Development
How do you become YOU?
Developmental Psychology
Developmental Psychology: the study of continuity and
change across a human’s life span
Prenatality, Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence,
Adulthood
Question:
Who do you think is happier, an infant, an adolescent,
or an adult?
Prenatal Development
Zygote: single cell that contains chromosomes from both a sperm
and an egg
Germinal Stage: two-week period that begins at conception
The zygote divides exponentially
Embryonic Stage: a period that lasts from the second week until
about the eighth week
Embryo has a beating heart, arms and legs, is one inch long
Testosterone masculinizes embryo, lack of T feminizes
Fetal Stage: a period that lasts from the ninth week until birth
Myelination: the formation of a fatty sheaths around the axons of
a brain cell
Zygote
Germinal Stage
Embryonic Stage
Fetal Stage
Prenatal Environment
The womb is an ENVIRONMENT, isn’t neutral
Teratogens: agents that damage the process of
development in the womb
Lead in water, paint dust in air, mercury in fish,
tobacco, alcohol
Effect depends on the developmental stage at which
they are encountered
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: a developmental disorder that
stems from heavy alcohol use by the mother during
pregnancy
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Infancy
Motor development: emergence of the ability to
execute physical actions
Reflexes: infants are born with some peculiar ones
Rooting reflex: searching for object that touches cheek
Sucking reflex: infants will suck an any object placed in
their mouths
Grasping reflex: a baby will grasp on object placed in
feet or hands
Moro reflex: when startled, babies retract limbs
Babinski reflex: babies spread toes when feet are stroked
Some Reflexes
Infancy (2)
Limited range of vision
Detail a newborn can see at 20 ft is
equivalent to the same level an adult
sees at 600 ft
Can follow stimuli with their eyes
Can distinguish stimuli they have
seen before from those they have not
Habituation
Newborns mimic facial expressions in
their first HOUR of life
Jean Piaget & Cognitive
Development
Jean Piaget: Swiss biologist, father of developmental
psychology
Cognitive Development: the emergence of the ability
to understand the world
Piaget’s Stages: sensorimotor stage, preoperational
stage, concrete operational stage, formal operational
stage
Children ALWAYS pass through them in order
Not all reach the final stages
Children graduate from stage to stage
Sensorimotor Stage
Schemas
Rules that are developed over time,
allow children to understand their
words
Assimilation
Incorporating information into a
schemata in order to understand it
Accommodation
Adjusting a schemata given new,
contradictory information
Object Permanence
Preoperational & Concrete
Operational Stage
Preoperational: begins at about 2 years, ends at about 6
years
Centration: tendency to focus on just one property of an
object to the exclusion of all others
Egocentrism: failure to understand that the world appears
differently to different observers
Concrete Operational: children can manipulate objects,
understand physical principles
Conservation: the notion that the quantitative properties of
an object are invariant despite changes in the object’s
appearance
Reversibility: operation made on objects can be reversed
Formal Operational Stage
11 years – adulthood
False Belief Tests: understanding why others
have false beliefs
Theory of Mind: idea that human behavior
is guided by mental representations
Autistic children, and to some extent deaf
children, lag far behind peers in developing
ToM
Language skills are an excellent predictor of
how well children how well they perform on
false belief tests
Culture and Development
Vygotsky’s Theory of Development: cognitive
development is largely the result of child’s
interaction with members of his/her own culture
rather than interactions with objects
Cultural Tools: language and counting systems
exert a strong influence on cog. development
Are ways for children to HAVE thoughts, not
modes of expression
Zone of Proximal Development: children are
capable of developing a range of skills
Whether children develop towards the high range
of his/her zone depends upon environment
Social Development
Harry Harlow’s monkey experiments
Moscow Orphanages
Imprinting: attachment, or an emotional bond, is
especially strong with the first organism seen
Attachment Styles
Mary Ainsworth’s “Strange Situation”: behavioral test used to
determine a child’s attachment style
Secure attachment
Avoidant attachment
Ambivalent attachment
Disorganized attachment
Attachment style prominence varies by culture
Attachment styles can CHANGE!
Model of attachment: set of expectations about how the primary
caregiver will respond when the child feels insecure
Temperament: characteristic patterns of emotional reactivity
Parenting Styles
Authoritarian
Punish undesired behaviors, rarely reinforce desired behaviors
Do not discuss reason behind rules
Obedience encouraged
Permissive
No clear guidelines for behavior
Punishment/reinforcement are unpredictable
Authoritative
Clear guidelines set, standards are consistent
Rules are reasonable and explained to children
Moral Development
Kohlberg’s Stage Theory (of moral development)
Preconventional (most children)
Stage of moral development in which the morality of an
action is primarily determined by its consequences for the
actor
Conventional (most adolescents)
Stage of moral development in which the morality of an
action is primarily determined by the extent to which it
conforms to social rules
Postconventional (some adults)
Stage of moral development at which the morality of an
action is determined by a set of general principles that reflect
core value
Heinz Dilemma
A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was
one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of
radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered.
The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten
times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the
radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick
woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the
money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of
what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked
him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No,
I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it.” So
Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the
drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to
steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?
Adolescence
Critical period for learning a second language ends
Second neuronal “pruning period”
Onset of sexual maturity
Ages of physical and mental development vary across cultures
Sexual Orientation
2% to 10% of adults self-identify as homosexual yet only .5%
of young teenagers are willing to do the same
Children raised by homosexual parents and heterosexual
parents are equally likely to become homosexual
Genetics may play a role
Fetal environment may play a role
Adulthood
Body starts to deteriorate around 26-30 years of age
Prefrontal Cortex breaks down more quickly than other
parts of the brain
Cognitive tasks that require effort, initiative, or strategy
Brain compensates by putting other parts to work
Get Happy!
Socioemotional Selectivity Theory: age and orientation
towards future effects memory as much as biology does
Younger adults are generally oriented toward the
acquisition of information that will be useful later
Older adults are oriented towards information that
makes them feel emotional satisfaction in the present
Why?
Get Happier!
Older adults are less likely to be influenced
by emotional stimuli than younger adults
But O.A.s show more activation of amygdala
when exposed to pleasant images
Older adults tend to feel more complex
emotions than younger
Older adults become more selective of
friends, relationships
Married? With Children??
Married people report being happier than unmarried
people; they also live longer
But correlation or causation? Happiness  marriage or
marriage  happiness?
Children may DECREASE happiness
Parents typically report lower marital satisfaction than
non-parents
Negative impact of parenthood stronger for women
than men
Women report being less happy taking care of children
than when eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or
watching TV
Yet mothers whose children are adults report positive
emotions towards motherhood!
Freud’s Stages &
Psychodynamic Theory
Oral Phase
Anal Phase
Phallic Phase
Genital Phase