V. Developmental
Psychology
Developmental Psychology:
A branch of psychology that studies physical,
cognitive (linguistic), and social (emotional)
change throughout the life span.
Sometimes controversial:
How to raise a child?
What to expect in late adulthood?
Themes: nature vs. nurture
(Universal vs. individual developmental patterns)
A. Prenatal Development...
A. Prenatal Development
1. Physical/Biological development
sperm meets the egg……
The
zygote: a fertilized egg. Conception to
two
weeks. Rapid cell division.
embryo: 2 – 8 weeks.
organ systems develop.
fetus:
9 weeks to birth.
A. Prenatal Development
a. Zygote:
Sex Determination
Mom - X-chromosome
Dad - Y or X-chromosome
i. Potential Problems
Turner’s Syndrome (f’s with X0)
Kleinfelter’s Syndrome (m’s XXY)
Double Y Syndrome (m’s XYY)
A. Prenatal Development
 b. Embryonic stage – Critical/Sensitive Period:
Cell differentiation (organ development)
Possible problems/difficulties.
Importance of Placenta:
But:
Smoking
Drugs
Alcohol: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
Where influence of “nurture” is evident.
A. Prenatal Development
c. Fetal stage – amazing!
smelling, hearing, tasting, breathing, kicking,
respond to light and touch.
leading to.....
B. Newborn/Early
Development
 1. Physical Development
Newborns HIGHLY underestimated.
a. Born with reflexes.
b. Born with other preferences:
 Mom’s smell
 Human faces and voices
How could we possibly know this?
Habituation: decrease in responding
after repeated stimulation (e.g. gaze
less at stimuli).
Habituation
Time spent
looking
(seconds)
40
30
20
10
0
1
2
3
4
5
Presentation
6
7
8
c. Yet – still “immature” brain
Neurons “bloom” when prenatal.
Neural connections “bloom” during infancy.
Neural connections also “pruned.”
Adaptive cerebral cortex becomes more complex and
elaborated through the development of neural
networks.
Interconnected neurons are modified by feedback:
strengthened to produce a response (output) - to certain
input.
B. Newborn/Early
Development
1. Physical Development
d. Brain development & plasticity.
Plasticity: Brain’s capacity for modification.
Importance of cerebral cortex.
Evidence of brain
plasticity.
B. Newborn/Early
Development
1. Physical Development
d. Brain development & plasticity.
 Human examples.
“Use it or lose it”
Brain reorganization after injury/damage.
B. Newborn/Early
Development
2. Motor Development (see text).
3. Cognitive Development
- Thinking, knowing, remembering, communicating.
- Related to physical development:
(development of neural networks)
JEAN PIAGET
PIAGET
a. Basics
Use of Schemas.
Assimilation: incorporate new experiences into
existing framework.
Accommodation: Also fit/modify/create
schemas to incorporate new experiences.
** Development occurs in distinct stages – not
gradual change.
**To understand development, understand
“errors” children make.
PIAGET
b. Stages of Cognitive Development
i. Sensorimotor (birth - 2 years)
“Children can’t think” - know world through motor actions &
senses.
Experience orderly increase in more complex cognition.
Around 8 months:
Object Permanence: The awareness that objects
continue to exist when not perceived.
Piaget: Stages of Cog. Development
- ii. Preoperational Stage (preschool - 6 years)
Advances in memory & more verbal
able to “pretend”
Not capable of mental “operations”.
Conservation: quantities remain the same
despite superficial changes in appearance.
Not capable of taking another’s point of view.
Egocentric: interpret world from perspective of
self only.
Piaget: Stages of Cog. Development
- iii. Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)
Capable of logical reasoning.
Able to take perspective of others.
But - no thinking on abstract level.
- iv. Formal Operational Stage (12 - adult)
Can think abstractly. Use imagined realities.
Engage in moral reasoning.
Implications of the stages?
PIAGET
c. Review of Piaget’s Theory
Concerns and Updates
- Underestimated children’s abilities
- object permanence at earlier age
- conservation at an earlier age
- egocentricity
- Problem with “all or none” viewpoint
- What does stage theory imply about nature/nurture?
- Vygotsky: scaffolding
d. Emotional/Social
Development
Social “reflexes”
Emotion/Social Development
What is influential in emotional/social development?
Early relationships with caregivers.
a. Attachment Theory
Attachment: bond between child and parent (or
caregiver). Originally thought...
nourishment/ survival (evolution)
But realized more to it ...
i. Harlow’s Monkey
Studies
Wire vs. cloth
monkeys
d. Emotional/Social
Development
i. Why such upset?
For animals – may be “critical period” for
forming the attachment with caregiver.
imprinting
Lorenz
Not quite as concrete for humans. Why?
See critical role environment or “nurture” plays
in emotional/social development.
For humans, what is a nurturing environment?
What fosters healthy attachment?
Began study of human attachment.
ii. Bowlby: WWII institutions.
iii. Mary Ainsworth
Focus on mom’s behavior.
Attachment serves to provide kids with secure
base from which to explore.
Put forth: Mom’s response to baby determined
the mom/infant relationship, baby’s behavior, and
type of attachment.
Used “strange situation” paradigm.
Ainsworth - attachment
3 attachment styles
1. Securely attached
2. Anxious/ambivalent (resistant)
3. Anxious/avoidant.
Do these attachment influence people
later in life?
secure = more confidence, better problem
solvers, emotionally healthier, more sociable
Attachment
iv. Hazan & Shaver
Early attachment influences how we deal with
relationships as adults.
Secure lovers: happy, trusting, friends, etc.
Anx/ambiv: obsessed, extreme sexual attraction,
jealousy.
Anx/avoid: fear of intimacy, emotional highs and
lows, jealousy.
Attachment
Ainsworth: focus on “nurture” - MOM
What about “nature”?
v. Influence of temperament:
Personality and emotional reactivity with which
people are born.
Evidence for influence of temperament.
(longitudinal studies)
Evidence for influence of nurture.
Could nature and nurture interact?
“Goodness of Fit”
For emotional/social development thus far,
what factors seem to be missing?
Ainsworth: focus on mom.
Different childrearing practices across cultures?
Dad? Other caregivers?
Very western, 50’s perspective
B. Issues to consider today for
social/emotional development.
Day Care?
Basic conclusion: good day care has no
negative effects on children.
Divorce?
Basic conclusion: kids from divorced
families sometimes have more problems.
Other factors to consider?
Conclusions about
development.
Trying to answer the question: how did
we get here?
Prenatal development.
Physically (brain development).
Cognitively.
Socially/ emotionally
See influence of nature and nurture at
each point.
Piaget’s Stages of
Cognitive Development
Typical Age
Range
Description
of Stage
Developmental
Phenomena
Birth to nearly 2 years
Sensorimotor
Experiencing the world through
senses and actions (looking,
touching, mouthing)
•Object permanence
•Stranger anxiety
About 2 to 6 years
Preoperational
Representing things
with words and images
but lacking logical reasoning
•Pretend play
•Egocentrism
•Language development
About 7 to 11 years
Concrete operational
•Conservation
Thinking logically about concrete
•Mathematical
events; grasping concrete analogies
transformations
and performing arithmetical operations
About 12 through
adulthood
Formal operational
Abstract reasoning
•Abstract logic
•Potential for
moral reasoning