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Chapter 1
Section 1: Child Development- Yesterday & Today
1. Development is the pattern of change that begins at conception and continues through the life span
2. Historical views of Childhood
A. Before 1600 children were generally thought of as miniature adults, especially in the aristocratic class
1. Original Sin View: Especially advocated during the Middle Ages, children were perceived as being born
in to the world as evil beings. The Goal of child rearing was to provide salvation, to remove the sin
from the child's life.
2. Tabula Rasa View: Toward the end of the 17th Century, proposed by John Locke, the view stated that
children were a "blank tablet". The view stated that childhood experiences are important in
determining adult characteristics.
3. Innate Goodness view: In the 18th Century, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, stressed that children were
inherently good. Children should grow naturally, with little parental monitoring or constraint.
B. We now value childhood as a special time of growth and change, and we invest great resources in caring for
and educating children.
3. The modern study of Child Development
A. Alfred Binet created the first modern test of intelligence (the Binet Test) by studying attention and memory
in his daughters, normal children, children with mental retardation, gifted children, and adults.
B. Arnold Gesell studied infants without interrupting them and said that certain characteristics simply "bloom"
with age because of a biological, maturational blueprint.
C. G. Stanley Hall argued that child development follows a natural evolutionary course that can be revealed by
child study.
Section 2: Caring for Children
1. Improving the lives of Children
A. Health and Well-Being
1. Health professionals today recognize the power of lifestyles and psychological states in health and well
being.
B. Parenting
1. You must constantly give your child a warm, supportive, safe, & stimulating environment that will
make them feel secure and allow them to reach their full potential as human beings.
C. Education
1. What is the role of schools in society?
D. Sociocultural Contexts and Diversity
1. Context- The settings, influenced by historical, economic, social, & cultural factors, in which
development occurs.
2. Culture- The behavior patters, beliefs, and all other products of a group that are passed on from
generation to generation.
3. Cross-Cultural Studies- Comparisons of one culture with one or more other cultures. These provide
information about the degree to which children's development is similar or universal, across cultures,
and to which it is culture-specific
4. Ethnicity- A characteristic based on cultural heritage, nationality, race, religion, and language.
5. Socioeconomic Status (SES) - The grouping of people with similar occupational, educational, and
economic characteristics.
E. Gender
1. Gender - The characteristics of people as males & females
2. Resilience, Social Policy, & Children's Development
A. Characteristics of Resilient children & Their Contexts
1. Chart:
Source
Characteristics
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Individual Child
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Good intellectual functioning
Appealing, sociable, easygoing disposition
Self-Confidence, high self-esteem
Talents
Faith
Child's Family
1. Close relationship to caring parent figure
2. Authoritative parenting: warmth, structure, high
expectations
3. Socioeconomic advantages
4. Connections to extended supportive family networks
Resources Outside the Child's
Family
1. Bonds to caring adults outside the family
2. Connections to positive organizations
3. Attending effective schools
B. Social Policy - A government's course of action designed to promote the welfare of its citizens.
Section 3: Developmental Processes, Periods, and Issues
1. Biological, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Processes
A. Biological Processes - changes in an individual's body
B. Cognitive Processes - changes in an individual's thought, intelligence, & language
C. Socioemotional Processes - changes in an individual's relationships with other people, emotions, and
personality
D. Biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes are intricately intertwined.
2. Periods of Development
A. Prenatal Period - the time from conception to birth.
B. Infancy - The developmental period that extends from birth to about 18 to 24 months.
C. Early Childhood - The developmental period that extends from the end of infancy to about 5 to 6 years of
age, sometimes called the preschool years.
D. Middle & Late Childhood - The developmental period that extends from about 6 to 11 years of age,
sometimes called the elementary school years.
E. Adolescence - The developmental period of transition from childhood to early adulthood, entered at
approximately 10 to 12 years of age & ending at 18 to 19 years of age.
F. Today, developmentalists do not believe that change ends with adolescents.
3. Issues in Development
A. Nature and Nurture
1. Nature-Nurture Issue - Involves the debate about whether development is primarily influenced by
nature or nurture. The "nature" proponents claim biological inheritance is the most important
influence on development; the "nurture" proponents claim that environmental experiences are the
most important.
B. Continuity and Discontinuity
1. Continuity-Discontinuity Issue- The issue regarding whether development involves gradual, cumulative
change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity)
C. Early and Late Experience
1. Early-Later Experience Issue - The issue of the degree to which early experiences (especially infancy) or
later experiences are the key determinants of the child's development.
2. Some developmentalists argue that, unless infants experience warm, nurturing care during the first
year or so of life, their development will never quite be optimal
3. Later-experience advocates argue that children are malleable throughout development & that later
sensitive caregiving is just as important as earlier sensitive caregiving.
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Section 4: The Science of Child Development
1. The Importance of Research
A. Scientific research is objective, systematic, and testable
B. Scientific Method - An approach that can be used to obtain accurate information. It includes these steps: (1)
conceptualize the problem, (2) collect data, (3) draw conclusions, & (4) revise research conclusions and
theory.
1. Conceptualizing the problem involves identifying the problem. Researchers must go beyond a general
description of the problem by isolating, analyzing, narrowing, & focusing more specifically on what
they want to study
C. Theory - An interrelated, coherent set of ideas that helps to explain & make predictions
D. Hypothesis - Specific assumptions & predictions that can be tested to determine their accuracy
2. Theories of Child Development
A. Psychoanalytic Theories
1. Psychoanalytic theories - Describe development as primarily unconscious & heavily colored by
emotion. Behavior is merely a surface characteristic, & the symbolic workings of the mind have to be
analyzed to understand behavior. Early experiences with parents are emphasized.
2. Freud's Theory
a. The id is the Freudian structure of personality that consists of instincts, which are an individual's
reservoir of psychic energy.
b. The ego deals with the demands of reality and uses reasoning to make decisions.
c. The superego is the morality of personality, the part that considers whether something is right
or wrong.
d. Freud's Stages
1. Oral stage: [Birth to 1.5 years] infants pleasure centers on the mouth
2. Anal stage: [1.5 to 3 years] child's pleasure focuses on the anus
3. Phallic stage: [3 to 6 years] child's pleasure focuses on the genitals
4. Latency stage: [6 years to puberty] child represses sexual interest and develops social &
intellectual skills
5. Genital stage: [puberty onward] A time of sexual reawakening; sources of sexual pleasure
becomes someone outside the family
3. Erickson's Psychosocial Theory
a. Said we develop in psychosocial stages, rather than psychosexual stages, as Freud maintained
b. Erickson's Theory - Includes 8 stages of human development. Each stage consists of a unique
developmental task that confronts individuals with a crisis that must be resolved.
c. Erickson's 8 Lifespan Stages
Erickson's Stages
Developmental Period
Trust vs. Mistrust
Infancy (1st year)
Autonomy vs Shame &
Doubt
Infancy (1-3 years)
Initiative vs Guilt
Early Childhood (preschool years, 3-5 years)
Industry vs Inferiority
Middle & Late Childhood (Elementary school years, 6 years
to puberty)
Identity vs Identity
Confusion
Adolescence (10 to 20 years)
Intimacy vs Isolation
Early Adulthood (20s, 30s)
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Generativity vs Stagnation Middle Adulthood (40s, 50s)
Integrity vs Despair
Late Adulthood (60s onward)
D. Evaluating the Psychoanalytic theories (contributions)
1. Early experiences play an important part in development
2. Family relationships are a central aspect of development
3. Personality can be better understood if it is examined developmentally
4. The mind is not all conscious; unconscious aspects of the mind need to be considered
5. In Erickson's theory, changes take place in adulthood as well as in childhood
E. Criticisms
1. The main concepts of psychoanalytic theories have been difficult to test scientifically
2. Much of the data used to support psychoanalytic theories come from individuals' reconstruction
of the past, often the distant past, & are of unknown accuracy.
3. The sexual underpinnings of development are given too much importance (especially in Freud's
theory)
4. The unconscious mind is given too much credit for influencing development
5. Psychoanalytic theories present an image of humans that is too negative (especially in Freud's
theory)
6. Psychoanalytic theories are culture- and gender-biased, treating western culture and males as
the measure for evaluating everyone (especially in Freud's theory)
B. Cognitive Theories
1. Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory
a. Piaget's Theory - States that children actively construct their understandings of the world & go
through 4 stages of cognitive development.
b. Piaget's 4 stages of cognitive development
1. Sensorimotor Stage (birth to 2 years): the infant constructs an understanding of the world
by coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions. An infant progresses from
reflexive, instinctual actions at birth to the beginnings of symbolic thought toward the end
of the stage
2. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years): The child begins to represent the world with words and
images. These words and images reflect increased symbolic thinking & go beyond the
connection of sensory information & physical action.
3. Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years): The child can now reason logically about
concrete events & classify objects into different sets.
4. Formal Operational Stage (11+ years): The adolescent reasons in more abstract, idealistic,
& logical ways.
2. Vygotsky's Sociocultural Cognitive Theory
a. Vygotsky said children actively construct their knowledge, but gave social interaction & culture
far more important roles in cognitive development than Piaget did.
b. Vygotsky's Theory - A sociocultural cognitive theory that emphasizes how culture & social
interaction guide cognitive development
c. Vygotsky's theory has stimulated considerable interest in the view that knowledge is situated &
collaborative
3. The Information-Processing Theory
a. Information-Processing Theory - Emphasizes that individuals manipulate information, monitor it,
& strategize about it. Central to this theory are the processes of memory & thinking
4. Evaluating the Cognitive Theories- Contributions
a. They present a positive view of development, emphasizing conscious thinking
b. They (especially Piaget's & Vygotsky's) emphasize the individual's active construction of
understanding
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c. Piaget's & Vygotsky's theories underscore the importance of examining developmental changes
in children's thinking
d. The information-processing theory offers detailed descriptions of cognitive processes.
5. Evaluating the Cognitive Theories- Criticisms
a. Piaget's stages are not as uniform as he theorized. Piaget also underestimated the cognitive
skills of infants & overestimated the cognitive skills of adolescents.
b. The cognitive theories do not give adequate attention to individual variations in cognitive
development.
c. Information-processing theory does not provide an adequate description of developmental
changes in cognition
d. Psychoanalytical theorists argue that the cognitive theories do not give enough credit to
unconscious thought.
C. Behavioral & Social Cognitive Theories
1. Pavlov's Classical Conditioning
a. Pavlov would ring a bell & give dogs food. Later they would hear the bell & salivate. The bell was
a neutral stimulus, producing a response originally produced by another stimulus (food)
b. John Watson made Little Albert afraid of a white rat by making a loud noise when Albert would
see the rat & scare him. Albert became afraid of the rat without the noise.
2. Skinner's Operant Conditioning
a. According to Skinner, through operant conditioning the consequences of a behavior produce
changes in the probability of the behavior's occurrence.
b. Uses rewards & punishments to shape behavior.
3. Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory
a. Social Cognitive Theory - The view of psychologists who emphasize behavior, environment, &
cognition as the key factors in development
b. His early research program focused heavily on observational learning (also called imitation or
modeling), which is learning that occurs through observing what others do.
c.
4. Evaluating Behavioral & Social Cognitive Theories- Contributors
a. Their emphasis on the importance of scientific research
b. Their focus on environmental determinants of behavior
c. The identification & explanation of observational learning (by Bandura)
d. The inclusion of person/cognitive factors (in social cognitive theory)
5. Evaluating the Behavioral & Social Cognitive Theories- Criticism
a. Too little emphasis on cognition (in Pavlov's & Skinner's theories)
b. Too much emphasis on environmental determinants
c. Inadequate attention to developmental changes
d. Inadequate consideration of human spontaneity & creativity
D. Ethological Theory
1. Ethology - stresses that behavior is strongly influenced by biology, is tied to evolution, & is
characterized by critical or sensitive periods
2. Konrad Lorenz showed animals (in his experiment geese) will think of the 1st thing they see as their
mother
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a. Called it imprinting
3. John Bowlby applied ethology to humans
4. Contributions
a. Increased focus on the biological & evolutionary basis of development
b. Use of careful observations in naturalistic settings
c. Emphasis on sensitive periods of development
5. Criticisms
a. Concepts of critical & sensitive periods perhaps too rigid
b. Too strong an emphasis on biological foundations
c. Inadequate attention to cognition
d. Better at generating research with animals than with humans
E. Ecological Theory
1. Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory - An environmental systems theory that focuses on five
environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, & chronosystem
2. Microsystem: The setting in which the individual lives.
3. Mesosystem: Relations between microsystems or connections between contexts.
4. Exosystem: links between a social setting in which the individual does not have an active role & the
individual's immediate context
5. Macrosystem: the culture in which individuals live
6. Chronosystem: The patterning of environmental events & transitions over the life course, as well as
sociohistorical circumstances.
7. Contributions
a. A systematic examination of macro & micro dimensions of environmental systems
b. Attention to connections between environmental settings (mesosystem)
c. Consideration of sociohistorical influences on development (chronosystem)
8. Criticisms of ecological theory
a. Too little attention to biological foundations of development, even with the added discussion of
biological influences
b. Inadequate attention to cognitive processes
c. Chart
Theory
Issues
Nature/Nurture
Early and Later
Experience
Continuity and
Discontinuity
Psychoanalytic Freud's biological determinism
interacting with early family
experiences; Erickson's more
balanced biological/cultural
interaction perspective
Early experiences in Emphasis on
the family very
discontinuity
important influences between stages
Cognitive
Childhood
Discontinuity
experiences
between stages in
important influences Piaget's theory;
no stages in
Vygotsky's theory
or the
informationprocessing
approach
Piaget's emphasis on interaction
and adaptation; environment
provides the setting for cognitive
structures to develop. Vygotsky's
theory involves interaction of
nature and nurture with strong
emphasis on culture. The
information-processing approach
has not addressed this issue
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extensively; mainly emphasizes
biological/ environment interaction
Behavioral
and Social
Cognitive
Environment viewed as the main
influence on development
Experiences
important at all
points in
development
Continuity with
no stages
Ethological
Strong biological view
Early experience
very important,
which can
contribute to
change early in
development; after
early critical or
sensitive period has
passed, stability
likely to occur
Discontinuity
because of early
critical or
sensitive period;
no stages
Ecological
Strong environmental view
Experiences
involving the five
environmental
systems important
at all points in
development
No stages but
little attention to
the issue
F. An Eclectic Theoretical Orientation
1. Eclectic Theoretical Orientation - An orientation that does not follow any one theoretical approach,
but rather selects from each theory whatever is considered the best in it.
3. Research methods for Collecting Data
A. Observation
1. To observe systematically, observations must be controlled, often in a laboratory.
2. Laboratory - A controlled setting in which many of the complex factors of the "real world" are
removed
3. Drawbacks of lab observation:
a. It is almost impossible to conduct research without the participants knowing they are being
studied.
b. Laboratory setting is unnatural & therefore can cause the participants to behave unnaturally
4. Naturalistic Observation - Observing behavior in real-world settings
B. Surveys & Interviews
C. Standardized Test
1. Standardized Test - A test with uniform procedures for administration & scoring.
D. Case Study
1. Case Study - An in-depth look at a single individual
E. Physiological measures
1. Blood samples for hormones, fMRI for brain activity
4. Research designs
A. Descriptive Research
1. Descriptive Research - Has the purpose of observing & recording behavior.
B. Correlation Research
1. Correlation Research - the goal is to describe the strength of the relationship between 2 or more
events or characteristics
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2. Correlation Coefficient - A number based on statistical analysis that is used to describe the degree of
association between 2 variables.
a. A range between -1 and +1 (0 meaning none)
C. Experimental Research
1. Experiment - A carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of the factors believed to influence
the behavior being studied are manipulated while all other factors are held constant.
2. Independent & Dependent Variables
a. An independent variable is manipulated, influential, experimental factor. It is a potential cause.
b. A dependent variable is a factor that can change in an experiment, in response to changes in the
independent variable.
3. Experimental & control groups
a. An experimental group is a group whose experience is manipulated.
b. A control group is a comparison group that is as much like the experimental group as possible &
that is treated in every way like the experimental group except for the manipulated factor
(independent variable)
D. Time Span of Research
1. Cross-Sectional Approach - A research strategy in which individuals of different ages are compared at
one time
2. Longitudinal Approach - A research strategy in which the same individuals are studied over a period of
time, usually several years or more.
5. Challenges in Child Development
A. Conducting Ethical Research
1. Informed consent: all participants must know what their participation will involve & what risks might
develop.
2. Confidentiality: researchers are responsible for keeping all the data gathered on individuals completely
confidential and, when possible, completely anonymous.
3. Debriefing: after the study has been completed, participants should be informed of its purpose & the
methods that were used.
4. Deception: researchers must ensure that the deception will not harm the participants
B. Minimizing Bias
1. Gender Bias
2. Cultural & Ethnic Bias
a. Ethnic Gloss - using an ethnic label such as African American or Latino in a superficial way that
portrays an ethnic group as being more homogenous than it really is.
Research Method
Observation
Theory



All theories emphasize some form of observation
Behavioral and social cognitive theories place the strongest emphasis on
laboratory observation
Ethological theory places the strongest emphasis on naturalistic observation
Interview/Survey


Psychoanalytic and cognitive studies (Piaget, Vygotsky) often use interviews
Behavioral, social cognitive, and ethological theories are the least likely to
use surveys or interviews
Standardized Test

None of the theories discussed emphasize the use of this method
Physiological Measures

None of the theories discussed address psychophysiological measures to
any significant degree
Case Study

Psychoanalytic theories (Freud, Erickson) are the most likely to use this
method
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Correlational Research

All of the theories use this research method, although psychoanalytic
theories are the least likely to use it
Experimental Research


The behavioral and social cognitive theories and the information processing
theories are the most likely to use the experimental method
Psychoanalytic theories are the least likely to use it

No theory described uses these methods more than any other
Cross-Sectional/
Longitudinal Methods