a man named Heinz is
struggling with a situation that doesn't have a clear solution. Heinz has a wife who is very very ill
and who needs a drug in order to stay alive. There is a local druggist who has the drug that will
keep Heinz's wife alive, but the druggist is selling it at a ridiculously high markup and will not
budge on the price. So, Heinz breaks into the druggist's store and steals the drug. Did he do the
right thing? It doesn't matter whether you think he did the right thing or not, in Kohlberg's view.
What matters is the reasoning behind your decision. Were you focused on avoiding punishment
or gaining approval? Were you focused primarily on the law or social norms? Or did your
response consider the more basic principles of justice? Kohlberg's stages are useful way to think
about different approaches to moral problems, but his work is not without criticism. His research
was conducted only on boys, and he found that boys were more likely to reach the final stage stage 6 - than girls. But to assume that stage 6 is truly a higher level of moral reasoning stage 5 is
questionable. For women and girls, relationships play a more central role in their moral reasoning.
This may be why postconventional women are more likely to reason at stage 5 (which focuses
more on interpersonal aspects of justice) and postconventional men are more likely to reason at
stage 6 (which centers more on objective aspects of justice). It doesn't mean men are more moral
than women, but it may indicate a bias in Kohlberg's definition of morality - a bias towards a more
masculine definition of justice.
We've reached the end of the grade school years, and we'll move next to discussing
adolescence.
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Chapter 9, p. 1
EPISODE 9.1 – ADOLESCENCE: PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
When you think of adolescence, what words and images and feelings come to mind? I
think of words like "possibilities" and "excitement" and "confusion." But perhaps the most
fitting word is "change." We experience phenomenal changes during adolescence, from
the physical development of the body and brain, to changes in thinking, to the
increasingly important world of friends surrounding us. In spite of all of this change, most
adolescents are well-adjusted. Most adolescents still love their parents and feel close to
them, even though they want to spend less and less time with them and more and more
time with friends. We have a lot of changes to discuss, but in this episode we focus on
the changes in the physical development of adolescents.
Puberty Begins
We make the physical transition from childhood to adulthood during puberty. Puberty
begins a lot earlier than we realize because the first events are invisible, like the
production of hormones. These days, hormone production increases around ages 9 or 9
1/2. It's a little bit later for boys and a little bit earlier for girls, which is the common
adolescence experience - that girls develop faster than boys. Sex hormones get
released once the gonads have developed. Gonads are sex glands, so that would be
ovaries for girls and testes for boys. Girls' ovaries produce estradiol in adolescence at a
rate of about eight times as much as in childhood. Boys' testes produce testosterone,
about 18 times more in adolescence compared to childhood. By the way, girls also make
testosterone and boys make estradiol, but they make far less of each.
How does the body know when to make this happen? The HPA axis is involved. The
hypothalamus, which is a structure in the brain, tells the pituitary gland, another structure
in the brain, to make its hormones. The pituitary's hormones triggers the adrenal glans
and the gonads. Let's discuss the adrenal glands first. The adrenal glands create the
hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine, which are commonly referred to as stress
hormones. These hormones influence growth, sleep, attitude, and other factors. Now,
as I mentioned before, girls create testosterone and boys create estradiol. Where does
this happen? The adrenal glands are responsible for this. So, boys' estradiol and girls'
testosterone are released by the adrenal glands.
What about the gonads? Well, the hypothalamus triggers the pituitary, and the pituitary
triggers the development of the gonads. Then, the gonads create massive amounts of
testosterone for boys and large amounts of estradiol for girls. Okay? After the gonads
mature, girls start to ovulate. The uterus builds up a layer of lining in preparation for a
possible pregnancy, and the girl has her first menstrual period somewhere around 12 1/2
years of age (on average). Menstruation is basically the result of the uterus shedding its
lining. A girl's first menstrual period is called menarche. Boys have a similar experience
whenever their testes develop to the extent that they can create sperm. The first time a
boy ejaculates sperm is an event called spermarche; this often happens overnight during
sleep in a wet dream (technically called a nocturnal emission). So there you have it –
sexual maturity…at least in terms of the physical body.
All of this talk about hormones and we haven't yet mentioned moods! Think about the
attitude most people have about puberty and hormones. It's usually an attitude of fear
and trepidation. How often have you heard someone talk about the raging hormones of
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Chapter 9, p. 2
adolescents? How many times have you seen a movie where there's a teenager who is
emotionally out of control? Be careful not to assume this is the reality for most
teenagers. The research tells us that yes, our moods become more variable and
changeable during adolescence. Yes, we are moodier than we were as children.
Adolescents also experience some very new and powerful emotions, like lust - a big
change from the childhood years. But, do hormones MAKE teenagers this way? Is it an
inevitable outcome of this new increase in hormones? Hormones influence our behavior
and our emotions, yes, but here's the part most people neglect: our behaviors and our
emotions influence our hormone production as well. We are going through all kinds of
changes, adjusting to how others are treating us differently, and trying out some new
behaviors of our own. Just by itself, that's enough to get our emotions going, right? And
as a result of these emotions, our production of hormones is affected. So, hormones
influence our emotions, but our emotions also influence our hormones. Let's not
perpetuate this myth that teenagers are controlled by hormones.
Hormones influence sleep, too. It's funny how this topic gets relatively less attention
than moods do. Obviously, sleep is incredibly important for any human being. I'm quite
fond of sleep myself. But I remember being so very, very tired as a teenager, and I
remember my friends going through the same thing. Parents might blame it on teenagers
simply not getting to bed early enough. Sounds fair, right? I mean, I'd be curious to find
out how many teenagers are online well into the night, into the wee hours of the morning,
on Facebook or chatting or texting. We didn't have those things when I was a teenager,
and I still had a hard time going to bed early. The research shows us that teenagers
aren't getting enough sleep. There's a biological explanation for some of this, though,
and it has to do with hormones. Our bodies are regulated by a number of circadian
rhythms that reflect predictable changes in our hormone production across a 24-hour
period. The pituitary gland produces hormones that actually shift the schedule of sleeprelated hormones for adolescents. Melatonin is a hormone that we need to help us
sleep, and pituitary hormones delay the typical cycle of melatonin production. That's one
reason why teenagers don't feel tired until after midnight. Yes, maybe they shouldn't be
on Facebook until 3 AM, but it's unlikely they'll feel sleepy before midnight. So what we
do? We start school at 8 AM. The day may begin even earlier if you're an athlete or in
some extracurricular activity that involve before-school meetings or rehearsals. I
remember having percussion ensemble practice at 6:45 or 7 AM. Let's do the math.
Most teenagers aren't getting enough sleep, even if they go to bed right when they start
to feel sleepy. Teenagers often go through the week with significant sleep deprivation,
and then they try to catch up on their sleep over the weekends. They have probably had
all kinds of different sleep schedules across the week, and maybe they've slept in until
noon on Saturday and Sunday. It's going to be particularly difficult for them to go to bed
and fall asleep at a reasonable time on Sunday night. Thus another week begins with
significant sleep deprivation, and the pattern repeats itself!
So what's the big deal? Sleep deprivation is part of our culture, isn't it? It's almost a
badge of honor to complain about how little sleep you got last night. Well, It matters
because sleep deprivation affects us more than we think. We don't learn as well when
we are sleep deprived. We make riskier choices and we react more slowly while driving
whenever we are sleep deprived. Even mild but chronic sleep deprivation can lead to
depression, because when we deprive ourselves of sleep, we deprive our brains of the
opportunity to rejuvenate overnight. Sleep deprived individuals have brains that aren't as
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Chapter 9, p. 3
sensitive to neurotransmitters that help us feel alert, awake, and satisfied. Seems pretty
clear what we need to do: Change our school schedule. Why can't school start later? If
we were guided only by the research, we would make this change in the school
schedule. But, as is often the case, many other factors impinge upon these kind of
decisions. If we start school later, what will happen to our after school activities? How
will teachers feel about this shift in their work schedule? Very few schools have
attempted to change their schedules based on this research, so it appears that for the
time being we are likely to have sleep deprived teenagers well into the future. That's too
bad, because research tells us that teenagers at schools that start later show better
outcomes in terms of both their academic and psychological functioning.
The Timing of Puberty
It's hard not to compare ourselves to others when it comes to the timing of puberty.
Among girls in particular, there is a lot of talk about this very topic. Of course, with girls
there's menarche, which is a very distinctive experience in a girl's life. Girls have to start
paying attention to the calendar so they are prepared for when their next menstrual
period may start. They have to leave class to go to the bathroom, or make sure to leave
time in between classes to take care of things. And girls tend to disclose more to their
girlfriends, so they all talk about when they're having their period. It's a big topic of
conversation. It's kind of a bonding experience. The events of boys' puberty aren't as
newsworthy among friends, perhaps because nocturnal emissions are very private and
don't require any adjustments at school, and maybe also because boys don't disclose as
much to their male friends. Still, boys are very aware of how they compare to their male
peers in terms of height, weight, and tone of voice.
Adolescents don't all experience puberty at the same time: some are very early and
some are very late. Most of us are somewhere in the middle. Where does this variation
in timing come from? A good portion of it is genetic. How young were your parents when
they experienced puberty? That's a pretty good indication of the age at which you were
likely to experience puberty. Genes also matter when it comes to sex differences. If you
have sex chromosomes XY, you are a boy, and you are genetically predisposed to start
the obvious, outward signs of puberty later than if you were a girl with sex chromosomes
XX. Boys and girls are very similar in the timing of those early hormonal increases, like
the adrenal gland activity around age 9. Girls are still ahead of boys on this, but only by
a few months on average. The more obvious and outward signs are where the gender
differences are most distinct, like the growth spurt and the changes in body proportions.
Girls get taller and curvier much earlier than boys get taller and broader - about two
years earlier, on average. Girls go through their growth spurt before menarche, which
makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. It makes sense that a female would
develop a body with adult-like proportions before being best suited to sustain a
pregnancy. This means that the height spurt, the growth spurt, for girls happens in the
middle of her puberty. For boys, the growth spurt happens much later, after spermarche.
Again, think evolutionarily: males' contribution to pregnancy is simply sperm, so it
doesn't matter that the rest of the body has not yet reached adult proportions.
Body fat influences the timing of puberty as well, probably through its influence on
hormones. Think about this from an evolutionary perspective. I know that we have
negative attitudes about fat these days, and excessive fat is a real health risk. But when
it comes to puberty, body fat is a signal that there is plenty of nourishment available for a
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Chapter 9, p. 4
pregnancy. I mean, think back on what you learned about newborns: babies are born
with excess body fat as an evolutionary strategy to enhance their survival. Okay, so now
it probably makes sense that body fat signals to the rest of the body that puberty can
happen. The more body fat we have, the earlier our puberty is likely to begin. The less
body fat we have, the later our puberty is likely to begin. Think about a young
professional gymnast, a teenage girl who has almost no body fat. She will likely have a
menarche much later than other girls. Her body is not well suited to host a pregnancy.
Some have wondered if the main culprit with food and today's relatively early puberty is
hormonal additives in our foods. It's possible, but we don't yet have evidence of a direct
link between hormonal additives and early puberty. However, we do have plenty of
research that suggests these additives influence our appetites, which leads to greater
body fat, which leads to earlier puberty. Also, our appetites in general increase in
adolescence. For example, leptin is a hormone that increases our appetite, and our
bodies begin to produce more leptin as we move from childhood to adolescence. This is
clearest among girls - when estrogen decreases before a girl's period begins, leptin
increases and appetite increases. The appetite increase from foods with additives and
adolescents' naturally increasing appetites is the best explanation so far for early
puberty.
In certain areas of the world, children are malnourished and puberty is delayed. This
provides more evidence for the association between body fat and puberty timing. We
tend to forget that chronic malnutrition was a fact of life for most of human existence.
Looking back across centuries of time, puberty has begun earlier and earlier as we
became better and better nourished. We have also grown taller as a species over the
centuries, thanks to better nutrition. This is called the secular trend, the finding that
puberty begins much earlier today than it did in centuries past. Does this mean that
eventually 5 year olds will be starting puberty? No. Research suggests that the secular
trend has pretty much stopped in developed nations.
The next finding may surprise you: The more stress a child experiences, the earlier his
or her puberty is likely to begin. In other words, high stress correlates with early puberty.
Where is this stress coming from? Harsh parenting practices, most likely. Harsh
parenting generates a stressful atmosphere in the home, and this increases the
production of sex hormones among the children in the family (especially girls). What's
the evolutionary purpose? How might it be adaptive for girls in stressful environments to
become sexually mature at an earlier age? Early puberty increases their odds of
reproducing before they die. I know it sounds harsh and it's hard to imagine in today's
world. I also think people get confused when we talk about evolutionary theory because
they think about conscious thoughts and motivations. They think, "Well, I didn't want to
get pregnant at the beginning of puberty, and nobody I knew would have wanted that
either." That's right. But evolutionary influences are not conscious thought processes. It's
about natural selection and the qualities that led to our ancestors' reproductive success.
Your ancestors, way way back, were more likely to survive long enough to pass on their
genes if, in a stressful environment, they were able to reproduce early. Let's say the
environment was super stressful. A female entered puberty early, got pregnant, and
gave birth. Now her genes have been passed on. Even if she doesn't survive, her genes
live on in her offspring. This is reproductive success from an evolutionary perspective.
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Chapter 9, p. 5
Now, countless years later, thanks to natural selection, many of us have the
predisposition to start puberty earlier when raised in a very stressful environment.
Does it really matter to teenagers when puberty begins? It depends. We all like to talk
about how unique we are, but the truth is that most of us in adolescence don't want to
stick out as different from our friends. If we are off-time on puberty, on a different
schedule than our peers, there are psychological consequences. But there are also sex
differences. First of all, girls begin puberty earlier than boys, regardless of any other
influence. So, a very early maturing girl is going through puberty before any of her
peers–female or male. This isn't easy to handle, and early-maturing girls often have low
self-esteem and high depression. These girls may find that they are treated better and
get a lot of attention from older boys. This can seem great to the girl at the time because
they have gained acceptance and it feels cool to have an older boyfriend. The problem is
that that young girl is likely to be highly influenceable and may have sex before she's
really ready, or may experiment with drugs or alcohol. Most of us aren't presented with
the challenges until we are older and have more mature brains. Not so for the early
developing girl. Girls who develop on time instead of early tend to have a healthier and
happier adolescence. Boys also struggle with early maturation. In the historical past,
early maturation was correlated with positive outcomes for boys, because others treated
them greater respect. That's not the case so much today, where early maturing boys are
more likely to become fathers, and teenage fathers show higher rates of psychological
disorders like depression.
It's difficult to be a late developer no matter which sex you are, but boys have it
particularly tough. Think about the entire peer group. Girls show outward signs of
puberty about two years earlier than boys on average. If you are a late-developing boy,
you stand out because everybody else in your peer group is ahead of you. Late maturing
boys are shorter and thinner and have higher pitched voices than all of the other boys. It
can be tough on late developing girls, too, although it tends to be easier in respect to
how the rest of the peer group is developing. Even if you're a late developing girl,
chances are there still are quite a few boys who have not yet developed either. But kids
of both sexes who are late developers show higher rates of self injury, like cutting. And
cutting often indicates more serious underlying psychological problems.
Nutrition
Most adolescents are not getting the proper nutrition. I know I didn't. There were long
stretches of time when breakfast for me was a Diet Coke and frosted doughnuts. It kind
of makes me sick to think back on that. We drink much less milk today than we used to,
and our teenage bodies are deficient in calcium as a result. Calcium is essential for the
healthy development of bones, and our lack of calcium in adolescence may not become
fully apparent until we become older adults and begin to have problems with
osteoporosis and fragile bones. Most teenagers are deficient in iron as well, but for
different reasons by sex. With menstruation, girls lose blood which reduces the amount
of iron in their body. For boys, there's no connection with sperm or ejaculation and iron,
but there is a connection between physical activity and iron. Boys are more physically
active than girls, and their worn-out muscles require more iron in order to be able to
grow. Persistent iron deficiency results in anemia, and guess what the main symptom of
anemia is? Low energy. Combine this with schedules that don't match the sleep-related
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Chapter 9, p. 6
hormonal cycles of adolescence, and it just makes so much sense why so many
teenagers are falling asleep at school.
We struggle with our body image during the teenage years, and this influences our
decisions about what to eat. Most teenagers are unhappy with at least one of the
changes puberty has brought to their bodies. There are cultural ideals as well, and
teenagers are very aware of them. For boys, the cultural ideal for a masculine body is to
be bigger and wider. Puberty for boys involves an increase in height and a broadening
of the shoulders, so this often lines up with the cultural ideal. If anything, many teenage
boys wish they weren't so thin, and they may compensate by lifting weights and trying to
build muscle.
The cultural ideal for a feminine body is to be thin, so the curves that come with female
adolescence work against that ideal. Yes, female curves are valued by our culture, but
the curves are accompanied by increases in body fat in general for most teenage girls.
Some girls see a little bit of fat and assume that they need to lose weight. They may start
to cut down on their calories, which will undoubtedly affect the balance of nutrients they
are getting. Taken to an extreme, this can lead to eating disorders. Rates of eating
disorders increase greatly in adolescence, especially among teenage girls. Anorexia
nervosa is an eating disorder where a person basically starves herself. She is convinced
that she's fat, and that's what she sees when she looks in the mirror. The perception of
her own body is extremely distorted and she denies that she has a problem. Everyone
else sees that she's getting too skinny. Everyone else is worried. But, when she looks in
the mirror, all she sees is fat. When we don't get proper nutrition over an extended
period of time, we wear our bodies down. Our vital organs need nutrients to be able to
function. Sadly, anorexia can go so far that the individual dies from organ failure.
Bulimia nervosa is a different kind of eating disorder, although the underlying distorted
body perception is there. People with bulimia nervosa go on binges, eating massive
amounts of food all at once. She feel like she has no control over this behavior. After
binging, she purges–forcing herself to throw up what she just ate, or using laxatives to
get rid of the food. It can be tricky to spot bulimia because the individual may not look all
that different. Her body size and shape is often very similar to the average person. But
bulimia nervosa can have dramatically negative impacts on the body, like problems with
the digestive system and the heart.
Where do eating disorders come from? There is evidence of genetic influences; for
example, you may see patterns of anorexia in a given family. Severe depression also
correlates with anorexia, so there may be some type of similar underlying genetic
influence going on. Developing in puberty can be a trigger for some people, as they
become very concerned about body image and try new diets. Think of how leptin
increases moving into adolescence–this surge in appetite could lead to an episode of
binging, which the teenager deals with by purging. Once she's done it one time, it gets
easier and easier to keep doing it. Parents may have an influence as well. If parents
have been extremely restrictive in controlling the child's eating over the years, this could
impact the child's view of food as something they want to take control of. It becomes
more about control than anything else. Interestingly, parents can have a positive impact
as well by encouraging regular family meals. It isn't quite clear exactly how this influence
works, but children who have been raised in a family where there were regular family
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Chapter 9, p. 7
meals–and that means that everybody in the family sits down and eats at the same time
on a regular basis–these children show a lower risk of eating disorders. Of course, the
regular family dinners may also be an indication of a close-knit family that functions well
in a number of other ways. So it's not that the family dinner all by itself prevent eating
disorders, but it may reflect a family cohesion that serves as a buffer - to protect against all the risks of developing eating disorders.
Sexual Behavior
There are two types of sexual characteristics that change during puberty: primary sex
characteristics and secondary sex characteristics. Primary sex characteristics are
changes to the sex organs that are necessary to be able to reproduce. To be able to
make a baby, a number of organs are absolutely required: ovaries and uterus, testes
and a penis. The hormones produced during adolescence trigger the growth of these
organs. Secondary sex characteristics are sex-related body changes that are not directly
involved in reproduction. A woman doesn't have to have a curvy body in order to
reproduce. Her hips and her breasts are sex-related changes–secondary sex
characteristics–that make her look more womanly, but are not directly involved in
reproduction. For boys, the widening of the shoulders and the deepening of the voice are
two examples of secondary sex characteristics.
The body is changing, becoming sexually mature, and hormones influence thoughts and
desires about sex as well. It's a risky time in the lifespan, and it's a risky time from a
historical perspective for a number of reasons. More teenagers today than ever before
have some kind of sexually transmitted infection. Puberty starts earlier, and we have
more accepting attitude about sex today than in the past. These two influences together
can lead to sex at younger and younger ages, which is correlated with negative
psychological outcomes like depression. Teenage pregnancy is an obvious risk as well.
If teenage pregnancy occurs, it's very unlikely that the teenage mother will be married.
It's also likely–more likely than before–that the new grandmother (the maternal
grandmother) is working full time and isn't as available to pitch in the with childrearing as
grandmothers of the past. Finally, it's more expensive and challenging to raise children
in today's world, a stress that most parents feel, but a stress particularly overwhelming
for a teenage parent who is not yet psychologically mature.
It's interesting -- Teenagers are having more sex and are having sex earlier, but there
are fewer teen pregnancies today than in the past. Adolescents have learned about birth
control and are using it more often than teenagers of the past. But, among those
teenagers who do become pregnant, the youngest are at greatest risk for every type of
complication associated with pregnancy. This could be because the youngest teens are
the least likely to get early prenatal care, and because their bodies are not yet ready to
manage the physical stress of pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy is more likely to progress
in a healthy manner among girls age 15 or older. Although the physical risks are lower,
the psychological consequences are still often overwhelming. Psychological problems
like insecure attachment occur at higher rates for teenage mothers and children of
teenage mothers, and both teen moms and their children are less likely to complete their
education.
Teenagers are at great risk of sexually transmitted infections, even though they're doing
a better job of using contraception than past generations. Obviously, not all birth control
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Chapter 9, p. 8
protects against sexually transmitted infections. Once again, the youngest teenagers are
the most vulnerable. Immunity against STIs increases with age, and young teenagers–
especially girls–don't have their biological defenses fully built up yet. If they're exposed
to the STI, they are highly likely to develop it. For years, scientists have been aware of
the potentially dangerous effects of STIs like chlamydia, which is the most common one.
Lately, there's been much more attention and concern directed toward HPV (human
papillomavirus). This one is particularly scary because there are no obvious signs of the
infection at first, but the virus increases the chances of girls developing uterine cancer
later in life. And this could be decades later. HPV can also cause genital warts in both
sexes, although the warts may not appear for months or years afterwards. Teens may
think they're protected if they use condoms during intercourse, but HPV can spread
through simple genital contact. The high risk of being infected with HPV has lead to the
development of a vaccine to protect children before they become sexually active,
although there is plenty of controversy over whether this is the best approach to the
problem.
That wraps up our coverage of the physical changes of adolescent development. In the
next episode, we will discuss the development of the brain and cognition during this time
in the lifespan.
EPISODE 9.2: ADOLESCENCE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BRAIN AND
COGNITION
What were you thinking? Did anyone ever ask you this when you were a teenager? Most
of us made some pretty questionable decisions as teens. But, at the same time, our
thinking as teenagers was much more complex than it was when we were children. We
became capable of amazing feats of cognition. So it's a mix: teenagers have more
complex thoughts than children, but their thinking is also highly influenceable, especially
when emotions are involved.
Brain Development
The brain is always developing. Even when you are 80 years old, your brain will still be
developing. But there are certain times in the lifespan when brain development is
particularly rapid, or when certain changes are most likely to occur. And adolescence is
one of those times. Remember the prefrontal cortex? This is a part of the brain near the
front of the frontal lobes that is very slow to develop across the lifespan. It helps us
regulate our emotions and control our impulses, largely by calming down the activity of
the emotional centers in our brain. The prefrontal cortex has developed enough by the
time we are in grade school so that we can manage to sit still for a period of time. It has
developed by five years of age so that we no longer throw the same intense tantrums we
did as two-year-olds. Well, this development – a very gradual development – continues
into adolescence, and scientists think the prefrontal cortex reaches maturity around the
age of 25. But guess which area of the brain is fully developed by adolescence? The
emotional center - the limbic system. One important structure of the limbic system is the
amygdala, which processes emotions. The hormones of puberty make the amygdala
more sensitive and responsive, which leaves teens feeling very intense emotions. With
an immature prefrontal cortex and a highly responsive limbic system, it is quite a
challenge for teenagers to regulate emotions and control their impulses.
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Chapter 9, p. 9
Research shows us that teens are capable of making very logical decisions. But, when
we ask teenagers to participate in research, and we describe a scenario to them in order
to test their reasoning ability, we are not triggering their emotional impulses. It's a very
neutral experience for them with little or no involvement from the limbic system. In
contrast, what decisions will they make when surrounded by friends? The pressure of
the social situation combined with a very sensitive and reactive amygdala may
overwhelm the fledgling attempts of the immature prefrontal cortex. It's like the activity of
the limbic system prevents the prefrontal cortex from doing its job. In the moment, the
desire to belong or be accepted or act on impulse wins, and teens make some
questionable decisions. Logical, deliberate reasoning is a speciality of the prefrontal
cortex. It's immature during these years, so it's clear how real life situations in
adolescence can lead teens to do things they later regret. Furthermore, the charge that
they get from these intense impulses and emotions feels pretty good to teenagers. It's
more exciting and attractive in the moment than cold, hard logic.
Another development during the teenage years is a burst of myelination. Remember,
myelin is the coating that helps speed communication between neurons; because of the
increase in adolescence, teens have very rapid reactions and responses. The brain is
rather plastic (changeable) at this time, very responsive to experience. This may give
adolescents the courage to try something new, or to push themselves to the limit in their
chosen activities. I remember being able to practice musical instruments for countless
hours. I was a percussionist and I played snare drum in marching band; my favorite
instrument otherwise was the marimba, which is similar to a xylophone. It's true that I
was tired a lot of the time (hello, shifted circadian rhythms and early school!), but I was
still able to quickly learn and benefit from practicing over and over again. Once we
develop into adulthood, especially past early adulthood, brain plasticity decreases. It's
important that teenagers have opportunities and encouragement to take advantage of
this burst of myelination and plasticity.
Thinking about Oneself
We care a lot about what people think of us in adolescence, even if we sometimes
pretend that we don't. The research clearly shows that most of us are a little insecure
and want to check with our friends to make certain we fit in. There's also a lot of
introspection during this time, thinking about yourself. Adolescents are egocentric, but
it's a different kind of egocentrism than the early childhood variety. As teenagers,
egocentrism comes out in our extreme concern about what everybody else is thinking
about us and our conviction that others are thinking about us a lot. Were pretty sensitive
during this time as well. If it's all about me, then I'm likely to pick up on any of your
behaviors as an indication of something directed toward me… instead of the more likely
possibility that your behavior has more to do with you than me. If you seem to blow me
off and hardly say anything to me one day, I may take that as a personal insult. It
happens with positive interactions, too, when things are going well. If someone
compliments you, as a teenager you are more likely to allow this to inflate your sense of
self-importance, at least in the moment. In either direction, it's an intense response
fueled by egocentrism. We engage in some irrational beliefs as adolescence as well,
such as the personal fable and the invincibility fable. The personal fable is an irrational
belief that my life is so unique and so special, and that I am destined to have amazing
experiences because of this. It's an exaggeration of the specialness or the uniqueness of
our experiences. If a teenage girl tells her mother, "You can't possibly understand what it
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Chapter 9, p. 10
feels like for me, now that Billy broke up with me!" Well, in fact, mom may have gone
through her own heartbreak as a teenager, but her daughter is convinced that this
breakup she is going through right now is so completely unique that nobody could
possibly understand…that her experience is much more difficult than anyone else's,
including (and perhaps especially) her mother's. The invincibility fable is another product
of adolescent egocentrism, but this one can be very dangerous for adolescents. The
invincibility fable is an irrational belief that I am not vulnerable to the risks in life. A 16year-old boy may be well aware that it's unsafe to drive above the speed limit, but in his
mind he's a much better driver than everyone else, so he thinks he is immune to the risk
himself. It's the idea that the risks don't apply to me. And finally, adolescence often
brings with it a sense of having an imaginary audience. This is the egocentric belief that
other people are very much aware of the details of my appearance and my behaviors,
which can lead a person to become consumed with worry about what everybody else is
thinking about them. You feel like the spotlight is on you, like everybody is watching and
noticing everything about you. This reflects egocentrism because we think we are much
more important in the eyes of everyone else then we really are. The truth is that all of the
other adolescents are also worried that you're noticing everything about them. I find it
really funny today to think back on how much I was concerned about my appearance,
whether my clothes matched or my bangs were properly feathered (I'm dating myself
here), when everyone else was having similar worries of their own.
Formal Operational Thought
I have a question for you. If you could have a third eye and you could put it anywhere,
where would you put it and what could it do? This question was asked of grade school
children and teenagers, and the results demonstrated clear cognitive differences. Grade
school kids thought the question was kind of dumb because nobody really could ever
have a third eye. It was common for grade school children to say that they would put
their third eye between their other two eyes, and that it could let them see really well.
Teenagers have more fun answering this question. One said he'd put his third eye on his
hand so he could find the biggest cookie when he reached into the cookie jar. Another
said he would put his third eye on top of a tuft of his hair on his head, and that it could
rotate 360° so he could see all around him from way up high. They enjoyed this task and
asked if they could do things like this more in the future. The difference isn't just
creativity. The difference is between concrete, reality-based thinking and hypothetical,
abstract thinking. Grade school children were limited because they view the world very
concretely, very much steeped in reality and what they've experienced before.
Adolescents are gaining formal operational skills, as Piaget would refer to them, and one
of those skills is abstract thinking. Teenagers can think not only about what they've
experienced in the past, but also about things they've never experienced. Furthermore,
they can imagine consequences and think through the possibilities of situations that
have never occurred before, and may never occur. Nobody has a third eye. Nobody is
ever going to offer a third eye to you that you could put anywhere you please, that could
do anything you please. It's completely hypothetical. Nevertheless, adolescents can
apply their logical thinking skills to the third eye scenario - an imaginary situation,
whereas grade schoolers get hung up on reality.
Adolescents can think logically, develop hypotheses, and imagine how hypotheses could
be tested. To hypothesize means to predict what's going to happen in the future, in a
situation or within the context of a problem you haven't encountered before. Piaget
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Chapter 9, p. 11
developed a number of experiments to test formal operational thinking. These
experiments would involve imagining outcomes and systematically testing a prediction.
Teenagers do this better than grade school children. For example, the balance scale
task involves making predictions about how a scale will react when you put different
sized weights on it at different distances from the center. Grade school kids will try to
solve the problem, but they aren't systematic about it. Their approach is haphazard,
based on trial and error. In contrast, adolescents are more likely to develop a
hypothesis–a prediction about the factors that will result in balancing the scale. Based on
their prediction, they will then systematically try out combinations related to their
hypothesis. These same skills come out in more creative or open ended questions that
require "what if" propositions, imagining possibilities like in the third eye task.
Interestingly, all of this focus on possibilities can result to rigid, idealistic thinking.
Teenagers are very aware of ideals - the way things could be, and the way things should
be. They may start to think about the way their parents raised them and the rules that
they have to follow right now, and imagine how those rules and how their parents could
be different. They imagine, "What if my curfew was much later? What is the worst thing
that could happen? Why couldn't my curfew be later?"
Another reason for these changes has to do with the difference between inductive and
deductive reasoning. In grade school, most of us focused on inductive reasoning, using
concrete examples to come to general conclusions about things. We move from what we
perceive to be concrete examples to making general conclusions. Let's say that a boy
has a number of negative interactions with girls. He thinks about those six girls who
have been mean to him this year, and he concludes that "Girls are mean!" The concrete
examples from the past lead to a generalized conclusion. Deductive reasoning works in
the other direction, from the top down…from a general principle to specific predictions. A
teenager may conclude that "Girls are mean," and test his prediction by noticing whether
this generality is supported by specific examples.
We do become capable of formal operational thinking in adolescence, but our skills of
cold, hard logic may fail us in the moment when the limbic system is functioning at full
force. But let's not overlook the fact that even adults struggle between logical thinking
(which is more analytical) and intuitive thinking (which is based more on what feels
right). When people say, "It was a gut-level decision," they're talking about intuitive
thought. The trouble with intuition is that it often feels right or feels better, even when it's
wrong. We have assumptions based on our past experience and we tend to be less
critical thinkers than we should be. Once we've made an intuitive decision, it's very
difficult to get us to change our minds because we become invested in defending our
choice. So, it should not surprise us that teenagers rely on their intuition more than they
should and use their formal operational skills unevenly and inconsistently. As adults,
thankfully, our limbic system can be held in check better by our more mature prefrontal
cortex, but we've all experienced the strain of trying to remain logical in the midst of
having intuitive or gut-level feelings about something. This isn't to say that intuition is
always incorrect. Sometimes your gut is correct. But it certainly fails us at times, and we
are unlikely to be fully aware or to fully admit when this is the case. That's the danger.
And there's often divide between parents and their teenage children when it comes to
understanding each other's perspectives. Parents place the highest value on teenagers'
health and well-being over the long term, but adolescents are geared more to value
social connection and acceptance in the moment. It's especially telling when adults are
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Chapter 9, p. 12
able to think back on the priorities they had as teenagers and some the things they
valued at that time – like taking risks, trying new things, and feeling things very strongly.
Parents may become overly concerned about protecting their children and forgetting
what it was like to be a young formal operational thinker with a strong limbic system and
powerful gut feelings. Of course, as adults we arguably have the superior prefrontal
cortex in this scenario, but simply telling adolescents how they should behave doesn't
have much of an influence when the teenager is faced with a situation in the moment
that they must deal with. And, a heavy-handed approach of trying to control teenage
children can backfire and harm communication in the relationship, which could do even
more damage to the teenager's development in the long run than their immature
prefrontal cortex could do.
Teaching and Learning
School is such a focal context for development, and secondary education brings with it a
new set of challenges and opportunities. The first part of secondary education, usually
grades six through eight, is often referred to as middle school. In the past, it was more
common that just seventh and eighth graders would be together in the school, and it was
then called junior high. Recently there has been a switch to more middle schools and
fewer junior high schools. Middle school is a difficult time for many adolescents, partially
because the early years of adolescence are a time of very rapid and distinct change.
Unfortunately, for many kids it's a time when academic achievement decreases, and
behavioral problems increase. Class sizes are often larger than in grade school, which
means that each child is getting less attention from their teacher than they are used to.
They are now interacting with a bunch of new people, most of whom are older, and it's
tough to figure out how to fit in. And bullying persists, especially relational bullying.
Relational bullies tend to become more admired in middle school than before.
Furthermore, it's not so cool in middle school to be a good student anymore, and this
obviously impacts motivation to study and pay attention during class. Adolescent
egocentrism insures that most teens would rather deal with lower grades if it meant
greater acceptance from peers. What we have here in middle school may be a
disconnect between the needs of early adolescence and the emphasis of the school
environment.
The tools of learning have increased with technology, as computers and other digital
devices are increasingly used in school. We used to have a so-called digital divide, a
gap between groups of people in terms of their computer use, with the different sexes
and different income levels. Technology use among teens used to be the territory of
boys and children from more affluent families. Today, in nations like ours, a large
proportion of children have used technology as a learning tool. But what exactly are they
using it for? That's a different question. Yes, they are using technology and the Internet
to learn, but the questions they seek to answer online are not always related to school.
Many turn to the Internet to learn about topics they feel they can't talk about with their
parents, like sex. Software helps students learn; use of word processing software in
particular is related to improvement in reading skills. There's a great potential to use
computers and the Internet to trigger collaborative projects among students, where
students discover high-quality sources and information, and collaborate to create a new
idea or product. And what about their social relationships? Technology is certainly
playing a larger role in this area of life than before. For me, social relationships were
maintained through conversations in the hallway between classes, notes passed during
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Chapter 9, p. 13
class, and phone calls after school. But today, teens have many more options for staying
in touch with friends, and today's teenagers are making use of all of this technology.
They use their cell phones to text each other, their computers to IM each other or update
each other on Facebook, and their cell phones to talk to each other on the phone. So far,
the research suggests that all of this social contact is a good thing, enhancing social
relationships on the whole. Indeed, the majority of teenagers are not loners hiding
behind their computers, afraid of face-to-face interaction. They are communicating faceto-face at school, but they are communicating a lot outside of school or in addition to
their face-to-face time as well. Also, imagine the benefit that electronic communication
might bring for the egocentric, emotionally intense adolescent. It doesn't matter what
your hair looks like if you're just texting or posting on Facebook. You can think about
what you're going to say, or even pause and wait to respond, over technological
communication devices much more easily than if you're standing face-to-face with
another person.
Of course, when conflict, controversy, or embarrassment erupt thanks to technology,
things can take a dramatically negative turn, as recent tragic stories in the news have
made abundantly clear. At Rutgers University, for example, Tyler Clementi committed
suicide after his roommate secretly captured and streamed live video of Tyler having a
romantic interaction with another student in his dorm room. Were they purposefully trying
to harm Tyler's reputation, to victimize him in some way? Tyler certainly seemed to take
it that way, although their intent isn't clear. When we broadcast information about other
people, sharing private information intended to harm the victim in some way, this is
called cyberbullying. Even if the bully is posting from his or her own account, with the
identity being very clear, the act of doing something online feels more anonymous than
doing it face-to-face. It's easier to insult someone from behind a computer screen then
when you are facing each other. I have to tell you, I'm very glad that Facebook came into
existence when I was already in my 30s. Yes, I can imagine how great it would've been
to keep in touch with my friends, but I can easily imagine the potentially embarrassing
and stressful effects of cyberbullying. Do you think technology makes the sting of
bullying more painful now than in the past? Or is this bullying just the same bullying
young people have always had to contend with, except that today's teens have new
technological tools to assist them in their bullying? This is a current controversy in the
field.
Entering a New School
Transitions are difficult for all of us, at any age in the lifespan, but they are particularly
challenging for adolescents who already trying hard to manage the normative changes of
adolescence. It's tough to adjust when we go to a new school, whether we do so
because our parents moved, or whether we are simply going from grade school, to
middle school, to high school. That first year at the new school tends to bring with it
significant challenges, and with it we see an increase in psychological problems and a
decrease in academic achievement. It's important to strengthen a child's support network
to help buffer against the stress of these changes. For example, consider immigrant
teenagers who are dealing with a move to a new country, learning a new language, and
adjusting to new friends. Their success is enhanced if they attend a school specifically
designed for new immigrant students, because they have an instant support group of
people going through the same experiences at the same time.
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Chapter 9, p. 14
What are we teaching in our high schools? There's an obvious answer to that question
and a not-so-obvious answer. Obviously, at school teens learn about subjects, like
history, math, and science. But they also pick up more subtle lessons about what our
schools value, based on the opportunities that are provided. This can shape teens'
attitudes and motivations. Some students feel like they never fit in, and their needs may
get lost in the shuffle. For example, our high schools are designed primarily for college
preparation, with classes that emphasize building skills of formal operational thinking.
What about students who arrive in high school without a basic understanding of this
mode of thinking? Such students can be quickly left behind. Perhaps some would rather
prefer to take a vocational route, learning a trade that they can apply in the workforce.
Maybe they are not interested in the types of careers that require a college education.
Vocational programs were once more common in the United States, even with
opportunities for students to earn credit for on-the-job experience off campus during
school hours. Those programs are rare today. Instead, we now have higher academic
requirements – more classes required in math, science, history, and English. Some
schools even require a foreign language. There is not enough time in the day for outside
opportunities or vocational training, if all students must fulfill these academic
requirements. Adding to this pressure, some states require students to pass a highstakes test in order to be able to graduate. This is in addition to successfully completing
all of their courses. You can imagine the level of stress this generates, and maybe some
of you have had the experience of taking a high-stakes test. Obviously, the original goal
of high-stakes testing was to improve achievement and ensure that academic standards
are met. This is a noble goal. However, high-stakes tests have a side effect of making
teachers and students so focused on the test that learning is constrained to the
information that will be on the test. Students who excel at academic subjects and seek
careers that require college education may benefit from our current high school system,
but what about the others? What do they lose from being in a system that doesn't match
their values and goals?
As I mentioned, there are fewer opportunities for students who might prefer a more
vocational focus in high school. Some of these students become frustrated and
discouraged by the college-bound focus of high school, so much so that they drop out. If
these students have had more opportunity to develop their interest in skills, perhaps in
apprenticeships with local businesses, they may have learned more in high school and
have been prepared for better jobs upon graduation. But it's not so simple. It depends
greatly upon the current job market and upon the willingness of local businesses to
participate in such a program. Besides, how much can a student learn about a vocation
or a trade during the high school years? Most of us learn the most while working on the
job, after we've been hired. I learned important information during my schooling, but I
have learned invaluable lessons about teaching during nearly a decade on the job –
lessons I never could have learned as a student alone. So we should not romanticize the
idea of vocational education, assuming that non-college-bound students would be fully
prepared for professions upon graduation. But a change in the high school curriculum, or
at least increased options for different pathways of those not interested in academics,
might help all students stay engaged and motivated enough to learn skills that help
anyone master any job – critical thinking skills and communication skills. No matter
which career we choose, we need to know how to think, we need to know how to
communicate our thoughts in writing and in speech, and we need to learn how best to
interact with others.
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Chapter 9, p. 15
But just how many students graduate high school? How many drop out? Interestingly,
this is not a straightforward question to answer, although you would think it should be.
The stats look particularly bad if we simply calculate the percentage of ninth graders who
graduate four years later. Using this calculation, more than 50% of ninth graders in Los
Angeles drop out. But what if it simply took them longer than four years to finish? What if
they left school, but came back and finished later? What if they completed their GED
later? None of these are counted in the statistic. We can look at a different calculation,
that of status dropouts. The status dropout calculation is the percentage of 18 to 24year-olds who have completed high school. This allows a more generous window of time
to account for irregular paths through high school, taking longer to finish for whatever
reason. The results look much better by this measure, but they show us that certain
ethnicities–like Hispanics–have considerably higher rates of noncompletion than other
ethnicities. So, what are the factors that might contribute to the non-completion of high
school? It's not about intelligence. It's more about engagement. So then the question
becomes, why are so many students disengaging from the school experience? Perhaps
it has to do with the more narrow focus of school these days, as high-stakes testing and
budget cuts lead to trimming down extracurricular opportunities and after school
programs, both of which have been shown in past research to increase student
engagement. It may have something to do with what we value in teachers and how we
prepare teachers for the classroom. In the United States, we focus teacher training on
content knowledge. We emphasize content expertise, and that's obviously important.
Believe me, you wouldn't want me teaching you physics. I know nothing about it. It
doesn't matter how engaging I am if I don't understand the subject, right? But perhaps
we gone too far in our focus on expertise, ignoring the qualities and skills that help
teachers become particularly engaging. Learning is not just about content. The learning
atmosphere matters as well.
So, what can we do to improve our high schools? We can't simply eliminate math and
science, or history and English. Academics are an important part of education.
Nevertheless, research does highlight changes that have the potential to make a big
difference in the lives of students. Let's deal with sleep deprivation, the chronic lack of
sleep so typical among today's teenagers. In the few schools that now start later as a
result of the research on adolescent sleep patterns, students are performing better,
getting sick less often, and participating more actively during class. Let's bring more
attention back to extracurricular activities. It's true they aren't the most important thing in
school, but that doesn't mean that they are useless. Students who get involved in
extracurricular activities are more invested in their high school experience. They are
healthier mentally, they are less likely to get in trouble, and they earn higher grades. If
extracurriculars aren't readily available at the school, community-based activities–like
those sponsored by religious institutions or other community groups - are also related to
positive development and engagement among students. In this case, what matters the
most is that students' interests and talents are valued somewhere. Let's provide students
with more attention, and keep them from getting lost in the crowd. Research tells us that
it's best if high schools are large enough school so that there are numerous activities
and opportunities, but not so large that students get lost. We can increase students'
sense of belonging through the use of learning clusters, where the same group of
teachers instructs the same group of students. It's like a built in community within the
school. This approach pays attention to the importance of social interaction as a
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Chapter 9, p. 16
motivator for students. And finally, let's ensure that students feel safe at school. It's
interesting, because some of the things that schools have done in the hopes of
increasing a sense of security have backfired, like using metal detectors. These kinds of
changes increase students' fear, which can paradoxically create a more tense
environment where violence is more likely to occur. If we create learning clusters and
keep our schools to a manageable size, emphasize extracurricular or community
involvement, these changes can foster a healthier school climate where harassment and
violence are less likely to occur. There is no such thing as the perfect high school or
perfect secondary education. All across the world, there educators struggle to keep
students engaged. But let's allow the knowledge gained from careful and replicated
research to be our guide for making improvements. And let's conduct more research to
learn additional strategies to help teenagers develop their potential.
All of the biological and cognitive developments we've just discussed occur in a very
dynamic, exciting, and sometimes overwhelming and frightening psychosocial context.
That is the focus of the next podcast on adolescence.
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Chapter 10, p. 1
EPISODE 10.1: ADOLESENCE – IDENTITY AND RELATIONSHIPS WITH FAMILY AND
FRIENDS
The adolescent years - ages 12 to 18 - are a very active time for the exploration of psychosocial
issues. In this episode, we focus on two big topics in psychosocial development: Identity and
relationships with family and friends.
Identity
Identity development begins in adolescence, but it doesnʼt end in adolescence…at least, not
today. Most teenagers today are actively and anxiously exploring their options: what team or
club to join, which college to attend, how to dress, how to behave… All of this exploration is
good, at least according to Erikson. He believed that we must explore all of our options before
we can truly figure out our identity - reaching identity achievement, in his terms. Adolescence
marks the beginning of that exploration. I suspect that many of you are in your 20s, though, and
you still feel like you still have a long way to go. That's normal. Welcome to the 21st century!
That's the way it tends to be these days, but more on that in the next chapter on emerging
adulthood.
So, back to adolescence and identity development. Erikson called this stage identity vs. role
confusion, and he thought this was a time of stress and challenge where we really are
concerned about figuring out who we are. There are three different ways that Erikson and
researchers after him believed that we cope with this challenge: role confusion, foreclosure,
and moratorium. None of these captures identity achievement yet, but these are all steps that
might come before we reach identity achievement.
Role confusion is also called identity diffusion, and it is basically the worst way to handle the
crisis of adolescence, in terms of psychological outcomes. Adolescents who are trying to avoid
doing any exploration or thinking about their future are those identified as role confused (or
identity diffused). It's like theyʼre hoping that all of this identity business will just somehow go
away. They are not interested in thinking about it. They may feel hopeless, they may become
withdrawn, or they may choose to identify themselves with a peer group instead of going
through the task of figuring out their own individual identity.
Another option is foreclosure. Foreclosure occurs when adolescents make decisions about
what they're going to do with their life and who they are, but they make these decisions before
any real exploration has even occurred. They foreclose early on identity development, without
having explored. What usually happens is that the foreclosed adolescent takes on the goals,
values, or wishes of their parents or their culture as their own, without giving other options a try.
Now, let me clarify: A person could end up choosing a lot of the same values and beliefs of their
parents, but Erikson would say that's not true identity development unless the adolescent had at
first considered other options - had gone through the work of actually thinking about what they
would want for themselves. So, it's not about the decision that they come to in the end; it's more
about the process. And foreclosure is a process of deciding early and without any kind of
exploration.
Moratorium is a period of exploration, but it's a period of exploration that's ongoing, meaning
that we've not yet made decisions at that time. College is kind of becoming the new moratorium
for development because the goal of it is that you spend time there, you have certain classes
that you're required to take for breadth requirements, and you eventually pick a major and you
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 10, p. 2
start to focus in. The breadth requirements - the idea behind them, in fact - make you have an
exposure to different kinds of topics you might not normally have considered. So, it can be a
way of providing a moratorium. But vocational development and career choices and college
majors…that's just one component of identity (which is called vocational identity). There are
many other kinds of identity as well, and you'll see exploration during moratorium in those areas,
too - trying out different styles of dress, different hairstyles, different ways of behaving.
Ideally, moratorium helps us examine our options and helps us make decisions about our goals
for the future. It is a step toward identity achievement. But, in reality, teenagers may bounce
back and forth between different ways of coping with identity vs. role confusion. Perhaps they
start out with a very active and assertive period of moratorium, really trying things out. And then
they get tired and frustrated, feel like giving up for a while and enter a period of role-confusion.
Maybe finally that starts to feel bad and they may go back to moratorium and they may move on
to identity achievement later. Or they may start out foreclosed but have some sort of experience
or come to some realizations that trigger a moratorium where they realize, “Oh, wait a second. I
havenʼt come to a decision yet on these things.” So there isnʼt one path through this and many
adolescents have kind of a jagged path. Thatʼs normal. Whatʼs also normal is that most of us
these days do not feel like weʼve really come to an overall sense of identity achievement until
sometime in our 20s.
Now identity occurs in four basic areas. I think people are accustomed to focusing on vocational
identity. You vocational identity is a big focus, something we start bugging kids about even
before they are teenagers, with questions like "What do you want to be when you grow up?" In
high school and college, the stress can feel overwhelming. I have met countless students who
are stressed out because they're not sure what they want to be in terms of a career or
vocation…but they feel intense pressure to figure it out really soon and get through school as
soon as possible. Our parents have a strong influence on our thinking, but the focus that they
tend to take during the vocational identity development process is more on "don't repeat the
mistakes I made." In other words, parent when theyʼre trying to help with vocational identity
tend to focus more on instructing their kids what not to do, instead of what to do.
Teenagers do have job experiences. Many teens have some kind of part-time job. And you
might think on-the-job experience will help them figure out the kinds of things theyʼd like to do
with their vocational future Thatʼs not necessarily the case. Research shows us that teens,
especially those who work over 20 hours a week, have an even harder time with identity
development, perhaps because they must spend so much of their "exploration years" stuck at a
job, and the jobs available at this level for teenagers are often not stimulating and very rarely
motivating.
Itʼs also a challenge to come to some final decision about career development when the reality
of todayʼs work world indicates that we need to be ready to make changes in our careers across
the lifespan. Thatʼs what the world of work is requiring of us these days. No longer can we just
choose one occupation and stay there for life, as our grandparents might have done or our
great-grandparents might have done. It is stressful, the idea of you have to be prepared for
change but more of us will be working careers that require more cognitively stimulating
activities, like working with knowledge and using our communication skills. And thatʼs why
communication our ideas – in writing and speaking and evaluating information – all of those
skills are so critical to success in the work force today. And they are skills that transfer from one
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job to another.
Another aspect of identity is gender identity. This is an area of development that has changed a
lot in recent years, as attitudes about gender and sexual orientation are diversifying. There are
fewer rigid notions about what is appropriate for females and males, and what is acceptable in
terms of sexual orientation. Gender identity is our personal sense of being male or female, and it
usually matches the biological sex we were born with. But this isn't always the case, with a small
portion of individuals, they may have a gender identity that is the opposite sex of their physical
body- technically that is the case with transsexuals – their gender identity is one sex but their
physical body is the other. Youʼll often hear such individuals say things like, “Iʼve never felt like a
boy.” You know, they have a boyʼs body but theyʼve always felt like a girl in their minds as their
identity. For most of us though, obviously, the two line up – that gender identity matches
biological sex.
In the teenage years, the hormones that come with puberty definitely create new feelings of
sexual attraction. There are many variations among teens in regards to strength of sexual urges,
and in the direction of desires (straight, gay, or bisexual), and how much a teen acts on or hides
his or her sexual urges. Some teens may not be aware of their true desires until they get a little
older. Sexual orientation refers to whom one is sexual attracted, with heterosexuals sexually
interested in the opposite sex, homosexuals in the same sex, and bisexuals in both sexes.
There is exploration in sexual identity, even more so today than in the past. There is a lot of flux
and thatʼs becoming more acceptable, especially among peers. A 12-year-old with homosexual
attractions may or may not become a homosexual adult. However, it is advisable for a parent to
avoid saying things like, “Oh Iʼm sure that your homosexual attraction is just a phase,” because
when parents say things like this, it gives teens a sense that they won't be fully accepted unless
they are heterosexual. The concerns and anxieties that come with that may result in the
teenager foreclosing on a gender identity to be in line with parents' wishes. A girl sexually
attracted to another girl may decide to push those urges away and pretend to be heterosexual
so that she is accepted by her parents. But thereʼs still a risk even if the teen decides to remain
open about her sexual orientation. Because if she is still attracted to females but she knows her
parents donʼt really accept it, this can result in significant strain in the parent-teen relationship
and it can also influence the psychological well-being of the teenager.
Religious identity is a third vector of identity development and this is something that many
individuals donʼt really achieve until adulthood, but many teenagers are really interested in
thinking and talking about different religious and spiritual beliefs (this makes sense because of
formal operational thinking and adolescentʼs increased ability to imagine possibilities and think
through situations). A small portion of adolescents become devout members of their parents'
religion. Outsiders might view this as a form of foreclosure, deciding before doing much
exploration but it maybe too early to tell. Firm religious belief may last a lifetime for some of
these teens. For others, it will have been a phase of foreclosure, followed by some moratorium
and then perhaps an identity achievement later on. Maybe a teenager stays in a state of
moratorium, sort of exploring their options and not coming to final decisions on the matter.
Maybe that person will become an agnostic as an adult, which basically means that they aren't
sure what they believe in terms of religion. A number of different routes and destinations are
possible. Regardless of the end point that someone comes to in terms of their religious beliefs
or their spiritual ideas, one clear sign of mature, religious identity is feeling so comfortable about
one's own beliefs that others' different beliefs are not threatening. It's a live and let live thing.
Clinging so forcibly to oneʼs personal faith that one must demonize or pity others for being
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"wrong" suggests foreclosed religious identity in terms of Eriksonʼs theory.
Finally, the fourth component of identity is political and ethnic identity. Most teenagers donʼt
adopt a strong political identity because itʼs just not a salient issue for most teenagers and this is
true worldwide. Politics tend not to take center stage for teenagers. Among those who are
interested in politics, most teenagers are identifying lately as independent politically, interested
more in the person whoʼs running for office then in affiliating with one party or another. In
contrast to political identity, ethnic identity tends to have a stronger impact these days. In fact,
ethnic identity and ethnicity, in general, can influence political views. Teens today tend not to
identify with a party, then form their values – instead, they form their values which are often
inspired by their ethnicity, and thatʼs likely to trigger their political beliefs. This is called identity
politics.
But what about the general understanding of cultural background and how to weave that into the
mainstream culture of America. Thatʼs ethnic identity development. And it begins in early
adolescents and extends throughout the teenage years. But it often continues to morph and
evolve further across the lifespan, because historical or societal changes may trigger ethnic
identity adjustments - this was probably the case for many Americans of Middle Eastern descent
after 911 because they were suddenly much more salient for their ethnic identity then they have
been before largely due to the stereotypes that others in America held towards them because of
their appearance or because of their religious belief. A Middle-Eastern woman in her forties
might not have struggled much with ethnic identity or might have felt pretty secure with it until
she became a target of discrimination after 911, which could then trigger more consideration of
ethnic identity issues. If ethnicity is significantly intertwined with religion, that can make ethnic
identity development a more salient issue, even for teenagers. It also plays a role in
relationships and other life decisions, such as the decision whether to stay near family or move
away for opportunities.
Family and Friends
Everyone knows that our family is less important in adolescence than before, right? Wrong. It's
definitely true that friends become more important than they have ever been before, but it's
healthy for teens to stay connected to their family as well. As odd as it may seem, the bickering
that is common between parents and kids at this time is actually one sign of continued
attachment. It's a signal that the relationship needs adjusting and that both members are
interested in some kind of resolution.
Here's a common scenario: the teen starts making more of his own decisions, and the parents
get angry that he decides not to come to Sunday dinner. Bickering occurs, and perhaps
continues for quite some time. The parents may be worried that their son is going to start
drinking or end up in jail if they don't have as close of a watch over him. Theyʼre worried about
the people heʼs hanging out with. Theyʼre worried that heʼs driving on the freeways so much,
and so on. Bickering continues. Eventually, parents and their son establish some kind of
compromise, and they say they can accept it, lets say in this case, if their son makes it to at
least one Sunday dinner a month. As a result, he has earned more autonomy, and the parentteen relationship has adapted successfully. Mom, Dad, and son tend to feel closer after they
have resolved this conflict.
But you could guess which kind of parenting makes this scenario most likely: authoritative
parenting. Remember that? Authoritative parents place a premium on communication so that if
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Chapter 10, p. 5
the child has a difference of opinion or has reason to present as to why things should be
different, the parents allow their child to voice his or her ideas. It doesnʼt mean that the child is
in charge. No the parent is still the ultimate authority, but you can imagine how growing in such
a family would prepare a family well for the teenage years when negotiations are made even
more frequently and become even more important.
But some teens donʼt seem to care what parents think. What if parents assume it's a good thing
to just distance themselves and let their teen go free? This can be dangerous and lead to
neglect, and the effects may not be obvious at first. Teens often do seem to disengage,
especially when they feel their parents arenʼt interested in them. Itʼs important for parents not
to be fooled by that exterior appearance of the teen not caring. Even if teens act like they don't
need their parents or care about their parents, the research shows us that they care deeply, in
fact, about what their parents think and whether their parents care for them and accept them.
Teenagers can get very good at hiding how much they care, but it's very clear thatʼs thereʼs a
strong correlation between the quality of the parent-teen relationship and adolescent selfesteem. Parents still matter, no matter what.
Remember how annoyed you would get when your parents needed to hear all of the details
about where you were going, who you'd be with, when you'd be home, etc…? They were doing
their job as parental monitors. It sounds oppressive, but the impact of parental monitoring
depends upon the family context. If the family relationships have been harmonious, the parental
monitoring of adolescence is helpful and is associated with less risky behavior among teens.
This is not the case when the parent-teen relationship is centered on parental control - or even
psychological control, which is the worst. With psychological control, parents use guilt as a
weapon to control their teen. How do they do this? They threaten to withdraw support, or they
somehow indicate that they love the teen less because of what has happened (or if something
bad happens in the future). As a result, teens may feel so guilty and indebted to their parents
that they remain overly dependent and close to their parent, but it's of a fear of losing the
parent's love (even though this fear that they have is not always conscious for the teenager).
So, perfect parents: What do they do? They allow their teens just the right amount of freedom monitoring them appropriately but not excessively, and making sure never to manipulate or
induce guilt. Right? No parent is perfect, and all families hit rough patches along the way. In
many families it's a game of constant adjustment and re-evaluation, with many parents worrying
if theyʼre doing enough monitoring or not enough monitoring all the while.
Although family is important, it is true that friends become very salient in the lives of adolescents
– becoming more important to teens then ever before in development. Friendships exist at
different levels within larger social networks – there are cliques and there are crowds. These
are groups the teenagers form on their own, and these groups may morph and change over
time. Cliques are small groups of relatively close friends. The members know each other well
and spend a lot of time together. Crowds, on the other hand, are larger social groups of
teenagers who are affiliated in some way, like they may be of the same ethnicity, they may be
involved in the same school activities like band or athletics, or the smart bookish kids referred to
by others as "the nerds" or "the brains" or whatever they are calling them these days. Of course,
over time, the names change. A teen's affiliation with a crowd is usually pretty informal and kind
of loose – but the people in that teen's clique are far more central to their everyday life and far
more influential in their development.
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Chapter 10, p. 6
It's really normal for parents to worry that their child's friends and to be concern that there will be
peer pressure and peers will have a negative influence on their child. That can certainly
happen, but it's definitely more of the exception and than it is the norm. For most teens, they do
feel peer pressure but itʼs peer pressure towards positive, encouraged being healthy and/or wise
behavior. In other words, itʼs pressure towards the good stuff. Pressure towards things that
arenʼt harmful. I remember my friends peer pressuring me when I wanted to quit band in 8th
grade. They knew how much I loved music and how much I loved being a musician and they
were worried I'd regret the decision. And also worried because they wanted us all to spend time
together as we moved into high school band. It was definitely peer pressure, but not towards
any kind of dangerous or questionable behavior.
So what about the exception - when peers have a negative influence on a teenager? It's
referred to as deviancy training. Sounds pretty formal, right? Well, deviancy training is when
one teen helps instruct the other on how to break the rules - maybe how to skip class without
getting noticed, how to sneak alcohol into a basketball game, or how to break into the school to
vandalize school property. Deviancy training certainly occurs, but most teens do not take it to
an extreme. Encouraging one another to skip a class is less of an offense, I think we would all
agree, than encouraging violence or vandalism or other behaviors that fit under the category of
juvenile delinquency. Also, teens tend to select peers who are similar to themselves. A student
with a history of troubled behavior, who enjoys vandalizing and getting in trouble, is unlikely to
seek out the friendship of a straight-laced classmate. Like attracts like. Birds of a feather flock
together. In fact, studies of juvenile delinquency reform programs indicate that it can be risky to
group offenders together because what happens is that they often trade ideas and tips for how
to continue their delinquent behavior – basically helping each other become more deviant which is obviously the opposite of what was intended.
There are certain features of the American immigrant experience that relate specifically to the
role of peers in adolescence. Itʼs interesting because compared to same-ethnicity peers born in
the U.S., immigrant youth tend to show higher levels of success and well-being during the
teenage years. Why might this be the case? I mean, you might expect that immigrant teens
would have a lot of trouble or a lot of challenges with the balancing their native culture and their
new American culture. And it is a challenge, especially when the two cultures conflict on views
about things like how much time teenagers should spend with their family versus there friends,
and how important autonomy and independence is compared to family cohesion and
connectedness.
Nevertheless, immigrant teens are often given more adult responsibilities, especially if they are
an English-speaking bridge between their parents and American society. And this can help
teens develop a sense of responsibility and feel value as a member within their family. There is
a balance to strike, though. If teens are required to spend most of their time in the service of
their family, that obviously means less time is left to spend on school, activities, and friends and
other aspects of adolescence that are critical to the individualʼs own development. The research
suggests, though, that most immigrant youth and their families handle these challenges very
well. And having peers who are going through similar experiences, other teenage friends who
are also immigrant youth, helps greatly. This extends to teenagers of all backgrounds, by the
way. Teenagers need close friends who have gone through experiences similar to themselves.
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EPISODE 10.2 ADOLESCENCE - SEXUALITY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ADJUSTMENT
In this episode on psychosocial development in adolescence, we discuss sexuality and mental
health.
Sexuality
Remember what you thought about dating and kissing and romance when you were in grade
school. Most of us thought that was kind of gross. We were not interested in sexuality then, and
we're not interested in the opposite sex. Girls and boys routinely make fun of one another, each
claiming superiority over the other. But somehow, most of us end up in adulthood with very
clear interests in romantic relationships. What happens in between - during the adolescent
years - is highly variable, influenced not only by individual factors, but also by contextual factors
like culture, ethnicity, and history.
Adolescence is a high drama time for romance, with relationships forming and ending, usually in
rapid succession, all within the view of the larger crowd of peers. The private experience of
dealing with new sexual feelings – like the thoughts and urges and worries inside teens' heads could also lead to secrecy, shame, confusion, and feelings of isolation. Many teens think that
others just wouldn't understand what is going on in their minds, but the truth is that lots of teens
feel this way.
For homosexual teens, adolescence is particularly challenging. Some may choose to date
opposite-sex peers, just in an attempt to fit in. Others may not even realize how much they are
repressing their sexual urges - it might not be until later that they finally have the conscious
awareness that they are homosexual. Even though things are improving with better attitudes
and acceptance in the United States for homosexuality and for just variation in sexual
orientation in general, teens still may have to contend with conflicting views that come from their
parents, culture, or religious background. It's hard to know how many teenagers identify as
homosexual or bisexual, maybe because teens may admit to same-sex attraction but not feel
the need to adopt the identity of one orientation. In fact, most teens who admit such feelings
and interests become heterosexual adults. it's hard to know for sure, but research suggests that
same-sex experimentation isn't unusual and that, for some, it is simply experimentation. For
others, it's the beginning of what will be their stable sexual orientation identity. If you ask
homosexual adults when they first realized their sexual orientation, you see gender differences.
Men remember knowing earlier but they often do not tell until they are a little bit older in
adolescence. So many gay men, looking back at having feelings of attraction and realizing they
were gay in adolescence but waiting for later in adolescence to actually admit it. For women,
most adult lesbians remember coming to the realization of their orientation more after
adolescence than during adolescence. By the way, we sometimes act like all of this questioning
and wondering and not knowing whatʼs going to happen is just something that teens with samesex feelings go through, but thatʼs not true. This confusion and not quite knowing what to think
is common for all teens when it comes to sexual behavior and sexual interest. I mean, letʼs
remember that heterosexual teens also change their minds, they end relationships, get swept up
quickly in a new one, they feel confused, and aren't sure about things either. So are we really
all that different? Probably not.
How much do teenagers really understand about sex? This is a question behind many of the
concerns of the sex education. Sex education varies by state here in the United States, and
some teens may learn all that they know from their peers or from early romantic partners (or the
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internet). Teens are very interested in the sexual experiences of their friends, and it can
sometimes become a salient factor within a clique. While parents would probably be happy to
hear that their child hangs out with other "proud virgins", this lack of sexual activity is not paired
with a thorough education in sex. In other words, abstaining from sex doesnʼt necessarily mean
that adolescents have a full understanding of the ways sex can be dangerous. For example, itʼs
probably true that a lot of parents would feel relaxed and be happy to hear that their teenager
may hang out with other “proud virgins” and agreed to not have sex during high school. But if
you follow these individuals as researchers have, and look at their activity after high school,
after it all many of them decide to not be virgins anymore and to become sexually active. We
donʼt see lower rates of sexually transmitted infections or lower rates of pregnancy amongst
those who were sex-free in high school. The bottom line is no matter the teenagerʼs sexual
behavior, teenagers need to have a good understanding of sexual behavior and the risks that
come with it and the ways in which to protect themselves.
Most teenagers who are in romantic relationships are most likely to be sexually active. They
actually learn from each other through experimentation, but their overly-active limbic systems
(and their relative immature pre-frontal cortexes) can get in the way of a very careful discussion
of how to protect themselves against STIs and pregnancy. When theyʼre caught up in the
moment and passionate assurances might be made like "you're the only one" or "I'll just pull out,
and you won't get pregnant" may seem perfectly acceptable, again in the moment, but that
maybe the limbic system overpowering the pre-frontal cortex and later on reflecting on their
decisions, they may become really nervous and worried and understand the risk they have
taken whenever their pre-frontal cortex is not bombarded with the excitement of the limbic
system.
So what role can parents really play in educating teenagers about sex? Well, the research tells
us their role will be far more influential if they start well before their kids are romantically
involved. The trouble is, many parents don't realize how romantically involved their kids have
already become. Parents may be afraid of starting the conversation too early. They may push it
off thinking, “Oh, I donʼt want to open up this conversation. What if talking about it encourages
my child.” But in reality that might be exactly when the child needs it the most. And parents
may not realize what an example they set for their teenage children as well. When single
parents are dating and having sexual relationships, this correlates with earlier sexual behavior
among their teenage children.
Does sexual education belong in our schools though? According to developmental scientists,
the answer is a clear yes. Ideally, though, experts would like conversations to happen between
parents and their teen as well. The issue of sex education in our schools is a significant
controversy in the United States, where there is great variety in sex education from state to
state, especially when it comes to the details of safe sex and contraception. In some states,
they may prefer abstinence only education, which encourages teenagers to avoid sex entirely.
Usually no information is provided about contraception or about avoiding pregnancy in
abstinence programs. The fear is that if itʼs talked about, that would be an encouragement for
teenagers to start having sex. Research indicates that these programs are ineffective, because
sexual behavior and use of contraception is about the same regardless of whether teens had
sex education or abstinence-only education. In other words, the research shows us that in the
states that follow an abstinence only program, it doesnʼt correlate in differences in the sexual
behavior and use of contraception of the teenagers who live there. And a growing body of
research tells us that it's most effective to start sex education earlier - perhaps in 9th grade -
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Chapter 10, p. 9
before most teens have had sex for the first time.
How much sex are teens having? The majority of teens have had sex by the age of 16. Ages
and rates of sexual behavior are very similar across developed nations, although American
teens use less contraception. This can explain our much higher rates of teenage pregnancy
then in other developed nations. Although the controversy about exactly how and when to teach
teenagers about sex will continue to rage, it does seem clear that itʼs important to somehow get
this information to teenagers in the hopes that it will increase their use of contraception and
encourage safe sex to avoid STIs. Most will keep the baby, and most will not marry the father.
Most will not choose adoption.
Psychological Adjustment
In movies and in the media, we see lots of teens struggling with pretty significant psychological
problems. This can give off the false impression that the teenage years are a time of significant
psychological turmoil. But research tells us that most teens are functioning quite well, both
mentally and physically. In fact, only about 20% of adolescents have some kind of disorder that
negatively impacts their development. Of course, it's quite common for teenagers to have spells
of sadness that are difficult, but not overwhelming – you know, periods where they feel
hopeless, fatigued, or insecure for a few days or so. They may even stop doing some of the
things they usually love to do, like playing a sport or shopping with friends. Nevertheless, the
disorder clinical depression is a diagnosis thatʼs reserved for significant depressive symptoms
that last for at least 2-3 weeks, solid. What does this feel like, this clinical depression? Imagine
the fatigue of jet lag mixed with the sadness of grief over a lost loved one. And then you have
some idea of what a depressive episode, an episode of clinical depression feels like.
Teens of both sexes experience a decrease in self-esteem in adolescence, yet rates of
depression are far higher for girls than for boys. Actually, 2Xs as many girls as boys have
clinical depression during adolescence. With any type of psychological disorder, there are
always multiple possible influences. Like genes. Genes matter. Some of us are predisposed to
depression. Environment matters, too - especially parenting, and especially mom's mental
health. But still, why the gender difference? There are probably a number of reasons, but one
that has been investigated in great detail involves thought patterns. Girls are more likely than
boys to "get stuck" in a negative thought pattern, going over and over a situation, a
conversation, an experience that was upsetting to them. Itʼs like theyʼre reliving the experience
over and over. It's a way of coping, but it can also descend into clinical depression. This habit of
a repetitive focus on negative thoughts is called rumination. Boys are much less likely than girls
to ruminate. But they get stressed and upset, too, so what do they do? They are more likely to
act out when upset, sometimes becoming aggressive in response or turning to substances as
an escape. In fact, some experts think that boys actually show similar levels of depression, but
that it comes out in a different way. That they keep these thoughts private by shutting others out
and not talking about it. The much higher rates of substance abuse, delinquency, and suicide
among boys suggests that their persistent negative emotions just come out in a different way.
Contrary to popular misconception, suicide is not more common in adolescence than in other
times in the lifespan. Suicide is actually most likely to occur during older adulthood, in fact, and
most often among men. But, suicidal ideation - which refers to thinking about suicide - is more
common during the teenage years. It's just that most who think about it don't actually do it. Or
some may try, but do not succeed, which is called a parasuicide. Parasuicides are when a
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Chapter 10, p. 10
person engages in purposeful activity that could have ended his life, but doesn't. Paracides are
much more common than completed suicides, where the teen actually does take his own life.
When suicide happens in adolescence, we must be careful not to over-glorify the deceased
person because this can inadvertently encourage other vulnerable teens to kill themselves,
resulting in so-called cluster suicides. This actually happened in my hometown, and it was very
shocking and devastating for our small community.
How about anger? Most adolescents have an angry outburst every once in awhile, but most
teens manage their anger pretty well. A small portion of adolescents, predominantly boys, have
strong and persistent aggressive urges than can lead, eventually, to juvenile delinquency. Of
those who break the law, only a small portion are apprehended, and a small portion of those
apprehended are actually arrested. Most offenders are male, and most are African-American.
Note that this refers to those who are actually arrested. The confidential self-report data from
teens tells us that there are many teens of other ethnicities and gender who break the law, but
are not arrested for whatever reason. By the way, with all of this talk about male aggression, I
feel the need to clarify that girls are also capable of great aggression - but their aggression
tends to be relational instead of physical. This behavior, this relational aggression, isn't likely to
land girls in jail, but it can do plenty of damage to others along the way by turning peers against
another girl or boy or spreading rumors to ruin someoneʼs reputation.
In regards to adolescence who show a great deal of aggression, one of our biggest concerns is
whether it will last into adulthood. Some teenagers outgrow their antisocial tendencies, and
experts refer to these as adolescence-limited offenders. Their law breaking is influenced more
by their multiple contexts - like their friends and their neighborhood - and their behavior are less
influenced by the offender's biology, some kind of predisposition towards aggression.
Oftentimes, these offenders hang out in groups, committing crimes with the encouragement of
their friends. The challenge is to try and prevent that teen from the changes that could come as
a result of their law-breaking that could escalate into a lifetime of crime - changes like early
parenthood or dropping out of school, for example. A close relationship with parents or another
important adult can make a big difference. Some aggressive and antisocial teenagers who are
in the habit of breaking the law do not outgrow these tendencies and scientist refer to these as
life-course-persistent offenders. Their profile differs significantly from that of the adolescencelimited offenders. Itʼs associated more with biology, like neurological problems, brain related
problems than it is associated with environmental factors. These offenders show signs of
antisocial behavior even before adolescence, and their behavior continues across the lifespan
as well. Still, even with these neurological influences, life-course-persistent offenders can
change if support relationships with family or with others in the community are made during
adolescence. This is especially important because life-course offenders tend to be loners those who don't have anyone they can really talk to.
Weʼve talked about misconceptions regarding psychological health of adolescence and
misconceptions are common when it comes to teens and their use of drugs. In fact, one
assumption is that most teenagers are regular drug users. That's not what confidential reports
from teens tell us. In fact, American teens' use of drugs has actually declined in the last 30
years. Now, do adolescents experiment with drugs, not necessarily becoming regular users?
Yes, many do this. But most do not become regular users. And most regular users are boys,
which may again show us gender differences in how teens cope with negative emotions.
Regardless of gender, teens at greatest risk for becoming addicted are those who started using
drugs in early adolescence.
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Chapter 10, p. 11
Any regular use during adolescence at all, though, can result in serious long-term harm. Letʼs
start with marijuana for example. We talk a lot of marijuana today in the press and how it results
in fewer problems than alcohol for example. There arenʼt many people who have car accidents
when theyʼre high but there are lots of people who have car accidents when theyʼre drunk, right?
So itʼs very salient to us but letʼs not make the mistake of underestimating the impact that
marijuana use and particularly regular marijuana use can have on adolescences. With regular
use, marijuana can impair adolescentʼs memory. It can reduce their motivation and it can get in
the way of their language learning. And all of these things can have a big impact if you think
about how important these skills are for success at school and success in activities and how
that leads to future activities and success. So with regular use of marijuana, a teenager may
become apathetic about things, not caring so much anymore. And this can have a big impact on
their future plans.
Smoking, whether itʼs cigarettes, or some other form of tobacco, one of the biggest risks of
regular use is stunted growth. When people smoke their appetite is reduced and they donʼt eat
as much. As a result, most smokers are not getting the nutrients that their body really needs and
our bodies are still growing during adolescence. Tobacco, then, interferes with the growth of the
body during adolescence.
And of course alcohol. I think most of us already knew that alcohol relates to brain damage.
People always talk about alcohol killing brain cells, but they usually donʼt get into the specifics.
The specific areas are parts of the brain that are directly related to learning, and emotional
regulation and decision making. The hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex are the two spots
where the damage of alcohol consumption is most likely to occur. And this results in lots of
impairments like trouble with thinking, trouble controlling impulses, and difficulty with memory.
Also, things can really become a cycle with alcohol use because teens may turn to alcohol
because alcohol makes them forget about their worries. But then all that time they spend
drinking usually creates more problems in their real lives and so now they have even bigger
problems and they feel even more compelled to drink, to forget it all. And the cycle continues.
No matter which psychoactive drug a teen takes, any drug that has an impact on our mind and
our thinking is called a psychoactive drug, all one big brain impact in common: they trigger the
limbic system and impair prefrontal cortex. This is basically making the adolescent brain even
more immature than it is in its natural state, which leads to increased chances of poor decisions
and risky behaviors in the future.
So what do we do to discourage teenagers from using drugs? Good question. Itʼs difficult
because this brain weʼve been talking about with the immature prefrontal cortex and active
limbic system makes the idea of using drugs for teenagers very exciting. Remember, itʼs control
of impulses - its one of the big challenges because of this uneven brain development. Also,
teens often underestimate the extent of their drug use, and they often think that adults, and their
parents in particular, are way too uptight about the dangers of drug use.
So, somehow, the warnings of parents don't seem to have much of an impact on the average
teen, perhaps because of generational forgetting – this is the idea that each youth cohort learns
its lessons on its own, assuming that their parents don't really understand and are out of touch.
Teens also assume that their friends are the group to listen to when it comes to drug use. Many
educational programs and advertising campaigns have resulted in basically no change in drug
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D.
Chapter 10, p. 12
use, and some ads have been found to actually increase drug use. Maybe because they make
it seem more exciting and even more appealing to that active limbic system. However, there are
some success stories that can be built upon. Ads targeted more toward teens' perspectives
sometimes have a stronger impact, but it is really difficult to capture this aesthetic just right.
Contextual factors matter, too, like the economy (cigarettes are expensive) and also parents'
behavior. For example, parents who model responsible behavior with their own use of
substances tend to have kids less likely to become regular users.
With all of this talk in the last 25 minutes or so about the risk and the dangers and all of the
things parents really hope donʼt happen to their teenagers, letʼs not forget that most teenagers
do not have significant psychological or physical or drug-use related problems during this time,
thank goodness.
P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D. C hapter 11, p. 1 EPISODE 11.0 – Emerging Adulthood We are finally talking about emerging adulthood. This is one of my favorite sections of the lifespan because of everything that is going on and how interesting it a ll can b e. Sometimes p eople refer to emerging adulthood as young adulthood or as youth. As far as a ge goes, we’re talking about years 18-­‐
25. And it’s only now that textbooks are b eginning to include a separate chapter to talk about these years. We used to either mention this s tuff at the end of adolescence or talk about it a t the b eginning of a chapter on early adulthood or young adulthood. But many changes have taken p lace over a gradual period of years that have extended the p eriod of time between adolescence and entering the basic roles of adulthood. We’re getting married later. We’re b ecoming parents later. We’re getting more education. We are more financially d ependent upon our parents during this stage. And we a lso have a lot of questions and concerns and uncertainties related to our vocation and our vocational identity. This results in a p eriod of time full of exploration and instability. Things seem to b e in constant flux which can be exhilarating, but a lso terrifying and exhausting. Physical Development Most emerging adults are pretty h ealthy from the ages of 18-­‐25. It’s a time when chronic d iseases are really rare and our immune s ystem is functioning at p eak levels. And even for people who’ve had diseases during childhood, like asthma for example, will often notice that their s ymptoms b egin to lessen and even disappear b y the time they reach the age of 18. But our bodies are made up of systems and these systems are dynamic. Each body s ystem influences the other body s ystems. One thing that helps during emerging adulthood is that most p eople h ave a pretty active lifestyle. Emerging adults tend to b e more physically active than other adult age groups. And that kind of a ctivity influences the function of the cardiovascular s ystem. And then when the cardiovascular s ystem is functioning well, that enhances the functioning of brains. But as a college professor, I spend a lot of time with emerging a dults and p lenty of them are doing lots of things that are unhealthy. S leep d eprivation is the first that comes to mind. So how does it make sense that we’re at our p eak functioning in emerging a dulthood when at the same time lots of emerging adults have pretty bad habits. Well, you can thank homeostasis. Homeostasis is the body’s a bility to maintain a steady, internal state – it’s the process of the body wanting to go back to its steady, internal state. So when we’re hot, we a chieve homeostasis b y s weating and releasing some of the moisture in our body onto our skin so that the air p icks it up and a ctually cools off the body. But in emerging adulthood, this a djustment occurs really rapidly, and that is one reason why most emerging adults are healthy, even though they put themselves through quite a lot of stress, q uite a lot of sleep d eprivation, and quite a lot of drinking and partying and other kinds of activities. They get s ick, yes. But they get better faster. They recover from their illnesses faster. It can b e tricky, though, b ecause emerging adults can get the s ense that they are inevitable, that they can bounce back from anything. In the meantime, they might b e overlooking some of the gradual damages that they’re doing to themselves. So just b ecause you can manage to make it through a few days or a week or a p eriod of time where you’ve had all kinds of s leep d eprivation and all kinds of crazy variations in s leep schedules, that d oesn’t mean that the body is managing just fine. It could b e, and it often is the case, that there is damage going on, it just might not show up until later. For example, chronic sleep d eprivation may b e something you feel you can manage in emerging adulthood, but it’s correlated with more rapid, physical a ging, for example. Something that is happening gradually but won’t b ecome n oticeable until the p erson is older, maybe closer to 40. The physical body is operating at its p eak in terms of sex and reproduction, which creates an interesting disconnect for a lot of emerging P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D. C hapter 11, p. 2 adults b ecause most of them don’t want to get pregnant during this stage of their life. But sexual responsiveness is high and pregnancy is more likely to occur. Women are more fertile during this time than they will b e later. And women who get pregnant and give b irth recover from b irth more quickly. Infertility is very rare. But, like I said, most emerging a dults want to wait until later to get married and start a family. That means that emerging adults have this p eriod of time during which the s ex they are having, if they are having s ex, is p urely recreational. And that means n ot intended to produce children. And may involve multiple partners b ecause they are n ot ready to commit to marriage yet. And that is one of the reasons why there is an increasing risk of getting a sexually transmitted infection. In emerging adulthood, about 50% of people have a t least one s exually transmitted infection. You may think, “Well, those must b e the promiscuous ones, the ones that are having s ex with a ll kinds of different p eople.” Not n ecessarily. In emerging adulthood, s erial monogamy is very common. That just means that p eople tend to have one long-­‐term relationship followed b y another long-­‐term relationship. Long-­‐term may not mean years and years. It could b e a series of months. But the point is most emerging adults aren’t terribly promiscuous, but they d o have a lot of relationships one after the other. And few emerging adults allow enough time in between their s exual partners to thoroughly test themselves for STIs. So then they can unknowingly pass their STIs to other, or expose themselves to infections. Everybody knows the risk of HIV and how scary that particular STI is. But a lot of p eople don’t realize the incredibly h igh risk of HPV, which is an S TI we talked a bout earlier that can b e passed not only through intercourse b ut a lso through genital contact. People d on’t even have to have sex to pass HPV back and forth. This is a risk of b eing s exually active during this p eriod of time. On the topic of risks, emerging adults a ctually have quite an appetite for risk taking. And this is refer to as edgework. Think of edgework as living off the edge, having an interest in adventure, having an interest in taking risks. The risky adventures, the ones where d eath could happen, are the most exhilarating for many emerging adults. Of course, p ersonality is going to make a difference. But even among the more reserved and conservative among us, when they were emerging adults they were probably more willing to take risks than they are as older adults. Jobs that involve risks are more appealing to emerging adults than to other stages of the lifespan. And this is true of hobbies and activities as well, like extreme sports. Risks are also taken in the realm of drinking and drug a buse. Drug use b ecomes drug abuse when it escalates to the p oint where the p erson is making d ecisions that cause him or her physical or cognitive or psychological harm. Then it’s drug abuse. If a substance is abuse long enough, then addiction could follow. And that’s when a p erson b ecomes p hysically d ependent on a substance. When they s top using the substance, they have withdrawal s ymptoms. The truth is that a s mall proportion of emerging adults will b ecome addicts. But a lot of other emerging adults will drink h eavily. And even though they may not become addicted, they do open themselves up to lots of risks in the process. It’s interesting if you look at the data b ecause drinking and drug use are most common among emerging adults who come from relatively well-­‐off backgrounds, like financially stable b ackgrounds and among those who are successful in school. Maybe this is b ecause these are the people most likely to be in college and college itself is a context where a lot of drinking and substance use happens. In particular, b inge drinking is a problem on college campuses. Binge drinking is when a p erson consumes a large a mount of a lcohol in a very short period of time, maybe pounding down a whole bunch of shots. And this is a phenomenon that’s unfortunately all too common a t colleges. Because of their love of risks, b ecause of their urge to use drugs, and sometimes b ecause of a combination of those two things, emerging adults are at a h igh risk of violent d eath. The leading causes P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D. C hapter 11, p. 3 of death a mong 15-­‐30 year olds are accidents, suicides, and h omicides. I still remember the shock I felt when I was in college, called home and talked to my mom to find out that a h igh school classmate of mine had died in his 20s as he was trying to get a way from a p olice officer who was pursuing h im for his drunk driving. He crashed into a n embankment and h e died. The willingness to take risks combined with lots of alcohol abuse, in this case, turned out to have a tragic result. There is a gender d ifference though in terms of the risk of violent d eath. Young women are far less likely than young men to d ie this way. So how can we reduce the kinds of harmful, risky b ehaviors? How can we reduce the a mount of binge drinking on campuses? Part of the problem s eems to b e about p erception versus reality. It turns out that college students overestimate h ow much their friends are drinking, and how much their friends are smoking cigarettes, and how much their friends are doing illegal drugs. When you a ctually measure and assess how much of this substance use is going on, and you show it to college s tudents, they’re surprised that there is less of this a ctivity than they thought. And the research shows us so far that finding out that you’ve been overestimating h ow much everybody else is doing leads to a d ecrease in the amount of h eavy drinking a t least, a t many colleges. I mean, everybody would probably understand it if we said that your friends influence how much you drink, but isn’t it interesting to find out that it’s actually your own individual p erception of how much your friends drink that s eems to play a bigger role rather than objectively how much your friends drink. Cognitive Maturity The last time we talked about cognitive development, we d iscussed formal operational thinking, which involves the ability to reason about a bstract concepts, to come up with ideas, to imagine possibilities, to engage in h ypothetical and d eductive reasoning. But there’s a lot more to thinking in real life than b eing able to solve logic problems, of course. You can do a great job with logic puzzles, in a philosophy course, for example, but could have a lot of problems understanding more complex issues like cultural differences that come up as you’re taking an anthropology course in college. Thinking in adulthood becomes more flexible and more practical. This involves b eing a ble to accept u ncertainties, to manage emotions, and to balance the a ctivity of the more intuitive and emotional limbic system with the more logical, prefrontal cortex. As I hope you remember, there is still maturation going on here. As the prefrontal cortex is reaching its adult level of maturity. This h elps the prefrontal cortex direct more of the functioning of the limbic system, and this h elps us b ecome less and less prone to being overwhelmed by emotion when we n eed to make good d ecisions. But experience matters too. Of course our experiences and the lessons we learn from those experiences have an impact on our actual brain maturation. Think about college students. They’re constantly having n ew experiences, hearing different ideas, meeting new people, having to work together. You know a ll that group work that some of your high school teachers and professors do, the kind of work a lot of students scoff a t or may not enjoy, can actually b e a h elp for the maturation of the brain. We tend to become more cognitively flexible when we go about learning something with the assistance and the input of others. We’re b etter able to understand multiple p erspectives, and importantly, to b e able to understand those p erspectives without feeling threatened. That d oesn’t mean we s imply take other p eople’s opinions and move on. No, not at a ll. In fact, we are able to sort of balance and think a nd go back and forth b etween d ifferent modes of thinking, coming to our own p erspective but having b een influenced by the perspectives of others. One of the frustrating things about it, for some, is it can feel like you’re changing your mind a lot during this p eriod of life. So from 18-­‐25, all of this working together and multiple p erspectives and everything is terrific, but it also usually results in emerging adults having a P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D. C hapter 11, p. 4 lot of different ideas and changing their minds frequently. But really this is showing cognitive flexibility and a willingness to consider feedback from their friends and from professors as well as lessons learned or feedback coming from their own experiences. Even mistakes that they’ve made. And p erhaps the cognitive flexibility of emerging adults h elps our nation develop. Because it often is this segment of the population that leads a p ush in a n ew d irection. Being willing to question the traditional notions of past generations. I think right now we’re seeing this in the research on attitudes towards homosexuality for example. Emerging adults are far more likely to support gay marriage than adults of any other a ge. People often have d ifficulty thinking whenever they have some sort of anxiety going on at the back of their minds and the concept of stereotype threat shows us that a fear of confirming a stereotype can lead p eople to feel anxiety which diminishes their p erformance, let’s say on an achievement test. Let me give you an example. Researchers have found that if you make a certain stereotype more salient in a person’s mind b efore they take a test that their performance may b e a ltered. Especially if the stereotype is something n egative about a group to which they b elong. Okay, for example, there’s a s tereotype that women aren’t good at math. Well, research, which cleverly increases the salience of that s tereotype through instructions for example, maybe instructions that say, “This is a test that is meant to d istinguish gender differences in mathematical abilities.” When you give that instruction b eforehand, women’s scores tend to b e lower then when women are s imply told this is just a math test and nothing is said about gender differences. That’s stereotype threat. Stereotype threat can also b e connected to ethnicity. The s tereotype of African-­‐American students not b eing as smart as Caucasian students can b e brought to mind and increase the anxiety and lower the p erformance of African-­‐Americans taking a certain kind of achievement test. Alright, so that is stereotype threat. But, thankfully, in emerging adulthood, the vulnerability to stereotype threat can b e reduced. Whenever college s tudents internalize the b elief that the brain is plastic and the brain responds to experience, then they are less likely to b e affected b y stereotype threat. This is probably b ecause they are now more convinced than b efore that intelligence or math ability is changeable and not innate. Let me clarify s omething, b y the way. I find that a lot of students and people in general think that they are not affected by stereotypes. They might say, “You know what, I’ve always known that the brain is plastic and responds to experiences, so I d on’t think that would have an effect on me.” We would likely s ee that if they were put in the testing situation, though, that it would have an effect on them. Prepping someone to think about how the brain is plastic and responds to experience can have a great impact on their p erformance. And can influence the kind of stereotype threat that is going on in the back of their minds that might n ot even b e fully conscious to them. If fact, it’s probably not fully conscious. Even without instruction though, there are certain s ettings that can h elp reduce s tereotype threat as well. For example, women tend to do better in colleges that are all female colleges and African-­‐Americans tend to p erform b etter at colleges with predominantly African-­‐American students. Maybe that’s because salient reminders of the threat, of the stereotype threat, are not present, are not brought to mind as much. The experience of going to college, experiencing h igher education, has an impact on cognition as well. I see this happening a lot. There’s a d ifference b etween first year college students and many of the graduating s eniors. At a community college, we have a lot of first and s econd year s tudents. It’s common for first year s tudents to think there are facts and there are falsehoods and the professor will tell you what the facts are. And if you just memorize what the professor says, then you’ll know the facts. These first year students may get frustrated when they find out that the answers to their questions are a lot P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D. C hapter 11, p. 5 more complex than they expected, that knowledge itself is not b lack and white. Later in college, they begin to question everything. Opening up to multiple p erspectives that influence n ot only their school work, but a lso their social world and their identity as well. Near graduation, most college s tudents b egin to s ettle upon p ersonal commitments, b eliefs that they consider b est for themselves, but that they understand are not n ecessarily the b est for others. In the terms of Perry, who conducted research a t Harvard University, we b egin college with a dualistic type of approach to cognition, thinking that there’s right, and there is wrong; good and bad. We encounter a lot of n ew ideas. We meet n ew p eople, different p eople with d ifferent backgrounds. And maybe you’ve had this experience b efore, but has a class or experience in college ever kind of b lown your mind? Made you go “Wow, I hadn’t thought about that.” Made you re-­‐evaluate something in your own life that you always thought was one way and now might be a d ifferent way. Through those kind of experiences, a lot of college students move from dualistic thinking to relativistic thinking. That’s the opening up to the fact that there’s a ll kinds of possibilities. This can be a scary time or a frustrating time or an exciting time, d epending upon your p erspective and depending upon how threatened you might feel by those multiple possibilities. In fact, some college students retreat back into dualistic thinking, just convincing themselves that their original viewpoint was the right one. But a lot of college students push through relativistic thinking and end up coming to some of their own p ersonal commitments. That means understanding all of that relativity, understanding that there are different possible solutions -­‐ different, equally valuable opinions to come to. We are b ecoming ever more d iverse, which means that when we go to college, a lot of us are interacting within even more wide range of p eople, d ifferent ideas, d ifferent p erspectives. Those emerging adults coming into college with a very Western orientation a lready are more accustom to questioning, having opinions, d ebating with others. It goes a long with the Western cultural ideal. And it tends to b e part of the hidden curriculum of our colleges here, which can b e d ifficult for p eople of other cultural, or economic, or generational p erspectives to d eal with. A lot of it d epends upon a person’s comfort level with the idea of choice. Making choices, having a choice of what opinion to take, debating with others. Usually, when conflict occurs b etween cultures in this regard in the American college classroom, it might a t first b e very confusing to deal with the relativistic thinking. But most college students push through and learn q uite a bit from the experience. And even if the p erson doesn’t stay in college for four years, a little b it of time in college still correlates with increases in cognition and increases in success in life. Identity and Intimacy Identity is the task that Erikson originally said is s tarted and finished in adolescence. And intimacy was the stage of psychosocial d evelopment he b elieved came n ext. While it’s true that emerging adults are more likely to have a s tronger idea about their identity than adolescences d o, identity may not yet b e achieved in all areas or may not yet b e achieved in any area. There’s a lot of figuring out that still goes on well across the d ecade of the twenties. This is especially true when it comes to figuring out vocational identity. In other words, answering the question, “What do you want to b e?” Vocational identity is the push b ehind most emerging adults’ d ecision to go to college. And this is probably a good idea for most of us b ecause a college education is correlated with income. But note that it’s a correlation, not a cause and effect relationship. S o that means your odds of having a good paying job get higher, your odds increase when you have a college education. But it’s not a guarantee. Many of us have work experiences during our emerging adulthood as well. Often times b ecause it’s absolutely necessary to b e able to support ourselves or b ecause we’re looking for experiences that can h elp us P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D. C hapter 11, p. 6 figure out what we want to do with the rest of our lives. Job experiences during emerging adulthood tend to be short-­‐term, and a lot of switching goes on. These jobs are often not directly related to vocational identity. And jobs at this age feels very temporary. Most of them really are temporary. Most of them won’t last long. That’s not because of job lost necessarily, b ut b ecause emerging adults change their minds and make different decisions. On one extreme, an emerging adults can get f eedback from parents, like, “When are you going to get a real job? Stop messing around.” But there are also risks of going too far in the other direction, having such a firm notion of vocational identity that you’re looking for the perfect job and the p erfect fit. Here’s the dirty truth, there is n o p erfect job. There is no perfect career. Emerging adults who think this way are s etting themselves up for some disappointments. And how d o they d eal with these disappointments? That can b e a big challenge of emerging adulthood. What makes it more complicated is for those emerging adults who’ve gone through a lot of education and preparation for this p erfect career may feel like they should b e able to get jobs a t a higher level coming right out of s chool than they’re really q ualified for. It’s tough because it’s often hard to know in the moment of making these decisions whether your d ecisions are b eing guided b y an unrealistic ideal or whether all of the job changes and the s witches that you’re going through are ways of a voiding making a decision. How will you know for sure? It’s a challenge that people have to sort of feel out on their own. Another main source of continuing identity struggle in emerging adulthood relates to ethnic identity. This is really important for us to understand as a nation because we are increasingly d iverse. In fact, fully half of today’s emerging adults have a d istinct ethnic h eritage. And what I mean b y that is that they are either recent immigrants or have non-­‐European ancestors. An ethnic identity b ecomes more fine-­‐
grained in emerging adulthood. An Asian-­‐American girl who is happy to b e called Asian-­‐American as an adolescence might feel it’s very important to clarify as an emerging adult that she is really Korean-­‐
American, that Asian-­‐American is too broad. Emerging adults are a lso most likely to feel a cceptance or even pride related to their ethnic h eritage while a t the same time hanging out with friends from different ethnicities and from d ifferent backgrounds. Hanging out with p eople of d ifferent backgrounds can trigger curiosity that h elp with ethnic identity. Even Caucasians, otherwise known as ‘white p eople,’ tend to become more curious about their ethnic h eritage during emerging adulthood. Of course, everybody has an ethnic h eritage. The Caucasians in the United States who are d escendents from people who immigrated here long a go may not b e left with much of a s ense of their, often very mix, ethnic heritage, b ut may b ecome very curious about it as they interact with friends who have a lot different experiences and backgrounds. Ethnic identity may present a b ig challenge to immigrant emerging adults b ecause they so recently made the s witch from their native country to the United States and this can include a lot of conflict with parents with what is and is not appropriate. Most notably, in the United States, our cultural n orm is that children make their choices independently, especially when it comes to career choices. Joe chooses a career that’s a good fit for Joe, n ot n ecessarily a good fit for Joe’s parents, right? Well, immigrant emerging adults may feel a d esire to make their own d ecisions while also feeling guilty about going against the wishes of their parents. As a result, conflict can increase in the parent relationship with their emerging adult child. Regardless, the s earch for ethnic identity has countless possible outcomes. Every emerging adult make decisions and choices about which aspects of their h eritage to embrace and which to reject. And some of the parts they choose to reject now, they may find later re-­‐emerge as important and as things they want to embrace later. For example, it’s pretty common for p eople ages 18-­‐25 to think that the religious P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D. C hapter 11, p. 7 aspects of their h eritage aren’t so important. But some of those individuals may find later on when they get married or when they have children that those issues b ecome a lot more important to their ethnic identity than. The point is even if we settle upon certain ethnic identity during emerging adulthood, it’s still likely to change a little b it at least across the lifespan. The process of figuring out this tough task of ethnic identity is h elped b y college classes that make u s think a nd learn about cultures and including sometimes our own cultural h eritage. Erickson originally believed that intimacy d evelops after identity d evelopment is complete. That’s n ot necessarily the case these days. Intimacy involves sharing ourselves with others. And those others can be friends, family and romantic partners. Of course we have relationships with all of these individuals even as we are still figuring out identity. And it appears as though in recent generations, the development of intimacy and identity are happening more at about the same time d uring emerging adulthood. It can b e really difficult to manage the stresses and the challenges of intimate relationships, especially during a time when most emerging adults are postponing those transitions into adult roles, like marriage and parenthood. Emerging adults make the most of this time though b y maintaining a wider circle of friends than they’ll have later as married young adults. Friendships have b ecome more d iverse too with more cross-­‐sex friendships that involve no romance. Think about it. Emerging a dults have a lot of contact with the opposite s ex, and with others who have d ifferent backgrounds, through college, through work experiences, and other common emerging adult experiences. And facebook, and texting. As much as they may b e put down or misunderstood b y older generations, seem to strengthen the ties b etween emerging adults, especially among those who originally met face to face. And the gender differences that used to b e s o common in friendships are no longer quite as distinct. For example, male friends these days tend to d isclose more to each other today than they did in past generations. Now what about romantic relationships? Wow, what a huge topic during emerging adulthood. Choosing a life partner. That’s what most of us are hoping to do. We get b etter at choosing life partners as we get a little bit older. That’s what the s tatistics tell us b ecause the risk of divorce d ecreases the older we are when we get married. In other words, p eople who get married a t the age of 19 have a higher risk of divorce than p eople who get married a t the age of 30. The best b et for figuring out whether someone is going to b e a great life partner is to start with friendship first, and then s ex later. Going in the opposite direction of sex first and then getting to know each other b etter is not likely to lead to long-­‐term relationship success. Some couples think it’s good to test drive the relationship and live with each other before they get married. This is called cohabitation, and more and more young couples are trying it out. Contrary to common b elief, though, cohabitation doesn’t reduce the risk of d ivorce. In fact, cohabitation correlates with a higher risk of d ivorce. It’s unclear a t this point, though, whether this has more to do with the act of cohabiting or has more to do with the q ualities of the p eople who make the d ecision, the choice to cohabit. I’ll just give you a couple examples. Couples who d ecide to live together tend to be couples who are already quite d ifferent from one another, more of the opposites attract than the birds of a feather flocking together. In addition, couples who cohabit tend to b e less conventional than the a verage individual and tend to b e less religious. These aren’t n ecessarily good or bad things, it’s just that those are a lso correlates of divorce as well. When couples have a lot of d ifferences b etween themselves, when couples h old unconventional views, when couples are less religious, their chances of d ivorcing later are a lso h igher. So you s ee what I mean. We don’t know if it’s a s election factor, that those are the type of individuals most likely to choose to live P16 Podcast Transcript, Amy Himsel, Ph.D. C hapter 11, p. 8 together or if there’s something about the act of cohabiting itself. Maybe the experience of not having to make a commitment fully that may have the impact. Maybe future research will tell us. In the United S tates, we’re very focus on whether we really love the p erson, you know, and this is the biggest issue that drives most people’s d ecision about choosing life partners. Everybody understands the feelings of attraction, the spark, the physical interest in another p erson, right? And that’s certainly part of love, especially the early part of love. But intimacy a nd commitment are important as well. Intimacy involves really understanding and knowing each other, the good and the bad. And commitment is the decision to really try and make things work. The research tells us that the first thing that s tarts to decrease of those three components is passion. Couples aren’t able to keep passion a live on a consistent level all throughout their many d ecades together as a couple. But commitment a nd intimacy due tend to grow with time. And d ivorce and less and less likely the longer a couple is together. Maybe b ecause the commitment and intimacy has grown. Family relationships continue to b e important for emerging adults. And even more so for today’s emerging adults than in the past because today’s 18-­‐25 year olds are not exactly independent. Today’s transition into the full adult status, whatever that means, it might include financial independence and vocational goals that are met, takes longer. Because of this, parents have remained important sources of support and important influences on their adult children during this time. Besides, today’s families have fewer children which means that today’s midlife parents of emerging adults have more a ttention a nd more concern and more energy to d evote to their one or two kids. And parents are n ervous b ecause past to successful adulthood are not as clear as they used to b e. They’re different than from when parents were your age, so parents may feel very s trongly that their emerging adult kids n eed continued support. Emerging adults might move back in and live with their parents. Even if they don’t, many are getting significant financial h elp from their parents, like h elp paying their rent or insurance. It’s not that difficult for financially s ecure parents to help their emerging adult children transition to hopefully and more s ecure future but it’s obviously a much b igger challenge for parents who are less well-­‐off financially. In fact, the less money parents earn, the lower the chances their emerging adult children will attend college. In such cases, the emerging adults have to financially support themselves a nd work is going to take priority over school. Some may choose to complete their education gradually, part-­‐time, whereas others who may have really wanted to get a college education may d ecide that they can’t manage the responsibilities of their work while also being a student. The bottom line is that parental support during emerging adulthood can go a long way. It d oesn’t have to b e financial, but the financial support that, let’s say help an emerging a dult may get from college graduation through a long job s earch until h er first real job has s et h er on a course that’s more likely to lead to future success. But support can b e emotional. And support can b e very instrumental as well. For example, with an emerging adult who has a child and whose parents are h elping babysit the child or taking care of the child while the emerging adult is getting some of h er coursework done to move towards career goals. So do you see what I mean about a lot of flux? A lot of change? A lot of excitement but also a lot of uncertainty? I know many of you who are listening are going through emerging adulthood right now and I’m sure you can relate very directly to a lot of material in this chapter. Maybe it will make a slight contribution to h elp you figure out who you are, what you n eed, who you want to b e with, and what you want to do with your life. 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EPISODE 12.1: ADULTHOOD - PHYSICAL HEALTH AND AGING
In this episode, weʼre going to talk about adulthood, specifically the development of the
physical body and the mind from about 26 until about 65.
Physical Health and Aging
In the United States, we really don't like to accept the fact that we all will go through a
physical aging process. I think secretly many of us are hoping that scientists will figure
out how to prevent aging entirely by the time we get to be older adults. That's not going
to happen. The gradual aging process happens to us all and is referred to as
senescence. We reach our physical health peak in late adolescence and early
adulthood, but the decline in our physical health begins in early adulthood. It's just that
it's very gradual and we often won't notice until middle adulthood. And that depends also
on our lifestyle and how well weʼve been taking care of ourselves.
But senescence will occur, and it will occur to our insides (our organs) and also to our
outsides (our physical appearance). With physical appearance, for example, we have
connective tissues of the body like collagen that help give skin its strength and elasticity,
right? But collagen decreases at a rate of about 1% per year starting in early adulthood.
You're probably not going to notice this change from age 26 to age 27, but comparing
yourself at age 26 to looking at yourself at age 40, for example, it becomes more obvious
how the skin is aging. And it's one of the areas of physical appearance that people begin
to notice the most in midlife. Our internal organs are aging as well, and in particular our
sense organs show signs of aging. We often notice senescence first in our sense organs
compared to our other organs, so that means that we might notice our hearing declines
and our vision declines. Regarding vision, in our 20s onward we become more and more
likely to be nearsighted, meaning we can see things close up but have difficulty seeing
things that are far away. But then, as we reach middle adulthood, the incidence of
farsightedness increases, and that's when we have trouble seeing things that are close
up. The thing is that as older adults, many of us will have both: nearsightedness and
farsightedness. With hearing, when we have lost a significant amount of hearing, it's
referred to as prebycusis. That just means aging hearing, and it's one more common as
we get older. Once we reach age 65, more than half of us will have presbycusis.
Senescence certainly is affected by genetics. Our bodies are not meant to last forever,
and genes play a role in the aging process. But, our behaviors and our environment also
contribute to the aging process as well. Certain poor habits have a particularly strong
influence on the rate of senescence. Take smoking. Thankfully, smoking has been
decreasing in the United States, but itʼs still the #1 preventable cause of death here in
the United States. Adolescence is a vulnerable time, because people who start smoking
in their teenage years are the most likely to become addicted and to experience several
decades as a smoker. Drinking can also have a negative impact on aging, but moderate
drinking can actually improve health. It's interesting because there's a correlation
between moderate drinking, and that means one or two drinks a day (depending on your
gender, and depending on your height and weight). Those people actually tend to live
longer than people who never drink at all. Why is this the case? One of the explanations
scientists have hit upon is that alcohol seems to have a positive effect on cardiovascular
functioning. Remember, moderate intake of alcohol has a positive effect on
cardiovascular functioning, but abuse of alcohol (like, heavy drinking, regularly having
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three or four or five drinks in a row several days a week), this can have absolutely
disastrous effects on senescence and our health in general. Abuse of alcohol is
correlated with cancer of many kinds and is also correlated with liver damage.
Senescence is affected by what we choose to put into our bodies. As we age, our
metabolism decreases gradually. So, to maintain our youthful figure, we have to actually
consume fewer calories and burn more calories. Most of us don't do this, and gradual
weight gain is common. We also have a growing problem of obesity here in the United
States. Obesity is defined as having a body mass index of 30 or more, and it's correlated
with lots of health problems and accelerated aging. In fact, the increase in obesity in
recent years is expected to result in a pretty dramatic increase in diabetes later on. Why
is this happening, and why is it happening here in the United States? The research tells
us that we are eating fewer nutritious and healthy foods. I mean, even compared to data
collected five years ago, we are eating fewer nutritious foods, fewer healthy foods.
Instead, we are eating more high-fat and low-nutrient foods. Much of this has to do with
our consumption of fast food and other processed foods.
Plus, were not as physically active as we need to be. And by “we”, again, I'm talking
about residents of the United States. Inactivity is a problem that contributes to obesity,
and it's also a lifestyle factor that, even if a person isn't obese, can have a negative
impact on senescence. Staying physically active is correlated with all kinds of good stuff,
all kinds of positive health outcomes. There's no doubt about it: exercise helps us live
longer, healthier lives. But, environmental factors influence whether or not we stay
physically active. For example, those of us who have active friends are more likely to be
physically active across the lifespan ourselves. In addition, living in a neighborhood
where there are places and areas that are safe and open where we can exercise is
associated with greater physical activity. This would be places like bike paths and parks
and pools – places where it easy for us and safe for us to maintain our activity. Still, even
though we know a lot of this (maybe this information wasn't new to you at all), getting
ourselves to exercise regularly is often a constant struggle. We work a lot. We drive a lot.
And we watch a lot of television or sit at our computers a lot. And because our time is
consumed in this way, there is less time during the day to spend on being active. In the
past, when work was more physical to begin with – for example, when more of us were
farmers or working the land in some way or another – we were getting exercise just as
part of our regular daily activities. But most of us don't have work that involves physical
activity, and most of us don't walk to work. Most of us don't even take the stairs once we
get to work. Just 30 min. of exercise a day could prevent an estimated 250,000 deaths a
year in reduced risk of heart disease alone. Beyond heart health, regular exercise
enhances the immune system, decreases stress, and helps reduce depression and
anxiety.
I've just described a number of findings related to activity and eating habits and other
environmental factors related to our health, but how do we measure health? There are a
number of different ways that scientists assess health. The most blunt way is to assess
the death rate. This is a measure of mortality, and we see from measures of mortality
that women tend to live longer than men. In fact, it's about a five year gap in the United
States. Men tend to die, on average, five years earlier than the average woman. It isn't
clear whether this difference is biological–maybe something to do with the fact that
women have two X chromosomes instead of one, or because of some protective benefit
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of estrogen–or whether this difference has environmental or cultural components to it.
Women tend to maintain stronger friendships, and they tend to notice and act on any
kind of health problem that they spot. They're more likely to go to the doctor at the first
sign of some kind of problem, whereas men are often reluctant to go to the doctor until
their situation gets pretty bad or until a woman in their life basically badgers them
enough until they actually do go to the doctor. So that's mortality: looking at death rates.
We can also measure the rate of diseases, and thatʼs a measure of morbidity. With
morbidity, weʼre looking at all kinds of diseases that exist in a population and how many
people have those diseases: diseases that could be acute or chronic, diseases that are
life-threatening or are not life-threatening, any kind of disease is measured through a
morbidity measure. Again, there's a gender difference here, but in the opposite direction
as it was with mortality, with women showing higher rates of morbidity for all diseases
except for cardiovascular disease during the middle adult years (which would be
between about 40 and about 65).
Disability is another way to measure health, and this reflects an impairment in the ability
to function in daily life. This could be an impairment in physical functioning, emotional
functioning, or mental functioning. It's a limitation that presents a challenge in an
everyday way. A person may have to use a wheelchair, for example, or may have a
condition that makes it difficult for them to walk very far. Similar to morbidity, women
often have higher rates of disability than men. And, for the most cheerful measure of
health, next comes vitality. Vitality is a measure of a zest for living, a love of life, or an
energy for life. And it's related more to personality than to physical factors. It's not
necessarily correlated with physical illness or physical health. A person could have a
very serious physical illness, which would mean that they have morbidity and perhaps
even disability, but a high rate of vitality showing that they still have a love of life and
energy for doing the things that they enjoy in the midst of dealing with what might be
difficult circumstances. Whether a person is physically healthy or physically ill may not
relate at all to vitality, and vitality tends to be related more to personality. Socioeconomic
status correlates with these measures of health. In particular, it correlates with mortality,
morbidity, and disability. Across the world, the people who have more years of formal
schooling and people who have achieved some measure of financial security show lower
rates of mortality, lower rates of morbidity, and lower rates of disability.
The Sexual-Reproductive System
We see senescence in the sexual reproductive system. In regards to sexual
responsiveness, it takes adults a longer amount of time before they feel aroused, and it
takes longer for them to achieve an orgasm. But most couples handle these declines
pretty well and aren't too bothered, especially if they have a strong emotional
relationship. These changes in sexual responsiveness are gradual and may not be
noticeable until further into the midlife years in the 40s and 50s. At a certain point when a
couple has decided they no longer wish to have more children (and they may not have
had any before), the fact that women lose their reproductive capabilities and eventually
stop ovulating can actually be enhance sexual behavior for some couples because they
no longer have to worry about birth control.
Fertility declines across adulthood. This means that people are less and less likely to be
able to reproduce, especially after age 35 and into the 40s, and especially for women. As
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Chapter 12, p. 4
she ages, a woman has fewer and fewer viable healthy eggs left. The eggs that are left
as she ages may not be healthy eggs; they may have chromosomal abnormalities, for
example. And eventually ovulation stops entirely. A man's sperm count decreases
gradually with age, although there isn't an age where it just stops entirely. So the aging
of the sexual reproductive system it is especially difficult for adults who wanted children
but weren't ever able to conceive, or who had some children and wanted more but were
able to conceive. This is called infertility, and it affects about 15% of couples in the
childbearing years today. Today though, we do have more and more options for infertile
couples. We have assisted reproductive technology, which allows many infertile couples
to become parents through procedures like in vitro fertilization (IVF). During IVF a
woman produces a lot of ova, and this is with the help of drugs that stimulate the ovaries.
Those ova are removed from the woman's body and then combined it in the laboratory
with the man's sperm. Hopefully, one or more or several of these eggs become fertilized,
and then one or two of these zygotes are transferred into the mother's uterus in the
hopes that implementation will take place... and it might not. The success rates of IVF
vary by age, but in general about one third of IVF cycles are successful. Today, despite
the widely publicized Octomom, most doctors are reluctant to transfer more than two
zygotes into the mother's body at the time. This is obviously a good idea because, if both
take and become implanted, then we have pregnancy with twins which increases the
risks of a lot of complications but it is a kind of pregnancy that many women are able to
maintain. If three or four or five or six zygotes are transferred into the woman's uterus
and all of them happen to implant, or several of them happen to implant, now the health
risks to the mother and to those developing humans increase greatly.
At a certain point, especially for women, there's an end to reproductive capabilities. The
aging of the sexual and reproductive system result in menopause for women, which isn't
technically diagnosed until a year after a woman's last menstrual period. Menopause is
when a woman is no longer ovulating, so obviously she's no longer able to become
pregnant and it's the end of her fertility. Often times, menopause occurs around the age
of 50 and it's the end result of several years of gradually decreasing amounts of
estrogen in the bloodstream. As estrogen decreases, there are some common physical
effects, like (obviously) decreased fertility, but also changes in body temperature (like hot
flashes). There are psychological effects too that are reported but they vary widely, even
from woman to woman in the United States, and they vary widely by culture as well. In
cultures where aging is respected to a higher degree than it is here in the United States,
women tend to have an easier time with menopause from a psychological perspective. It
relates to attitudes about aging, because menopause is a clear signal that the body is
aging. How we handle that is going to be influenced not only by our own emotions and
our own personalities, but very much by the culture that we live in and the extent to
which aging is valued. It was once common for doctors to recommend hormone
replacement therapy during menopause to counteract some of the symptoms of
menopause and to improve bone health and cardiovascular health as well for women,
but now scientists think that in that earlier research, the correlation might have more to
do with income and education than with hormone replacement therapy. In fact, for the
kind of hormone replacement therapy that is estrogen only, long-term use has been
found to correlate with an increased risk of heart disease and other illnesses. So, these
findings leave many women uncertain about what to do.
Men also experience a gradual decline in their sexual reproductive functioning. This
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Chapter 12, p. 5
relates mostly to the decline in testosterone production. There is disagreement among
scientists whether this is a significant enough change to warrant men getting their own
title–like a counterpart to menopause. Some would suggest that it be called andropause.
Testosterone, by the way, is an androgen so that's where the name would come from.
But keep in mind that men do not reach an end to their reproductive capacity, at least not
like women do. Besides, psychological factors like anxiety and anger that men
experience can actually lead to lower levels of testosterone, too. Taking care of their
physical health and psychological health is often very helpful for men's sexual health
across adulthood. Some research suggests that taking care of their physical and
psychological health is even more important for sexual health for men than taking a
prescription for Levitra or Viagra.
EPISODE 12.2: ADULTHOOD – COGNITION, INTELLIGENCE, AND EXPERTISE
In this episode, the second one on the body and mind in adulthood, we will focus on
aging and intelligence as well as other specific cognitive strengths of the adult years.
Aging and Intelligence
The brain is an organ, and the brain ages like all of our other organs age. The brain
slows down gradually over time as the brain ages. It also gets a little bit smaller. This is
because over time we have fewer neurons, fewer synapses. The communication
between neurons as well slows down a bit. These are gradual changes that most of us
won't begin to notice until we get well into middle adulthood or even later. But the
outcome of these gradual changes is that it's harder for adults to stay focused, especially
when they're doing something really complex like solving a complex problem. They are
more distractible. Their attention can be taken away more easily, and that can be
because of external noises, or even by thoughts or intruding memories or other kinds of
emotional problems. Weʼre not as good at multitasking as we age across adulthood,
compared to our younger years.
In adulthood, the brain needs to be taken care of. We need adequate sleep. The brain
becomes more sensitive to important neurotransmitters when it's fully rested. This is
because while we're asleep the brain goes through a consolidation and repair process,
churning through the events that have occurred that day and repairing any little wear and
tear and damage that may have happened across the day. In fact, when we get enough
sleep, and especially when we get adequate REM sleep (rapid eye movement sleep),
our memory is improved. The challenge is that sleeping itself becomes more erratic as
we age, more problematic. The problems that we have with sleep may be the result of
aging, but sometimes theyʼre an indication that something else is wrong. For example,
one of the common symptoms of depression is changes in sleep and trouble sleeping.
A small portion of adults will notice changes in their brain before late adulthood. This
may be an indication of early Alzheimer's disease. Early Alzheimer's disease is often
caused by a dominant gene, and it tends have really strong presence in the family. What
I mean is that you see it running through the family with other members succumbing to
Alzheimer's at an early age as well, maybe beginning even in their 40s. This is very rare
from age 25 to age 65, by the way.
If a person has abused drugs repeatedly over the years, maybe they've been drinking
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heavily for years or they've been abusing nicotine for years, this can also impact brain
functioning, as can hypertension. Having high blood pressure is an indication of
problems with circulation, and that makes a difference in terms of brain functioning as
well.
Even though age-related decline is inevitable we can do a lot to keep our brains as
active and sharp and as young as possible. We can't prevent brain aging from occurring
entirely, but, by staying physically active and keeping our brains cognitively active, we
can slow down the aging of the brain.
But what does that mean for intelligence? How smart will we be across the adulthood
years? This is a question that researchers have been investigating for several decades.
For a long time the assumption was that there's one kind of intelligence, a general
intelligence, that measures a multipurpose intelligence that's there underneath our
performance in a number of different areas. Think about school, for example. Students
who tend to do a good job in math class also tend to do a good job in English class. So
the fact that their talents in one area are correlated with abilities in others was thought to
be an indication of an underlying general intelligence. With this in mind, we can take a
look at changes in intelligence across the lifespan by measuring IQ. By the way, we are
going to talk a little bit later about whether it's appropriate to think of intelligence as just
one thing, as a general intelligence, but for now letʼs review the research on IQ as a
measure of intelligence.
What happens to our intelligence as we age? It depends upon how we test this question.
The results that we get vary based upon the different methods. For example, if we take a
look at groups of people of different ages, we find that younger people tend to have
higher intelligence scores than older people. This would be a cross-sectional research
design, and the early studies of intelligence across the lifespan were cross sectional.
They showed that people in their 20s and people in their 30s have higher scores on IQ
tests the people in their 70s or 80s. At first, an interpretation was made that intelligence
declines as we age, which is pretty depressing. But it's also inaccurate, especially once
we started to understand the impact of context and history and other generational factors
on our ability to maximize our intellectual potential. The environment has changed in a
major way. We are all going to school for a lot longer than many of our ancestors did,
and many people in older generations did. The kinds of things weʼre learning about are
very complex from a cognitive perspective. This doesn't mean that we are genetically
smarter than those of older generations, but it does indicate that the environmental
changes that have gone on since that time have impacted our development of our
intellectual potential. We see generational differences in IQ scores. Remember the Flynn
effect? That's the finding that intelligence scores keep increasing gradually over the
years. This is a steady change that we see over and over again, and it's probably
because a dramatic changes in our environment. So, when you measure people of
different generations, what happens is there's the confounding factor of cohort
differences that gets in the way.
Longitudinal research moves us one step forward in terms of considering that kind of
bias. Longitudinal research is when you take one group and you follow that group across
several years. This is better than cross-sectional research but it still has problems. For
example, if people are participating in a study for 50 years or so, they may start to get
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accustomed to the test and get better at it because they've been able to practice it a lot.
In addition to that, sometimes people in longitudinal studies end up dropping out and the
people that end up staying in the study tend to be the ones that were smarter in the first
place. The smarter and healthier and better functioning people are the ones most likely
to keep agreeing to participate in a longitudinal study, and all of this can have an impact
on the findings.
Perhaps you remember cross sequential research? This is a technique where we begin
a longitudinal study, and when we get ready to assess that group again in the future
(let's say five years from now), we add another cohort–another group of people–and we
keep adding and adding until eventually we have several different longitudinal studies of
people who are members of different cohorts. That way we can see whether we find that
there are individual changes in intelligence and we can also at the same time compare
the findings from one generation to another. This is what a researcher named Schaie did
starting as his doctoral dissertation, and we now refer to the study as the Seattle
Longitudinal Study. It's looking at intelligence and looking at many different components
of what would usually make up an IQ test. What the Seattle Longitudinal Study shows is
that the bottom line is that we get smarter on most elements of our mental abilities
across adulthood, and our overall intelligence remains stable usually until later
adulthood. The evidence suggests that most of our mental abilities peak somewhere in
between age 40 and 60, and that if there are declines before the age of 60 it's often the
result of some other kind of illness or disability. In other words, it's not a normative
development.
Specific Cognitive Strengths
Now, let's talk about the other kind of abilities that may also be a part of intelligence
above and beyond IQ tests. Intelligence is more than just IQ. That's something that
almost all scientists agree on right now, but there is still disagreement on exactly how
many other kinds of abilities are included in the concept of intelligence. One possibility is
the two clusters approach: fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. This is an idea
that intelligence is made up basically of two components–fluid intelligence, which deals
with processing speed and how quickly we can solve new problems–and crystallized
intelligence, which reflects the facts and the vocabulary and the knowledge that we've
learned through our experiences and through our studying. Fluid intelligence, data
processing speed, has to do with the capacity of our working memory–how quickly we
can think and how flexibly we can think–and how skilled we are at solving new abstract
problems. This kind of intelligence decreases gradually even starting in the 20s.
However, it's not noticeable for most of us until we get quite a bit older, maybe into our
40s or 50s. It becomes most noticeable in late adulthood: age 65 or later. Crystallized
intelligence goes in the opposite direction. Crystallized intelligence is facts and
knowledge and vocabulary and the things that we've learned through experience. Think
about a lifetime of experience. As we age we gain more and more experience, we have
more and more opportunity to encounter new information and learn things, and
accordingly crystallized intelligence tends to increase across adulthood. With the
decrease in fluid and the increase in crystallized, we see on IQ tests that kind of
balances out and we see IQ holding steady throughout the adulthood years.
Another approach considers three clusters. This is Sternberg's triarchic theory of
intelligence: analytic intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence. Let's
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focus specifically on practical intelligence. Practical intelligence is similar to common
sense or street smarts or everyday problem-solving ability. In adulthood, practical
intelligence is very useful because we encounter all kinds of real-life problems that we
have to solve, problems where there are great stakes involved, problems that are
important to us and that we very much want to figure out. This would include things like
all of the tasks and challenges that come with managing the multiple responsibilities of
adulthood, like relationships with people at work, relationships with people at home
(including spouses, children, in-laws, grandparents), making decisions that impact others
and yourself. Of the three kinds of intelligence, although creative intelligence and
analytic intelligence are wonderful to have, practical intelligence is arguably the most
valuable in our lives during these years.
But wait–there's more! Maybe it's nine clusters. This would be Howard Gardner's theory
of multiple intelligences. Gardner believed that there were a number of different kinds of
intelligence, as reflected in the expertise of people who we consider to be very talented
in a number of different domains, not just in school or in book smarts. Different cultures
value different intelligences. This has an influence–a strong influence–on what we
decide to teach our children and how we as people judge others as smart or not so
smart. But what if your particular form of intelligence isn't valued in the culture in which
you live, or isn't valued during the era in which you came of age? This can present a
problem. For example, if a person has grown up in a nation where schooling is
emphasized the most and more mathematical and verbal abilities are emphasized above
all others, he or she may have repeated experiences of not doing well. Maybe this child's
intelligence is more musical or spatial or, perhaps, bodily kinesthetic. It may be difficult
for that person to overcome feelings of inferiority and a feeling of learned helplessness
about the repeated mistakes and failures they've experienced. As we look in on other
cultures, we may make a mistake in assuming they have less intelligence than we do,
when in reality it may just be that other skills are valued more strongly within that
particular culture and are emphasized and taught to the children. So the nine clusters
idea of intelligence helps us understand cultural differences and helps us understand the
unique challenges the children–and then later adolescents and adults–face if they don't
fit in with the kind of intelligence that's most valued in their own culture. The good thing is
that learning occurs across the lifespan and different intelligences can be revived and
improved upon beyond childhood and adolescence.
But, as you know, as we have discussed, the adult years do involve losses: losses in our
abilities, losses in our physical functioning…and the previous assumption was that
infancy and childhood and adolescence were all about gaining: gaining skills, abilities,
gaining knowledge…and that adulthood is just a prolonged period of loss. This is no
longer understood to be the case. Across the lifespan, we experience gains and losses.
Yes, the proportion of loss is greater as we age than it was when we were younger.
That's true. But what matters more than the fact that we've had losses is how we adapt
to those losses. Selective optimization with compensation is a strategy that adults use
more and more as they face and learn how to accommodate the losses they experience
as adults. Selective optimization: that means that we identify and maximize the
remaining skills that we have. What about compensation? That just means that as we
are identifying and maximizing our remaining abilities, we are at the same time trying to
compensate for our losses. Adults often grow really good at using selective optimization
with compensation and may show similar levels of functioning or achievement or on-the-
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job performance as younger people do. But if you take a look you'll find a lot of the
reason why this is the case is because they become very skilled at making the most of
the things they're really good at and making up for the things that are starting to decline.
In fact, as each of us ages, and we don't have to be 85 years old to experience this, we
all become experts. We are experts at something. Of the gazillion things we have the
choice of focusing on or paying attention to, we end up focusing on a relatively small set
of interests and skills that happened to be particularly appealing to us as individuals.
This includes the information we were interested in memorizing or learning, but also
includes the knowledge gained from experiences that we've had over time through
consistent practice. So, it's appropriate to think of ourselves as selective experts.
When is expertise in a particular area actually reached, though? It's hard to say exactly.
It doesn't line up perfectly with age, but has more to do with the kind of decision-making
that's typical of an individual in a particular area of functioning. When our thinking and
our decision-making become more intuitive, automatic, strategic, and flexible, that
indicates that we've developed an expertise.
Expert thinking is intuitive. When something is intuitive it feels like you just know
something, but you may not be able to explain clearly what exactly it is or why you're
doing something in a certain way. It's that your knowledge has accumulated to such a
point that you're making some decisions without full conscious awareness of all of the
steps you're going through your mind. Things may be too subtle to explain in words. I
see this when it comes to taking notes and studying. I've developed a lot of intuitive
habits that can make it a challenge to explain to others–to novices, to students who are
new at taking notes–the techniques that I'm following. I don't really have to think much
about how I'm taking notes. I just kind of have learned over the years how to do that.
Expert thinking is automatic. That means it's well practiced and efficient. Again, it may be
partially unconscious in this case because it's happening so quickly, the ideas are
coming to the expert so quickly. The thoughts are so efficient that it's difficult to stop the
brain and go, “Wait a second. What am I doing here?”
Expert thinking is strategic. Experts can develop a plan of attack. They realize there's
some sort of problem that needs to get solved and, in the moment–spontaneously–
experts come up with better strategies and have access to more kinds of strategies than
nonexperts have. In the moment of making those decisions, those strategic decisions,
experts are better able to regulate their emotions, and that allows them to be more
successful problem solvers. For example, strategies can help older typists maintain their
speed and accuracy of their typing, competing with those of younger typists, by using
strategies that help them compensate for the loss in fluid intelligence, the slower reaction
time that they have. Older typists uses strategy oftentimes of reading further ahead in
the text that they're typing so that they don't have to look back and forth as much. That
looking back and forth with typing takes up more fluid intelligence, so by having that
strategy of reading further ahead they actually are able to maintain a similar level of
functioning by selectively optimizing and compensating.
And finally, experts thinking is flexible. Experts are willing to experiment and try new
things. They're willing to go out on a limb. They may even be a little bit excited when a
new challenge pops up that allows them to try out some unique and innovative
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strategies, because this could lead to interesting insights.
With all of these characteristics of expert thinking–that it's intuitive, automatic, strategic,
and flexible–it's interesting to notice the contrast with novice thinking. Novices are
newcomers to a certain area. They are non-experts. Novice thinking tends to be more
cumbersome, it tends to rely more on memorizing–memorizing rules or regulations or
information. It takes longer for a novice to come to a decision. Their use of strategies is
not as well developed because, first of all, they havenʼt learned as many strategies as
experts have, and they're not as good in the moment at spontaneously reacting and
changing when they need to change strategy. Novices are not able to be flexible. In fact,
their thinking is more rigid: they've learned certain ideas and certain rules and they would
prefer to just be able to keep applying them. It's difficult for them to make good decisions
in the flexible way that experts do.
So, as we all move along our path in life, becoming experts at whatever it is we are
choosing to do, does that mean that we just get better and better when we get older? Is
it a function of age? Well, yes–age involves experience and gives us a lot of
opportunities to test out strategies and get better and better, right? But interestingly, the
experience of cognitively complex work–like, occupational challenge–is correlated with
intelligence in adulthood. The experience of becoming more of an expert, especially in
careers or with hobbies that require lots of thinking, that kind of effort on the part of our
brains tends to help enhance our cognitive functioning. So, as you struggle in college to
learn all of this material and get into a job where you're probably also going to still be
struggling and learning and always encountering new information, just remind yourself
that you're giving your brain a good workout.
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EPISODE 13.0: ADULTHOOD – PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
From age 25 to age 65, so much happens. We make a lot of decisions, like where to
work, and who to marry, and how many kids to have. We have numerous responsibilities
with all of these areas of our life and the way that they overlap. And we're faced with
many opportunities to demonstrate our coping skills. In this episode, we examine some
of the main issues that arise in psychosocial development during adulthood.
Ages and Stages
We can take a stage based look at psychosocial development, which is focused on how
different experiences that tend to occur at certain ages in the lifespan have an impact on
us. But we can also consider how adult development involves a continuity of, for
example, personality–that we see similarities in the way that we behave across the
lifespan. Let's talk about stages first.
Erikson was the psychologist who was interested in looking at development past the
adolescent years. He was the first one to create a life span theory. In adulthood he
believed that we face the crises of intimacy versus isolation and generativity versus
stagnation. Erikson thought of intimacy as the primary challenge of young adulthood: the
focus is on being really close to others, finding satisfying close and intimate
relationships. This includes not only romantic relationships but also friendships and
family relationships as well. As we grow a little bit older, we become more and more
interested in the way in which we are contributing to society in some manner of fashion,
whether it's through the way we raise our children, or through the work that we do, or the
volunteering that we do, or any combination of the above. I will tell you more about each
of these big issues a little bit later when we talk about relationships and we talk about
work and parenting. But we do know now that the experience and the desire for intimacy
and generativity aren't closely linked to age as Erikson originally believed.
Besides, the timing of things in life? That tends to change with history, right? That's the
point of the concept of the social clock. The social clock is a culturally determined
schedule, like a timetable, of the general age ranges when we expect certain life events
to happen. It's the idea that, "People should get married before they're 40. People should
have their kids before they're 45. If you don't have a career set yet by the time you're 30,
something's wrong." I'm not saying that any of the statements are true, but what I'm
demonstrating is that these are attitudes held in general. They're norms that influence
people's ideas and opinions and sometimes behaviors. The social clock changes in
response to cultural changes, but also in response to historical time. Right now in the
United States, the social clock is more flexible than has ever been before. In the past,
the idea that you would have children in your 40s was much less a prominent notion. In
the past it was assumed that people would want to retire by the time they're 60. Well, we
are living longer and many of us want to keep working because work is interesting,
satisfying, or because we really need the money. These kinds of changes have left us
with a social clock that offers us more flexibility. But that's not the case with lower
socioeconomic status individuals. The ages of the social clock tend to be younger
among people of low socioeconomic status.
Speaking of a clock and time ticking away, it is believed by many in the general public
that there is a midlife crisis, this idea that time is ticking away too quickly, that in our 40s
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or 50s most of us need to make major changes in our lives. This is a myth. It's a myth
that stems from certain books written and from some research that occurred decades
ago that hasn't been replicated. Together, these sources suggested that there is a lot of
turmoil experienced during the 40s and 50s, especially among men. But the
observations made for the book and for the research were impacted by the historical
context. The men who were part of the study at the time were actually entering midlife in
the early 1970s when there was plenty of disruption and change going on in America.
This is about the time when their children were being influenced by the youth
counterculture and are starting to rebel, and then the women's movement was occurring
as well so that wives were less likely to be satisfied with the traditional division of labor
that had been so common prior to that time. We now know that most midlife adults are
functioning very well. They may make adjustments in their lives, they may change jobs,
they may get a divorce, get remarried, pursue a new hobby…but that's usually just them
examining other facets of their identity, not making some kind of radical overall change.
Some people do have what we consider to be "crises" in midlife, but the people most
prone to having crises in midlife are those who were prone to having crises earlier in
their life. It's probably more an issue of personality than it is of development.
How about personality? To what extent do we stay the same across adulthood, and to
what extent do we change? The study of personality is focused more on continuity. That
makes it different from the stage-based studies of Erik Erikson. Our personalities are
influenced by genes. Think back to infant temperament. Many of our basic personality
characteristics correlate with infant temperament, but genes are not the end of the story.
Our experiences, the environment we grew up in, certainly has an influence as well. The
big five personality characteristics have been identified as the most standard and
fundamental personality characteristics, not just in the United States, but across the
world. Openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism–these
are the big five. Openness reflects a willingness to try new things. Conscientiousness
refers to discipline and being orderly. Extroversion is a characteristic involving how
comfortable we are and interested we are in spending time with others; it also relates to
an overall energy level and an interest in being out among others. Agreeableness is
about how warm and friendly and humble person is. And neuroticism deals with negative
emotions and high anxiety. We don't see a lot of change in the big five across adulthood.
In fact, our personality characteristics have an impact on the kind of environment we
create for ourselves. Think about how personality ends up having an impact on the
context that we find ourselves in. Our personality drives us and influences the decisions
that we make. Those decisions in turn create an environment, and that environment then
begins to influence us as well. The unique context that each of us carves out through the
decisions driven by our personality is referred to as the ecological niche. We help shape
our environment…and the environment, in turn, reinforces our personality
characteristics. Yes, it is true that sometimes major life events can have a strong
influence on personality, but the more common finding is that life events tend to reveal
our basic personality characteristics. This is referred to as the accentuation principle; the
idea is that an extroverted person who finds herself facing a difficult or challenging
situation tends to become more extroverted. She tends not become suddenly introverted.
This accentuation principle is part of the reason why we see continuity in personality.
What about if we've experienced a terrible awful life event, some traumatic emergency or
injury? At first, you'll see a dip in people's coping–that they are having a hard time and
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that has impacted them, someone who's normally outgoing and cheery may become
more withdrawn and quiet–but, over time we see a gradual return to the pre-event
personality. It's like we have a personality set point on the big five and, if something
terrible happens or something absolutely fantastic happens–like winning the lottery, we
experience a brief change that then fades back to the personality set point. Sometimes
there are slight changes in the big five from the ages of 25 to 65. As one example, we
see a decrease in extroversion across adulthood, a slight decrease. But we still keep our
position relative to others. That means that a person who was really super outgoing at
age 20 is still going to be (more than likely) more extroverted than the rest of his friends
at age 80, even though his personal level of extroversion has decreased slightly. It's the
same thing with openness and neuroticism: both tend to decrease slightly. But
agreeableness and conscientiousness, if they change, they tend to increase slightly. But
in all of these cases, our position relative to others stays about the same.
In regards to gender, people tend to think men and women are so different. We have a
whole self help industry built upon the idea that men are from Mars and women are from
Venus. But there are more differences between people in general than there are
between the genders, and those differences relate to aggression (which men show in
greater quantity than women do) and nurturance (which women tend to show in greater
quantity than men do). It's unclear how much these personality differences are due to
genes or environment. Some evidence from research suggests that as we get older we
see gender convergence where men and women become more alike in personality than
they were when they were younger. Men tend to adopt more feminine characteristics,
like being more conforming, and women tend to become a little bit more assertive.
Intimacy and Generativity
Let's take some more time to go back to those stages suggested by Erikson and fill them
in with the research we have on adults and their relationships and the contributions they
make. Intimacy: we all need to be connected to others. In fact, good relationships are
strongly correlated with happiness. People often live their lives thinking that money and
health are the big correlates of happiness, but actually it is good relationships. And the
social convoy is the group of people that are important to you. Whether they are family or
friends, these are the ones you feel most close to that come along with you for this ride
that we call life. Friends are people we have chosen specifically. With friends, we
basically control who we let in, and we tend to let in those with whom we share a lot in
common. Our friends are usually of a similar age and a similar background, and we're
going through a lot of the same things at the same time. We can provide each other with
advice and with perspective. As we age, friendships get stronger and the problems in our
friendships tend to decrease over time. Also, we tend to stop caring so much about
maintaining those relationships that don't bring us happiness. We get a little pickier and
a little more choosy as we age, which also leaves us with friendships that are the closest
ones and the ones that make us feel the best.
Obviously, family is another important source of support. It's obvious how important
family is when we are young, especially our parents who literally have to raise us and
protect us and teach us, but those family bonds remain important even between adult
children and their parents. On both sides of that relationship there is greater happiness
and satisfaction when the adult children are functioning well on their own. When there's
dependence, such as parent and adult child living together, there tends to be less
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closeness in the relationship. And maybe that has something to do with the factors that
led to the adult child or the parent the unable to live independently. Even if adult children
are living separate from their parents, their parents still function as parents. They often
still help out, offering time, sometimes offering money, even when it's not requested. You
can think of parents as “parents on tap” -- there and ready to give support when it's
needed… and even when it's not. All that I have just described, of course, is from a
nation with a certain ideology of independence. But dependence doesn't have such a
negative connotation in other cultures, of course, like Asian nations. In China,
dependence is actually a positive trait. Within those families, people who have a
dependent relationship with their parents or with their adult children are less likely to see
this as a burden, and it doesn't have the same negative impact on their overall
happiness and well-being that it seems to have here in Western cultures. When
dependence is paired with sacrifice, being willing to sacrifice one's own freedom and
desires in order to meet the needs of the family, this is referred to as familism. It is
particularly common among families in United States of Latino background. Of course,
familism can bring with it a certain amount of stress, but at the same time it also tends to
indicate a close-knit family that's able to help each other out and support each other
through difficult times.
Within families, most of us have siblings of some kind. As we grow old with our siblings,
there are changes in the relationship that are common. They tend to be good changes,
though. You may not have gotten along very well with your brother or sister when you
are teenagers, but chances are (if you're like most of us) as you grow older relationships
between siblings grow stronger. There are gender differences, though. Sister
relationships tend to focus more on emotional aspects, like emotional support, whereas
brothers tend to help each other out more in terms of practical support, doing things for
each other. You don't have to be blood relative to have someone who feels as close to
you as a brother or sister. Fictive kin are friends who become sort of adopted into a
family, and this might happen because the person is not accepted or doesn't relate to
their family of origin and becomes adopted as a nonbiological member of a different
family.
Something that most of us will do (the vast majority of us will do) at some point in our
lives is get married. 90% of us will be married at one point in time or another. How happy
does marriage make us? Well, it depends. If you look the broad statistics, people who
are married who are a little bit happier, a little bit healthier, and tend to have a little bit
more money. But these differences are not very large, and there's a lot of variability that
depends upon the two people and their expectations and the things that are going on in
their life. Obviously, happy marriages contribute greatly to a person's overall satisfaction
and happiness. But what are the factors that influence that happiness? There are some
influences, like cohort changes. Today, men and women do not have such distinct
traditional roles in a relationship, or in their family, and that helps in some ways because
it takes some of the pressure off of men. They don't have to carry the entire financial
burden for the family, and it takes some pressure off of women that they don't have to be
100% in charge of the caregiving, especially when many of them are also working full
time as well. This can be a source of happiness, but the other thing that it does is it
tends to take away some of the glue that the mutual dependency of traditional roles used
to provide for a couple. Think of the traditional roles. If a couple is accustomed to mom
being at home with the kids and dad being the sole source of income, both have a strong
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investment in making the marriage stay together. In some cases, that might help couples
work harder and help them increase their happiness, but in other cases it might lead to
couples staying together just for the sake of the kids. In other words, there are cohort
differences but they don't point in one direction.
What about over time? What happens to marriages over time? Marital satisfaction tends
not to change to radically. When children are born, and when children are teenagers,
marital satisfaction dips a bit. We do see a decrease in marital satisfaction. But, after the
children have grown up and have left the home, this is the time referred to as the empty
nest. Marriage actually tends to improve once the couple is living in the empty nest.
There's a stereotype that the parents are depressed, especially a stereotype about
moms not being able to handle the nest being empty. Well, these days anyway, we find
from the research that marriages tend to improve slightly once the children are out of the
house. Now the married couple has more time together, just by themselves. They also
are more likely to have less stress -- less emotional stress, which parenting often
involves -- and less financial stress as their adult children are becoming more financially
independent. By the way, most of the findings I just described are about the same when
it comes to committed relationships between homosexuals. A couple of differences have
emerged so far. For example, homosexual committed relationships tend to involve more
equity in the housework and childcare aspect of the relationship. That means that both
members of the homosexual relationship tend to contribute equally to house care and
child care. Also, in a homosexual committed relationships, both members tend to spend
more of their time with friends.
All of this talk about friends and committed relationships, but we know that not all
relationships last. However, the divorce rates in the United States have actually
decreased just slightly lately, so that we have slightly less than 50% of couples
divorcing. You have to keep in mind that many of these divorces are from second or third
or fourth marriages. In fact, 50% of the marriages today in the United States are second
marriages or beyond for at least one member of the couple, so that means that only
about 50% of marriages are first marriages for both partners.
Does divorce make things better? It depends. Once again, it depends. If the couple had
been fighting and had a lot of overt stress and conflict in the relationship beforehand,
most tend to be happier after the divorce. If their marriage had just grown distant, kind of
like they just lost their connection with each other and didn't feel like they knew each
other much, or withdrew from each other, then they tend to be less happy than they
expected after the divorce. In fact, distant marriages leading to divorce -- that's the most
common pattern in the United States. So what's going on that makes divorce so difficult?
A lot of couples hang out and have friends who are also couples, so when there's a
divorce there's also a loss of friends. It puts a strain on some friendship relationships. It's
also a sense of failure for many people, and it can generate lots of conflict and stress
and concern having to do with children custody, visitation, and how the children are
handling the divorce. There's also a decrease in income, especially for women, after a
divorce. And the research shows us in general that divorce is correlated with children's
academic problems and social problems. But still, it depends.
For kids, it's better for highly conflicted couples to divorce than it is for them to stay
together. Children don't function well when their parents are married if their parents are
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having conflict all of the time. Interestingly, in African-American families we see the
children of divorce actually have less trouble than in Caucasian families. And it depends
on how young we were when we got married. These days it's the case that the older the
couple is when they get married, the lower their likelihood of getting divorced. Perhaps
this is because today it's very important to have a more refined understanding of your
individual identity before being ready to get married. But in the past, actually,, when the
social clock was different it was the opposite: those married at older ages had a higher
chance of divorce. So today, anyway, if you want the odds to be more in your favor, it's
better not to get married as a teenager or in the early 20s. That's what the odds tell us,
but there are always exceptions.
How about generativity? Erikson believed that in adulthood we need to feel like
contributing something of ourselves to the broader society. Maybe through the children
we're raising, through the work that we do, and through other expressions of the self like
volunteering or hobbies. This is not always linked to age. Erikson originally believed it
was a midlife phenomenon, and it certainly does become salient in the middle of the
years. But for others it's already been a driving force, maybe because it's just part of
their personality to think about how they can help others or make some kind of lasting
contribution.
Most of us express generativity through raising children. It's obvious how much sacrifice
and contribution and attention children require. They are completely dependent upon us
in their early years, and then it's a constantly moving target. As the child changes and
develops, the parents are adjusting and changing, and it's difficult to anticipate what it's
going to be like even a year from now. Two-thirds of adults are biological parents and
one-third of adults become some type of nonbiological parent (either through adoption,
or stepparenting, or foster parenting). The research shows us that the bond between
parent and child does not have to be biological to result in attachment. For instance, the
research on adjustment among children who have been adopted (and especially those
who've been adopted in infancy) shows us that most develop just fine, showing similar
levels of adjustment and well-being as biological children. But one difference emerges.
Remember how we talked about the myth of the teenage years being such a conflict
ridden time, when the reality is that most teenagers and their parents get along okay
and, if they fight, it's usually just bickering about little things? Well with adoption there
are challenges that tend to pop up in the teenage years because this is when we're
thinking about identity, right? And so for the child who was adopted for whom adoption
wasn't even a big issue for them when they were growing up, now that they're thinking
about who they really are and what they want to be, trying to figure out all those really
important identity issues, they may become more interested in locating or spending time
with their birth parents. And they may become more rebellious toward their adoptive
parents. That's the case for some but, for most families with adopted children,
adjustment and happiness are the norm.
We care for our children, but we also may begin caring for aging parents as well.
Couples today have fewer children than couples in the past. So there are fewer
members of younger generations compared to older generations. Adding to that, we also
live longer so that the older generations are (thankfully) likely to be around for a longer
period of time. This means that we have more adults caring for their aging parents. Still,
most do not have to care for their parents full-time. There's a concept called the
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sandwich generation that refers to (usually) midlife adults who may be providing
assistance upwards to their parents and also downwards in terms of generational status
to their children. It's like they're squeezed in the middle. But is it really a squeeze? Is
there a lot of pressure for most midlife adults? The research tells us that this concept of
sandwich generation and the squeeze is a bit exaggerated. More often than not, if
there's assistance flowing between the generations, it tends to flow downward. It's not
common for midlife adults to be doing a lot of caregiving for their parents. The older
adults' attention is focused more on caregiving for their children. Even though their
parents are aging and may need some help, there still is assistance that flows from the
grandparent generation down to the parents, so those aging parents are still providing
some support–whether it's emotional or in regards to time–to their midlife adult children.
Generativity is also expressed through employment as well. Although the thing that
tends to attract us to a certain job in the beginning is income and other goodies like
insurance, it's funny because those are not the things that are correlated with our
happiness overall. Once we are above the poverty level, happiness is not correlated with
income. What matters more is how we feel we compare to others around us. This is
called relative deprivation, when we feel like our experience is of a lower quality than it
should be compared to those who are around us. When our situation compares poorly to
the situation of others around us, that's when we're most likely to be unhappy…and that
applies to employment. If all of your friends are at a certain income level and you are
way below that level, you may feel dissatisfaction with employment because of that
sense of relative deprivation. Income and health insurance and pension plans… all of
these are extrinsic rewards of work. They are external factors that may motivate us to
work. They are the "things" that we get from doing the work. These catch our attention
and seem particularly important in the early years of our career. But there are internal
factors as well, like a sense of satisfaction about the work, or a sense that it's important,
a sense of self-esteem about what you're able to do. These are referred to as intrinsic
rewards of work. These become more and more important as we age and as we spend
time in a given career. Those rewards are related to other important factors as well, like
how much decision-making power we have on-the-job (in other words, how autonomous
we are). Even if we're not making the big decisions, do we have some control over our
work situation? Can we decorate our office the way we want to? Do we have some
flexibility in hours that we come in to work? These are all factors that help contribute to
the intrinsic rewards of work.
The career path of adults today is characterized by more change than was common in
the past. There's more hiring and there's more firing that occurs for the average adult
across their worklife. Even if this change ends up being a good decision, job changes
are stressful. They often involve needing to learn new skills, getting accustomed to a
new group of people… they may even involve a significant relocation, which could mean
changes to friendships, changes in children's schooling, and all kinds of stuff. Our job
schedules, our work schedules, tend to be more variable these days than in the past,
and only about half of us work a typical 9-to-5 job from Monday through Friday. Flex time
is becoming more and more common. Flex time is a work schedule that could be
changed to accommodate other responsibilities in the person's life. Perhaps your
supervisor doesn't mind if you leave early on Fridays as long as you stay late other days
in the week to make up for it. Or let's say a new mother has worked out a schedule
where her day begins at 6 AM but she's finished at three. Or within the workplace,
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people are permitted to work 10 hour days on four days of the week, having a weekday
off. Of course, not everyone has access to flex time. It depends greatly on the industry.
Is the industry one that can allow there to be flexibility in the schedule? Sometimes it
also depends on seniority. Adding to the flexibility of our work life these days is
telecommuting. Telecommuting is simply working at home and having a connection to
the office or to other employees through technology like the telephone or the computer.
The thing about telecommuting is that it's good for family relationships, in that parents
are more readily available to respond to the child's needs, but then that could be bad for
work productivity because there's the potential for interruptions. When we are
interrupted, our work tends to be less efficient. Furthermore, although telecommuting
may bring with it all kinds of rewards in terms of spending time with family and being
able to wear your pajamas while you work, there there is the negative that people may
begin to miss the intrinsic bonuses that come with working in an environment with other
people,, and seeing other people and interacting with other people...face-to-face.
Coping with Stresses
A stressor is just something that causes a feeling of tension or strain or concern in a
person's life. What is a stressor to one person may be quite different from what is a
stressor for the next person. The combined effect on our physical bodies from both
physical and psychological stressors over time is referred to as allostatic load. Allostatic
load is measured physiologically but, as I said, it can involve not only the stress of a
physical illness, but also the stress that's occurred to the body as a result of
psychological stressors. When we are worried or upset, our hypothalamus in the brain
triggers the release of stress hormones. These stress hormones rev the body up into a
feeling of fight or flight that is designed to help us survive the stress. But among humans
what ends up happening sometimes is we're not actually facing a real threat to our lives,
like a bear that's trying to eat us. No, but we may be having that same physical reaction
because were worried about something that's going on, because we live in a noisy and
dangerous neighborhood. or every day we have some fear about our personal safety.
That means that there is a constant (or at least a frequent) flow of stress hormones that
have been triggered. This can eventually wear and tear on the body, reducing immune
functioning and leaving us more vulnerable to becoming sick. A combination of aversive
influences has a cumulative effect. That's why we call it “load.” We load on these factors
and the more aversive influences there are, the greater our vulnerability becomes to
illness...both physical and mental.
Our body is designed for some stress. In fact, our organs have what's called organ
reserve. That's the sort of backup plan and backup capacity that are organized to handle
stress in the moment and then recover from it and go back to homeostasis. Our lungs
have organ reserve, for examples, so that we can push ourselves and run really hard
and really, really, really, really fast in response to an emergency or something. And then
we recover. When what were dealing with is an emergency of some kind, we actually
refer to it as recovery reserve. The more emergencies we face, the more we put stress
on that recovery reserve…the more wear and tear our body goes through, and the more
vulnerable we are.
What can we do to try to decrease our physical experience of stress? We cope, right?
There are two basic kinds of coping: problem focused coping and emotion focused
coping. Problem focused coping is focused on the problem. What that means is that our
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Chapter 13 p. 9
goal is to change the situation, to take charge and to make the things that we can control
somehow different. This can be stressful. It's like we're fighting hard. Maybe we have
some kind of problem at work and we are fighting it and we're trying to change it. And
you know what? Sometimes a problem focused approach is very effective. But the
trouble is when we don't realize the need to let go of the problem focused coping and to
switch into an emotion focused coping mode. That's when we focus instead on changing
our emotional reaction or our cognitive interpretation of the situation. In other words, we
try to reinterpret what's going on, to relax, to change our goals. This is most critical when
we are up against a problem over which we really don't have control. One of the benefits
of aging is that as we move across the adult years we get better and better, most of us
do, toward making that switch to emotion focused coping, recognizing, “okay, you know
what? I'm not going to fight this so hard anymore. How can I change my perspective
instead?” In addition, there's a gender difference. There are physiological reactions that
tend to vary slightly whether we are male or female. This also can be seen as related to
the different coping strategies. On average, when men are stressed out they tend to
have more of a fight or flight reaction, and this is gearing up to sort of do something,
right? That's more of a fit for a problem focused approach. Whereas for women, when
they feel stressed out, the physiological reaction (which involves oxytocin in addition to
the other hormones) leads to more of the tend and befriend reaction, which is more
conducive to emotion focused coping. Now, men and women use problem focused and
emotion focused coping. It's just that this gender difference that has been connected to
different biological reactions to stress suggests that men and women have a dominant
mode of coping that perhaps comes a bit more naturally to them.
Social support is very important in helping us manage and reduce allostatic load.
Whenever we are able to talk to people who care about us, and for whom we care about,
that feeling we get actually corresponds with lowered production of stress hormones.
There is a physical difference among those who have good social support, compared to
those who are more isolated. It's important to have intimate relationships, emotionally
intimate relationships. And it also makes a difference how we think about our situation.
Of course, this fits right within emotion focused coping where our interpretation matters a
lot. People have very different interpretations of the events of their lives. These
interpretations can be influenced by past experiences. They can be influenced by
personality and by ideology. Consider someone who is prone toward neuroticism.
Perhaps since their early years of life they have tended to see things in a really negative
light; they've tended to be insecure and very emotionally reactive. When something
happens to them, let's say they're stood up on a date, that would be hard for most
people to handle. We don't like to feel rejected. But for the person with the tendency
toward neuroticism to begin with, they are likely to interpret that situation in a much more
negative way, thinking that it has something to do with their general failure or that they're
never going to meet anyone. This tends to be a long-lasting kind of interpretation that
colors many of their views of the things that happened to them. A chronically negative
kind of interpretation of the things that are happening in one's life is going to result in
more stress experienced by the body, which will involve more stress hormone release
and will contribute to allostatic load. Our thinking and our interpretation matter. That
doesn't mean that everyone should just put a smile on their face and act as if they're not
bothered at all. That is denial. That's not really emotion focused coping. We won't be
able to completely prevent ourselves from getting stressed out simply by adopting a rosy
interpretation of everything, but we can catch ourselves and notice that we're sliding
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down to a very negative place and seek out some help: talk to a friend, go to a therapist,
do something to help us gain some perspective. That is also a part of emotion focused
coping.
Chapter 14.1: Late Adulthood – The Aging Process
Most of us donʼt know much about older adulthood and what we think we know is often
not going to line up with the reality thatʼs shown to us through research on lifespan
development. A lot of what you have to learn about older adulthood is actually good
news, or least better news that you might have anticipated. At the same time, though, it
is difficult to categorize older adulthood and speak about the kinds of experiences that
most 60 year olds have, or most 70 year-olds have, and so forth. Why? Well, our
diversity as human beings in terms of our abilities and our health and our capabilities
tend to only become greater as we age. As a population, we see greater diversity, for
example, in cognitive scores in older adulthood than we see in any other time of the
lifespan. We see greater diversity in physical health. Knowing that somebody is 70
years old tells us very little about what we can expect of them, from their cognitive
development to their physical health to their psychological well-being. So we should try
to curb our tendency to stereotype older adults and to consider the impact that
stereotypes have on the functioning of older adults.
Ageism
When we believe in the stereotypes of older adulthood and when we treat people as
though they are conforming to those stereotypes or as we expect them to conform to
those stereotypes, we commit ageism. We misunderstand a lot about late adulthood in
the United States. And we can see this in the stereotype notions in what it means to be
an old person. We assume that old people are slow, hard of hearing, depressed, and
bitter and sad about being old. For example, we can see this in the way people often
interact with older adults, talking to them in a really loud voice, speaking very slowly.
This is elderspeak. Itʼs the way that ageism comes out in the manner in which we speak
to older adults. Those that use elderspeak I think often have good intentions. They may
not realize though that their use of elderspeak has an impact on older adults and older
adultʼs sense of themselves.
And although it is true that our hearing declines as we age and that we suffer many
other losses, it is also true that our experiences can be affected by the way that weʼre
thinking about things. Imagine yourself as an older adult. If you have concerns about
your aging process and you have concerns that your hearing is starting to decrease, for
example, this concern, this fear of “oh no, Iʼm starting to act like an old person” can
make a person feel upset and can actually impair their performance. This is stereotype
threat. We see stereotype threat in many cases where thereʼs a negative stereotype that
we may be afraid of confirming through our behaviors and that fear itself can be a factor
that diminishes our performance. Think of an older adult who gets really upset when he
canʼt remember something little, letʼs say like somebodyʼs name. Instead of just, you
know, brushing it off, like oh whatever, if he becomes really upset every time that kind of
thing happens, the act of being anxious is actually depleting his brain of the ability to
think well in that moment. Just like if you are sitting down to take a test, and you are
anxious about the test, your performance is likely to be impaired at least somewhat. And
the research bears this out when it comes to older adulthood. Ageism is a stereotype
that many older adults are afraid of confirming. But paradoxically, that fear of confirming
a stereotype increases the chances that they will not be able to hear well, or will have
continued trouble with memory.
Interesting research has been conducted that looks at stereotype threat in older adults
in a way that lets us compare different groups. In China, for example, thereʼs much less
of an ageist stereotype. In fact, the elderly are revered and respected; to be getting
older isnʼt look as such a negative as it is here in America. These cultural differences
are paralleled interestingly in stereotype threat based upon when Chinese immigrated to
North America. Those who moved to North America earlier in their life experience a
steeper in decline in their abilities due to stereotype than those who immigrated only
recently. This suggests that those that have been in North America for a long time have
been here long enough to have been impacted by the ageism that is so common. That
stereotype and the fear of confirming this stereotype can exacerbate but typical age
related but small declines in memory that we see in older adults.
Peers and expectations have a influence on our abilities. And please donʼt mistake this
as suggesting that we can somehow avoid aging. I think Americans would very much
like to figure out how to avoid aging entirely. It isnʼt a matter of simply thinking yourself
young. We canʼt stop aging. But we can get better at understanding other influences
that can increase the rate of aging beyond what it would have been otherwise, and
stereotype threat is an interesting angle at which to look at this issue.
Just how old is somebody before they are consider old? It depends on a lot of things.
Scientists like to break down older adulthood into three categories: the young-old, the
old-old, and the oldest-old. These categories are not directly tied to age. They have to
do more with the ability to live independently and the presence and absence of
disability. The young-old for example are active. Theyʼre involved. They donʼt have
difficulty meeting their own basic financial needs. And they can live independently
without needing assistance in the home. Most people who are over the age of 60 would
fall into the category of the young-old. The old-old are still living on their own. They
might be living with a spouse, but the point is they can live independently but theyʼve
suffered some major setbacks in their physical health and their cognitive health, or in
their social experience. And among the old-old, they still maybe caring for a spouse or
for some other loved-one at the same time, but itʼs clear that their health is on the
decline and that they are having a more difficult time with it. The oldest-old are unable to
live alone anymore. They have to have assistance from others because of their physical
aging, their cognitive aging, or other problems with their health.
Remember though that these categories are not simply lining up with age ranges. Itʼs
true that most of the young-old are between the ages of 60 and 75, but there are some
old-old among those age 60 to 75 and there are some of the oldest-old already in that
age range as well. You may find a person who fits the category of young-old who is well
into her 80s. In recent decades, we have been increasing our lifespan. We live longer
than we used to, and at the same time we are having smaller families now than what
weʼre used to. Itʼs resulting in a change in the structure of our population.
For many, many decades, it was common to see whatʼs called a population pyramid. If
you look at the age distribution of people in the United States and in other countries as
well and the pyramid is wide at the bottom and think of that as the young people. And as
we move to the top of the pyramid, weʼre moving older and older up the lifespan so that
a pyramid is more narrow at the top than at the bottom right? And for a long time, this
was how it was for us as well and still is although itʼs changing. There are more younger
people than older people. And itʼs still the case that there are more younger adults, for
example, in the United States than older adults. The thing is that older adults are
growing in their population at a staggering rate. The population pyramid is turning more
and more into a square here in the united states and it already is more of a square in
some other countries. The issue that arises then is about how to take care of the older
adults who need care.
The dependency-ratio is a statistics that tells us about how many independent living
individuals there are in a given population compared to those who are dependent. In
other words, how many of the people in our population who can care for themselves and
how many are reliant on others for their care. Currently the dependency-ratio is 2 to 1,
two independent people for every one dependent person. But itʼs projected to change
and to change pretty rapidly. Itʼs hard to predict but some experts are thinking it may
even flip so that we have one independent adult for two dependent individuals. Now
becomes an issue, a pretty significant population issue of how to take care of the aging
population. Remember though, that some of those age 60 and older are still
independent. We sometimes assume that older adults need more help than they really
do need, especially when weʼre thinking about the population at large. But think about
the older adults that you know, think about people who you know that are over 60 years
of age, how many of them are living independently. Iʼm sure quite a few of them are
living independently and some of them may even be caring for others as well as being
able to continue caring for themselves.
The challenges of the pyramid shifting and the dependency-ratio changing has more to
do with the way we are caring for the oldest-old, who are the ones most likely to be
dependent on others for help. Remember morbidity, that was a statistic we talked about,
it reflects the rate of disease. As we age, we are going to probably experience more
morbidity. The length of time we spend being ill before death thought, has decreased.
This is referred to as the compression of morbidity. It means that we spend more years
of our life in relatively good health, and a shorter span of years before we die in poor
health. Compared to our ancestors, this is a dramatic difference. In the past, human
beings were likely to have an extended period time with issues of morbidity, but for us
today, whatʼs more common is that we have more healthy years, but then the decline
we have before death tends to be a steeper, more rapid decline.
Think again about the people you know who are age 60 or older. Do any of them need
some assistance with some of their aging senses? You know like, could they use some
help with their eyesight. Could they use some help with their hearing? And are any of
those individuals reluctant to get help for these kinds of problems with their declining
senses? This is common. One of the downsides of the fact that weʼre feeling better for
longer and having a compression of morbidity is that it can lead us to deny the kinds of
problems that we are starting to have with our sense. Perhaps someone is struggling to
be able to hear well but they donʼt want to get a hearing aid because in their mind,
hearing aids are for old people. And they have a fear of aging. They would rather suffer
through dealing with their limited hearing than to admit that their hearing is aging and
get a good hearing aid. The problem is then these individuals are going to have difficulty
in conversations, theyʼre going to need the TV cranked up really, really loud, or they
may withdraw from conversations a little bit more. And then in response the people
around them may begin to use elderspeak, speaking to them loudly and slowly, which
only make older adults only feel only worse about their age. And the cycle continues of
the denial of the aging senses.
Even if an aging adult is fully aware of their aging senses and they want to do
something about it, it can be really difficult because of how expensive these
technologies can be and how many hoops they have to jump through to see if Medicare
will pay for something and to make appointments and to get to appoints…there are lots
of steps before they can assess the technology they need and it can feel overwhelming.
The environment in general, here in the Unites States at least, doesnʼt help much either.
Iʼm always frustrated when we go out to dinner with some of our older friends and weʼre
at a restaurant where they have the music turned up so loud that we have to shout at
each other. Why does the environment have to be that way? Do we really have to have
the music up that loud and the lights down so low? Frankly, I get a little concerned
because I think this is a concern that is a trend that is increasing. I notice it even in
myself. Iʼm not anywhere near 60, but I can only take so much time shopping in H&M
with the music up so incredibly loud. We could make changes and we really should
make changes in the environment that could help adults manage their aging senses.
We should remind ourselves that if weʼre lucky, weʼre going to get to that old one day
and we will benefit from it as well.
Health and Sickness
Remember the concept of senescence? Thatʼs a biologically programmed process of
aging that begins even back in late adolescences and early adulthood, but we donʼt
notice a lot of that aging. We donʼt recognize the senescence thatʼs occurring until we
get older. We start to notice it more in midlife, and we start to notice it the most in older
adulthood. The physical aging process can be understood in terms of two basic types of
aging: primary and secondary aging.
Primary aging is universal. We all will experience it if we live long enough to age.
Hearing loss would be one example of primary aging. But thereʼs secondary aging
which has to do more with whatʼs unique to each individual based on their genetic
make-up and also the experiences theyʼve had in the environment theyʼve grown up in
and aging that comes from dealing with diseases thus far.
Primary and secondary aging are often going on at the same time. Take heart disease
for example. Certainly, secondary aging is involved. Some people are genetically
predisposed to heart disease. Some people have been very physically active or theyʼve
had a poor diet and these can make heart disease more likely. But at the same time, as
the body ages on its own, which is primary aging, we also become more susceptible to
diseases. Sure, sometimes people experience heart disease as early as their 30s, but
the risk of developing heart disease increases with age. Why? One reason is because
as we age, our blood pressure tends to increase. Any kind of secondary aging related to
heart disease will be compounded by the primary aging thatʼs going on. By the way, this
is one reason why we have more cancer today than weʼve had in the past. In fact, our
rates of cancer in the United States are much higher than rates of cancer in the
developing world. But the reason for that is mainly because whenever a population lives
longer, their chances of developing cancer increase.
Ok, so we canʼt avoid aging entirely, but what can we do to stay as healthy as possible?
Nutrition and exercise, I donʼt think these are mind blowing concepts, but itʼs always
good to be reminded of how important it is to take care of our bodies at a basic level. Itʼs
also important that we understand the changes we go through as we age so we can
adapt accordingly. We have a decreasing metabolism as we age so we donʼt need as
many calories as we used to but at the same time we need to make sure weʼre still
getting the proper balance of nutrients. Digestion is likely to become more problematic
as we age so we have to take care about the kinds of foods that we choose to eat. This
is important also because the brain, the physical brain, functions better when itʼs
properly nourished.
Exercise, exercise increases the length of our life that we will live without disability and
without disease. However, the challenges that come with the physical aging process
can make exercise more difficult. This can be another area where our feelings, our
personal feelings about ageism, can get in the way. Yeah, it can be difficult if you used
to run several miles a week and you can no longer maintain that because of aching
joints, problems with your knees. But some kind of movement is better than nothing at
all. In fact, some kind of movement is much, much better than nothing at all. I know a
woman who is 91 and goes to the gym several times a week. She gets into the pool and
itʼs a heated pool and she does some basic movement exercises. Itʼs a pretty low-key
workout for someone who would be younger, but for her, itʼs enough to make a big
difference in her physical health. And she notices if she hasnʼt been for a while that she
starts to not feel so great. Adjusting and learning how much exercise is enough but not
too much is the goal. Being careful about this can also help combat one of the other
things that can keep older adults from exercising. And thatʼs the fear of falling. So if the
fear of falling and the difficulty facing the realities of aging are getting in the way, that
can have a significant, negative impact on our physical health as we age.
Just how long are we going to live anyway though? How long can we possibly live?
Maximum lifespan is a measure of how long the species can live. Itʼs like a limit and
right now for homosapiens, for us, it appears to be about 122 years of age. The main
influence on maximum lifespan is our genes. Our cells canʼt keep dividing forever. The
average age of the population has to do with the average length of life in a particular
group and you can look at it by gender, or by ethnicity, by nation. Here in the United
States, the average life expectancy is 75 years of age for men and 80 years of age for
women. Very, very few of us are going to live beyond the age of 100. The interesting
thing is, though, that the population thatʼs growing the fastest in the age distribution
would be centenarians – people who are 100 years old or older. Now donʼt assume that
theyʼre all in terrible health because theyʼre not. Not all of them are in poor health. And
perhaps, I donʼt know, if itʼs more important, at least itʼs important, but centenarians do
not show any decrease in their life satisfaction or their basic contentment with life, even
if they have physical limitations.
So we canʼt stop aging. And we might even make things worse if we keep trying so hard
and insisting we can do so. Itʼs better to make the years that we have as healthy and as
full of life as possible then to simply try to extend the number of years that weʼre here on
planet Earth.
Chapter 14.2 – Late Adulthood – Thinking in Late Adulthood
In this episode, we are going to talk about the kinds of changes that happen to our
thinking in older adulthood. But there are many different possibilities. Thereʼs the kind of
development thatʼs typical and usual, but then there are also unusual cases in both
negative and positive ways in which our thinking can change as we get older.
Typical changes
Remember primary aging? This is the kind of physical aging thatʼs universal. It happens
to us all. Well, that includes brain aging. There are general patterns that we see with the
brain across adulthood and how it ages but thereʼs also a lot of diversity in how each
individual person in older adulthood experiences brain aging. One thing that we do know
is that we see a general slowing down of the brain. The brain becomes slower to
process information. The brain works at a less efficient pace. Itʼs not all bad news
though. The older adult brain can still create new neurons and can still make new
synapses between neurons but it happens at a much slower rate. Neurotransmitters are
also produce at lower rates as well and that effects the speed of transmission. On top of
that, myelin which is the coating around the axons of the neurons that speeds impulses
- that myelin sheath begins to thin across the older adult years. Brain aging goes along
with a decrease in working memory capacity and this means it takes longer for older
adults to process information and to respond to information - information coming in from
the senses. So if someoneʼs asking an older adult a question, the older adult is taking in
that auditory information and then being able to respond to it, that process is going to
take longer on average.
Another change that we gradually across older adulthood is that the brain does get a bit
smaller. For most of us, this isnʼt a dramatic change. Starting in our 60s, the brain
begins to shrink and by 80 year of age or so, we may have lost about 5 to 10 percent of
the total brain volume. It also tends to impact certain areas of the brain more than
others. The areas of the brain related to memory and the area related to being able to
solve problems, the prefrontal cortex. Technology allows us to take a look at the older
adult brain as a person is actually trying to come up with the solution to a problem that
weʼve given them. And interestingly, the results show us that older adults are activating
more areas of their brain when they are solving a problem. This may be showing a
compensatory process. Remember selective optimization with compensation? We may
without our knowledge be calling upon other areas of the brain to make up for some of
the deficits that weʼre experiencing but itʼs also possible that this scattering of use of
different parts of the brain may have something to do with the prefrontal cortex
becoming less efficient. The prefrontal cortex is the central executive of the brain, kind
of like directing an orchestra, telling which part to do what and when. If the prefrontal
cortex is losing its efficiency somewhat, then perhaps the processes of the rest of the
brain are becoming a little more chaotic and that maybe what weʼre seeing. Perhaps itʼs
a combination of the two, we just donʼt know yet.
Using the information processing approach, lets think about each step along the way
from taking in new sensory information, storing it, using it, and coming up with answers
or responses when we need to. Input is a process of bringing sensory information into
the brain and our input as we get older is reduced. We donʼt pick up the same level of
detail of sensory information that we used to. And we tend to fill in the gaps with
reasonable guesses. And our guesses might be incorrect or not quite on the mark,
which can have a negative impact on our ability to solve problems. It isnʼt clear yet
though whether the problem is with the actual sense organs and getting the information
into our heads or what our brain does to that information once it comes into our head.
Most of the time we hope to hold on to and store a lot of the information that weʼre
encountering and storage is a part of the information processing system. In everyday
words, weʼre talking about memory - how much do you have appeared to have stored in
your brain. And the stereotype of ageism of course is that we canʼt remember things
anymore and then if weʼre stressed out about aging then the fear of “oh my God, Iʼm
losing my memories” can make it even harder to remember things. The reality is that
some areas of our memory are functioning better than others at this time in the lifespan.
For example, our memory for vocabulary, which is called semantic memory, it tends not
to suffer much as we get older, but our memory for the details of events, and this is
called episodic memory, does tend to decline with age. In addition, our ability to
remember where we heard something or where we learned something or who said
something also tends to decrease and this is called source amnesia.
With the slowing down and the lowered capacity of working memory, multitasking
becomes pretty difficult. We need to do things one at a time and we need to give
ourselves more time when weʼre growing older. But we can often do the task very well if
this is the case. Iʼm thinking about one of my grandmothers-in-law, “I can do everything.
It just takes me longer to do it.ʼ Luckily she has the attitude where she doesnʼt put her
down about it so she simply will take longer to do many of the things that are important
to her. This finding that with time and focused attention that we donʼt show that declines
in our cognitive abilities becomes particularly important when we look at the research in
cognition in older adulthood. Many of the tasks that scientists so far have asked older
adults to participate in arenʼt the kinds of realistic, everyday thinking tasks, that they
actually have to do. itʼs more these sort of random and rapid memorization of nonsense
syllables, for example. Thereʼs a reason for this. You know, scientists have often felt
that if you give someone this more of a pure measure of cognition that isnʼt impacted by
their daily experiences that youʼre really seeing whatʼs going on with the brain. Thereʼs
truth to that, yes, but another truth is that thereʼs a context in which we live our real
lives, so if we really want to understand how older adults are really functioning in their
real lives, itʼs important to develop measures of cognition that have more ecological
validity than memorizing a list of nonsense syllables.
Ecological validity can be applied to any construct we are interested in measure, but
when we are talking about memory, ecologically valid measures would be measures
that are similar to natural context that people find themselves in, you know, actually
having a conversation or responding to questions in a conversation. These are the kinds
of tasks where older adults tend to perform the best, they perform much better in these
real life scenarios than they do in the sort of artificial set up in the laboratory and so far a
lot of the research have compared young adults memorizing nonsense syllables to older
adults and you see big, big declines, but you donʼt see as big of a gap between younger
adults and older adults when the problem solving tasks are as similar to real life as
possible. And where older adults have more time and can focus their attention on the
task itself.
Dealing with all of the input that can come in from our sense and knowing what to do
with it relies on the programs that weʼre running in our brain. Programming has to do
with controlled processes. This is the prefrontal cortex, the central executive of the
brain. Itʼs the conductor of the orchestra thatʼs keeping all of the instruments playing
together and signaling when this section should start or stop to play and whatʼs going on
here then is that weʼre picking strategies for solving problems, to bring it back to the
brain. Take it away from the music analogy, we are making all kinds of decisions about
what to pay attention, about strategies for remembering things, about how to approach a
new problem, and controlled processes tend to become more of a challenge as weʼre
aging in large part because of the prefrontal cortex. Remember that is where we do see
loss of the brain, we do see decline in brain aging, and so it makes sense that we have
difficulties with this part of information processing.
Programming involves not only with how we deal with new information coming in and
the strategies for hopefully retaining that information, but there are also programs that
weʼre running in our brain for how to retrieve information we have learned before. And
memory is a process of retrieval. This can also help explain why, for example itʼs harder
for older adults to remember the accurate details of the episodes, the events that have
happened in their lives. This is called episodic memory. In contrast, remember
vocabulary tend not to decline much at all, if at all, and that doesnʼt require as much of a
strategy to retrieve if you know the definition of a word, itʼs pretty straight forward in
pulling that out again.
Where we often will pay most attention especially in our daily lives, is on the output
component of information processing. What can I actually remember if Iʼm taking a test,
how do I perform on that test? Output is the answer we come up with, the solution to the
problem that weʼre trying to solve and this is what intelligence tests are attempting to
measure. Or at least theyʼre measuring a part of that cognitive output. A part most
relevant now would be those aspects of our intelligence that rely most on information
processing speed. Information processing abilities. One example would be verbal
fluency, being able to come up with different combinations of words on the fly, for
example. That would be one example. Spatial reasoning. Fluid intelligence. These are
closely related to information processing skills and we see decline in these areas of
functioning starting around age 60 or so. But, of all the declines that Iʼve mentioned, we
are unable to prevent them from happening entirely, but weʼre also able to slow down
the slowdown. In other words, try to make that lost occur as slowly as possible by
keeping ourselves physically healthy and also by exercising our brains and keeping our
brains active.
Atypical Changes
Although its hard to categorize older adults as having a typical or atypical experience
because older adults are a very diverse group and because age doesnʼt necessary
correlate with functioning, some experiences are more common than others. In this
section of the podcast, we are going to talk about the unusual experiences that occur
with thinking in older adulthood at both the high end and the low end of functioning.
A small proportion of older adults have cognitive impairment to such an extent that their
everyday activities are disrupted. Their thinking and their behavior is greatly impaired.
This is referred to as dementia. About 14% of older adults over the age of 70 have some
form of dementia. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer disease. With
Alzheimer disease there are plaques and tangles that have built up in the brain over
time that interfere with the ability of neurons to communicate. The plaques are made up
of the protein beta-amyloid and they kind of gunk-up the areas between neurons. And
the tangles are made of the protein tau and these are thin strains that are sort of twisted
and it also gets in the way of neuronal communication. The plaques and the tangles are
particularly likely built up in the area of the brain essential to processing memory and
that is the hippocampus. But eventually, over time, the impairment spreads throughout
the brain.
If Alzheimer disease occurs in middle age, we know now that it is due to a dominant
gene and it progresses very quickly within 3-5 years. In older adulthood, though, on the
other hand, we do know of some genes that correlate with Alzheimer disease, but we
donʼt know enough to make any kind of guarantee or predictions. Itʼs tough because
although there are several genes that have been found to correlate with Alzheimerʼs, in
no way do we know if those genes cause the disease and if so, if other factors interact
with the genes, or whatʼs going on. And it presents a problem for people because they
may want to know whether or not they have those genes, but finding out that they have
one of those genes can make them particularly anxious and concerned. This could lead
to further impairment because of the anxiety thatʼs going on. So itʼs best at this point to
say yes, thereʼs a genetic component, but thatʼs about all we know. The disease
progresses like rewinding a tape. The most recently learned information is the first to go
and then it gradually gets worse year after year until the person is no longer able to
recognize other people or to recognize him or herself in the mirror. And eventually
Alzheimer disease will end in death if other illnesses havenʼt already caused the death,
about 10-15 years after the first signs of Alzheimer disease.
Another form of dementia is vascular dementia. It used to be called multi-infarct
dementia and sometimes still is. This is the result of tiny strokes, mini-strokes that have
occurred over time that caused a bit of damage to a specific spot in the brain and then if
you have several of these causing damage to the specific spots across different parts of
the brain, dementia can develop from that. Vascular dementia can also occur along with
Alzheimer disease. You can have a bit of both.
Frontal lobe dementia is perhaps one of the most difficult dementias to cope with as a
family member or a loved one because of the part of the brain areas it tends to target.
With frontal lobe dementia, we see a deterioration of the amygdala, which process
emotion, and the prefrontal cortex, which helps regulate emotion. And together, what
people often see in their loved ones with frontal love dementia is significant emotional
and personality changes. For example, a woman who used to be really close and
friendly and talkative with her children may become irritated and annoyed with them,
may become angry with reasons nobody understands. This can be very difficult for
family and loved ones to deal with obviously. When a person develops frontal lobe
dementia, it tends to hit earlier that Alzheimerʼs does and it tends to progress more
rapidly than Alzheimer disease.
What do we do about dementias? How can we prevent them and how can we treat
them? With prevention, itʼs difficult because dementia is correlated with senescence, the
older we get, the more likely we are to develop dementia. So thereʼs a primary aging
component that can influence it. Exercise has been shown to decrease the risk of
certain kinds of dementias in particular, like multi-infarct or vascular dementia. But when
it comes to Alzheimer disease, Iʼm afraid that the research is not pointing in any clear
direction about how to prevent Alzheimer disease. There were some early studies that
suggested that exercise and keeping the brain very active were correlated with a slightly
lower risk, but recent research is casting that research in a more questionable light. We
just donʼt know much right now about how to prevent dementia.
For treatment, a critical factor is early diagnoses. Unfortunately, early diagnoses is really
tricky. With dementia, an early sign could be whatʼs called mild cognitive impairment,
which is a level of forgetness and memory trouble that is greater than the typical person
of their age. But mild cognitive impairment leads to Alzheimer disease only about 50%
of the time. Right now, although researchers are working very, very hard to find more
answers, right now what we know for sure is that we can only tell if thereʼs been
Alzheimer disease or other dementias for sure upon autopsy.
We can slow down the progression of certain dementias though, and certain
medications have been developed to do that. Those medications can add a number of
years of cognitive capability to the personʼs life, sort of pushing off the development of
Alzheimerʼs as long as possible. But drugs have not yet been identify to stop the
progression or to prevent Alzheimerʼs from developing in the first place.
On a more positive note and also keeping with the theme of unusual experiences, or
atypical experiences in older adulthood, there are older adults who show growth,
incredible growth in new areas as they age. Older adults in general can certainly learn
new skills if theyʼre interested in doing so and if they choose to spend their time on
them. For some, the experiences across the lifespan lead up to what Maslow wouldʼve
referred to as self-actualization. This involves moving beyond the self to think of the self
in context, the larger meaning of things. This can often result in a lot of new creative
insights and spiritual meaning for the person, doesnʼt have to be religious necessarily,
but spiritual, that thereʼs some kind of meaning to it. And philosophical ideas. Youʼll
sometimes see in a self-actualized person, a really subtle sense of humor as well
having to do with all of the experiences theyʼve learned from across the lifespan. As the
story of Grandma Moses tells us, some older adults may find completely new talents
that they didnʼt realize they had in older adulthood. For her, her artistic abilities began in
her 80s. Some older adults spend a lot of time reflecting on their life and thinking about
the events of their life in order to put it into a narrative, a story that makes sense. This
can become a social process too, telling others, telling the grandkids, wanting to write
your memoirs. The idea is that itʼs a sharing process while at the same it helps the older
adult make sense of the things that have happened in their life.
And finally we can talk about the concept of wisdom. In some ways we have stereotypes
about this too, that older adults are wise, saying you wonʼt become wise until you are an
older adult. Well, what is wisdom and when does it develop? Wisdom is considered to
be, and this is a such vague definition but thatʼs the way it has to be, expertise in the
fundamental, pragmatics of living life. The everyday practical, problem-solving, life
lessons that weʼve learned. Wisdom is difficult to measure. Some scientists have been
working very hard on it though, and they have found so far that wisdom is rare and itʼs
rare at any age. Older adults are no more likely to be wise than adults of other ages, but
the nice thing is a personʼs wisdom does not fade as we age. Itʼs one of those abilities
and skills that if we have it, it tends to hold strong across those later years of our life.
Chapter 15.1 – Late Adulthood: Psychosocial Development, Part 1
One thing that we can count on throughout the entire lifespan is change. Things will
change. By the time we reach late adulthood weʼve experience many different changes.
And a lot of losses and significant alterations to our physical body and our relationships
and our roles in life. How do older adults manage all of these changes? Thatʼs the focus
of this episode.
Theories of Late Adulthood
Genetics and environment. The individual and society. Weʼre very interested in lifespan
development in trying to figure out the relationship between ourselves and the
environments we live in and how they have an influence on one another. Two sets of
theories provide us with this basic distinction once again. Self theories help us
understand how people think about themselves in late adulthood and how for most of us
we tend to just become more ourselves as time moves on. But there are contextual
factors that have a major impact on the lifespan as well and stratification theories offer
explanations of how societal pressures exert an influence on the individual across the
lifespan and we see the accumulation of that at times in older adults.
Letʼs start with self theories. This is a focus where we look at how older adults change
or stay the same in the way that they think about themselves. If you imagine what it
might be like, you in older adulthood will experience a lot of changes, a lot of changes in
your physical body. There will be different roles that you are holding, maybe youʼll
become a grandparent, maybe youʼll retire and not have that work role as you used to.
And there are three basic ways we can understand how adults can cope with these
changes.
Erik Erikson proposed that the last stage of psychosocial development is integrity
versus despair. Remember, Erikson always believed that there are two possible
outcomes, kind of extremes. Integrity would be the positive outcome, despair would be
the negative. And that each of us, if weʼre as healthy as can be, you know, we can
develop towards the positive end but thereʼs always going to be a bit of element of that
negative component as well. Let me make sense of that here with integrity versus
despair. A sense of integrity is an understanding of the all of who the person has
become and itʼs an understanding that a person has about himself or herself. Tying
together all of the pieces of their life into a narrative, a story that makes sense for them.
It isnʼt so much important that the story is completely accurate. Our memories are pretty
fallible anyway, not even just when weʼre older adults, but when we think back in our
lives, and when we put the events together into a story, even when weʼre younger,
distortion and remembering things a certain way to suit ourselves is pretty common and
that can absolutely happen in late adulthood. But accuracy isnʼt the important thing. The
important thing is how the older adult understands his or her life. Understanding there
are good times bad times but on the whole it was still a decent life or even a terrific life.
That even though there were mistakes, that the mistakes were learning opportunities
that a person adjusted to.
But despair is a part of the acceptance f the end of life. Itʼs a reality that we will all die
and itʼs also a reality that none of us knows how exactly that is going to happen. This
generates plenty of anxiety even when younger people think about death. And as we
age we get closer and closer to that experience. Itʼs normal to feel every once in a while
a sense of despair about that. To feel sad about the time that has passed. But hopefully
we are able to keep that in check with greater integrity on the whole; being able to focus
on the present, using death as a motivator to make the most of the time thatʼs left.
Continuity theory focuses on the way that we change and adapt in order to find new
ways of expressing the same self. This is influence by temperament and personality.
Across our lives we help build our own ecological niche; the way we like things to be,
the kind of activities that fit our personality, and as we get older we may have to make
some changes. A woman whoʼs been a librarian all of her life, perhaps, and enjoys
interacting with children and reading to children may retire from her job as an
elementary librarian but then spends some of her time volunteering at local libraries
reading to children. Itʼs a change, but itʼs a way of expressing her same self in a
different way that fits with her older adult life.
Luckily, we have some benefits in handling changes as older adults. The positivity effect
is a theory that shows how we selectively optimize the things that are good. We focus
on the good more and more as we get older. This is referring to older adults on the
whole. Of course, there are always exceptions. But the stereotype that many have that
older adults are just grumpy people is not supported by the research. You read about a
study by Sorkin and Rook, two people that I know actually, who looked at negative
interactions that were occurring among older adults and other people and asked older
adults what their goal was. So itʼs going to be a negative interaction, you know of those
where weʼre not looking forward to it. Things are not going well, but we have some
options for how to handle it. Do we blow up? Do we withdraw? Do we find a way to
make the best of it? As we age, we tend to be focused on maintaining good will. Older
adults are better at being able to focus on the positive aspects of a situation and not be
so negatively affected as they might have been in younger years. In addition, and along
with positively effect, we tend to move closer to our ideal self as we age. So if we like to
think of ourselves as ideally even more patient and friendlier then we are, as we get to
be older adults, we have a greater likelihood of actually moving closer to that ideal self.
And what happens as a result is we tend to feel greater self acceptance and greater
contentment.
A second set of theories is referred to collectively as stratification theories, looking at the
influence that society as a whole has on an individual. This is the idea that because of
the way society is set up and the norms that we follow, we get placed in categories and
different experiences are made available to people who are members of different
categories. For example, in the United States, ethnic minorities are more likely to
experience poverty in their lifespan than white Americans are, which white Americans
are the majority of course. So these kinds of societal influences can trickle down to
impact a lifespan, accumulative series of opportunities or lack of opportunities that
contribute to the development of the individual and by the time we reach late adulthood,
can accumulate and have very strong collective effect on the personʼs life course. This
can help explain why older adults are so unique and such a diverse group because
each has gone through a different series of specific pressures put on them because of
our societal norms.
For example, all of us across all ethnicities will be subject to age stratification. We tend
to group people by age. We tend to spend time, mostly with people who are the same
age as us, and this becomes particularly salient in the older adult years. Older adults
are expected to be interacting with mostly other older adults. And what happens is that
we miss out, all of us miss out because of this. We would benefit if the young and old
had more opportunities and more encouragement to interact with one another. But as it
stands, we have a socialization deficit because of age segregation. There are some
theories related to this. One theory is disengagement theory. This is a theory suggesting
that due to age segregation, older adults tend to stay isolated with other older adults
and even more so begin to withdraw more into themselves as individuals.
Disengagement theory suggests that society and the individual mutually prepare for the
exit of the individual from life, withdrawing from each other. So we expect other adults to
retire, we expect them to not be working full time, we expect them to be taking it easy
and then at the same time older adults maybe choosing to not go out as much, choosing
to engage in fewer activities. But this was a theory that mightʼve fit older adults better in
the past and also may have been more negative than was warranted even then.
Activities theory suggest this is the case.
Activity theory is based on research that shows disengagement is not what most older
adults like to make. If it occurs, itʼs not because older adults necessarily want it that way.
Activity theory shows us that adults that stay active, even if theyʼre taking regular walks
or just staying involved in community activity groups, being involved in activities
correlates with a higher quality of life in late adulthood. Of course, itʼs important for older
adults to be aware of any limitations that they may have so theyʼre not pushing
themselves too hard in the midst of physical problems or other challenges they face. But
the idea that we turn within ourselves and stay home and just slide on out of life does
not match with the data and does not match with the experience with most older adults.
Ethnicity is another stratifying feature of the lifespan. As youʼve heard many times
throughout the semester, ethnicity is related to poverty, educational opportunity and
achievement, employment and health outcomes in some cases. These limitations can
have a significant impact on the shaping of the life course. And cultural differences that
are embedded within different ethnicities can make a big difference as well; especially
when weʼre thinking about the experience of older generations who have emigrated
here, whose children and grandchildren who have become very accustomed to the
American way of life. This can present a challenge as these older adults are still
operating more from the culture of their origin and perhaps may want to live with their
younger children, may want to have more family contact but find themselves in a nation
thatʼs not as accommodating to multiple generation families. Where work life, where
home designs do not accommodate multiple generation living as they would in other
nations.
Gender stratifies us as well. Men and women tend to take on different roles across the
lifespan and these can accumulate and impact older adulthood. Women tend to take
care of the home and men tend to take care more of the world of work, especially in the
generations of individuals who would now be older adults. For example, if someone is
sick, if a spouse is sick, the man is more likely to respond by working more hours
whereas the woman is more likely to respond by quitting her job or reducing her hours
to take care of her spouse, so woman tend to emphasize care. And what can happen
over a lifetime is that kind of emphasis on caring can lead to poverty because a woman
may not take advantage of the occupational opportunities that come her way because
sheʼs more concern about taking care of those who need her help in her family and
these kind of decisions can lead to social isolation as women are more prone to stay in
the home and less likely to feel that itʼs acceptable to go outside of the home for work or
for activities or to focus on things besides the relationship and for the person for whom
they are caring.
There are exceptions to these rules. In some cases, having been a member of a group
thatʼs discriminated against in one way or another, whether is minority status or whether
itʼs gender, or perhaps even economic status, some of us are able to develop coping
skills and these coping skills that weʼve had to exercise across the lifespan can make it
a little less of a challenge to cope with the stress of dealing with age changes.
Furthermore, itʼs true of both women and of people of ethnic minority that they tend to
have stronger quality relationships with others of the same group. For example, black
women tend to have stronger, higher quality relationships with other black women, for
example, and these stronger connections can help as well when coping with aging. And
women across different ethnicities, women tend to have stronger family ties than men
do, and this may be an advantage for women when coping with the losses of aging.
Activities in Late Adulthood
Where are late adults spending their time? What are they doing? Theyʼre doing a lot of
different things. Some of them are still working, and some of them, many of them, are
still working for pay. There are practical reasons for this. Some just plain need the
money. And in that kind of situation, itʼs incredibly helpful to have a way to keep earning
money. But others continue to work because they enjoy it or because they feel valued.
Itʼs a place where they have social interaction. And it can increase their sense of
independence. Retirement could be a good idea or it might not be a good idea. It really
depends on the circumstances leading to it. If a person is relatively healthy before
retirement, if theyʼre leaving their job not because they have to due to health reasons
but just because they want to, they tend to enjoy it more. And in this case, retirement is
not associated with any kind of downturn in their physical health. The impact of
retirement also depends on how well prepared the older adults was before retiring. Had
they thought through the changes they would need to make, especially the financial
aspect of retirement. If so, retirement tends to be experienced as a positive.
You donʼt have to be working for pay in order to make a contribution to society though.
Volunteering is another route. It has the tendency to bolster health and well-being
among older adults, especially if itʼs done in moderation and especially if the volunteer
role is one where the person feels needed and respected. But only about 25% of older
adults volunteer. Why? Itʼs hard to tell but one possibility is that older adults maybe
engaged in more informal volunteering, kind of activities that involve helping a neighbor
or helping out a loved one who needs some assistance. These activities wouldnʼt fall
under the category of official volunteering, but they still involve the same kind of helpful
behavior thatʼs directed toward others without any kind of financial compensation.
When it comes to home life, older adults tend to enjoy their homes and pay more
attention to their homes and like to spend more time making their homes the way that
they like them to be. In fact, older adults, most of the time, would prefer to grow old in
the same place in which they have developed. They want to stay in the same area; they
liked to be in the same neighborhood even, or if they can swing it, even in the same
house. The point is that most older adults would prefer to stay where they have been
instead of dealing with the adjustments that would be required if they had to move
somewhere else at that age.
In some cases, interestingly, a group of people that moved into a community as young
adults stay there and didnʼt leave. Now that theyʼre older adults, theyʼve become whatʼs
called a naturally occurring retirement community. It isnʼt an official community, but itʼs a
community thatʼs sort of developed over time because of individuals who wanted to age
in place. They help each other as they age. If one of them becomes a widow or widower,
they tend to prefer to live alone because they know within that community they still have
support.
Older adults are sometimes students at school. Continuing education is whenever older
adults are attending school because they just are interested in learning. There may not
be a goal of a degree. There may not be a goal of getting a certain kind of job later, but
the interest is in learning for the sake of learning. I have certainly had older adults in
some of my classes. One of the really great things about older adult students is their
motivation. This is a fun and interesting for them. Theyʼre excited to be there and
excited to learn about the things that the teachers are excited to teach about. But the
fast pace nature of college and the emphasis on technology may be a deterrent for
some older adults. They have the option of taking elderhostel classes if those types of
classes seem to fit better. Elderhostel classes are designed in particular to older adults.
Activities and topics that might be of great interest to greater adults are the focus of
elderhostel adults, and other students are other older adults.
Many older adults maintain a strong sense of faith in their particular religion or spiritual
beliefs. Religious involvement for religious adults, especially in terms of their personal
beliefs, tends to increase across time. And it may or may not correspond with an actual
increase in church involvement or church attendance, but that sense of faith in older
adulthood is correlated with health and psychological well being. Perhaps it helps
people cope with the reality of their death. In some cases, especially in the black faith
community, thereʼs so much involvement in the neighborhood or the community at large
thatʼs connected to churches of various kinds; so many activities, so many opportunities
for volunteering and a very strong sense of continuity and meaning. Especially for many
black American women, their faith community is a central component of their
experiences in older adulthood.
And finally we consider politics. Political activism – older people are more politically
involved on the whole than younger people are. Youʼre probably not going to see many
of them waving signs at rallies but a lot more of them are at home writing letters to their
representatives and staying on top of the news so that they understand current events.
The AARP, the association that represents people who are older adults, is the largest
interest group involved in politics. And the interests that older adults have in politics
goes beyond just those policies that directly impact them. I mean, of course, older adults
are particularly concerned about healthcare, Medicaid, and social security, but the
research tells us that older adults are also interested in the development of children, in
funding education. With the pace that is normally needed for political change to actually
occur, when older adults are concern about these issues, itʼs clear that they are thinking
about the future beyond when they will still be here on Earth, making contributions to
future generations.
Chapter 15.2 – Late Adulthood: Psychosocial Development, Part II
This is the second episode about psychosocial development in late adulthood. In this
episode we talk about the role of friends and relatives in the life of older adults as well
as the circumstances that are particularly important to consider when older adults
become frail.
Friends and Relatives
Most people end up getting married. Those who are lucky enough that theyʼre still
married in their older adulthood and happy in that marriage tend to experience all of
benefits from the long term relationship. Long-term partnerships are correlated with
health, with wealth, and with psychological well-being. When two people have spent this
much time together and have had so many shared experiences and memories, theyʼve
also had a lot of opportunities to adjust to each other. Typically, long-term partnerships
are characterized by interdependence, where each person needs the other, and mutual
respect, both members of the couple admire each other. And when they age, long-term
partners tend to fill in for each otherʼs shortcomings or weaknesses or physical
limitations.
When people retire, it can create an adjustment period in long-term partnerships
because now, at least one of the members of the couple, if not both, will be home and
spending more time with each other. In fact, the research does suggest that itʼs best for
long-term partnerships when both people retire at about the same time. Otherwise, it
tends to be a challenge to the relationship if one person is working for pay and if that
person is also making most of the decisions around the house. I think itʼs interesting
because this is difficult for men to handle, but itʼs also difficult for women to handle
whenever their husbands are working and they are not and their husbands are making
most decisions. So it appears when it comes to older adulthood and long-term
partnership, it doesnʼt feel right to have that kind of imbalance of power. Perhaps it
makes it more difficult to maintain the interdependence and mutual respect.
When a spouse or a partner, a long-term partner dies, obviously this is a major
adjustment. And itʼs an adjustment that women face more often than men. Women tend
to outlive men. Women also tend to marry men who are at least a little bit older, so for
these reasons, there are far more widows than there are widowers. But after an
adjustment period, women tend to function pretty well and most of them do not want to
get married again. They usually have strong social ties with other women and with their
family, but for men, for widowers, itʼs usually harder. Thereʼs less support provided to
men who have lost their spouses. We donʼt reach out as much to male family members
as we do to female family members. Widowers are far more interested in getting
married than widows usually are, and the thing about this is the ratio of available single
women is working very much in widowerʼs favor, so those who would very much like to
get married are able to find another partner. We are living longer and weʼre having
smaller families. The beanpole family is a common result then. This is a family where
there are multiple generations that are alive, but not many people in each generation.
So thereʼs kind of a tall, skinny family tree, family beanpole.
Adults feel a responsibility to help take care of their aging parents and this doesnʼt
necessarily mean they will be the person providing the care, but they feel responsible
for helping the care be available, for arranging the care for whoever it ends up being the
care. Itʼs challenging because help that they provide to their aging parents, while it might
be very much needed, it also may very much be resented by the older adults. Especially
in the United States, we really donʼt like feeling dependent, we really enjoy feeling
independent. And we see a shift as we get older in our expectations for how much
support we think older adults should be given versus how much support we think we
ourselves need once we become older adults. As we age, our tendency is to shift the
perception so that we feel we donʼt need as much support as we might have anticipated
an older adult would need when we were younger. And perhaps this is because as we
get older and where we are interpreting our situation, itʼs hard to understand and
appreciate and accept the level of help we may need. So we may have a generational
shift here or sort of a generational conflict where the midlife adult children may feel like
they should be doing all kinds of things for their older adult aging parents, but those
elderly parents may have shifted their perception to feeling like they donʼt need that
much support. So when the midlife adult child provide support, the elderly parent may
resent it or maybe bothersome to them in some way. They may feel like they are viewed
as weaker than they really are. When relationships between adult children and their
elderly parents are particularly supportive and emotionally close, thatʼs when the tension
related to this care giving tends to be the greatest.
Friends are important throughout the lifespan and that continues in older adulthood as
well. This is especially true for older adults who donʼt have spouses, perhaps they never
did have spouses or perhaps they are a widower or widow, and this is especially true for
those who chose or those who arenʼt able to have children. Friends can be a very
important source of support and everyone needs at least one good one. At least one
good friend. Especially in older adulthood, the research shows us that elderly adults
donʼt have to have lots and lots of friends, as long as the friends that they have are high
quality relationships. Quality matters much more than quantity.
The Frail Elderly
Frail elderly are those individuals who have difficulty functioning because they have
severe illnesses, or because they have a physical disability, or because they have
significant cognitive impairment of some kind. Usually, the frail elderly are the oldest old.
This is due in part to the compression of morbidity. There was greater frailty earlier
lifespan in past decades, but now that weʼre living longer and living healthier lives for a
longer period of time, our period of morbidity, of significant disease and disability before
we die tends to be much shorter now than it used to be.
Frail adults have difficulties with activities of daily life. Activities of daily life are self care
activities. The kinds of things that we need to do on a daily basis just to be healthy,
functioning human beings. Plain old activities of daily life, which are called ADLs, are
very basic, straight forward tasks like dressing yourself and being able to eat on your
own and take a bath. Instrumental activities of daily life, which would be IADLs, are
tasks that are also something that we do regularly but that require more mental effort,
more cognitive skill. These would be things like taking the proper dosage of medication
at the right time, being able to follow a recipe and bake something. Older adults tend to
begin having trouble with IADLs before they have trouble with the ADLs. Family
members are often called upon to help step in with these self care activities.
Family care for the frail elderly is usually provided for by a spouse. Itʼs particularly
difficult if the person needing care has Alzheimerʼs disease. The cognitive impairment of
Alzheimerʼs disease can result in pretty significant and scary changes in the elderly
personʼs personality and temperament and interactions. A husband might be concerned
that his wife with Alzheimerʼs may wake up in the middle of the night and walk out the
door into the neighborhood.
When caring for a family member, in general, sometimes itʼs a sibling thatʼs taking care
of the elder person, and there can be some conflict because of this among siblings. The
siblings who are providing the care may feel jealous that the other siblings are not. The
person whoʼs not providing care may have a sense of relief, and then immediately,
usually a sense of guilt about it as well. The relationship between the older adult and the
child whoʼs taking care of him or her is also to be strained because they have to make a
lot of agreements and follow a lot of plans based on the health of the elder person, so
there can be disagreement about the older personʼs schedule, about when they should
be eating, about how often they need a bath. And lack of access to public services can
put a lot of strain on the caregiver because it puts the entire responsibility on that person.
Nobody functions wells on the job if theyʼre burned out and overwhelmed, and then
imagine on top of that, the person youʼre caring for, who you very much care for deeply
and very concerned about. Itʼs important that the strain on the caregiver be recognized,
and if possible that the caregiver is given breaks, periods of times or a few days when
medical professionals can check in to see if everything is okay. And this can allow the
caregiver to have some time off and come back feeling more relaxed and refreshed.
In some cases, if the pressure is so significant or if there are other problems with either
the caregiver or older adult, elder abuse can occur. This is when the older adult in need
of care is treated badly. It could be emotional maltreatment. It can be neglect. It could
be financial mistreatment. And mistreatment of older adults, elder abuse in particular, is
most likely to occur when there is a combination of factors that are having an influence,
like if the caregiver is unstable in some way, letʼs say, the caregiver is addicted to some
substance, and if the care is occurring outside of the view of others, in sort of an
isolated area or place where others donʼt see very often. And if the older adult has some
kind of serious memory loss or cognitive impairment. When those three characteristics
are all occurring, thatʼs when elder abuse is most likely to happen.
If family care is not available, or if the older adult does not want care, or if the problems
are significant enough that more assistance is needed, frail elderly may spend time in
long-term care. This is what we would call a nursing home. And most of us have
negative ideas about what a nursing home is like. There is a wide range of quality when
it comes to nursing homes and quality of care matters greatly. Unfortunately, it usually
takes money to buy high quality care. These days, there are fewer older adults in
nursing homes though, and those who are in nursing homes are more frail. Again, we
can see the compression of morbidity happening here - that we donʼt need as lengthy of
period of care, but when we do need care, itʼs closer to the end of our lives. Now
remember, thatʼs long-term care. Lots of older adults will need some kind of short-term
care after theyʼve had a surgery or after theyʼve recovered from an illness, but those are
typically short stays, you know, a month or maybe more, but itʼs not intended to be a
permanent placement.
Assisted living is another option that a lot of older adults like because itʼs a combination
of independent living where the individual usually gets to have their own room. They can
decorate it in a way that they like; maybe they can even have a pet, in some cases. And
they have some control. There are communal events. There might be one meal a day
thatʼs communal or perhaps more, but the idea is that they have the flexibility of being
independent while at the same time having access to some of the medical supervision
that they would get at a nursing home, like doctorʼs that are available when necessary
and the ability to get emergency intervention if thereʼs some kind of urgent medical
problem that arises. Living in such a place also provides an opportunity to interact with
others and that can be very important. Yes, we would all like to be able to stay
independent, but at the same time, we still benefit from having quality relationships with
others. And assisted living can sometimes provide that kind of scenario.
Epilogue – Death and Dying
Some might think of it as depressing, but we have to end our course talking about a
subject that most people are uncomfortable thinking about – death. But I donʼt really see
it that way. Instead, letʼs look at it as an opportunity to learn about an event that is
unfortunately inevitable. Weʼre never going to feel completely at ease with the idea of
dying, but if we learn more about it, we can better prepare ourselves for coping of the
death of loved ones and ourselves. This is the primary goal of thanatology, the study of
the emotional and the social aspects of dying.
Death and Hope
What does death mean? The meanings of death depend on many things including how
old we are, whether itʼs us dying or someone we love whose death we are coping with,
and also our belief system. Letʼs talk about age first. People are often concerned about
how to talk about death to children. When children are dealing with their own death,
their biggest fear is a fear of abandonment, concerned that others are going to leave
them. And so itʼs actually advisable in such cases that parents and caregivers of
terminally ill young children or fatally wounded young children to stay with them at every
moment if they can, trading off, of course, for someone to get some rest, but the fear of
abandonment is pretty common in kids. And when itʼs someone elseʼs death that a child
is learning to cope with, there are a lot of different responses you can see in children.
Honesty, typically, is the best policy. Although children often donʼt feel the need to
understand the details until they get older in the concrete operational stage, you know
grade school or so. Interestingly though, children of different ages have a different
understanding of what death means, that what is possible after the death of an
individual, for example, they may think that a dead person can still think things and can
still have emotions.
In adolescence and emerging adulthood, in regards to oneʼs own death, the risk is that
thereʼs actually a low fear of death during this phase of the lifespan coupled with an
interest with taking risks. So this can result, especially in some cases, in adolescents
and emerging adults behaving in dangerous ways without grasping the degree of risk
that they are taking with their life and in some cases they may even romanticize death.
Moving into adulthood, dealing with our own impending death, if itʼs happening in
adulthood, obviously thatʼs off time, right? We may have spouses, children,
responsibilities, and the concerns usually center around whoʼs going to take care of
these responsibilities when I am gone. In coping with the death of others, adults tend to
show different kinds of reactions based upon the age of the deceased person. Deaths
that are so-called off-time, you know when we say “Oh, he was in his prime,” “He
shouldnʼt have died; he was only 50 years old,” - those are deaths that are typically
harder for adults to cope with. In late adulthood, anxiety about our own death decreases.
We become more accepting of death. Older adults are much more likely to face the
kinds of difficult tasks that they wanted to get done before they die, that all of us really
should be thinking about but most of us avoid when weʼre younger because we donʼt
like to think about death. Things like making sure we have a will and that itʼs set up
properly, trying to repair any relationships that have been strained, these kinds of things.
Older adults also show a shift in their priorities. They prioritized time spent with family
members, knowing that they have limited time left.
Regardless of age, spiritual beliefs have an influence on the way that we think about
death. If we think death might happen soon, either itʼs because we have a terminal
illness or weʼre in a situation that is threatening our lives, like living in an extremely
violent area, then we tend to have stronger religious and spiritual beliefs. The specifics
of how we cope with death, though, vary greatly. There are many different way s that
certain cultures and certain religions choose to cope with the death of loved ones,
different rituals, different rights, different customs…the connection between anticipating
your own death and becoming more spiritual or religious is also seen in people who
thought they were dying but didnʼt actually die –near-death experiences. Iʼm sure youʼve
heard of near-death experiences where people feel like theyʼve sort of been raised out
of their own body and they were floating toward a light and for whatever reason, it felt
wonderful and terrific but then they came back and recovered. And for many people
whoʼve had this experience, it has a dramatic impact on the way they view the world. It
often affirms their spiritual beliefs. For some people, it leads to the development of
spiritual beliefs that werenʼt there before. Many people feel the need to make sense, to
make meaning, out of their lifeʼs experiences.
Dying and acceptance
We would all prefer to experience whatʼs called a good death, a fast death preferably at
the end of a long and happy life, thatʼs peaceful and painless and happens in the
presence of loved ones in a comfortable setting, preferably not a hospital, right? Itʼs
ironic that advances in medical science have increased the likelihood of a good death.
At the same time as they have increased the likelihood of a bad death, a death that
takes a long time to happen, where we die alone, where weʼre in pain. The medical
advances that allow us to live longer and healthier lives can also lead to measures
trying to prolong the length of life, sometimes at the expense of the quality of life.
Overall, weʼre in much better shape than we used to be though when it comes to
dealing with death. Itʼs amazing to me to think that at one point in time not so long ago,
it was not uncommon to keep the information that a person is dying secret from the
person who is dying. Doctors and family members might not tell their loved one how
serious and dire the situation is, that theyʼre likely to die soon because they were afraid
of making the situation worse, they were afraid of making the patient upset, or they just
didnʼt want to talk about and just didnʼt want to admit that it was happening. It was a
remarkable advance when a woman named Elisabeth Kubler Ross actually dared to
interview people who were dying, to find out what their experience was like. No one had
ever been so open and honest and respectful about understanding the dying process.
And the research that Kubler Ross conducted has improved the experiences of
countless people when theyʼre going through the process of dying. Kubler Ross
suggested that we go through stages of dying, where we experience denial at first, then
anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance.
Today, the problem we might have with these stages of dying is that people think that
theyʼre meant to be followed in a specific order, and Kubler Ross thought that might be
the case as well, but research has shown us since then that we do not go through
predictable stages. The important thing to know is that there are a variety of reactions
that a dying person might have and that the personʼs emotions are likely to change. We
just donʼt know which direction theyʼll change in, and we donʼt know which kind of
emotion is going to come next. We can do harm in fact, if we think that a dying person
should be following a certain series of stages when they are in fact not doing so. Loved
ones might expect itʼs about time for the dying person to move into the acceptance
stage when the dying person may be experiencing a phase of anger. We do more harm
than good when we try to correct the dying person and suggest that they should be
feeling something different. The dying person will respond in his or her own, unique way.
Thanks to Kubler Ross though for opening the topic so we can talk about it honestly.
We can also help the dying person by providing hospice care. Hospice care is intended
to provide a smoother transition to death for the dying person. Allowing the patient to
make some decisions and to help direct the process like making decisions about when
they want pain medication and when they donʼt, teaching friends and family how they
can assist and help keep the dying person comfortable and also how they can prepare
for the impending death of their loved one and cope with their grief after the death.
Rates of hospice care in the United States have increased greatly in recent years. The
development of the subspecialty of palliative care has also been a help. This is a
medical subspecialty focused on making a dying person as comfortable as possible.
This is focusing on the alleviation of pain, the alleviation of discomfort. Palliative care is
not about trying to cure any illness or to fix anything thatʼs broken, itʼs about being able
to provide the person with as pain-free of an experience as possible. Palliative care can
happen in a hospice; it can also happen at a hospital as well. Some of the painkillers
that are given to people who are near the end of life have whatʼs called a double effect.
These are painkillers that not only alleviate pain or reduce pain but they also slow down
respiration, which tends to bring about death a little bit sooner.
This is acceptable from a legal perspective and people in general tend not to have too
much trouble with this idea that the pain medication may help hasten the dying process.
What are a lot more controversial, though, would be the other methods that might be
used to help hasten death in a more direct way - euthanasia, for example. This is the
part where itʼs ironic that medical advances have helped us avoid diseases or get better
faster, and at the same time medical advances have helped us prolong life to an extent
where the quality of life can sometimes become a concern.
What kind of options should we have? How much choice should we be given when
weʼre near the end of our own lives? This is all complicated, of course, by the reality that
sometimes people do not have the cognitive clarity or the ability to communicate what
they really want at the end of their lives. Theoretically, the least controversial of these
topics is passive euthanasia. I say theoretically because the reality of passive
euthanasia is a lot more complicated, but passive euthanasia is when natural death is
not prevented. For example, if thereʼs a “do not resuscitate” note in the personʼs file
where the person in the past has requested that measures like restarting the heart again
are not to be done, then the person will die a natural death. This is legal and itʼs actually
quite common. The complicated part is that in reality, there can be gray areas. There
can be ambiguities. There can be differences in the perspective of doctors and family
members or among the family members themselves, even with something like passive
euthanasia.
Active euthanasia is far more controversial. This is when a medical professional
provides a drug that makes death happen faster. This is illegal in the United States.
People have a harder time accepting the idea of a medical professional giving someone
a drug that will end their life than they have with the idea of something like double effect
where painkillers known to slow respiration are chosen to be used so that it will help
death occur faster.
Position-assisted suicide occurs at the hands of the dying individual, him or herself, but
it requires the authorization of a physician who is willing to prescribe medication that will
end the personʼs life and the person takes that medication at home and is able to have
whatʼs called a death with dignity, if they choose. This is legal only in Oregon in the
United States and there are strict guidelines that must be followed. You have to request
a couple of times, two times orally, one time in writing…there has to be a certain period
of days before the medication will be given to the person. This is all to make really sure
that people arenʼt committing hasty decisions, that a decision isnʼt driven by depression
or something, or an impulsive idea, so care is taken; as much care as possible is taken
to make sure that this option is not abused or used improperly. However, it is very
controversial and is legal only in Oregon here in the United States so obviously there
are lots of concerns that people have about this being available to people with terminal
illnesses.
None of us want to create scenario for our loved ones where they have to make difficult
decisions for us about our end of life care. Advanced directives are a way to try to make
things easier on your loved ones. These are instructions that you provide before you
become ill, that lay out the kinds of things that you are comfortable having done to you,
what types of life extending options, if any, youʼd like to be given. But again these are
clear in theory but then complicated, often times, in applying to real life cases. A living
will, for example, is a will that the person writes up ahead of time that will be used if he
or she cannot communicate later when they are ill and near death. But the terms can be
ambiguous. Perhaps, in the living will it says that the patient does not want any
extraordinary measures to be undertaken. Thatʼs a very vague word, extraordinary
measures, what does that really mean? Clearly, there is plenty of room for differences of
opinion which can complicate those decisions the moments where those decisions need
to be made. A health care proxy may have been identified by the individual whoʼs dying.
This is a person that you would identify ahead of time to make medical decisions if you
are unable to do so, but again, thereʼs the issue of interpretation. And now it can be a lot
of pressure on that health care proxy to feel like the one who has to make that
interpretation and make that decision.
Bereavement
When it comes to bereavement, in other words, the feelings of loss that we have after a
loved one dies, there is no right way and no wrong way to experience it. Grief is a very
unique experience that happens soon after the death for most people. Where a person
feels deep sorrow and anguish and overwhelming, intense and often times irrational
series of emotions and thoughts are going through the personʼs mind. We cope by going
through a process of mourning. These are the ceremonies or the traditions or the rituals
influenced by culture or by religion or by the community that help us manage our
feelings and express our feelings of loss for a loved one. Mourning is often public, at
least, somewhat public, whether itʼs attending a wake, a funeral, sending condolence
cards…itʼs a public recognition that those dealing with the death of a loved one will be
particularly vulnerable at this time and will need some kind of help with the healing
process. Why do people have this impulse to take food to someone whoʼs recently lost a
loved one? Weʼre concerned that in their grief they might not be taking care of
themselves very well. We want to help them pick up the pieces and be able to provide
some support to get them through this very difficult time.
The process of experiencing grief maybe complicated. For example, absent grief occurs
when a personʼs approach to coping is to isolate themselves, avoiding situations where
their grief would be public, not wanting to talk about it with anyone, not wanting to go
there. Unfortunately, this level of repression can lead to physical illness or to depression,
and itʼs most common among people who arenʼt well connected within their
communities and donʼt have strong relationships. Please donʼt misunderstand. Absent
grief doesnʼt mean that thereʼs a problem that the person needs to be loudly expressing
and you know, crying and doing the socially acceptable things. Thatʼs not the point. The
point is that the person is withdrawing, isolating and stuffing down any kind of reaction.
Some people donʼt have a strong outward expression of grief directly after a loved one
has died. Thatʼs not necessarily absent grief. But if they are holing themselves up and
not wanting to participate or acknowledge or talk about any of it, thatʼs when itʼs more of
a concern.
Disenfranchise grief occurs whenever people who are very much grieving and would
like to participate in the mourning process are cut off from it for whatever reason,
perhaps because of the customs or the family norms that are involved. For example,
homosexual partners may not be included in the decision making or in the planning for
the events that would honor the person that has died; perhaps it was their boyfriend or
girlfriend. They may be neglected, thatʼs an experience of disenfranchised grief. Or
perhaps the individual who passed away was very close friends but very distant from
family. The friends may have a better idea of what that deceased person might have
wanted for a ceremony. The friends might want to participate but the family may prevent
them from doing so.
Incomplete grief is another form of complicated grief where other events that occur right
around the same time or directly after the personʼs death get in the way of grieving. Like
a crime investigation or autopsies. Grief may be incomplete for some if a body has
never been recovered, and if theyʼve not been able to carry through with their traditions
of mourning because of it. The one thing that we can say for sure about bereavement is
that no two people are going to go through it in the exactly the same way. The
circumstances will be different. The emotions will be different. The reactions will be
different. Some of the assumptions that were so strongly held in the past have recently
been challenged by the research. For example, after a certain period of time, we should
be able to move on and break that attachment bond with our deceased loved one. This
was a well intentioned idea, hoping to prevent people from escalating into extreme,
prolong grief, but the research tells us now that thereʼs no time table. That when you let
people grieve in the way that seems to come naturally to them, most people do not
escalate into extreme or complicated grief. In fact, we may actually do more harm by
approaching a bereavement situation with a set idea of how things should go.
You know, it really does come back to one of the themes of this course: there are so
many things that we all will experience, and death is one of them. In that way, weʼre all
the same. But we are, at the very same time, completely unique.