Chapter 3: Infancy &
Childhood
Section 1: Physical, Perceptual, and
Language Development
Section 2: Cognitive & Emotional
Development
Section 3: Parenting Styles & Social
Development
Section 1: Physical, Perceptual,
and Language Development
• Developmental psychology: the study of
changes that occur as an individual matures
• Nature and Nurture
• Newborns
– Capacities
• Grasping reflex: an infant’s clinging response to a
touch on the palm of the hand
• Rooting reflex: an infant’s response in turning toward
the source o touching that occurs anywhere around
the mouth
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• Physical Development
– Infant average birth weight = 7.3 pounds
– Maturation: the internally programmed growth of a child
– Learning: a relatively permanent change in behavior that
happens as a result o experience
• Perceptual Development
– Visual cliff
• Language Development
– Can animals use language?
• chimps
• Grammar
– How do children acquire language?
Telegraphic speech: the kind of verbal utterances in
which words are left out, but the meaning is usually clear
• Where my doll
• I goed to school
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Section 2: Cognitive & Emotional
Development
• Cognitive Development
– How does knowing change?
• Schema: a conceptual framework a person uses to make
sense of the world
• Assimilation: the process of fitting objects and experiences
into one’s schemas
• Accommodation: the adjustment of one’s schemas to include
newly observed events and experiences
• Object permanence: a child’s realization that an object exisits
even when he/she cannot see or touch it
• Representational thought: the intellectual ability of a child to
picture something in his/her mind
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• The principle of conservation
– Conservation: the principle that a given quality
does not change when its appearance
changes
– Egocentric: a young child’s inability to
understand another person’s perspective
• Jean Piaget & the stages of cognitive development
– Sensorimotor
» Birth – 2 years
– Preoperational
» 2-7 years
– Concrete operations
» 7-11 years
– Formal operations
» 11- and beyond
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• Emotional Development
– Experiments on animals
• Imprinting: inherited tendency of some newborns
to follow the first moving object they see
• Critical period: a specific time in development
when certain skills or abilities are most easily
learned
• Surrogate Mothers
– Wire vs. cloth
– Human Infants
• Attachment at 6 months – 3 years
– Separation anxiety
• Stranger situation
– Secure attachment
– Avoidant attachment
– Resistant attachment
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Section 3: Parenting Styles &
Social Development
• Parenting Styles
– Authoritarian: parents attempt to control and evaluate
the behavior and attitudes of children and
adolescents in accordance with a set code of
conduct
– Democratic/Authoritative: children and adolescents
participate in decisions affecting their lives
– Permissive/Laissez-Faire: children and adolescents
have the final say; parents are less controlling and
have a non-punishing, accepting attitude toward
children
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• Effects of Parenting Styles
–
–
–
–
Establishment of limits
Assuming responsibility
Indentifying with parents
Independence
• Child Abuse
– The physical or mental injury, sexual abuse, negligent
treatment, or mistreatment of children under the age of
18 by adults entrusted with their care
• 906,000 confirmed cases in 2003
– Why is there child abuse?
– What constitutes child abuse?
• Spanking?
• Yelling?
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• Social Development
–Socialization: the process of
learning the rules of behavior of the
culture within which an individual is
born and will live
–How can we describe socialization?
–What is the reason for
socialization?
–Give examples of how we learn
socialization in school…
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Freud’s Theory of
Psychosexual Development
• Oral Stage –infant seeks pleasure around mouth (0-18 months)
• Anal Stage – infant seeks pleasure centered on functions of
elimination (18months- 3 years)
• Phallic Stage – infant seeks pleasure centered around genitals (3 –
6 years)
• Latency Stage – sexual thoughts repressed; focus on developing
social and intellectual skills (6 years – puberty)
• Genital Stage – sexual desires renewed; individual seeks
relationships with others (puberty through adulthood)
• Identification – the process by which a child adopts the values and
principles of the same gender parent
• Sublimation – the process of redirecting sexual impulses into
learning tasks
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Erikson’s Theory of
Psychosocial Development
• Life periods in which an individual’s goal is to
satisfy desires associated with social needs
• Stages
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
1 –trust versus mistrust (early infancy)
2 –autonomy versus shame and doubt (1-3)
3 –initiative versus guilt (3-6)
4 –industry versus inferiority (6-12)
5 –identity versus role confusion (early teens)
6 –intimacy versus isolation (young adult)
7 –generality versus stagnation (middle adult)
8 –ego integrity versus despair (older adult)
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Cognitive-Development Approach
• Games and Play
– Role taking: children’s play that involves
assuming adult roles, thus enabling the child
to experience different points of view
•
•
•
•
Teacher
Storekeeper
Ninja
Parent
– So how do these prepare the child for later
life?
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Moral Development
• Moral reasoning: deciding what is right or wrong
– The dying wife and the robbery
• What is a moral dilemma?
– Stealing a loaf of bread for a hungry child
• Is that a moral dilemma?
– Examples
• Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
– Pre-conventional
• Obedience and punishment
• Instrumental relativist
– Conventional
• Good/bad
• Law and order
– Post-Conventional
• Social contract
• Universal ethics principle
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