Ch 10: Infancy and Childhood
Sec. 1: Developmental Psychology
Main Idea
The field of developmental psychology examines physical, social, and cognitive development.
Heredity and environment control different aspects of development to varying degrees.
• Developmental psychology is the
• Psychologists use two methods to study people across the life span.
– The longitudinal method,
– The cross-sectional method,
• Developmental psychologists are concerned with two general issues:
– Ways in which heredity and environmental influences contribute to human development
– Whether development occurs gradually or in stages
• Psychologists have long debated the extent to which human behavior is determined by heredity (nature) or environment (nurture).
• Maturation is

• A critical period is a stage or point in development during which a person is best suited to learn a particular skill or behavior pattern.
• Arnold Gesell proposed that maturation played the most important role in development. John Watson’s view, however, favored the tabula rasa view of development.
Stages versus continuity
• Developmental psychologists debate whether
• Maturational theorists generally believe
• Jean Piaget is
• Other psychologists, including J. H. Flavell, argue that cognitive development is a gradual and continuous process.
Sec. 2: Physical Development
Main Idea
In the womb and in infancy and childhood, humans go through a series of physical developments that are generally sequential.
Physical Growth
• Changes in reflexes, gains in height and weight, motor development, and perceptual development are examples of physical development.
• The most dramatic gains in height and weight occur before an infant’s birth.

• During infancy—the period from birth to the age of two years—dramatic gains continue in height and weight.
• During childhood—the period from two years old to adolescence—children gain on average two to three inches and four to six pounds each year until they reach the start of adolescence.
Reflexes
• A reflex is
• Reflexes are inborn,
• Reflexes include:
– Grasping
– Rooting
– Sucking
– Swallowing
– The Moro reflex
– The Babinski reflex
• As children develop, many reflexes, such as rooting and sucking, disappear. Some reflexes remain and others come under voluntary control.
Motor Development
• The development of purposeful movement is called motor development.
• Gross motor development refers to babies’ progress in coordinating major muscle groups.

• Fine motor development refers to coordination of the hands, face, and other small muscles.
• The point at which various types of motor development occur is different from infant to infant and even from culture to culture.
Perceptual Development
• Infants tend to prefer
• Infants’ perceptual preferences are influenced
• Infants’ depth perception seems to be
Psychology in today’s world
Raising a Better Child
In the past, ideas about how to raise children generally came from one’s own family, religion, and other institutions within the community. Beginning around the 1900s, however, the theories of psychologists increasingly began to inform American parenting strategies. Why did parents look beyond traditional sources to learn how to raise their children?
• Social upheavals of the last hundred years give clues to the answer.
• One popular parenting idea is the “Mozart effect,” which says that playing Mozart’s music helps boost children’s intelligence. Results have been shown to be limited, however
• Another idea deals with the importance of play.
• Some parenting books and theories have more merit than others. Parents need to do their homework when looking for help with their kids.

Sec. 3: Social Development
Main Idea
Social development in infants and children has much to do with parents’ behaviors, histories, personalities, and abilities. Other caregivers are involved in raising many
American children.
Attachment
Attachment is an
• Up until four months of age,
• By about four months, infants develop strong attachments to their main caregivers, usually their mothers.
• By about eight months, some infants develop stranger anxiety and separation anxiety.
• Based on studies with monkeys, researchers have concluded that attachment grows more from contact comfort than from feeding.
• Bonds of attachment between mothers and infants appear to provide a secure base from which infants can explore their environments.
• For many animals, attachment is an instinct.
• In a process called imprinting,
• Children do not imprint. It takes several months before children become attached to their main caregivers.

Secure Versus Insecure Attachment
• When mothers or other primary caregivers are affectionate and reliable,
• When caregivers are unresponsive or unreliable,
• Secure infants may mature into secure children.
Autism
• Autism is a developmental disorder
• People with autism have a very wide variety of symptoms from very severe to very subtle. Mild autism can go undiagnosed for years.
• Parents and doctors often recognize symptoms of autism during infancy and early childhood.
Styles of Parenting
Warm or Cold?
• Warm parents
• Cold parents may not be as affectionate toward their children or appear to enjoy them as much.
• Research suggests that children fare better when their parents are warm to them.
• Children of warm parents are more likely to be well adjusted.

Strict or Permissive?
• Some parents are strict with their children,
• Some parents are permissive with their children,
• Authoritative parents combine
• Authoritarian parents believe in
Child abuse and neglect
• Most parents are kind and loving to their children.
• Yet child abuse is relatively widespread and seriously underreported.
• The following factors are associated with child abuse and neglect:
– Stress, especially from unemployment or poverty
– A history of physical or sexual abuse in at least one parent’s family
– Acceptance of violence as a way of coping with stress
– Lack of attachment to the child
– Substance abuse
– Rigid attitudes about child rearing
• Studies show that children who are abused run a higher risk of developing psychological problems.
• Child abuse tends to run in families.

Child care
• Most American parents work outside the home and
• Millions of preschoolers are
• Studies of the effects of day care on parent-child attachments have shown mixed results.
• Day care seems to have mixed effects on other aspects of children’s social development.
• The quality of care seems to be more important than who provides it.
Self-esteem
Self-esteem, the
• Secure attachment
• Another influence is
• Children who receive unconditional positive regard usually develop high self-esteem.
• Children who receive conditional positive regard may have lower self-esteem.
• Girls tend to display greater competence in reading and general academic skills and boys tend to display competence in math and physical skills.

• This may be because this is what girls and boys are supposed to be good at.
• It is not for a genetic reason.
Age and Self-Esteem
• Although children gain in competence as they grow older,
• It seems to reach a low point at about age 12 or 13 and increases again during adolescence.
The Self-Esteem Trap
• By the 1970s, greater self-esteem was thought of by many as a potential cure-all for society’s problems. Showering children with praise regardless of their performance was the common practice.
• Findings in 2000 showed that high self-esteem in children did not lead to higher grades and that high self-esteem did not make violent kids any less so or keep kids from becoming bullies.
• Focusing on building self-esteem at the expense of other qualities, such as self-control or self-discipline, may be misguided.
Current Research in Psychology
Inside the Autistic Mind
People with autism have a difficult road in life. The list of possible problems associated with autism is long and troubling. Recent research is looking deep into the brains of people with autism to help explain and attempt to deal with the condition.
• Researchers are observing brain activity in mother-child pairs where the child has autism in order to learn about differences in brain functions in people with autism versus people without autism.

• Other research focuses on the study of mirror neurons.
• Studies of the mirror neuron systems of people with autism show that they responded when they performed an activity, but not when they observed it.
• These two areas of research may help doctors diagnose autism earlier and help in the development of treatments.
Sec. 4: Cognitive Development
Main Idea
The study of cognitive development looks at how people’s thought processes change and evolve over time. Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg are two influential theorists in this area.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Assimilation and Accommodation
• Piaget believed that human beings use
• Assimilation is
• Accommodation is
The Sensorimotor Stage
• The first stage of cognitive development is the sensorimotor stage.
• This stage is characterized by learning to coordinate sensation and perception with motor activity.
• It is also characterized by object permanence.

The Preoperational Stage
• The next stage is the preoperational stage.
• It is characterized by one-dimensional thinking and egocentrism.
The Concrete-Operational Stage
• In the concrete-operational stage,
• They are logical only when they think about
• They focus on two dimensions of a problem at the same time.
• They are less egocentric than children in earlier stages.
The Formal-Operational Stage
• The final stage in Piaget’s theory is the formal-operational stage.
• People in this stage
• They can deal with
• They can solve problems and use imagination.
Criticism of Piaget’s Theories
• Some psychologists have questioned the accuracy of Piaget’s views.

• Recent research indicates that preschoolers are less egocentric than Piaget’s research suggested.
• His theories are still respected, however.
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
The Preconventional Level
Children through the age of nine use preconventional moral reasoning to base their judgments of the consequences of behavior.
The Conventional Level
• People at this level use conventional moral reasoning to make judgments
The Postconventional Level
• Reasoning based on a person’s own moral standards of goodness is called
postconventional moral reasoning.
Bias in Kohlberg’s Theory
• Kohlberg’s stages and scoring system may have been biased to favor males.