By Professor James

Chapter 1
Human development: scientific study of the processes of development that humans undergo from
conception. Both changing and stable characteristics are studied.

Early approaches

Early forerunners of the scientific study of development: baby biographies (journals kept to record
the early development of a child.
Charles Darwin first emphasised the developmental nature of infant behaviour and gave baby
biographies scientific respectability.
Important trends in western world by the end of the 19th century: unlocking the mystery of
conception, the nature vs nurture discussion, discovery of germs and immunization increasing
infant survival rates, anti-child labour laws allowing for more time spent in school, parents' and
teachers' increased concern for identifying and meeting childrens' developmental needs.
Adolescence was not considered a separate period of development until G. Stanley Hall published
Adolescence (1904/1916).
Hall was also one of the first to study aging and 6 years after he published Senescence: The Last
Half of Life (1922) Stanford University opened the first major scientific research unit devoted to
aging.
Study of aging did not blossom until a generation later.

Studying the Life Span

Life-span development: The concept of a lifelong process of development that can be studied
scientifically.
Life-span studies in US grew out of research designed to follow children through adulthood. (e.g.
The Stanford Studies of Giften Children, Fels Research Institute Study, Berkeley Growth and
Guidance Studies, Oakland (Adolescent Growth Study are some significant ones beginning around
1930).
Due to human complexity life-span development's study is interdisciplinary.
The goals of Human development as a field evolved to include description, explanation, prediction
and modification of behaviour. It is a field that evolves with changes in cultural attitudes,
technology and new studies challenging previous conceptions.

Developmental processes: Change and Stability

Two kinds of developmental change

Quantative change: A change in number/amount e.g. Height, weight, vocab, frequency of
communication, aggressive behaviour
Qualitative change: A change in kind/structure/organisation. Marked by emergence of new
phenomena that cannot easily be anticipated on the basis of earlier functioning e.g. Change from
embryo to baby, nonverbal child to child who understands words and can communicate verbally.
Underlying stability or constancy of personality and behaviour also studied. Broad dimensions of
personality seem to stabilize before or during young adulthood.

Domains of Development

Change occurs in various domains, or dimensions, of the self: physical development, cognitive
development, psychosocial development. They are intertwined.
Physical development: growth of body/brain, sensory capacities, motor skills, health.
Cognitive development: change and stability in mental abilities
Psychosocial development: changes and stability in emotions, personality, social relationships

Periods of the Life Span

The concept of a division of the life span into periods is a social construction: an idea about the
nature of reality that is widely accepted by members of a society at a particular time, on the basis of
shared subjective perceptions or assumptions. The reality is that there are no clear demarcations in
this division except for the ones that people impose. Alot of characteristic events as occur at times
that vary from individual to individual and so does an individual's attitude/reaction towards the
events.
(See table 1-1 on pages 12-13 for an overview of the developments in the 8 periods of the life span:
prenatal, infancy and toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, adolescence, young
adulthood, middle adulthood, late adulthood).

Heredity, Environment and Maturation

Some influences on development originate primarily with heredity: the genetic endowment
inherited from biological parents at conception. Other influences come largely from the inner and
outer environment: the world outside the self beginning in the womb, and the learning that comes
from experience. Individual differences increase as people grow older. Many typical changes of
infancy and early childhood seem to be tied to maturation of the body and brain- the unfolding of a
natural sequence of physical changes and behaviour patterns, including readiness to master new
abilities such as walking and talking.
Milestones or Landmarks of development: average ages for the occurence of certain events.
Only if deviation from the average is extreme should we consider development exceptionally
advanced/delayed.

Major Contextual Influences

Human beings are social beings and develop within a social and historical context.
Family
Nuclear family: two-generational kinship, economic and household unit consisting of one or two
parents and their biological, adopted or stepchildren. Historically dominant in western societies.
Extended family: multigenerational kinship network of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and
more distant relatives. Traditional pattern of societal organisation in societies like those of Asia,
Africa, Latin America. Becoming less typical in countries with developing industrialisation and
migration to urban centres.
At the same time, with the aging of the population, multigenerational family bonds are becoming
increasingly important in western societies.
Socioeconomic Status and Neighbourhood
Socioeconomic Status (SES): combines several related factors, including income, education and
occupation. It is generally not SES itself but the factors associated with it that impact developmental
outcomes.
Most powerful aspects of how neighbourhood composition affects development seem to be average
neighbourhood income and human capital the presence of educated, employed adults who can
build the community's economic base and provide models of what a young person can hope to
achieve.
Threats to children's well being multiply if several risk factors conditions that increase the
likelihood of a negative outcome coexist.
Culture and Race/Ethnicity
Culture refers to a society's or group's total way of life, including customs, traditions, beliefs,
values, language, and physical products all of the learned behaviour passed on from parents to
children. A culture is an everchanging thing that is influenced by other cultures.
Some cultures have variant subcultures associated with certain groups, usually ethnic groups
people united by ancestry, religion, language, and/or national origins, which contributes to a sense
of shared identity and shared attitudes, beliefs and values within a society.

The term race was historically viewed as a biological category but is now considered a social one,
similar to ethnicity.
Many studies take into account only one ethnic group (the dominant one) or compare only two
groups. Many studies cannot capture all of the variations.
The Historical Context
At one time little attention was paid to the historical context the time in which people grow up.
This came into focus as the early longitudonal studies extented into adulthood.
Glen H. Elder Jr. noted the importance of a child's age when the family is experiencing the effects
of an economic crisis. He also noted how the effects of the economic crisis in the 1930s on the
parents affected the mother of the family less than the Farm Crisis in the Midwest in the 1980s due
to the mother's economic involvement. This illustrates the influence of the historical context.

Normative and Nonnormative Influences

Normative event or influence is experienced in a similar way by most people in a group.

Normative age-grade influences are highly similar for people in a particular agre group and include
biological events ans social events. The influence of social events is more likely to differ across
countries and cultures.
Normative history-grade influences are common to a particular cohort: a group of people born
around the same time.
Nonnormative influences are unusual events that have a major impact on individual lives. They are
either typical events that occur at an atypical time of life or atypical events. May be negative as well
as positive events. People can help create their own nonnormative life events and this participate
actively in their own development.

Timing of Influences: Critical or Sensitive Periods

Imprinting: phenomenon demonstrated by Konrad Lorenz in his duckling experiment where the
ducklings would become attached to the first animate thing they saw after birth. Lorenz: result of
predisposition toward learning: the readiness of an organism's nervous system to acquire certain
information during a brief critical period in early life.
Critical period: specific time when a given event, or its absence, has a specific impact on
development. Critical periods are not absolutely fixed.
Human beings experience critical periods as well, but with regards to most aspects of development
the term sensitive periods is more apt. This is a period in which a person is especially responsive to
certain kinds of experience. (See box 1-2 on pages 20-21)

Baltes's Life-Span Developmental Approach

Paul B. Baltes and colleagues have identified 6 key principles of the life-span developmental
approach. They are a widely accepted conceptual framework for the study of life-span development.
(read through this section on page 19 for a more detailed explanation)
1. Development is lifelong
2. Development involves both gain and loss
3. Relative influences of biology and culture shift over the life span
4. Development involves a changing allocation of resources
5. Development is modifiable
6. Development is influenced by the historical and cultural context

Theories of Development

Erik Erikson: Psychosocial Development

Erik Erikson (1902-1944) German-born psychoanalyst originally part of Freud's circle in Vienna.
Modified and extended Freudian theory by emphasising society's influence, pioneer in life-span

perspective (as opposed to Freud's perspective that childhood experiences permanently shape
personality.)
Theory of psychosocial development covers eight stages across lifespan, each stage involving a
crisis (later dubbed conflicting or competing tendencies) in personality that is particular to that
stage but will remain an issue to some degree throughout life but must be satisfactorily solved for
healthy ego development.
The conflicting tendencies are Positive vs. Negative but some degree of the negative tendency is
required for healthy functioning. Successful outcome of a stage leads to development of a virtue.
Erikson's theory has held up better than Freud's psychosexual theory but some of his concepts do
not lend themselves to rigorous testing.
1. Basic trust vs Mistrust. (birth to 12-18 months) Virtue: Hope Infant develops sense of
whether world is good and safe place.
2. Autonomy vs shame and doubt.(12-18 months to 3 years) Virtue: Will Child develops
balance of independence and self sufficiency over shame and doubt.
3. Initiative vs guilt. (3-6 years) Virtue: Purpose. Child develops initiative when trying out
new activities and is not overwhelmed by guilt.
4. Industry vs inferiority (6- puberty) Virtue: Skill. Child must learn skills of the culture or face
feelings of incompetence.
5. Identity vs confusion (puberty-young adulthood) Virtue: Fidelity. Adolescent must
determine own sense of selfe or experience confusion about roles.
6. Intimacy vs isolation (young adulthood) Virtue: Love. Person seeks to make commitments
to others; if unsuccessful, may suffer from isolation and self-absorption.
7. Generativity vs stagnation (middle adulthood) Virtue: Care. Mature adult is concerned with
establishing and guiding the next generation or else feel personal impoverishment.
8. Ego integrity vs despair (late adulthood) Virtue: Wisdom. Elderly person achieves
acceptance of own life, allowing acceptance of death, or else despairs over inability to relive
life.

Social learning (Social cognitive) theory

Albert Bandura (b.1925) developed many of the principles of the social learning theory: impetus
for development comes from the person as opposed to environment being chief impetus.
Classic social learning theory maintains that people learn appropriate social behaviour by observing
and imitating models (other people): modeling or observational learning. People initiate or
advance their own learning by choosing models to imitate. Observational learning can also occur
without imitation. What is imitated depends on what people perceive as valued in their culture.
Applied behaviour analysis: combination of modeling and conditioning which can be used to help
eliminate undesirable behaviours and encourage socially desirable ones.
Social cognitive theory: Bandura's (1989) newest version of social learning theory. People observe
models and learn chunks of behaviour and mentally put them together into complex new
behaviour patterns.
Through feedback, children gradually form standards for juding their own actions and become more
selective in choosing models who exemplify those standards. Develop a sense of self-efficacy or
confidence that they have the characteristics required to succeed.

Cognitive perspective

Cognitive perspective focuses on thought processes and the behaviour that reflects those processes.
Jean Piaget's Cognitive-Stage Theory
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) Swiss theoretician thanks to whom we know most of what we know about
how children think. Took an organismic perspective, viewing cognitive development as the product
of childrens' efforts to understand and act on their world.
His clinical method combined observation with flexible questioning.
Cognitive development begins with an inborn ability to adapt to the environment.

Four qualitatively different stages representing universal patterns of development with a new way to
operate in every stage:
1. Sensorimotor (birth - 2 years): Infant gradually becomes able to organise activities in
relation to the environment through sensory and motor activity.
2. Preoperational (2 -7 years): Child develops a representational system and uses symbols to
represent people, places, and events. Language and imaginative play are important
manifestations of this stage. Thinking still not logical.
3. Concrete operations (7-11): Child can solve problems logically if they are focused on the
here and now, but cannot think abstractly.
4. Formal operations (11 years through adulthood): Person can think abstractly, deal with
hypothetical situations, and think about possibilities.
Cognitive growth occurs through three interrelated processes:
1. Organisation: The tendency to create increasingly complex schemes: cognitive structures:
systems of knowledge or ways of thinking that incorporate increasingly accurate images of
reality. Organised patterns of behaviour used to think about and act in a situation. Become
increasingly complex and in some cases separate schemes are integrated into a single
scheme to allow simultanious actions.
2. Adaptation: How children handle new information in light of what they already know.
Involves 2 steps:
3.
1. Assimilation: Taking in new information and incorporating it into existing cognitive structures.
2. Accommodation: Changing one's cognitive structures to include the new information
4. Equilibrilation: Dictates shift from assimilation to accommodation. A constant striving for
a stable balance. When new information cannot be handled within existing cognitive
structures (unbalance or disequilibrium) new mental patterns are organised to integrate it
and create balance or equilibrium.
Criticism: Piaget's observations have yielded much information and some surprising insights but he
has seriously underestimated abilities of infants and young children. His distinct stages are also
questioned, instead, evidence suggests cognitive development is more gradual and continuous.
Also, his idea of thinking developing as a single, universal progression of stages has been
challenged. Cognitive processes seem closely tied to specific thought content and context of a
problem and the kinds of information and thoughts a culture considers important.
Finally, focus on formal logic as the climax of cognitive development is too narrow.
The Information-Processing Approach
Information-processing approach: attempts to explain cognitive development by analysing the
processes involved in perceiving and handling information. Framework rather than a single theory.
Computer based models: Some information-processing theorists compare the brain to a computer
with sensory perceptions as the input and behaviour as the output. Researches infer
(deduce/conclude) what is going on between stimulus-response by conducting studies and using the
studies computational models or flow charts analysing the specific steps people go through in
gathering, storing, retrieving and using information.
Neo-Piagetian Theories
During the 1980s in response to criticisms of Piaget's theory, neo-Piagetian developmental
psychologists began to integrate some elements of his theory with the information-processing
approach. They focus on specific concepts, strategies and skills rather than a single, general system
of increasingly logical mental operations and believe that children develop cognitively by becoming
more efficient ad processing information.

Contextual

Lev Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934) : Russian psychologist, prominent proponent of contextual

perspective: development can only be understood in its social contexts. Individual is inseperable
from environment rather than a separate entity interacting with the environment.
Sociocultural theory: Growth as a collaborative process. Children learn through social interaction,
shared activities help internalise their society's way of thinking and to make those ways their own.
Cognitive skills are acquired as part of their induction into a way of life.
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): The gap between what children are able to do and what
they are not quite ready to accomplish by themselves. An adult or more advanced peer must help
them cross this zone. Scaffolding is the temporary support given to the child to do a task until it can
do it alone. In the course of the collaboration, responsibility for directing and monitoring learning
gradually shifts to the child.
Tests based on ZPD provide valuable alternative to standard intelligence tests, and the prescribed
expert guidance is also beneficial to many children. Contextual perspective also reminds us of
cultural differences in terms of the norms related to development.
Rather than an all-encompassing theory of development, different minitheories are used to
explain specific phenomena, as well as the interplay between physical, cognitive and psychosocial
domains. There is growing awareness of the importance of context as well.

Chapter 3

Chromosomal Abnormalities

About 1 in ever 156 children born in western countries is estimated to have a chromosomal
abnormality. Some are inherited and others result from accidents during prenatal development.
Some are caused by an extra and some others by a missing sex chromosome.
Other chromosomal abnormalities occur in the autosomes. Down Syndrome: the most common of
these, responsible for about one-third of all cases of moderate-to-severe retardation. Also called
trisomy-21 usually caused by an extra 21st chromosome or the transolation of a part thereof.
Most obvious physical characteristic is downward-sloping skin fold at the inner corners of the eyes.
Around 1 in every 700 babies born alive has Down syndrome. Risk is greater with older parents;
when the mother is under age 35 it's more likely to be hereditary. Extra chromosome seems to come
from the mother's ovum in 95% of the cases. Other 5% related to father.
Prognosis for Down syndrom children is brighter than was once thought. As adults, many live in
small group homes and support themselves, tend to do well in structured job situations. More than
70% live into their 60s but with special risk of developing Alzheimer's.

Prenatal Development
Gestation: The approximately 9-month period of development between conception and birth.
Gestational age: age from conception.
Zygote: Fertilised ovum.
Morphogens: molecules produced by identifiable genes that are responsible for the transformation
of vertebrates (presumably including humans) from a zygote into a creature with a specific shape
and pattern. Morphogens are switched on after fertilization and begin sculpting the bodyparts.

The Stages of Prenatal Development

Takes place in three stages: germinal, embryonic and fetal. Original single celled zygote grows into
an embryo and then a fetus.
Two fundamental principles of development:
Cephalocaudal principle: Development proceeds from the head to the lower part of the trunk.
Proximodistal principle: Development proceeds from parts near the center of the body to the outer
ones.
See table 3-4 on pages 88 and 89 for an oversight of the development.

Germinal Stage (Fertilisation to 2 Weeks)

Zygote divides, becomes more complex, and is implanted in the wall of the uterus.
Within 36 hours after fertilisation it enters a period of rapid cell division and duplication (mitosis).
72 hours after fertilisation it has divided into 16-32 cells, a day later 64 cells. Continues until 800
billion or more specialised cells that make up the human body.
During this mitosis it is making its way down the fallopian tupe to the uterus (3-4 days). Its form
changes into a fluid-filled sphere (blastocyst) which floats freely in the uterus for 1-2 days and then
begins to implant itself in the uterine wall. Blastocyst actively participates in this process through a
complex system of hormonally regulated signalling.
Cell differentiation begins and cells cluster around the edge of the blastocyst to form the embryonic
disk, a thickened cell mass from which the embryo begins to develop. It is already differentiating
into two layers: ectoderm (will become outer layer of skin, nails, hair, teeth, sensory organs and the
nervous system incl brain and spinal chord) and endoderm (will become digestive system, liver,
pancreas, salivary glands and respiratory system) later a middle layer mesoderm (will become inner
layer of skin, muscles, skeleton and excretory and circulatory systems).
Other parts of blastocyst become organs that will nurture and protect the unborn child:
placenta: connected to the embryo by umbilical cord through which it delivers oxygen and
nourishment and remove the body wastes. Also helps combat internal infection and provides
immunity. It also produces the hormones that support pregnancy, prepare the mother's breasts for
lactation and eventually stimulate the contractions that will expel the baby. The amniotic sac is a
fluid-filled sack that encases the baby, providing protection and movement spacewith its outermost
membrane, the chorion. The trophoblast is the outer cell layer of the blastocyst (which becomes
part of the placenta) and it produces tiny threadlike structures that penetrate the lining of the uterine
wall and allow the developing baby to cling there until fully implanted in the uterine lining
Only about 10-20% of fertilised eggs complete implantation and continue to develop, a gene called
Hoxa10 has been identified as controlling whether an embryo will be successfully implanted in the
uterine wall.

Embryonic stage (2 8 weeks)

Second stage of gestation. Organs and major body systems- respiratory, digestive and nervousdevelop rapidly. It is a critical period (refer to chapter one). It is now most vulnerable to destructive
influences in the prenatal environment.
The most severely defective embryos usually do not survive beyond the third trimester (3 month
period). Spontaneous abortion (also called miscarriage) can occur. Usually result from abnormal
pregnancies; about 50-70% involve chromosomal abnormalities. Males more likely to be
spontaneously aborted or stillborn (dead at birth). Although conception ratio for males and females
is 125:100 (due to greater mobility of Y-chromosome carrying sperm) the birth ratio is 105:100 and
due to greater vulnerability after birth and greater susceptibility to many disorders there are fewer
males than females in most places. Environmental pollutants may also be responsible for falling
male birthrates and rising incidence of male birth defects in some Western countries.

Fetal Stage (8 weeks-birth)

Signalled by the appearance of the first bone cells around 8 weeks. During fetal stage the fetus
grows rapidly to about 20x its previous length and organs and body systems become more complex.
Right up to birth finishing touches such as finger/toe nails and eyelids develop.
Fetuses breathe, and move around alot but the amniotic sac and uterine walls permit and even
stimulate limited movement.
Ultrasound: high frequency sound waves to detect outline of fetus, fan be used to observe fetal
movement.
Other instruments can monitor heart rate, changes in activity level, states of sleep and wakefulness
and cardiac reactivity.

Individual differences in movement and activity and heard rates (in terms of regularity and speed)
boys more active and move more vigorously throughout gestation, irregardless of size. Infant boys'
tendency to be more active than girls may be at least partly inborn.
Beginning around 12th week of gestation, swallowing and inhalation of the amniotic fluid occurs
which may stimulate the budding senses of smell and taste and may contribute to development of
organs needed for breathing and digestion. Mature taste cells appear around 14 weeks of gestation.
Olfactory system (smell) also well developed before birth.
Fetuses respond to mother's voice and heartbeat and vibrations of her body (therefor they can hear
and feel). Familiarity with mother's voice may have a basic survival function (to help newborns
locate source of food). Responses to sound and vibration begin at 26 weeks, rise and then plateau at
32 weeks. Fetuses learn and remember: newborns show preference to things heard before birth.

Environmental Influences: Maternal Factors

Teratogenic factors: Birth defect-producing factos
Timing of exposure to a teratogen, intensity and its interaction with other factors may be important
in terms of how much they effect the fetus. Also the genes present in the fetus or the mother.
Transforming growth factor alpha: a growth gene, if a fetus has it theres 6 times more risk of
developing a cleft palate if the mother smokes while pregnant.

Nutrition

Pregnant women typically need 300-500 extra calories a day including extra protein.
Those who gain 26 pounds or more are less likely to bear babies with dangerously low weight.
Desirable weight gain depends on individual factors such as weight and height before pregnancy.
Malnutrition of mother during fetal growth may have long-range effects ex. Increased likelihood of
death in early adulthood, developing antisocial personality disorder and schizophrenia.
Dietary supplementation in malnourished women: tendency towards bigger, healthier, more active
and visually alert infants. Low zinc levels + zinc supplements: babies less likely to have low
birthweigth and small head circumference. Certain vitamins can be harmful in excess. Iodine
deficiency unless corrected before 3rd trimester can cause cretinism (may involve severe
neurological abnormalities or thyroid problems).
Folic acid/folate important for pregnant women to prevent neural tube defects ancemcephaly and
spina bifida in infants. Damage of defect can occur during early weeks of gestation.

Physical activity

Regular exercise prevents constipation and improves respiration, circulation, muscle tone and skin
elasticity contributing to more comfortable pregnancy and easier safer delivery. Should avoid
exercises that could cause high degree of abdominal trauma. Moderate exercise with heart rate
should not exceeding 150, not pushing oneself and tapering off instead of stopping abruptly
recommended. Employment is ok but strenuous working conditions, occupational fatigue and long
working hours may cause greater risk of premature birth. Be guided by own abilities/stamina.

Drug intake

(You should probably read this section yourself on pages 93-94 for more detailed description of
effects of drugs)
P.S. If you do drugs while you're pregnant you suck
Medical drugs
It was once thought that placenta protected fetus against drugs taken during pregnancy. Nearly 30
drugs found to be teratogenic in clinically recommended doses. Effects of some drugs may show up
much later such as anti-miscarriage drug DES (diethylstilbestrol): mothers themselves had

increased risk of breast cancer, 1/1000 daughters developed rare form of vaginal/cervical cancer,
and have higher risk of miscarriage and premature births, sons and daughters often developed
abnormalities in genital tracts which may lead to reproductive complications.
Alcohol
About 1/750 infants suffer from fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS): combination of slow prenatal and
postnatal growth, facial and bodily malformations, disorders of the CNS. Prebirth exposure to
alcohol seems to affect portion of corpus callossum. Some problems may recede after birth.
For every child with FAS as many as 10 others may be born with fetal alcohol effects (read this
section in the book for more details on the symptoms of FAS and FAC).
Nicotine
May contribute to low birthweight and needing intensive care and brings increased risk of prenatal
growth retardation, miscarriage, infant death and long-term cognitive and behavioural problems.
Women who smoke during pregnancy are also likely to do so after birth but effects that have been
established in infants during pre-exposure to this include being shorter/lighter, poorer respiratory
function, increased risk of cancer, being colicky and some of the same effects as they reach school
age as children exposed to alcohol prenatally.
Caffeine
No marked effects except increased risk of sudden death in infancy and spontaneous abortion if
daily consumption of coffee is 4> cups during pregnancy.
Marijuana, Opiates and Cocaine
Mixed findings on marijuana use. Heavy use may lead to bith defects. Temporary neurological
disturbances e.g. Tremors and startles +Low birthweight and prevalence of cancer causing
mutations (from marijuana use alone).
Opiate addicts likely to bear premature babies with the same addiction. Prenatal exposed infants
restless, irritable and often have tremors, convulsions, fever, vomiting and breathing difficulties.
Cry often, less alert and responsive. Tend to show acute withdrawal symptoms and sleep
disturbances during neonatal period requiring prompt treatment. At age 1 likely to show somewhat
slower psychomotor development, in early childhood weigh less than average, shorter, less well
adjusted, score lower on perceptual/learning abilities tests, tend to not do well in school, be
unusually socially anxious, have trouble making friends.
Cocaine use during pregnancy associated with spontaneous abortion, delayed growth, impaired
neurological development, among others. Some states in US have taken action against suspected
cocaine-using mothers. Review of literature has found no specific effects of prenatal exposure on
physical growth, cognition, language skills, motor skills, neurophysiology, behaviour, attention and
emotional expressiveness in early childhood that could not also be attributed to other risk factors.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs)

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS): Caused by human immunodeficiency virus

(HIV) undermining functioning of the immune system. May cross over to fetus' bloodstream
through placenta or post-natally through breastmilk. Infants born to HIV-infected mothers tend to
have small heads and slowed neurological development. Zidovuline (also called AZT) can
successfully curtail transmission.
Syphilis can cause problems in fetal development, and gonorrhea and genital herpes can have
harmful effects on the baby at the time of delivery. Infants may acquire genital herpes simplex virus
(HSV) from mother or father at or soon after birth. Caeserian delivery may help avoid infection.

Other maternal illnesses

Both prospective parents should try to avoid all infections. If the mother does contract one it should
be promptly treated. Pregnant women should be screened for thyroid defficiency which can affect
child's future cognitive performance.
Rubella (German measles) if contracted before 11th week of pregnancy almost certain to cause
deafness and heart defects in baby.
Toxoplasmosis: infection caused by parasite harbored in bodies of cattle, sheep, pigs and cats'
intestinal tract. Typically causes no symptoms or symptoms like those of common cold but
(especially in 2nd and third trimesters of pregnancy) can cause brain damage, severely impacted
eyesight/blindness, seizures or miscarriage, stillbirth or death of baby.
Although as many as 9/10 of them may appear normal at birth, more than half of them have later
problems incl. eye infections, hearing loss and learning disabilities. Precautions with food and pets
should be taken.
Especially during 2nd and 3rd trimesters, diabetic mother's metabolic regulation must be carefully
managed or the baby may have its long-range neurobehavioral and cognitive performance effected.
Pregnant women should be screened for all of these diseases and precautions/regulations should be
taken accordingly.

Maternal Age

Nowadays women often have children later due to education/career etc.

Pregnant women in their 30s and 40s more likely to suffer complications due to diabetes, high bp or
severe bleeding. After age 35 there is more chance of miscarriage or stillbirth and premature
delivery, retarded fetal growth, other birth-related complications or birth defects like Down
Syndrome. Widespread screening among older expectant women has lead to fewer malformed
babies. Multiple births generally riskier but twins and triplets born to older mothers do as well or
better than those born to younger mothers unless the mothers have low socioeconomic status
because multiple births to older women with higher SES are conceived through assisted
reproductive technology and tend to be monitored closely.
Adolescents tend to have premature or underweight babies perhaps due to the growing girl's body
consuming nutrients necessary for the fetus. Heightened risk of infant death in first month,
disabilities or health problems.

Outside Environmental Hazards

Chemicals, radiation, extremes of heat and humidity and other hazards of modern life can affect
prenatal development. Women who work with chemicals used in manufacturing semiconductor
chips have 2x the rate of miscarriage, women exposed to DDT tend to have more preterm births,
prenatal exposure to high levels of lead = score lower on tests of cognitive abilities, prenatal
exposure to heavy metals = higher rate of childhood illness and lower measured intelligence.
Radiation can cause genetic mutations like mental retardation, small head size, chromosomal
malformationsm Down syndrome, seizure and poor IQ test performance in school. Critical period
seems to be 8-15 weeks after fertilization.

Environmental Influences: Paternal Factors

Father's exposure to marijuana/tobacco smoke, lead, large amounts of alcohol or radiation, DES or
certain pesticides may result in abnormal sperm. Men who smoke are at increased risk of impotence
and transmitting genetic abnormalities and a pregnant woman's exposure to father's secondhand
smoke linked with low birthweight and cancer in childhood and adulthood. Men with lead exposure
at work have elevated risk of fathering premature baby or one with low birthweight. Exposure to
radiation at work elevates risk of stillbirth and diagnostic X rays within the year prior to conception
creates tendency towards low birthweight and slowed fetal growth. Fathers with diets low in
vitamin C more likely to have children with birth defects and certain kinds of cancer. Man's use of

cocaine can cause birth defects. Cocaine and other toxins like lead and mercury may attach
themselves to the sperm as it travels to the ovum.
A later parental age (aging in late 30s) associated with increases in the risk of several rare
conditions including Marfan's syndrome (deformities of the head and limbs) and dwarfism. Also
may be a factor in about 5% of Down syndrome cases. More male cells than female ones undergo
mutations which may increase with paternal age.

The Newborn Baby

Neonatal period: first four weeks of life. Time of transition from the uterus to an independent
existence.

Size and Appearance

Average Neonate: newborn is around 20 inches long and weights about 7.5 pounds (95% of full
term babies between 5.5-10 pounds and between 18-22 inches long). Boys tend to be slightly longer
and heavier than girls. Firstborn child likely to weigh less at birth than laterborns.
First few days, neonates lose as much as 10% of bodyweight (mostly fluid loss). Begin to gain
weight at about 5th day and generally back at birthweight around 10th-14th day.
New babies have large head (one-fourth body's length) and receding chin (easier to nurse). Infants
head may be long and misshapen due to molding of the head as it left mother's pelvis (infant's
bones are not yet fused till 18 months). Soft places on head where bones are not fused (fontanels)
covered by a tough membrane. Skin is so thin it barely covers the capillaries. Some may be very
hairy during first few days = lanugo fuzzy prenatal hair some of which hasn't fallen off yet. New
babies covered with vernix caeosa (cheesy varnish) oily protection that dries within first few days.

Body Systems
Before birth blood circulation, respiration, nourishment, elimination of waste and temperature
acccomplished through mother's body. Fetus and mother have separate circulatory systems and
heartbeats. Fetus' blood cleansed through umbilical cord carrying used blood to placenta and
returns a fresh supply. After birth the baby becomes independent, its heartbeat is fast and irregular
and bp doesn't stabilise until 10th day.
Oxygen supplied and carbondioxide carried away by umbilical cord. Newborn needs much more
oxygen than before and must get it alone now. Breathing usually starts immediately after they are
exposed to air and if it hasn't begun within 5 minutes, permanent brain injury may occur due to
anoxia (lack of oxygen). Infants lungs have only 1/10th as many airsacs as adult lungs and are thus
susceptible to respiratory problems. Infants instinctively suck after birth to take in milk. During first
few days they secrete meconium a stringy greenish-black waste matter formed in the fetal intestinal
tracts. When the bowels and bladder are full the sphincter muscles open automatically and the baby
cannot control these muscles for many months.
About half of all babies (more so premature ones) develop neonatal jaundice 3-4 days after birth.
Skin and eyeballs look yellow. Caused by immaturity of liver. Usually doesn't cause complications
but severe jaundice that is unmonitored may result in brain damage. Body temperature is
automatically kept constant by the layers of fat that develop during last two months of fetal life and
by increasing their activity when air temperature drops to maintain it.

States of Arousal
Babies have an internal clock regulating their daily cycles of eating, sleeping, elimination and
perhaps even moods. The periodic cycles of activity, wakefulness and sleep which govern an
infant's state of arousal (degree of alertness) seem to be inborn and highly individual.
Newborns avg around 16 hours sleep daily but this differs individually. Sleep in babies occur at
about 6-8 intervals of 2-3 hours varying between active and quiet sleep. Active sleep is probably

equivalent of REM in adults, it appears rhythmically in cycles of about 1 hour and accounts for 5080% of newborns total sleeptime.
Changes in states coordinated by multiple areas of the brain and accompanied by changes in the
functioning of heart rate/blood flow, breathing, temperature regulation, cerebral metabolism and
workings of the kidneys, glands and digestive system.
Parents usually soothe a fussy infant to sleep, and although crying is usually not serious, quiet
babies maintain their weight better so it's particularly important to quiet low-birthweigth babies.
Sleep needs diminish over time. At around 3 months, they grow more wakeful in late afternoon and
early evening and start to sleep throughout the night. By 6 months more than half of the sleep
occurs at night. Amount of REM sleep decreases steadily throughout life.
Babies sleep rhythms aren't purely biological; they vary across cultures. Cultural variations in
feeding patterns may affect sleep patterns.

Survival and Health

Medical and Behavioural Assessment
First few minutes, days, and weeks after birth are crucial for development.

Apgar Scale

One minute after delivery and then again 5 minutes after birth, most babies assessed using Apgar
scale: developed by Dr. Virginia Apgar. Five subtests Appearance (colour) Pulse, Grimace (reflex
irritability), Activity (muscle tone) and Respiration (first letters spell out APGAR). Colour is
assessed in non-white children by examining insides of mouth, whites of eyes, lips, hands and soles
of the feet. Newborn is rated 0.1 or 2 on each measure adding up to maximum 10. a 5 minute score
of 7-10 indicates good to excellent condition, 7 or below means baby needs help to establish
breathing, below 4 means baby needs immediate lifesaving treatment. No long term damage is
likely to result if the baby's score is brought to 4 or more at 10 minutes (successful resuscitation).
Apgar scale is generally a reliable prediction of survival during first month but a low Apgar score
alone does not necessarily indicate anoxia. Results may be effected by prematurity, medication
given to mother and other conditions.

Physical Assessing Neurological Status: The Brazelton Scale

Brazelton Neonatal Behavioural Assessment Scale (NBAS) used to assess neonates'

responsiveness to their physical and social environment, to identify problems in neurological
functioning and predict future development. Named after its designer T. Berry Brazelton.
Assesses motor organisation; reflexes; state changes; attention and interactive capacities and
central nervous system instability. The test takes about 30 minutes.

Neonatal Screening for Medical Conditions

Children who inherit the enzyme disorder phenylketonuria (PKU) need a special diet beginning in
the first 3-6 weeks or they will become mentally retarded. Screening tests administered soon after
birth can often discover such correctable defects. Negatives: costly, may produce false-positive
results.

Early Physical Development

Principles of Development

As before birth, cephalocaudal and proximodistal principle applies.

Cephalocaudal: Growth and motor development proceeds from the head downwards.
Proximodistal: Growth and motor development proceed from the center of the body outwards.

Physical Growth

Children grow faster during first 3 years, especially first few months, than ever again.
At 5 months: average baby boy's birthweight has doubled to 16 pounds, at 1 year tripled to 23
pounds. Typically gains about 5 pounds by 1st birthday and 3.5 pounds by 3rd. Height increases by
10 inches during first year, by almost 5 inches 2nd year, by a little more than 3 inches during 3rd
year to top 37 inches.
Girls follow a parallel pattern but are slightly smaller. At 3 average weight is a pound less and half
an inch shorter.
Body shape becomes more slender.
Teething begins around 3-4 months when infants begin grabbing almost everything and putting it in
their moths. First tooth may not actually arrive until sometime between 5-9 months or even later. 1st
birthday babies generally have 6-8 teeth. By age 3 all 20 primary/deciduous teeth are in place and
they can chew anything they want to.
Influences on Growth
Genetic influence interacts with environmental influences like nutrition and living conditions which
also affect general health and well-being. Well-fed, well-cared-for children grow taller and heavier.
Also mature sexually and attain maximum height earlier and teeth erupt sooner.

The Brain and Reflex behaviour

Central nervous system: Brain and spinal cord. Together with the growing peripheral network of
nerves reaching out to all parts of the body it is responsible for newborns' instinctive behaviours.

Building the Brain

Brain-imaging tools used to gain a clearer picture of how brain growth occurs. Brain weighs 25% of
eventual adult weight,3.5 pounds at birth. Reaches 70% of that weight at 1 year and nearly 90% by
age 3.By age 6 almost adult size, but growth and functional development of specific parts of the
brain continue into adulthood. Brain growth occurs in fits and starts and different parts of it grow
rapidly at different times.

Myelination

Myelination: Coating of neural pathways with fatty substance myelin. Enables signals to travel
faster and more smoothly allowing for mature functioning to be achieved.
Myelination of pathways related to sense of touch: myelinated by birth. Myelination of visual
pathways: (slower maturing) begins at birth and continues during first 5 months. Pathways of heari
ng: may begin as early as 5th month of gestation but not complete till around age 4. Parts of the
cortex controlling attention and memory: not fully myelinated till young adulthood. Myelination of
hippocampus (related to memory): continues to increase till at least age 70.
Early reflexes may appear and disappear because of myelination of sensory/motor pathways, first in
fetus'spinal cord and after birth in cerebral cortex.

Early Reflexes

Reflex behaviour: automatic, innate responses to stimulation. Controlled by lower brain centres
that govern other involuntary processes. Most fully myelinated at birth. Important in stimulating
early development of CNS and muscles.
Infants have estimated 27 reflexes, most of them present before/shortly after birth. Primitive
reflexes: related to instinctive needs for survival and protection. Postural reflexes: reactions to
changes in position or balance. Locomotor reflexes: resemble voluntary movements that do not
appear until months after the reflexes have appeared.
Most early (unnecessary) reflexes disappear during first 6 months-1 year. Timely disappearence
indicates partial myelination of motor pathways in cortex, enabling shift to voluntary movement.
See table 4-4 on page 135 for oversight of reflexes.

Moulding the Brain: The Role of Experience

Plasticity: Mouldability/malleability/modifiability of the brain. Before birth brain more or less

grows in unchangeable, genetically determined pattern. Brain is modifiable/malleable especially in
early months of life, when the cortex is still growing rapidly and organising itself.
Early synaptic connections, some of which depend on sensory stimulation, refine and stabilise the
brain's genetically designed wiring. Early experience is therefore very important. If certain
cortical connections are not made early in life and no further intervention occurs, these circuits may
shut down forever.
Early emotional development may also depend on experience: Less activity in areas of the brain
associated with positive emotions in infants with severely depressed mothers, and more in the areas
associated with negative emotions.
Plasticity continues throughout life as neurons change in size and shape in response to
environmental experience. Findings have sparked successful efforts to stimulate physical/mental
development of children with Down syndrome and help recover function in those with brain
damage .
Experiments with brain-damaged rats, as well as a study of neglected Romanian orphans who were
adopted by Canadian families confirm this, although in the later study the group as a whole did not
catch up.

Early Sensory Capacities

Touch and Pain

Touch is the first sense to develop and for several months is the most mature sensory system.
2 months after conception: early signs of rooting reflex occur
32 weeks of gestation: all body parts sensitive to touch, which increases during first 5 days of life
Previously it was believed neonates don't feel pain and anaesthesia was not used during operations,
but pain sensitivity is present and increases from the first day. Pain relief is essential to prevent long
term harm.

Smell and taste

Sense of smell and taste begin to develop in the womb. Flavours/odours of food consumed by
mother may be transmitted to the fetus through the amniotic fluid. After birth similar transmission
occurs through breast milk.
Preference for pleasant odours learned in uterus and breast milk contributes to this learning. After
some days the baby learns to recognise and prefer own mother's milk.
Certain taste preferences are innate. Sweetened water calms crying newborns.

Hearing

Early recognition of voices and language heard in the womb may lay the foundation for the parentschild relationship. Auditory discrimination occurs rapidly after birth. Hearing is key to language
developments so impairments need to be identified and treated asap.

Sight

Vision least developed sense at birth. Newborn eyes are smaller and retinal structures incomplete
and optic nerve is underdeveloped. Blink at bright lights. Peripheral vision is narrow and more than
doubles between 2-10 weeks of age. Ability to follow a moving target and colour perception
develop rapidly in first few weeks. Vision becomes more acute during first year, reaching 20/20
level by about 6th month. Binocular vision (use of both eyes to focus, allowing perception of depth
and distance) usually doesn't develop until 4-5 months.

 Motor Development
Basic motor skills needn't be taught. Baby just needs room and freedom to move and see what they
can do.

Milestones of Motor Development

Each milestone prepares baby to tackle next. First learn simple skills and then combine them into
increasingly complex systems of action allowing wider/more precise movement and more effective
control of environment. Example: pincer grip: thumb and index finger meet allowing for picking up
smaller objects. Walking also learned through smaller steps.
Denver Developmental Screening Test (Frankenburg, Dodds, Fandal, Kazuk & Cohrs, 1975):
Used to chart normal progress between ages of 1 month and 6 years and to identify children who are
not developing normally. Test measures are gross motor skills (using large muscles) and fine
motor skills (using small muscles), language development and personality and social development.
Abilities of average babies refers to the 50% Denver norms. Normality covers a wide range, plus
the DDST applies to children in western population.
Again, cephalocaudal and proximodistal principles apply.

Head Control

At birth most can turn their heads side to side while lying on their backs. While lying chest down,
many can lift their heads enough to turn them. Within first 2-3 months, they lift their heads higher
and higher. Sometimes so far they lose balance and roll over. By 4 months almost all can keep their
heads erect while being held or supported in sitting position.

Hand Control

Babies born with grasping reflex.At about 3.5 months, can grasp object of moderate size. Next they
begin to grasp objects with one hand and transfer them to the other and hold (but not pick up) small
objects. Between 7-11 months their hands become coordinated enough to pick up a tiny object
(pincer grasp). After that precision increases. By 15 months average baby can build a tower of two
cubes. Few months after 3rd birthday average toddler can copy a circle fairly well.

Locomotion

After 3 months average infant begins to roll over deliberately. First front to back then back to front.
Average baby can sit without support by 6 months and can assume sitting position unaided about
2.5 months later.
6-10 months: most babies begin creeping or crawling = getting around under own power (selflocomotion) which has striking cognitive and psychosocial ramifications.
Average baby can stand with support at a little past 7 months. Little more than 4 months later most
can let go and stand alone. Average baby can stand well about 2 weeks before 1st birthday.
Humans begin walking later than other species, possibly because of babies' heavy heads and short
legs. Cruising is practiced by babies before they can stand alone, shortly after which most will
take their first unaided steps. Soon after first birthday average child is walking well and this
achieves the status of toddler.
Using mobile walkers can delay motor skill development by restricting movement and may be
dangerous.
During 2nd year they begin to climb stairs one at a time, first with one foot later with alternating feet.
Walking down stairs comes later. In 2nd year toddlers run and jump. By age 3.5 most children can
balance briefly on one foot and begin to hop.

How Motor Development Occurs: Maturation in Context

Esther Thelen (1995): Motor development is a continuous process of interaction between baby and
environment rather than genetically programmed, largely automatic sequence directed by maturing
brain.
She points to walking reflex: stepping movements a neonate makes when held upright with feet
touching a surface. Usually disappears by 4th month. Does occur when lying down or held in warm
water, suggesting that it does not really disappear but maybe it's because legs are heavier and
thicker.
Maturation alone is not the explanation, infant and environment interact (interconnected system).
Infant's motivation, its physical characteristics and position in a particular setting affect whether
and how the baby can achieve the goal. Discovery of what movements are more effective and
should be retained arises from each particular baby's experience in a particular context, though
babies are built approximately the same way and have similar physical challenges, therefore normal
babies develop the same skills in the same order.

Motor Development and Perception

Sensory perceptions allow infants to learn about their environment so they can navigate in it. Motor
experience sharpens and modifies their perceptions of what will happen if they move in a certain
way. Perceive in order to act, and act in order to perceive. (Pick, 1992).
Reaching and grasping begins at about 4-5 months; by 5.5 months they can adapt their reach to
moving or spinning objects. It was long believed that reaching depended on visual guidance: Use
of eyes to guide the movement of hands, but other sensory cues can be used to reach for an object.
Visual cliff: illusion of depth created by placing infant on a plexiglass tabletop, over a
checkerboard pattern creating the illusion of a vertical drop in the centre of the table. Babies
crawled freely to the ledge but avoided the ledge despite mother's beckoning them. Suggests
depth perception: the ability to perceive objects and surfaces three-dimensionally. Depends on
cues like binocular coordination (present around 5 months), motor control, kinetic cues (changes in
an image with movement of object or observer). To find out which is moving, baby might hold head
still for a moment (well established by about 3 months).
Haptic perception: ability to acquire information by handling objects rather than just looking at
them. Comes only after enough hand-eye coordination is developed to reach for objects and grasp
them.

Eleanor and James Gibson's Ecological Theory

Infants continually perceive, or size up the affordance (fit) between their own physical attributes
and capabilities and the characteristics of the environment,
Ecological theory of perception (Eleanor and James Gibson): sensory and motor activity more or
less coordinated from birth. Perceptual learning occurs through a growing ability to detect and
differentiate the many features of a rich sensory environment, which permits infants and toddlers to
recognise affordances, which is necessary to successfully negotiate a terrain. Locomotor
development seems to depend on an increased sensitivity to affordances and is an outcome of both
perception and action.

Cultural Influences on Motor Development

Motor development follows a virtually universal sequence but its pace seems to respond to certain
contextual factors causing different normal rates of development in different cultures. May be due
to ethnic differences in temperament or reflect a certain culture's childrearing practices. Normal
development need not follow the same timetable to reach the same destination.

Cognitive Development During the First Three Years

Social-Contextual Approach: Learning from Interactions with Caregivers

Guided participation: Concept inspired by Vygotsky's ZPD and his view of learning as a
collaborative process. Refers to mutual interactions with adults that help structure children's
activities and bridge the gap between the child's understanding and the adult's. Often occurs in
shared play and ordinary activities in which children learn informally the skills, knowledge and
values important in their culture. Cultural context contributes to the way this happens.

Language Development
Language: a communication system based on words and grammar. Allows children to represent
objects and actions, reflect on people, places and things and communicate needs feelings and ideas
in order to exert control over their lives.
It develops as an interaction between all aspects of development.
Literacy: ability to read and write.
(See table 5-5 on page 173 for a good oversight of milestones)

Sequence of Early Language Development

Prelinguistic speech: Sounds that progress from crying to cooing to babbling to accidental
imitation to deliberate imitation.

Early Vocalisation

Crying: Newborn's only means of communication, different pitches, patterns and intensities signal
hunger, sleepiness or anger.
Cooing: Squealing, gurgling and making vowel sounds like ahhh to show happiness (6 weeks 3
months). 3-6 months: begin to play with speech sounds by imitating sounds from other people.
Babbling: repeating consonant-vowel strings (6-10 months) often mistaken for first word. Holds no
actual meaning for baby and is thus not real language.
Language development continues with accidental imitation of vowel sounds. At about 9-10 months,
deliberate imitation occurs without understanding the sounds. Repertoire of sounds is strung
together in patterns that sound like language but have no meaning.

Recognising Language Sounds

Process of familiarisation with and differentiation of language sounds (starts in the womb) before
meaning is atached to words and phrases.
By 6 months, phonemes: basic sounds of native language are recognised and frequently heard
sound-patterns (e.g. Their name or names with similar sound patterns).
By about 10 months earlier sensitivity to sounds that are not part of the language they hear spoken
is lost. Can be revived, with effort, in adulthood, but the brain no longer routinely discriminates
them.
During second half of first year babies begin to become aware of phonological rules: how sounds
are arranged in speech.

Gestures

Around 9 months: Pointing, sometimes combined with noise so show baby wants it.
9-12 months: some conventional gestures like nodding and shaking head.
About 13 months: more elaborate representational gestures like holding cup to mouth to show thirst
Around the same time as babies say their first words, symbolic gestures emerge (gestures that
indicate specific objects, events, desires, conditions). Usually appear before children have a
vocabulary of 25 words and drop out when children learn the word for it and can say it instead.
Gesturing comes naturally. Inherent part of speaking process: blind children and adolescents use
them just as much, even towards blind listener.
Learning gestures helps babies learn to talk.

First Words

Linguistic speech: verbal expression that conveys meaning. First word between 10-14 months.
Holophrase: Single word that conveys a complete thought. Initial verbal repetoire may consist of
just mama or dada or a holophrase with multiple meanings, like Da.
Babies understand many words before they can use them. Usually very frequently used or with
special meaning to them.
By 13 months most understand that a word stands for a specific thing/event and can quickly learn
the meaning of a new word. Addition of new words to their expressive (spoken) vocabulary is
slower at first. Sounds and rhythms of speech grow more elaborate as words start to replace
gestures.
Single-word stage generally lasts till about 18 months. Vocabulary continues to grow. Spoken words
can be recognised just from first part of the word, especially if vocab is larger and reaction time
faster.
Sometime between 16-24 months: naming explosion may go from saying around 50 words to
400. Increased speed and accuracy of word recognition.Toddlers actively seek to learn new words.

First Sentences

Between 18-24 months, two words are put together to express one idea.
Prelinguistic speech is fairly closely tied to chronological age but linguistic speech isn't. Most who
begin talking fairly late eventually catch up. Most early sentences related to everyday events,
things, people and activities.
At first they typically use telegraphic speech: consisting of only a few essential words. Use of
telegraphic speech and the form it takes depend on the language and word order generally conforms
to what a child hears.
Omission of functional words don't necessarily mean that the child doesn't know them, may merely
find them hard to reproduce (at 10.5 months they can tell when functional words in a sentence are
replaced by similar sounding nonsense words).
Sometime between 20-30 months: increasing competence in syntax: rules for putting sentences
together in their language (increasing competence with articles, conjunctions, prepositions, plurals,
verb endings, past tense and forms of the verb to be) also become increasingly aware of the
communicative purpose of speech and whether they are understood (growing sensitivity to mental
lives of others.)
Age 3: speech is fluent, longer and more complex. Often omit parts of speech but get meaning
across well.

Characteristics of Early Speech

They Simplify: use telegraphic speech to say just enough to get their meaning across.
They understand grammatical relationships they cannot yet express
They underextend word meaning: Overgeneralising words. For example only one specific toy car
may be considered a car or all grey haired men are grandpa. Decreases as they get feedback from
adults.
They overregularise rules: Do not understand exceptions to certain language rules. May actually
know the correct irregular form first but apply language rules universally when learned.

Classic Theories of Language Acquisition: The Nature-Nurture Debate

In 1950s debate raged between two schools of thought:

1. B.F. Skinner (1957): Learning theory. Language learning, like other learning, based on
experience. Operant conditioning. At first babies utter sounds at random, sounds that happen
to resemble adult speech are reinforced and those that do not are not. Word learning depends
on selective reinforcement (word kitty reinforced in presence of cat). Reinforced for speech

that is increasingly adult like. In sentence formation basic word order is learned and then
learns that other words can be substituted in each category.
2. Noam Chomsky (1957): Observation, reinforcement and imitation cannot fully explain
language development. Word combinations and nuances are too many and too complex to be
acquired by specific imitation and reinforcement. Caregivers often reinforce ungrammatical
sentences as long as they make sense. Adult speech itself is an unreliable model to imitate as
it is often ungrammatical, containing false starts, unfinished sentences and slips of the
tongue. Also, children often have imaginative ways of saying things they have never heard.
Nativism: active role of the learner. (1957, 1972) Human brain has an innate capacity for acquiring
language: language acquisition device (LAD) which programs children's brains to analyze the
language they hear and to figure out its rules. Later (1995) sought to identify a simple set of
universal principles that underlie all languages, and a single multipurpose mechanism for
connecting sound to meaning.
Other arguments for nativism: almost all children master their native language in the same agerelated sequence without formal teaching. Human beings, only animals with fully developed
language have brain containing structure that is larger on one side than on the other, suggesting
inborn mechanism for sound and language may be in larger hemisphere (left for most).
Nativist view does not explain precisely how such a mechanism operates and why there's individual
differences in language acquisition, linguistic skill and fluency or why speech development appears
to depend on having someone to talk with, not just hearing.
Aspects of both have been used to explain how deaf babies learn sign language:
Hand-babbling: they first string together meaningless motions and repeat them over and over. As
parents reinforce these gestures, the babies attach meaning to them.
However, some deaf children make up their own sign language when they don't have models to
follow. Also sign language is structured much like spoken language and is acquired in the same
sequence.
Therefore it is likely an intertwining of nature and nurture, like in most aspects of development:
inborn capacity to acquire language which may be activated or constrained by experience.

Influences on Early Language Development

Maturation of the Brain

Language development linked with tremendous brain growth and reorganisation in early months
and years.
Gene has been identified that seems to underlie speech and language development. May turn on
other genes involved in various aspects of language in the brain of developing fetus.
Cortical regions associated with language do not fully mature until at least the late preschool years
or beyond- some not even until adulthood.
Brain stem and pons: Most primitive parts of brain and earliest to develop. Control newborn's cries.
Motor cortex: Repetitive babbling may emerge with parts of it, which control movements of face
and larynx. Early in 2nd year (when most children begin to talk) pathways linking motor-auditory
activity mature.
In about 98% of people: Left hemisphere is dominant for language (right participates). May be
genetically determined but also environmentally influenced. Sensitive period occurs before this
lateralisation is firmly fixed, during this period there is plasticity and if brain damage occurs they
will have nearly normal speech and comprehension eventually. Between 13-20 months (period of
marked vocabulary growth) the infants' compehension of words increasingly lateralised. Upper
regions of temporal lobe which are active in hearing and understanding speech can be activated by a
born-deaf person's use of sign language. Assignment of language functions to brain structures may
be a gradual process linked to verbal experience and cognitive development.

Social Interaction: The Role of Parents and Caregivers

Prelinguistic Period

Parents' imitation of babies' sounds affets the pace of language learning: parents and baby repeat
sounds back and forth. Also helps them experience social aspect of speech, the sense that a
conversation consists of taking turns (most grasp this idea at about 7.5-8 months). Even as early as
4 months babies in a game of peekaboo show sensitivity to the structure of social exchange with an
adult. Mothers' responsiveness to 9 months old and especially 13 month old's vocalisation and play
predict timing of language milestones.

Vocabulary Develoment
When babies begin to talk, parents/caregivers often help them by repeating their first words and pronouncing
them correctly. Vocabulary gets a boost when adult seizes appropriate opportunity to teach a new word
(when the child's attention is focused on the object). They also help them by expanding on what the child
says. Babies learn by listening to what adults say. Sensitivity and responsiveness to a child's level of
development count more than the number of words a mother uses.
Code mixing: using elements of both languages that are spoken at home, sometimes in the same utterance.
Code switching: ability to shift from one language to another. Children as young as 2 in dual-language
households differentiate between the two languages.

Child-Directed Speech
Child-Directed Speech: speaking slowly, high-pitched voice, exaggerated ups and downs and vowel sounds,
simplify speech, using short words and sentences and much repetition. Such baby talk appears has been
documented in many cultures and adults and even children do it naturally. Believed to help children learn
their native language/pick it up faster. Helps infants hear the distinguishing features of speech sounds.
Some investigators challenge its value, saying infants speak sooner and better if they hear and can respond to
more complex adult speech.
Nonetheless infants themselves prefer simplified speech. Preference for CDS not limited to spoken language
but also sign language.

Preparing for Literacy: The Benefits of Reading Aloud

Children who learn to read early are generally those whose parents read to them very frequently
when they were young.
One of three styles of reading adults generally have:
The describer style: Focuses on what's going on in the pictures and invites child to do so. Results in
greatest overall benefits for vocab and print skills.
The comprehender style: Encourages child to look more deeply at meaning of the story and make
inferences and predictions
The performance-oriented style: Reads story straight through, introducing the main themes
beforehand and asking questions afterward. More beneficial for children who start out with large
vocab.
There's also Dialogic reading: shared reading. Promising technique both for normal and languagedelayed children. Similar to describer style, child learns to become the storyteller. Parent asks more
challenging, open-ended questions and follow them up, repeat and expand on what the child says
and correct wrong answers and give alternative possibilities. Help as needed and give praise and
encouragement. Encouraging to relate things to own experiences
Children who are read to often, especially in this way when ages 1-3 show better language skills at
ages 2.5, 4.5 and 5 and better reading comprehension at age 7. Also get a boost in prereading
skills: the competencies helpful in learning to read, such as learning how letters look and sound.
Shared reading is more effective because it affords a natural opportunity for giving information and
increasing vocabulary, provides a focus for both adult's and child's attention and for asking and
responding to questions, is enjoyable for both parties; offers a way to foster emotional bonding
while enhancing cognitive development.

Foundations of Psychosocial Development

Emotions

(Table 6-1 on page 190 indicates highlights of emotional development 0-36 months)

Emotions: subjective reactions to experience which are associated with physiological and
behavioural changes.
Everyone has the capacity to feel emotions but individual differences in how often they experience
a particular emotion exist. Cultural differences exist in the way people feel about a situation and
how they show their emotions.
Emotions are subjective and often not fully understood by the persons themselves, thus difficult to
study in adults and thus especially in infants. Some disagreeance exists about their number, when
they arise, how they should be defined and measured and what is/isn't an emotion.
Emotions perform several protective functions such as communication which is essential for
developing social relationships and especially important for infants who rely on adults for basic
needs. Another is mobilising action in emergencies. Third is promoting exploration of environment
leading to learning that can protect or sustain life.
Person's characteristic pattern of emotional reactions begins to develop during infancy and is a basic
element of personality but some responses change as they grow older, like stranger anxiety which
may not have been present before and the same emotional response may be called forth by different
events at different ages.
Nonorganic failure to thrive: failure to grow and gain weight despite adequate nutrition. May occur
when a baby is emotionally neglected. Will often improve when moved to hospital and given
emotional support. Anxiety, among both adults and children, linked to asthma, irritable bowel
syndrome, ulcers, inflammatory bowel disease, coronary heart disease and shortened life. Some
emotions may motivate moral behaviour.

First signs of Emotion

Newborns plainly show when they are unhappy. Harder to tell when they are happy. During first
months become quiet at the sound of human voice/being picked up. May smile when hands are
moved together to play pat-a-cake. Later they respond more to people.
When babies want or need something they cry. When they feel sociable they smile or laugh. When
their messages bring a response their connection with others grows, control over their world grows
and become more able to actively participate in regulating their states of arousal and emotional life.
Meaning of signals changes: at first crying = physical discomfort, later more often psychological
distress. An early smile comes spontaneously as an expression of well being. Around 3-6 weeks a
smile may show pleasure in social contact. As they get older smiles and laughter at novel or
incongruous situations reflect increasing cognitive awareness and growing ability to handle
excitement.

Crying
Crying is the most powerful and sometimes only way infants can communicate their needs. Four patterns:
Hunger cry: rhythmic cry, not always associated with hunger.
Angry cry: variation of rhythmic cry in which excess air is forced through the vocal cords.
Pain cry: sudden onset of loud crying without preliminary moaning, sometimes followed by holding breath.
Frustration cry: two or three drawn out cries, with no prolonged breath holding.
The more distressed a cry sounds the more immediate the response is likely to be but may depend on the
situation.
Delays in responding to fussing may reduce it during first few months perhaps by teaching the babies to deal
with minor irritations on their own. Regular delays in responding to cries of distress may make it more
difficult to soothe baby and such a pattern if experienced repeatedly may interfere with developing ability to
manage own emotional state. Preventing distress may be the most developmentally sound approach.

Smiling and Laughing

Earliest faint smiles are involuntary results of subcortical nervous system activity. Frequently
appear during REM sleep. Become less frequent during first 3 months as cortex matures.
Earliest waking smiles may be elicited by certain mild sensations. In second week infant may smile
drowsily after a feeding. By 3rd week most infants begin to smile when they are alert and paying
attention to a caregiver's nodding head and voice. At about 1 month smiles generally become more
frequent and social. During 2nd month, as visual recognition develops, babies smile more at visual

stimuli such as faces they know. At about 4th month start to laugh out loud when kised on the
stomach or tickled. As they grow older thye become more actively engaged in mirthful exchanges. 6
month old may giggle when seeing mother making unusual sounds or appearing with towel over her
face. At 10-month old may laughingly try to put the towel back on her face: change reflects
cognitive development: by laughing at the unexpected they show they know what to expect. By
turning the tables they show awareness that they can make things happen. Laughter also helps
discharge tension.

When Do Emotions Appear?

First whether baby is showing emotion needs to be determined. They cannot tell us what they feel.
Facial expressions are remarkably similar to adults' expressions when experiencing certain emotions
but uncertain whether they were really feeling those emotions.
Motor activity, body language and physiological changes also important indicators. Sometimes
facial expressions don'tt show but there's other signs, which do not necessarily accompy eachother.
Different criteria may point to different conclusions about the timing or emergence of specific
emotions.

Basic Emotions

Lewis model (see figure 6-1 on page 193): soon after birth babies show signs of contentment,
interest and distress. These are diffuse, reflexive, mostly physiological responses to sensory
stimulation or internal processes.
During next 6 months or so these early emotional states differentiate into true emotions- reactions to
events that have meaning to the infant (primary/basic emotions. Related to biological clock of
neurological maturation). Repertoire of basic emotions seems to be universal but there are cultural
differences in their expressions, but whether they reflect cultural attitudes or innate differences may
be unclear.

Emotions Involving the Self

Self-conscious emotions: emotions like embarassment, empathy and envy. Arise only after
development of self-awareness: cognitive understanding that they have a recognisable identity,
separate and different from the rest of their world. Self awareness seems to emerge between 15-24
month23s when (according to Piaget) they are able to make mental representations of themselves
as well as other people and things. By about age 3 they show self-evaluative emotions: depend on
both self-awareness and knowledge of socially accepted standards of behaviour e.g. pride, shame
and guilt (shame and guilt are distinct: shame: focus on bad self. Guilt: focus on bad act).

Empathy: Feeling What Others Feel

Empathy: the ability to put oneself in another person's place and feel what that person feels, or
would be expected to feel.
Thought to arise during approximately second year and, like guilt, increases with age. Child who
recognises that they are the cause of distress may try to make it right (example of prosocial
behaviour), and this empathic impulse may be akin to guilt.
Empathy differs from sympathy: merely involves sorrow or concern for another person's plight.
Both tend to be accompanied by prosocial behaviour.
Empathy depends on social cognition: the ability to understand that other people have mental states
and to gauge their own feelings and intentions. May be an innate potential that appears very early,
unlike Piaget's belief that egocentrism delays its development until concrete operational stage.

Brain Growth and Emotional Development

Newborn has only a diffuse sense of consciousness and is easily overstimulated and upset by
sources of sensory arousal. As the CNS develops and sensory pathways are myelinated baby's

reactions become more focused and tempered, or modulated. Sensory processing becomes less
reflexive as the cortex begins to function: bidirectional process: emotional experience affected by
brain development but can also have long-lasting effects on brain structure.
Four major shifts in brain organisation which roughly correlate to changes in emotional processing:
1. First 3 months: differentiation of basic emotions begins as cerebral cortex becomes
functional.
2. 9-10 months: frontal lobes begin to interactwith limbic system, a seat of emotional actions
and at the same time limbic structures like hippocampus become larger and more adultlike.
Connections between frontal cortex and hypothalamus and limbic system, which process
sensory information, may facilitate the relationship between cognitive and emotional
spheres. As these connections become denser and more elaborate, infant can experience and
interpret emotions at the same time
3. During 2nd year: Self-awareness, self-conscious emotions and greater capacity for regulating
own emotions and activities. Coinside with greater physical mobility and exploratory
behaviour, may be related to myelination of frontal lobes
4. Age 3: Hormonal changes in autonomic nervous system coincie with emergence of
evaluative emotions.

Temperament

Temperament: characteristic disposition or style of approaching and reacting to sitations.

Some take a broader view: May not react the same way in all situations. May also affect the way
one regulates own mental, emotional and behavioural functioning.

Studying Temperamental Patterns

New York Longitudonal Study (NYLS): Pioneering study on temperament. Almost two thirds of
children fell into one of three categories (also see table 6-2 on page 196):
40% were easy children: generally happy, rhythmic in biological functioning and accepting of
new experiences.
10% were difficult children: more irritable and harder to please, irregular in biological rhythms
and more intense in expressing emotion.
15% were slow-to-warm-up children: mild but slow to adapt to new people and situations.
Many children (including 35% of NYLS sample) don't fit neatly under any of these 3 groups. May
still fit within normal range.
Difficult category does not signify maladjustment. According to NYLS researchers, key to
healthy adjustment is goodness of fit: the match between a child's temperament and the
environmental demands and constraints the child must deal with.
Questionnaires less cumbersome alternative to the methods of NYLS.
Rothbart Infant Behaviour Questionnaire (IBQ): focuses on several dimensions of infant
temperament similar to those in the NYLS: fear, frustration, positive emotion, soothability, and
duration of orienting (combination of distractibility and attention span). A companion Child
Behaviour Questionnaire covers three clusters of personality characteristics:
1. extraversion (impulsiveness, intense pleasure, high activity level, boldness, risk taking,
comfort in new social situations)
2. negative affect (sadness, discomfort, anger, frustration, fear, high reactivity)
3. effortful control (inhibitory control, low-intensity pleasure, ability to focus attention,
perceptual sensitivity)

How Stable is temperament?

Appears to be largely inborn, probably hereditary and fairly stable. Newborn babies show different
patterns of sleeping, fussing an activity, and these differences tend to persist to some degree.

Temperament is not fully formed at birth, develops as various emotions and self-regulatory
capacities appear and can change in response to parental attitudes and treatment.
NYLS: many children switched temperamental styles, especially during early months, apparently
reacting to special experiences or parental handling
Studies using IBQ during infancy and the CBQ at age 7 found strong links between infant
temperament and childhood personality.
Other researchers, using temperamental types similar to those of the NULS, have found that
temperament at age 3 closely predicts personality at ages 18 and 21

Biological Bases of Temperament

Jerome Kagan and colleages: Longitudonal study studying an aspect of temperament called
inhibition to the unfamiliar (shyness). Has to do with how sociable a child is with strange children
and how boldly or cautiously the child approaches unfamiliar objects and situations. Associated
with differences in physical features and in brain functioning as reflected in physiological signs.
When asked to solve problems or learn new information:
Shyest children (about 15%): higher and less variable heart rates and more pupil dilation. Boldest
children (10-15%) energetic and spontaneous with very low heart rates. Four-month-olds who were
highly reactive that is, who showed much motor activity and distress or fretted or cried easily in
response to new stimuli were likely to show the inhibited pattern at 14 and 21 months.
Babies who were highly inhibited or uninhibited seemed to maintain these patterns to some degree
during childhood and adolescence.
Behavioural distinctions between the two types tend to smoothe out by preadolescence, even
though the physiological distinctions remain. Whether parents encourage behaviour influences this.
separate four-year longitudonal study: those whose behaviour patterns changed from inhibited to
uninhibited showed different patterns of brain activity from those who remained inhibited. Infants
who changed in temperament also were more likely to have had nonparental caregiving during first
2 years.
(The Section on cross-cultural differences is not included in the pages ma'am gave us but I do recall
it being in her ppt. Read it just in case (pages 197-198) The main idea is that temperament may be
affected by culturally influenced childraising practices.)
basic trust vs basic mistrust: first stage in Erikson's theory. Begins at birth and continues till about
12-18 months. Babies develop sense of the reliability of the people and objects in their world.
Balance must be developed between trust and mistrust. virtue of hope is developed if trust
predominates: belief that they can fulfill their needs and obtain their desires. If mistrust
predominates they will see the world as unfriendly and unpredictable and will have trouble forming
relationships. Echo of Freud's oral stage: feeding situation as setting for establishing right mix.
Trust enables infant to let the mother out of sight because she has become an inner certainty as
well as an outer predictability.

Developing Attachments

Attachment: reciprocal, enduring tie between infant and caregiver, each of whom contributes to the
quality of the relationship. Ethological theory: infants and parents are biologically predisposed
tobecome attached to eachother, and attachment promotes a baby's survival.

Studying Patterns of Attachment

Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby first studied attachment in early 1950s:
Bowlby (1951): (based on ethological studies of bonding in animals and observation of disturbed
children in a London psychoanalytic clinic) convinced of importance of mother-baby bond and
warned against separating them without good substitute caregiving.

Ainsworth (1967): (hased on naturalistic study of Ugandan babies) Devised the Strange Situation:
Laboratory technique used to study attachment. 8 episodes of less than half an hour. Mother twice
leaves the baby in unfamiliar room, first with stranger, second time alone and stranger comes back
before mother does. Mother then encourages baby to explore and play again and gives comfort if
the baby seems to need it. Baby's response every time the mother returns is of concern.
Three main patterns of attachment:
1. secure attachment (66% among U.S. babies): infant cries or protests when primary
caregiver leaves and actively seeks out the caregiver upon his or her return. Mother is
secure base: infant's use of a parent or other familiar caregiver as a departure point for
exploration and a safe place to return periodically for emotional support. Usually these
babies are coopreative and relatively free of anger.
2. Avoidant attachment: rarely cries when separated from primary caregiver and avoids
contact upon his/her return. Tend to be angry and not reach out in time of need.
3. Ambivalent (resistant) attachment: become anxious before primary caregiver leaves, is
extremely upset during his/her absense and both seeks and resists contact on his/her return.
Three patterns are universal in all cultures in which they have been studied, though percentage in
each category varies.
Fourth pattern has been identified in other research: 4. Disorganised-disoriented attachment:
seem confused and afraid. Infant, after separation from primary caregiver, shows inconsistent,
contradictory behaviours upon his/her return. Least secure pattern and most likely to occur in babies
whose mothers are insensitive, intrusive or abusive.
Criticism of Strange Situation: it is artificial and unnatural. Assumes babies will pay attention to the
coming and going strangers. Attachment includes wider range of behaviours than are seen in strange
situation.
It has been suggested that it is not valid for children of employed mothers, who are used to long
periods of separation. No evidence has been found to support this claim.
In some non-western cultures different expectations for babies' interaction with mothers and
mothers may encourage different kinds of attachment-related behaviour. High rates of resistant
attachment may be shown by babies who are not used to being separated because it is stressful.
Supplementation of Strange Situation with methods that can be used in natural settings:
Q-sort technique: observers sort a set of descriptive words or phrases into categories ranging from
most to least characteristic of a child
Waters and Deane Attachment Q-set (AQS): mothers or other observers compare descriptions of
children's every day behaviour with expert descriptions of the hypothetical most secure child.
Preschool Assessment of Attachment (PAA): measures attachment after 20 months of age, taking
into account preschoolers' more complex relationships and language abilities.
Tendency to use mother as secure base may be universal.

How Attachment is Established

Both mother's and babies contribute to security of attachnment by the way they respond to
eachother. Virtually any activity on a baby's part resulting in an adult's response can be an
attachment-seeking behaviour. As eary as 8th week of life they direct these behaviours particularly to
their mothers. Overtures successful when the mother responds warmly, expresses delight and gives
the baby frequent physical contact and freedom to explore.
Similar attachment patterns found, but attachment behaviours across cultures.
Baby builds working model of what can be expected of mother based on their interactions.
Various patterns of emotional attachment represent diferent cognitive representations that result in
different expectations. If mother's behaviour keeps changing baby revises model and security of
attachment may change. Related to Erikson's concept of basic trust vs basic mistrust (secure
attachment vs insecure attachment) they have learned to trust not only their own caregivers but their
own ability to get what they need. Babies who cry alot and whose mothers respond by soothing
them tend to be securely attached.

Babies seem to develop attachment to father and mother at about the same time and security of
attachment is quite similar. If not, a secure attachment to one can sometimes offset an insecure
attachment to the other.

Influences on Attachment

Reason for differences in security of attachment probably not genetic. Parental treatment is more
important. Key may lie in interplay between quality of the relationship with caregiver and infant's
emotional makeup. Mothers of securely attached infants and toddlers tend to be sensitive and
responsive, though sensitivity may be expressed in different ways across cultures. Equally
important are mutual interaction, stimulation, a positive attitude, warmth and acceptance, and
emotional support. Contextual factors like mother's employment and her attitude toward her work
and the separation it causes may play a part (highly anxious = avoidant attachment).

The Role of Temperament

Baby's temperament may indirectly affect attachment through its impat on the parents. goodness of
fit applies again. If parent knows how to respond to temperament it can ensure secure attachment.

Stranger Anxiety and Separation Anxiety

Stranger anxiety: Wariness of strange people and places, shown by some infants during second
half of first year
Separation anxiety: Distress shown by an infant when a familiar caregiver leaves
Used to be considered a milestone indicating attachment but they are not universal, though typical.
Has more to do with baby's temperament.
Rarely react negatively to strangers by 6 months, commonly do so by 8-9 months, increases
throughout rest of first year. May reflect cognivite development.
Separation anxiety more to do with quality of substitute care than separation itself. If caregivers are
warm and responsive and play with 9-month-olds before they cry, they cry less than with less
responsive caregivers.
Pioneer Ren Spitz (1945,46): substitute care should be as close as possible to good mothering.
Caregiving should be consistent, continuous, stable.
Response to return is more important than response when mother leaves to indicate attachment.

Social Referencing

Social referencing: forming an understanding of how to act in an ambiguous, confusing or

unfamiliar situation by seeking out another person's reaction to it. Babies seem to use social
referencing when they look at their caregivers upon encountering a new person or toy. May emerge
during latter part of first year when infants begin to judge the possible consequences of events,
imitate complex behaviours andd distinguish among and react to various emotional expressions.
Same occurs in visual cliff experiment.
Idea that infants engage in social referencing has been challenged. When they spontaneously look at
caregivers in ambiguous situations they may just be displaying typical attachment behaviours.
Experimental evidence has been provided to support it though.

Physical Development
Aspects of Physical Development

Bodily Growth and Change

Children grow rapidly between ages 3-6 but less quickly than before. At about 3, begin to lose their
babyish roundness and take on the slender, athletic appearance ofchildhood. Potbelly tightens as
abdominal muscles develop. Limbs and trunk grow longer, but head remains still relatively large.

Boys' slight edge in height and weight continues until growth spurt of puberty. See table 7-1 on
page 230 for an overview of height/weight related to age.
Muscular and skeletal growth progresses, making children stronger. Cartilage turns to bone at a
faster rate than before, and bones become harder and stronger, giving the child a firmer shape and
protecting the internal organs. Coordinated by maturing brain and nervous system, also promote the
development of a wide range of mpotor skills. Increased capacities of respiratory and circulatory
systems build physical stamina and along with developing immune system keep children healthier.

Nutrition and Oral Health

Preschoolers need fewer calories per pound of bodyweight because growth slows. Eating whenever
hungry rather than being pressured to eat everything given to them on schedule leads to better
ability to regulate own caloric intake. Children vary in their ability to recognise their internal cues
of hunger and fullness, and parents' eating habits have an influence.
In preschool, eating patterns become more environmentally influenced like those of adults. 3 year
old more likely to eat till full whereas 5 year old will eat more if receiving a larger portion. Key to
preventing overweight may be appropriate portions and not admonishing them to clean their plates.
To avoid overweight and prevent cardiac problems, young children should get only about 30% of
total calories from fats and less than 10% of total from saturared fat. Lean meat and dairy foods
(which can now be skim or low-fat) should remain in the diet to provide protein, iron and calcium.
No negative effects on height, weight and bodymass or neurological development from moderately
low-fat diet.
Obesity: extreme overweight in relation to age, sex, height and body type; defined in childhood as
having a body mass index (BMI) (comparison of height and weight) at or above the 95th percentile
of growth curves for children of the same ages and sex. Has increased among preschoolers
(especially girls, who tend to be less active than boys). As junk food spreads throughout the
developing world childhood obesity increases there too, sometimes more children are overweight
than malnourished. Overweight children, especially when parents are overweight, tend to become
overweight adults. Can be a threat to health. Partly hereditary but also depends on fat intake and
exercise. Early to middle childhood is a good time to treat obesity, when a child's diet is still subject
to parental influence/control.
By age 3, all primary (deciduous) teeth are in place. Permanent teeth which will begin to appear by
age 6 are developing. Use of fluoride and improved dental care have dramatically reduced the
incidence of tooth decay since 1970s.

Bed-Wetting

Enuresis: repeated urination in clothing or in bed. Most children don't have it by 3-5 years of age.
About 7% boys and 3% girls aged 5 wet the bed regularly. Due to lack of awareness of full bladder
while asleep. Fewer than 1% of bedwetters have physical disorder, though they may have small
bladder capacity. Emotional, mental or behavioural problems may be caused by how bed-wetters
are treated by others but they are not its cause. Heredity is a major factor possibly in combination
with other factors like slow motor maturation, allergies and poor behavioural control. Generally
sorts itself out.

Motor Skills

Preschool children make great advances in gross motor skills: physical skills involvingthe large
muscles. Development of sensory and motor areas of cortex permits better coordination between
what children what to do and can do, as well as stronger bones and muscles and increased lung
capacity which improves their abilities. (see table 7-2 on page 233)
Vary in adeptness depending on genetic endowment and opportunities to learn and practice motor
skills. Below age 6 rarely ready for organised sport, only 20% of 4 year olds can throw a ball well
and only 30% can catch well. Physical development blossoms best in active, unstructured free play.

Fine motor skills: physical skills that involve the small muscles and eye-hand coordination. Gains
in these skills allow young children to take more responsibility for personal care.
Combined into systems of action: increasinly complex combinations of skills, which permit a
wider or more precise range of movement and more control of the environment.

Artistic Development

Maturation of the brain reflected by changes in drawings.

Two year olds scribble: not randomly but in patterns. Age 3: draw shapes and then begin combining
them into more complex designs. Ages 4-5: pictorial stage begins. Abstract form to depicting real
objects reflects cognitive development of representational ability. Greater pictorial accuracy (often
encouraged by adults) may come at the cost of earlier energy and freedom.

Handedness

Handedness: preference for using one hand over the other usually evident by age 3. Left
hemisphere controls right side of body and is usually dominant, explaining why most are right
handed. In more symmterical brains, right hemisphere tends to dominate thus left-handedness. Boys
more likely to be left handed. Not always clear-cut, not everyone prefers same hand for every task.
New theory proposes existence of a single gene for right-handedness. People who inherit this gene
from either or both parents (about 82%) are right handed, those who don't inherit it have 50-50
chance, otherwise left-handed or ambidextrous.

Cognitive Development
See tables 7-3 and 7-4 on page 239

Piagetian Approach: The Preoperational Child

Jean Piaget: early childhood approximately ages 2-7: preoperational stage: second major stage.
Children become more sophisticated in their use of symbolic thought, but are not yet able to use
logic (operations or manipulations, that require logical thinking).

Advances of Preoperational Thought

Advances in symbolic thought accompanied by growing understanding of space, causality,

identities, categorisation and number. Some of these have roots in infancy and toddlerhood, others
begin to develop in early childhood but are not fully achieved until middle childhood.

The Symbolic Function

Symbolic function: the ability to use mental representations (words, numbers or images) to which a
child(/person) has attached meaning.
Use of symbols is a universal mark of human culture. Having symbols for things helps children to
remember and think about them without having them physically present. Preschool children show
the symbolic function through the growth of:
Deferred imitation: (begins in last substage of sensorimotor stage) based on having kept a mental
representation of an observed action.
Pretend play: children make an object represent or symbolise something else.
Language: uses system of symbols to communicate.
Understanding of symbolism comes gradually. 2.5 year olds can find sth after seeing it hidden on a
tv monitor but 2 year olds cannot, but can find it when seeing it through a window. Even 3 year olds
sometimes show confusion about screen images (flipping a tv upside will make tv popcorn spill).

Symbolic Development and Spatial Thinking

Growth of representational thinking enables more accurate judgments about spatial relationships.
By 19 months children understand that a picture is a representation of something else but until age 3

or later they don't reliably grasp the relationships between pictures, maps or scale models and the
objects or spaces they represent.
Dual representation hypothesis: proposal that children under the age of 3 have difficulty grasping
spatial relationships because of the need to keep more than one mental representation in mind at the
same time.
Older preschoolers can use simple maps and can transfer the spatial understanding gained from
working with models to maps and vice versa.

Causality

Transduction: Piaget's term for a preoperational child's tendency to mentally link particular
phenomena, whether or not there is logically a causal relationship, usually if they occur around the
same time.
Yet when tested on situations they can understand, young children do accurately link cause and
effect. Young children's understanding of familiar events in the physical world enables them to think
logically about causation. They how causal, psychological, social-conventional and biological
reasoning. However they often have unrealistic views about causes of ilness, which may reflect a
belief that all causal relationships are equally and absolutely predictable.
Some research suggests that preschoolers can see analogies involving similar objects, which Piaget
thought does not develop until formal operational stage in adolescence, but that was likely because
the verbal analogies he tested them on were too abstract.

Understanding of Identities and Categorization

World becomes more orderly and predictable as preschool children develop a better understanding
of identities: the concept that people and many things are basically the same even if they change in
form, size or appearance. Underlies developing self-concept.
Categorisation/classification requires identifying similarities and dfifferences. Used in many aspects
of child's life, is a cognitive ability with social end emotional implications.
Animism: tendency to attribute life to objects that are not alive. Preschoolers, unlike what Piaget
believed, do know what is alive and what is not, but this is also culturally relative.

Number

In early childhood, come to recognise 5 principles of counting:

1. The 1-to-1 principle: say only one number-name for each item being counted
2. The stable-order principle: Say number-names in a set order
3. The order irrelevance principle: Start counting with any item and total count will be same
4. The cardinality principle: Last number-name used is the total value of items being counted
5. The abstraction principle: Principles above apply to any kind of object.
Principles extracted by children through their experience with counting rather than a prerequisite.
Cardinality principle not yet understood or appliable/interpretably by children below age 3.5
By age 5 most can count to 20 or more and know relative sizes of the numbers 1-10 and some can
do single-digit addition and subtraction. Intuitively devise strategies for adding by counting on
fingers or using other objects.
How quickly children learn to count depends in part on schooling and in part on the culture's
number system. May effect math performance compared to children in other cultures.
Ordinality: concept of more/less, bigger/smaller seems to begin around 12-18 months. By 5 months
may be able to tell difference between 1 and 2 objects and 2 and 3. 3 and 4 year olds know that if
they have 1and get another they have more and if they give one away they have fewer. By age 4-5
when ability to compare numerical quantities is localised in parietal lobes children can solve
odinality problems with sets up to 9 objects.

Ordinal knowledge universal but develops at different rates depending on how important counting
is in a particular family or culture and how much instruction parents, teachers or educational tv
programs provide.

Immature Aspects of Preoperational thought

Centration: in Piaget's theory. Tendency of preoperational children to focus on one aspect of a

situation and neglect another. Cannot decenter: In Piaget's terminology, to think simultaneously
about several aspects of a situation.

Conservation

Conservation: Piaget's term for awareness that two objects that are equal according to certain
measure remain equal in the face of perceptual alteration so long as nothing has been added to or
taken away from either object. Piaget found that children do not fully grasp this until stage of
concrete operations and that they develop different kinds of conservation at different ages. See table
7-5 on page 243. Also has to do with inability to decenter.
Ability to conserve also limited by irreversibility: Piaget's term for a preoperational child's failure
to understand that an operation can go in two or more directions.
They commonly think as if they were watching a slide show with a series of stafic frames: focus on
successive states. Do not recognise the transformation from one state to another.

Egocentrism

Egocentrism: Piaget's term for inability to consider another person's point of view. A form of
centration. Piaget: 3 year olds not as egocentric as newborns but still think the universe centres on
them Sometimes have trouble separating reality from what goes on inside their own heads and why
they may show confusion about what causes what.
Thee-mountain task: test designed by Piaget to study egocentrism. Child sits facing a table with
three large mounts. Investigator asks the child how the mountains would look to the doll sitting
on the other side. Young childen usually described them from their own perspective.
In other experimenter's (Hughes) test 9/10 times children aged 3.5-5 were correct (hiding doll test)
Difference likely because Hughes' test calls for thinking in more familiar, less abstract ways. Thus
young children may show egocentrism primarily in situations beyond their immediate experience.

Do Young Children Have Theories of Mind?

Theory of mind: Awareness of own mental processes and those of other people. Piaget's results
suggested that children younger than 6 cannot distinguish between thoughts or dreams and real
physical entitites and have no theory of mind. More recent research suggests that between ages 2-5
it grows dramatically. (again Piaget was too abstract and expected too much out of children's ability
to put their understanding into words).

Language and Other Cognitive Abilities

Language Development
Vocabulary

At 3: average child can use 900-1000 different words and uses about 12,000 each day.
By age 6: typically has a spoken vocab of 2600 words and understands more than 20,000 having
learned an average of 9 new words a day since about 1.5 years of age. With the help of formal
schooling the passive, or receptive vocab (words he/she can understand) will grow to 80,0000 by
the time of entry into high school.
Fast mapping: Process by which a child absorbs the meaning of a new word after hearing it once
or twice in conversation based on the context and of existing knowledge of forming words and
similar words. Explains this rapid growth in vocab.

Theory of mind development seems to play a role in vocabulary learning.

Nouns easier to fast map than verbs, which are less concrete, but one experiment showed that
children just under 3 can fast map a new verb and apply it to another situation.
Many 3- and 4 year olds seem to be able to tell when two words refer to the same object/action and
they know a single object cannot have two proper names, that more than one adjective can apply to
same noun and that adjective can be combined with proper name.

Grammar and Syntax

Age 3: begin to use plurals, possessives, past tense, know the difference between I, you and we.
Sentences generally short and simple, often leaving out small words like a, the, but including some
pronouns, adjectives and prepositions. Most sentences declaractive but they can ask and answer
what and where questions (why and how harder to grasp).
Still tend to make errors of irregularisation because they have not yet learnd exceptions to rules.
Eventually they notice exceptions. More likely to overgeneralise the use of transitive or intransitive
verbs in constructions that call for the other type of vern if they are not familiar with it.
Ages 4-5: sentences average 4-5 words and may be declarative, negative, interrogative or
imperative. 4 year olds use complex, multiclause sentences more frequently if their parents often
use such sentences. Tend to string sentences together in long run-on stories. In some respects
comprehension may be immature (e.g. follow a command in the order of the words heard).
Ages 5-7: speech has become quite adultlike. Longer, more complicated sentences. More
conjunctions, prepositions and articles. Use compound and complex sentences and can handle all
parts of speech. Yet to master many fine points like passive voice, verb tenses including the
auxiliary have and conditional sentences.

Pragmatics and Social Speech

Pragmatics: practical knowledge needed to use language for communicative purposes. Includes
various things.
Grammar and pronounciation improves. Most 3 year olds quite talkative, pay attention to the effect
of their speech. Will explain themselves more clearly if not understood. 4 year olds, especially girls,
simplify their language and speak slower to 2 year olds. Most 5 year olds can adapt what they say to
what the listener knows. Can use words to resolve disputes and will talk differently to adults than
other children. Almost half of 5 year olds can stick to a conversational topic for about a dozen turns
if the topic is one they know and care about and if comfortable with partner.

Private Speech

Private speech: Talking aloud to oneself with no intent to communicate with others. Normal in
childhood, accounting for 20-50% of what 4-10 year olds say. 2-3 year olds engage in crib talk:
playing with sounds and words. 4-5 year olds use private speech to express fantasies and emotions.
Older children think out loud or mutter.
Piaget: Sign of cognitive immaturity. Egocentric thus unable to communicate meaningfully, instead
simply vocalise what is on their own mind, also they don't yet distinguish between words and
actions which they symbolise. By end of preoperational stage, with cognitive maturation and social
experience, become less egocentric and more capable of symbolic thought so they discard it.
Vygotsky: Like Piaget, believed that private speech helps them integrate language with thought. Did
not see it as egocentric but special form of communication with oneself. Important function in
transition between early social speech and inner speech and between external and internal control of
behaviour.Follows bell-shaped curve.
Not egocentric: Most of it not egocentric remarks and more sociable and those who engage in most
social speech do it most, supporting Vygotsky's view that it's stimulated by social experience.
There's evidence for role of private speech in self-regulation: tends to increase during difficult tasks.
Wide range of individual differences. Should not be considered misbehaviour but could be a need.

Delayed Language Development

About 3% of preschool-age children show language delays though intelligence is usually average or
better. Boys more likely to be late talkers. May be due to cognitive limitation making it hard to learn
some rules, some have a history of otitis media (inflammation of midle ear) between 12-18 months
and improve when it clears up. Fast mapping may occurs slower. Most severe cases have hereditary
factor. Most who speak late (especially when comprehension is normal) catch up.
Delayed language development can have far-reaching cognitive, social and emotional
consequences. Reading disabilities may occur later on. If they lag behind their peers they may be
judged negatively by adults and peers and have trouble finding friends or playmates. They may
live down to consequent expectations and self-image may suffer.
Speech and Language therapy: Both family and child should be assessed first.
Dialogic reading: Children with mild-moderate language delays improve more when mother is
trained in this than in other similar methods.

Social Interaction and Preparation for Literacy

Emergent literacy: Preschoolers' development of skills, knowledge and attitudes that underlie
reading and writing. Include:
1. General linguistic skills
2. Specific skills, such as phonemic awareness- realisation that words are composed of
phonemes, and phoneme-grapheme correspondence- ability to link sounds with the
corresponding letters/combination of letters. Combining phonemic awareness curriculum
and dialogic reading very effective for lasting emergent literacy gains.
Preschool children pretend to write by scribbling. Later begin to use letters, numbers, letterlike
shapes to represent words, syllables, or phonemes.
Providing suitable stimulation makes children more likely to become good readers and writers.
Reading to children one of the most effective paths to literacy. Children taught the alphabet and
other prereading skills before entering school tend to become better readers. Moderate exposure to
educational television can help prepare children for literacy, especially if parents talk with them
about what they see. Can have long-range effects.

Information-Prosessing Approach: Memory Development

Memory's three steps: Encoding: process by which information is prepared for long-term storange
and later retrieval. Storage: retention of memories for future use. Retrieval: process by which
information is accessed or recalled from memory storage.
Memory improves with age as attention and speed/efficiency of information processing increases,
start to form long-lasting memories. Young children do not remember as well because they tend to
focus too much on specific details during encoding rather than just the gist, also lesser knowledge
of the world may cause them to fail to notice important aspects which could help retrieval.

Recognition and Recall

Recognition: ability to identify a previously encountered stimulus. Is easier for everyone than
recall: ability to produce material from memory. Both are froms of explicit memory and improve
with age. Recall depends on how familiar children are with the information, motivation and on
strategies used to enhance it. Young children often fail to use strategies, even ones they know
(unless reminded). Older children become more efficient in spontaneous use of strategies.
Prospective memory: remembering to perform future actions. Relatively developed by ages 4-5
and improves only modestly by age 7.

The Developing Self

The Self-Concept and Cognitive Development

Self-concept: Total image of ourselves. Sense of self; descriptive and evaluative mental picture
(cognitive construction) of one's own abilities and traits. Comes into focus in toddlerhood and
becomes clearer and more compelling as a person gains in cognitive abilities and deals with the
developmental tasks of life-stages.
Self-definition: cluster of characteristics used to describe oneself.
By age 4, attempts of defining it become more comprehensive. Mostly concrete, observable
behaviours, external characteristics and preferences, possessions and household members. Mention
of particular skills rather than general abilities. Unrealistically positive descriptions. What they
think about themselves is almost inseperable from what they do.
Age 5 to 7 shift (analysis based on Neo-Piagetian theory):
At age 4: Statements about self are single representations: First stage in development of selfdefinition, in which children describe themselves in terms of individual, unconnected characteristics
and all-or-nothing terms. Having two emotions at once is unimagineable. Cannot decenter (in part
because of limited working memory capacity). Cannot acknowledge difference between real self
and ideal self.
Age 5-6: Representational mappings: Second stage. Makes logical connections between aspects
of the self but still sees those aspects in all-or-nothing terms (completely positive): cannot imagine
being good at some things and bad at others.
Middle childhood: representational systems: begin to integrate specific features of self into general
multidimensional concept and articulate a sense of self-worth. More balanced self-descriptions.

Understanding Emotions

Understanding own emotions helps children guide their behaviour in social situations (control the
way they show their feelings and be sensitive to how others feel) and talk about feelings.
Family relationships affect the development of emotional understanding. Security of attachment to
mother linked to child's understanding of other's negative emotions.
Preschoolers talk about their feelings and often can discern others' feelings. Understand emotions
are connected with experiences and desires. By age 3 they know someone will be happy/sad
depending on whether they get what they want. Still lack a full understanding of self-directed
emotions and have trouble reconciling conflicting emotions.

Emotions Directed Toward the Self

Self-directed emotions typically develop by end of the third year. Violating accepted standard can
bring shame/guilt. Living up to/surpassing them can bring pride. Recognising these emotions and
what brings them on requires more cognitive sophistication. Happens gradually.
By age 7-8 standards producing pride and shame appear fully internalised and affect children's
opinion of themselves and eem to develop a clearer idea of difference between guild and shame.

Simultaneous Emotions

Individual differences in understanding conflicting emotions are evident by age 3. 3 year olds who
can identify whether a face looks happy or sad better able to explain story character's conflicting
emotions by end of kindergarten. Tended to come from families tha often discussed why people
behave as they do. More sophisticated understanding during middle childhood.

Erikson: Initiative versus Guilt

Initiative versus guilt: Erikson's 3rd stage in psychosocial development. Children balance the urge
to pursue goals with moral reservations that may prevent carrying them out. Split between two parts
of personality: part that remains a child, full of exuberance and a desire to try more and more new
things and test new powers vs part that is becoming an adult, constantly examining the propriety of

motives and actions. Learning to regulate = virtue of purpose: the courage to envision and pursue
goals without being unduly inhibited by guilt or fear of punishment.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem: self-evaluative part of the self-concept, the judgment children make about their overal
worth. From a neo-Piagetian perspective it is based on children's growing cognitive ability to
define/describe themselves.

Developmental Changes in Self-Esteem

Don''t usually articulate concept of self-worth until about age 8 but younger children do have one.
Study in Belgium using the Harter Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPCC) and Puppet
Interview: children's positive or negative self-perceptions tended to predict their self-perceptions
and socioemotional functioning at age 8.
Before age 5-7 shift self-esteem not necessarily based on realistic appraisal. Can make judgments
about competencies but not rank them in importance. Tend to accept adult judgment which is often
positive and uncritical and thus may overrate their abilities.

Contingent Self-Esteem: The Helpless Pattern

If self-esteem is contingent on succes, children may view failure or criticism as an indictment of

their worth and may feel helpless to do better. Patterns are very common: self-denigration/selfblame, negative emotion, lack of persistence and lowered self-expectations. Do not expect to
succeed so do not try. Older children may conclude they are dumb but preschoolers interpret poor
performance as being bad and that that is permanent, which may persist into adulthood.
Individual differences in self-esteem may depend on whether children think their traits and
attributes are fixed or can be changed. Children who think they're permanent often attribute failure
to own deficiencies which they're helpless to change and will repeat unsuccessful strategies or give
up. Children with high self-esteem tend to attribute failure/disappointment to external factors or to
the need to try harder, will try new strategies until they find one that works. These children tend to
have parents and teachers who give specific, focused feedback rather than criticising the child as a
person.

Play: The Business of Early Childhood

Play: the work of the young. Contributes to all domains of development. Categorised by content and
its social dimension.

Types of Play

Piaget and others: 4 categories of play showing increasing levels of cognitive complexity:
Functional play: involving repetitive muscular movements (begins during infancy)
Constructive play: involving use of objects or materials to make something (toddlers and
preschoolers) Becomes more elaborate by ages 5-6.
Pretend play: involving imaginary people or situations, also called fantasy play, dramatic play or
imaginative play. Rests on symbolic function, which emerges during last part of 2nd year. Trying out
roles, increasing social cooperation/empathy, developing problem-solving and language skills.
Children who watch alot of television tend to play less imaginatively, perhaps because they are
accustomed to passively absorbing images rather than generating their own. Pretend play typically
increases during preschool years and then declines as school age children become more involved in:
Formal games with rules: organised games with known procedures.

The Social Dimension of Play

Mildred B. Parten: Identified 6 types of early play, ranging from least to most social (see table 8-2
p. 283) As they grow older play tends to become more social. Today viewed by most as being too
simplistic as children of all ages engage in all of the categories and less social play not necessarily
problematic and often beneficial for cognitive, physical and social development:
Parallel constructive play most common among children who are good problem-solvers, popular
with other children and seen by teachers as socially skilled.
Imaginative play becomes more social during preschool years. Offers rich opportunities to practice
interpersonal and language skills and explore social roles and conventions.

How Gender Influences Play

Tendency toward sex segregation in play seems to be universal among cultures. Even more
common in middle childhood than preschool age.
Boys prefer physical play in fairly large groups. Girls inclined to quieter play with one playmate.
Even when playing with same toys there is sex segregation.
Children's developing gender concepts influence dramatic play. From an evolutionary viewpoint
gender differences in children's play provide practice for adult behaviours important for
reproduction and survival.

How Culture Influences Play

Frequency of specific forms of play differs across cultures and influenced by the play environments
adults set up for children, which in turn reflect cultural values.

Parenting Styles
Baumrind's model

Diana Baumrid (1977)

Authoritarian parents: Parenting style emphasising control and obedience. More detached and less
warm than other parents. Children tend to be more discontented, withdrawn and distrustful.
Children so strictly controlled they often cannot make independent choices about own behaviour.
Permissive parents: Parenting style emphasising self-expression and self-regulation. Warm,
noncontrolling and undemanding. Preschool children tend to be immature, least self-controlled and
least exploratory. Children receive so little guidance they may become uncertain and anxious about
whether they are doing the right thing.
Authoritative parents: parenting style blending respect for a child's individuality with an effort to
instill social values. Loving and accepting but also demand good behaviour. Preschoolers most selfreliant, self-controlled, self-asservie, exploratory and content.
Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin (1983) added fourth parenting style: neglectful or uninvolved:
parents who, sometimes because of stress or depression, focus on their own needs rather than those
of child. Linked with variety of behavioural disorders in childhood and adolescence.

Cultural factors

The aforementioned types of parenting reflect the dominant North American view and may not
apply to other cultures. Asian American or some African American parenting may be more
authoritarian but have the warmth and supportiveness of authoritative parenting and let them know
their parents care. Parenting style may depend on goals and constraints on life circumstances.

Promoting Altruism and Dealing with Aggression and Fearfulness

Prosocial Behaviour

Altruism: behaviour intended to help others out of inner concern and without expectation of
external reward; may involve self-denial or self-sacrifice. It is the heart of prosocial behaviour:
voluntary behaviour intended to help others.

Even before 2nd birthday children show prosocial behaviour. Reflects growing ability to imagine
how others might feel. Girls tend to be more prosocial than boys but the differences are small.
Prosocial personality or disposition exists and emerges early, remaining somewhat consistent
throughout life. May be partly temperamental or genetic. Involves inhibitory control self-control
or self-denial and reflects individual differences in moral reasoning, which may be reinforced
within the family.
Family is important as a model and source of explicit standards of behaviour. Parents of prosocial
children generally prosocial themselves and they encourage this behaviour. Relationships with
siblings provide an important laboratoryfor trying out caring behaviour and learning to see
another person's point of view. Parents encourage prosocial behaviour when they use inductive
disciplinary methods instead of power-assertive techniques.
Motives for prosocial behaviour may change as children grow older and develop more mature moral
reasoning. Preschoolers tend to show egocentric motives, as they age their motives become less
self-centred. Adopt societal standards which become internalised as principles and values.
Cultures vary in the degree to which they foster prosocial behaviour.

Aggression

Instrumental aggression: aggressive behaviour used as a means of achieving a goal. Most

common type of aggression in early childhood. Surfaces mostly during social play. Children who
fight the most tend to be most sociable and competend. May be necessary step in social
development.
Ages 2-4, as children develop more self-control and become better able to express themselves
verbally and wait for what they want, typically shift from physical to verbal aggression but
individual differences remain.
Age 6-7 become less aggressive as they become more cooperative, less egocentric, more empathic
and better able to communicate. Can develop more positive way of asserting themselves.
Children who as preschoolers often engaged in pretend play involving violent fantast may, at age 6,
lack self-control and empathy and be prone to displays of anger and conflict with peers.
Many studies suggest boys are more aggressive, suggested to be because of testosterone. As
children learn to talk girls more likely to rely on words to protest and work out conflicts.
Girls may be more aggressive than seems, just show aggression differently.
Boys more overt aggression: physical force or verbal threats openly directed against a target.
Girls more relational aggression (also covert/indirect/psychological aggression) or find it directed
against them: consists of manipulation and damaging or interfering with another person's
relationships, reputation or psychological well-being. Among pre-schoolers tends to be direct and
face-to-face, in middle childhood and adolescence becomes more sophisticated and indirect.

Sources of Aggression

Biology and temperament may play a part.

Tends to be bred from early childhood by combination of a stressful and unstimulating home
atmosphere; harsh discipline; lack of maternal warmth and social support; exposure to aggressive
adults and neighbourhood violence and transient peer groups, which prevent stable friendhips. Poor,
high-risk surroundings may cause absorption of antisocial attitudes despite parents' best efforts.
Negative early relationship with a rejecting mother often poor single mother is an important
factor. Negative parent-child relationships may set the stage for prolonged, destructive sibling
conflicts, in which children imitate parents' hostile behaviour. May foster aggressive tendencies
carried over to peer-to-peer relations.
Parents of children who become antisocial often fail to reinforce good behaviour and are harsh
and/or inconsistent in stopping/punishing misbehavour. Parents who back down at preschooler's
coercive demands may reinforce undesired behaviour. Harsh punishment (especially spanking) may
spur aggression and children also see aggressive behaviour in an adult model.

Aggressors tend to be unpopular and have social and psychological problems. Unclear is whether
aggression causes this or is an expression of them. Highly aggressive children tend to seek out
friends like themselves and egg eachother on to antisocial acts.

Triggers of Aggression

Exposure to violence, real or televised, can trigger aggression. Parents may be able to moderate
effects of frustration by modeling nonaggressive behaviour.

Influence of Culture

Cross-cultural difference in children's anger and aggressiveness significant even apart from mother's
behaviour, suggesting temperamental differences may also be at work.

Fearfulness

Passing fears common in early childhood. Many 2-4 year olds afraid of animals, especially dogs. By
6, more likely to be afraid of the dark. Other common fears: thunderstorms, doctors, imaginary
creatures. Most disappear as children grow older and lose sense of powerlessness.
Young children's fears stem largely from intense fantasy life and tendency to confuse appearance
with reality. Might be carried away by imagination. More likely to be frightened of something that
looks scary than by something capable of doing great harm. Older children's fear mostly more
realistic and self-evaluative, since they know they are being evaluated by others.
Fears may come from personal experience or hearing of other people's experiences. Often fears
become appraisals of danger or are triggered by events. Children who have lived through a
frightening event may fear it will happen again.
Parents can help prevent fears by instilling a sense of trust and normal caution without being too
protective, and also by overcoming their own unrealistic fears. Can help child by reassurance and
encouraging open expression of feelings. Ridicule, coercion and logical persuasion not helpful. Not
until elementary school can children tell themselves what they fear is not real.
Can also be helped to overcome fear by systematic desensitization: a therapeutic technique
involving gradual exposure to a feared object or situation.

Relationships with Other Children

Sibling and peer relationshops provide a measuring stick for self-efficacy: children's growing sense
of capability to master challenges and achieve their goals.

Siblings or Their Absence

Brothers and Sisters

Earliest, most frequent and intense sibling disputes over property rights. Sibling disputes and their
settlement can be viewed as socialisation opportunities, in which they learn to stand up for moral
principles.
Sibling rivalry not the main pattern between brothers and sisters early in life. Affection ,interest,
companionship and influence do too. Prosocial and play-oriented behaviours more common than
rivalry, hostility and competition. Observations: Older siblings initiate more behaviour, both
friendly and unfriendly, younger siblings tend to imitate the older ones. Siblings get along better
when mother is not there (squabbling may be a bid for parental attention). As they reach their 5th
birthday, siblings become less physical and more verbal, both in showing aggression and in showing
care and affection.
Same-sex siblings, particularly girls, are closer and play together more peacably than boy-girl pairs.
Quality of relationships with siblings often carries over to other children.

The Only Child

In occupational and educational achievement and intelligence, they surpass children with siblings.
Also tend to be more mature and motivated toachieve and have higher self-esteem.Perhaps because
parents spend more time and focuse more attention on them, talk more, do more and expect more.
Do not differ in overall adjustment or sociability.

Playmates and Friends

Begin to have friends at around age 3. Through friendships and interactions with casual playmates
young children learn how to get along with others, moral values and gender-role norms, practicing
adult roles, solving relationship problems and empathy.

Choosing Playmates and Friends

Preschoolers usually like to play with children their own age and sex. Tend to spend most of their
time with a few other children with whom they have had positive experiences and whose behaviour
is like their own. Frequent positive experiences means they are more likely to become friends.
About 3 out of 4 preschoolers have such mutual friendships.
Traits they look for in playmate are similar to those they look for in friends. Younger children rate
physical traits higher than do older ones and rated affection and support lower. Preschool children
prefer prosocial playmates. Reject disruptive, demanding, intrusive or aggressive children and
ignore those who are shy or withdrawn.
Well-liked preschoolers and kindergarteners, and those who are rated by parents and teachers as
socially competent, generally cope well with anger. Avoid insults and threats and respond directly in
ways minimising further conflict and keep relationships going. Unpopular children tend to hit back
or tattle. Not all children without playmates have poor social adjustment, some simply prefer
playing alone.

Characteristics and Benefits of Friendships

Preschoolers have more positive interactions but also more quarrels with friends.May get just as
angry with someone they dislike but more likely to control their anger and express it constructively.
Friendships more satisfying and likely to last when children see them as relatively harmonious and
as validating their self-worth.
Children with friends enjoy school more. Children whose friendships are a source of help and selfvalidation are happier, feel better about school, and can look to classmates for support.

Parenting and Popularity

Children who are insecurely attached or whose parents are harsh, neglectful or depressed or have
troubled marriages are at risk of developing unattractive social and emotional patterns and of being
rejcted by peers. Children whose parents rely on power-assertive discipline tend to use coercive
tactics in peer relations
Popular children generally have warm, positive relationships with both parents. Parents likely to be
authoritative, and the children to be both assertive and cooperative. Children whose parents engage
in give-and-take reasoning more likely to resolve conflicts with peers that way. Children whose
parents clearly communicate disapproval rather than anger, as well as strong positive feelings, are
more prosocial, less aggressive and better liked.

Moral Reasoning: Kohlberg's Theory

Kohlberg's Levels and Stages

Moral development based on thought processes shown by responses to hypothetical dillemas,

Lawrence Kohlberg described three levels of moral reasoning (reflecting cognitive development)
each divided into two stages.

Level I: Preconventional morality: people act under external conditions.. Obey rules to
avoid punishment or reap rewards, or act out of self-interest. Typical of children ages 4-10
Stage I: Orientation toward punishment and obedience: avoiding punishment. Ignore motives of
the act and focus on its physical form or consequence.
Stage II: Instrumental Purpose and exchange: conform to rules out of self-interest and
consideration for what others can do for them. Look at an act in terms of the human needs it meets
and differentiate this value from the act's physical form and consequence.
Level II: Conventional morality (or morality of conventional role conformity): People
have internalised the standards of authority figures. They are concerned about being good,
pleasing others, and maintaining social order. Typically reached after age 10 and many never
move beyond it.
Stage III: Maintaining mutual relations, approvial of others, the golden rule: want to please and
help others, judge others' intentions, and develop their own ideas of what a good person is. Evaluate
an act according to the motive behind it or the person performing it and take circumstances into
accound.
Stage IV: Social concern and conscience: concerned with doing their duty, showing respect for
higher authority, and maintaining social order. Consider an act always wrong, regardless of motive
or circumstances, if it violates a rule and harms others.
Level III: Postconventional morality (or morality of autonomous moral principles):
Recognise conflicts between moral standards and make own judgments on the basis of
principles of right, fairness, and justice. Generally do not reach this until at least early
adolescence or more commonly young adulthood, if ever.
Stage V: Morality of contract, individual rights and democratically accepted law: think in rational
terms, valuing the will of majority and welfare of society. Adhering to law is better for society in the
long run even though human need and law may conflict at times.
Stage VI: Morality of universal ethical principles: People do what they as individuals think is
right, regardless fo legal restrictions or opinions of others. Act in accordance with internalised
standards, knowing they would condemn themselves if they did not.
-Kohlberg questioned validity of stage VI at one point, but later proposed a 7th: cosmic stagein
which people do not consider effect of their actions only on other people but on the universe as a
whole.

Evaluating Kohlberg's theory

Investigators now look at how children make moral judgments based on growing understanding of
social world.
Research has supported some aspects of his theory but left others in question. Children can reason
flexibly about moral issues earlier than Piaget and Kohlberg proposed.
Lack of clear relationship between moral reasoning and moral behaviour.
Critics claim cognitive approach to moral development gives insufficient attention to importance of
emotion and internalisation of prosocial norms. Some seek to synthesise it with new insights.
Certain level of cognitive development is necessary but not sufficient for comparable level of moral
development.

Family Influences

Parents' guidance (should be supportive rather than lecturing or challenging/contradicting)

influences progress through Kohlberg's stages.

Validity for Women and Girls

Carol Gilligan has argued that Kohlberg's theory is oriented towards values more important to men
than to women. Gilligan: women see morality not so much in terms of justice and fairness as of
responsibility to show care and avoid harm.
Research has not supported her claim and she has modified her position suggesting that both men
and women value an ethic of care. Some research has found gender differences in moral
judgments in early adolescence, with girls scoring higher than boys. May be because girls generally
mature earlier and have more intimate social relationships.

Cross-cultural Validity

Cross-cultural studies support Kohlberg's sequence of stages up to a point. Older people from
countries other than US seem to score higher than younger people but people in nonwestern cultures
rarely score above stage 4. May not fit cultural values of some societies or philosophies.
Also stages 5-6 restrict maturity to a select group of people who are given to philosophical
reflection.
Kohlberg's own view was that before people can develop a fully principled morality, they must
recognise the relativity of moral standards.

Physical and Cognitive Development in Middle-Childhood

Physical Development

Aspects of Physical Development

Great deal of individual differences

Growth
Growth during middle-childhood slows considerably.
School-age children grow about 1-3 inches each year and gain about 5-8 pounds or more, doubling
their average bodyweight. Girls retain more fatty tissue, a characteristic that persists through
adulthood. There is such a wide range of individual differences that a child of average height at age
7 who does not grow at all for 2 years is still within the normal limits of height. There are marked
racial differences as well.
Some children do not grow normally. Common cause is deficiency or lack of growth hormone, in
which case synthetic growth hormone may be administered. Some children who do have normal
levels of growth hormone but are much shorter sometimes also receive it but this remains highly
controversial and not recommended.

Motor Development
(see table 9-1 on page 312)
In most non-literate and transitional societies children go to work and (especially for girls) have
more household labour which leaves less time for physical play. In some more wealthy societies,
children spend more time in more organized sports and less in unstructured activities.
Rough and tumble play: Vigorous play involving wrestling, kicking, tumbling, grappling and
sometimes chasing, often accompanied by laughing and screaming. Accounts for about 10% of
schoolchildren's play at recess in lower grades. Peaks in middle-childhood and drops to about 5%
by age 11 (about the same as early childhood). It is universal and has an evolutionary function as it
evolved to provide practice in skills used in fighting and hunting. Today it has other purposes:
physical exercise, helps children jockey for dominance in peer group by asserting strength. Boys do
it more often (due to hormones and differences in socialisation).
Physical fitness
In many developed countries children do not exercise enough. (Lack of) exercise affects both
physical and mental health. Improves strength and endurance, helps build healthy bones and
muscles, helps control weight, reduces anxiety and stress and increases self-confidence. Even
moderate exercise if done for 30 minutes most (preferably all) days has health benefits. A sedentary

lifestyle that carries over into adulthood may result in obesity with increased risk of diabetes, heart
disease and cancer.
Most physical activities in and out of school are competitive/team sports and games aimed at the
fittest/most athletic children and parents and coaches often use tactics (focus on winning, pressure
them to practice long hours, criticize skills, offer bribes to make them do well) that discourage
rather than encourage participation, and most children will drop these activities after leaving school.
To help improve motor skills, organised athletic programs should offer the chance to try a variety of
sports that can be part of a lifetime fitness regimen, gear coaching towards building skills instead of
winning, and include as many children as possible.

Cognitive Development
Piagetian Approach: The Concrete Operational Child

At about age 7 children, according to Piaget, reach the concrete operational stage

Cognitive Advances
(See table 9-2 on page 317)
Space and Causality
They can better uderstand spatial relationships. A clearer idea of the distance between one place and
another and how long it will take to get there, and more easily remember the route and landmarks
along the way. Experience plays a role in this development.
Abilties to use maps and models and to communicate spatial information improve with age. 6 year
olds can search for and find hidden objects but not give clear directions, perhaps because they lack
the appropriate vocab or do not realise what information the other person needs.
Judgments about cause and effect also improve during middle childhood.
Categorization
Helps to think logically. Includes such sophisticated abilities as:
Seriation: Ability to order items along a dimension
Transitive inference: Understanding of the relationship between two objects by knowing the
relationship of each to a third object.
Class inclusion: Understanding of the relationship between a whole and its parts.
Inductive and Deductive Reasoning
According to Piaget children in the stage of concrete operations use inductive reasoning: type of
logical reasoning that moves from particular observations about members of a class to a general
conclusion about that class.
According to Piaget deductive reasoning does not develop until adolescence. Deductive reasoning:
type of logical reasoning that moves from a general premise about a class to a conclusion about a
particular member or members of the class.
According to one experiment, contrary to Piagetian theory, second-graders (but not kindergarteners_
were able to answer both deductive and inductive problems correctly, see the difference between
them and explain their responses and they (appropriately) expressed more confidence i0n their
deductive than in their inductive ones.
Conservation
In solving various types of conservation problems, children in the concrete operational stage can
work out the answers in their heads.
They understand the principle of identity: the knowledge that an object is still the same even though
it has a different shap, and the principle of reversibility: the knowledge that the object can be

changed back. They can also decenter: focus on multiple dimensions of an object at once. In
general....
By about age 7-8: can solve problems involving conservation of substance.
By age 9-10: conservation of weight
By age 12: conservation of volume
Horizontal dcalage: Piaget's term for inability to transfer learning about one type of conservation
to other types, which causes a child to master different types of conservation tasks at different ages.
Their thinking is too concrete, too closely tied to a particular situation.
Piaget maintained that mastery of skills such as conservation depends on neurological maturation
and adaptation to the environment and is not died to cultural experience. There is evidence for a
neurological basis but there may be cultural differences, especially due to familiarity with the
materials being manipulated.

Moral Reasoning
According to Piaget, immature moral judgments center only on the degree of offense and more
mature moral judgments consider intent. He proposed that moral reasoning develops in 3 stages:
1. (approximately age 2-7, corresponding with preoperational stage): Based on obedience to
(adult) authority. Rigid thinking about moral concepts and because they are egocentric they
cannot imagine more than one way of looking at a moral issue. Behaviour is either right or
wrong and any offense deserves punishment regardless of intent.
2. (Approximately age 7 or 8 10 or 11, corresponding with concrete operational stage):
Increasing flexibility and some degree of autonomy based on mutual respect and
cooperation. Increased exposure to different viewpoints leads to discarding the idea of a
single, absolute standard of right/wrong and develop own sense of justice based on fairness
or equal treatment for all.
3. (Around age 11-12 when children become more capable of formal reasoning): Equality
takes on different meaning for the child. Belief that everyone should be treated alike gives
way for idea of equity (taking specific circumstances into account).

Language and Literacy

Vocabulary, Grammar and Syntax
As vocab grows during school years, children use increasingly precise verbs to describe an action,
learn that a word may have multiple meanings and can tell from the context which meaning is
intended, selecting the right word for a particular use, using simile or metaphor becomes more
common. Despite quite complex grammar by age 6, they rarely use passive voice, verb tenses
including the auxiliary have, and conditional sentences.
Up to and possibly after age 9 understanding of rules of syntax (how words are organised into
phrases and sentences) becomes more sophisticated. Older children use more subordinate clauses,
look at the semantic effet of a sentence as a whole rather than focusing on word order as a signal of
meaning. Some constructions, such as clauses beginning with however and although do not become
comon until early adolescence.

Pragmatics: Knowledge about communication

Pragmatics: Set of linguistic rules that govern the use of language for communication.
Good conversationalists probe to find out how familiar a person is with the topic before they
introduce it, recognise a breakdown in communication and try to repair it. There are wide individual
differences in these skills.
Schoolchildren are highly conscious of adults' power and authority. First graders give shorter,
simpler answers to adults and issue more demands and egage in less extended conversation with
parents than with other adults.

Second graders tell more complex and longer stories. Fictional ones often have conventional
beginnings and endings. Word use is more varied but characters do not grow or change and plots are
not fully developed.
Older children give introductory information and clearly indicate changes of time and place during
the story. Construct more complex episodes but with less unnecessary detail. Forus more on
characters' motives and thoughts and think through how to resolve problems in the plot.

Literacy
Identifying Words: Decoding versus Visually Based Retrieval
Children have 2 ways to identify a printed word:
1. Decoding: Child sounds out the word, translating it from print to speech before retrieving
it from long-term memory. Child must master the phonetic code that matches the printed
alphabet to spoken sounds
2. Visually based retrieval: The child simply looks at the word and retrieves it.
Phonetic, or code emphasis approach: approach to teaching reading that emphasises decoding of
unfamiliar words.
Whole-language approach: more recent approach to teaching reading that emphasises visual
retrieval and use of contextual clues. These programs are built around real-literature and openended, student-initiated activities, in contrast with more rigorous teacher-directed tasks of the
phonetic approach. Based on the belief that children can learn to read and write naturally.
Encouraged to experience from the beginning the purpose of written language: to communicate
meaning. Proponents say that children learn to read with better comprehension and more enjoyment
if they see written language as a way to gain informationand express ideas and feelings instead of a
system of isolated sounds and syllables that must be learned by memorization and drill.
Reviews of the literature have found little support for these claims and critics say that reading is a
skill that must be taught and research supports the importance of phonemic awareness and phonics
training.
A blend of the best of both approaches is recommended because academic skills like reading are the
product of many functions in different parts of the brain.
Comprehension
The developmental processes that improve comprehension of written passages are the same as those
that improve memory. That's why those of you who are trying to read this stoned are going to fail
the exam. As word-identification becomes more automatic and capacity of the working-memory
increases, children can focus more on the meaning of what they read. Metacognition: awareness of
a person's own mental processes helps children to monitor their understanding of what they read
and to develop strategies to clear up any problems. Increasing store of knowledge = can more
readily check new info against what they already know.
Some teaching methods help children develop interpretive strategies through literary discussion.
This is very effective.
Writing
Acquisition of writing goes hand in hand with reading development. Older preschoolers begin using
letters, numbers, and letterlike shapes as symbols to represent words/parts of words syllables or
phonemes. Often spelling is very inventive, to the point that they may not be able to read it
themselves. Writing is difficult for young children because school writing assignments often
involve unfamiliar topics and unlike conversation, which offers constant feedback, writing requires
the child to judge independently whether the goal has been met. Other constraints must also be kept
in mind by the child: spelling, punctuation, grammar, capitalisation, basic physical task of forming
letters. Children who type/use word processors write better due to the absence of the mechanical
demands of hand-writing.

 Psychosocial Development in Middle Childhood

The Developing Self

Representational Systems: A Neo-Piagetian View

Around age 7-8 children reach the third of the neo-Piagetian stages of self-concept development.
They now have the cognitive ability to form representational systems: characterised by breadth,
balance and the integration and assessment of various aspects of the self. They can compare their
real self with their ideal self and judge how well they mesure up to social standards in comparison
with others. These changes contribute to the development of self-esteem and assessment of global
self-worth.

Self-Esteem
Erikson: major determinant of self-esteem is children's view of their capacity for productive work.
Issue of middle childhood is industry versus inferiority. The virtue is competence. The children
learn the skills valued in their society. They compare their abilities with those of their peers. IF they
feel inadequate they may retreat to the protective embrace of the family. If they become too
industrious, they may neglect social relationships and turn into workaholics.
According to research by Susan Harter children aged 8-12 rate appearance as more important,
followed by social acceptance. The mastery of skills was alot less important. This research applies
to school-age children in North-America specifically though.
A major contributor ro self-esteem is social support first, from parents and classmates, then from
friends and teachers. Social support generally will not compensate for a low self-evaluation.
Children who are socially withdrawn or isolated may be overly concerned about their performance
in social situations. They may attribute rejection to their own personality deficiencies, which they
believe they are helpess to change. Rather than trying new ways to gain approval, they repeat
unsuccessful strategies or just give up (similar to helpless patternin younger children). Children
with high self-esteem tend to attribute failure to factors outside themselves or the need to try harder.
If initially unsuccessful, they persevere trying new strategies until they find one that works.

Emotional Growth
As they grow older children are more aware of their own and other people's feelings. They can
better regulate their emotional expression in social situations, and they can respond to others'
emotional distress. They can verbalise conflicting emotions increasingly (see table 10-1 on page
353).
By age 7-8: shame and pride (which depend on awareness of implications of their actions and on
what kind of socialisation children have received) affect their opinion of themselves.
Children become more empathic and more inclined to prosocial behaviour in middle-childhood.
Prosocial behaviour is a sign of positive adjustment. Prosocial children tend to act appropriately in
social situations, be relatively free from negative emotion, and cope with problems constructively.
Control of negative emotions is an aspect of emotional growth. They learn what induces these
emotions and how others react to their display thereof, and adapt their behaviour accordingly. They
also learn the difference between having an emotion and expressing it, which kindergarteners do not
understand.
By middle childhood, children are well aware of their culture's rules for emotional displays. Such
cultural rules are communicated through parents' reactions to children's displays of feelings.
Acknowledging and legitimising children's own feelings of distress encourages empathy and
prosocial behaviour. Punishing or devaluing negative emotions negatively affects social adjustment
and punishment may cause more intense expression of said emotions. They may learn to hide
negative emotions but become anxious in situations that evoke them. As they near adolescence,
parental intolerance of negative emotion may heighten parent-child conflict.

Sibling Relationships

In many parts of the world (mostly remote rural areas/villages) it is common to see older girls
caring for three or four younger siblings and playing an important role in their upbringing. Parents
train children early to teach their younger siblings a variety of skills and inangible values. Siblings
may fight and compete, but do so within societal rules and roles.
In industrialised societies, parents generally try not to burden older siblings with care of younger
ones. Some caretaking takes place but it is usually sporadic. Teaching younger siblings usually
happens by chance and not as an established part of the social system.
Number of siblings, spacing, birth order and gender often determine roles and relationships. Larger
number of siblings in non-industrialised societies helps the family carry on its work and provide for
aging members. In industrialised societies, fewer siblings with bigger spacing (age gap) allows
parents to pursue careers and other interests and focus more resources and attention to each child.
Studies have found that changes in sibling relationships were most likely to occurs when one sibling
was between ages 7-9. Both mothers and children often attributed these changes to outside
friendships. Sometimes the younger sibling's growing assertiveness played a part.
Sibling relationships are a laboratory for conflict resolution. Same-sex siblings squabble more. Two
brothers more than any other combination.
Siblings influence eachother directly through their own interactions, and indirectly through their
impact on eachother's relationship with parents. Behaviour patterns established with the parents
tend to spill over into behaviour with siblings.

The Child in the Peer Group

In the school years the peer group comes into its own. Groups form naturally among children who
lite near one another or go to school together. These groups are usually close in socioeconomic
status and age, though a neighbourhood play group may inclue mixed ages. Groups are usually all
girls or all boys: same sex children have common interests; girls are generally more mature than
boys, girls and boys play and talk to one another differently. Same-sex groups help children to learn
gender appropriate behaviours and incorporate gender roles into their self-concept.

Positive and Negative Influences of Peer Relations

In peer groups, children begin to move away from parental influence and be exposed to new
perspectives. They are freed to make independent judgments. They test values they previously
accepted unquestioningly against those of their peers, helping them decide which to keep and which
to discard. Children can gauge their abilities more realistically and gain a clearer sense of selfefficacy by comparing themselves to peers.
The peer group helps children learn how to get along in society.
It can also have negative effects. It is usually in the company of peers that children act in antisocial
ways. Preadolescent children are especially susceptible to pressure to conform. Some degree of
conformity is healthy but not when it becomes destructive and prompts people to act against their
own better judgment.
Prejudice: Unfavourable attitude toward members of certain groups outside one's own, especially
racial or ethnic groups. Peer group may also reinforce this. It can also lessen or eliminate it due to
broadening of experience.

Popularity
Popularity becomes more important in middle childhood. Children spend more time with other
children and peers' opinions greatly affect their self-esteem. Schoolchildren whose peers like them
are likely to be well adjusted as adolescents. Those who have trouble getting along with peers are
more likely to develop psychological problems, drop out of school or become delinquent.
Popular children typically have good cognitive abilities, are high achievers, good at solving social
problems, help other children, are assertive without being disruptive or aggressive, are loyal,

trustworthy, self-disclosing and provide emotional support. Their superior social skills make others
enjoy being with them.
However, in some cases aggresive or antisocial boys are among the more popular, perhaps because
their behaviour is seen as cool or glamorous by preadolescents.
Children can be unpopular for many reasons, some of which may not be fully within their control.
They may be aggressive, hyperactive, inattentive, withdrawn, act silly and immature or anxious and
uncertain. Often insensitive to other children's feelings and do not adapt well to new situations or
show undue interest in being with groups of the other sex. Some expect not to be liked, which may
become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It is often in the family that children acquire behaviours that affect popularity. Authoritative parents
tend to have more popular children than authoritarian parents due to them adopting their manner of
dealing with others.
There are cultural differences in traits that make children popular, although academic achievement
and social competence do seem to be linked in both Western and Chinese cultures.

Friendship
Children look for friends who are like them: of the same age, sex, and ethnic group and with
common interests. A friend is someone a child feels affection for, is comfortable with, likes to do
things with and can share feelings and secrets with. They know eachother well, trust eachother, feel
a sense of commitment to one another and treat eachother as equals. Strongest friendships involve
equal commitment and mutual give-and-take. Unpopular children can make friends but tend to have
fewer friends than popular children and tend to find friends among younger children, other
unpopular children or children in a different class/different school.
With their friends children learn to communicate and cooperate. They learn about themselves and
others and can help eachother get through stressful situations.
Friendship seems to help children feel good about themselves, although it may work the other way
around: children who feel good about themselves make friends more easily.
Peer rejection and friendlessness in middle childhood may have long-lasting effects on self-esteem.
Children's concepts of friendship and the way they act with friends change with age, reflecting
cognitive and emotional growth. Preschool friends play together but friendship among school-age
children is deeper and more stable. Children cannot be/have true friends until they achieve the
cognitive maturity to consider other people's views/needs as well as their own.
Robert Selman identified 4 Stages of Friendship (see table 10-2 on page 369).
Most school-age children are in stage 2 (reciprocal friendship based on self-interest). From about
age 9 they may be in stage 3 (intimate, mutually shared relationships).
School-age children distinguish best friends good friends and casual friends based on level of
intimacy and time spent together. They typically have 3-5 best friends but usually only play with
1 or 2 at a time. 12% of children this age have only one friend or none.
School-age girls care less about having many friends than about having a few close friends they can
rely on. Boys have more friendships but they tend to be less intimate and affectionate. A study
showed that although intimate sharing is more common among girls and aggressive behaviour
among boys, there is no difference in responsiveness, dominance, exuberance or ability to
cooperate.

Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence

Adolescence: A Developmental Transition

Adolescence: Developmental transition between childhood and adulthood entailing major physical,
cognitive and psychosocial changes. Adolescence generally considered to begin with puberty:
Process by which a person attains maturity and the ability to reproduce.

Adolescence is a social construction. It was not recognised before the 20th century.
There are legal definitions of adulthood (referring to what one can do when reaching a certain age),
sociological definitions (when one is self-supporting or has chosen a career, married or formed a
significant relationship or started a family), and psychological definitions (cognitive maturity
considere to coincide with capacity for abstract thought) (emotional maturity may depend on
achievements like discovering one's identity, becoming independent or parents etc.) Some never
leave adolescence, no matter what their chronological age.
Early adolescence: (approximately ages 11/12-14): transition out of childhood. Offers opportunities
of growth in various domains but also risks. Some need guidance to cope with all the changes
happening simultaneously. Adolescence is a time of increasing divergence between those heading
for a bright future and a small group who will be facing major problems. Behaviour patterns
contributing to the associated risks are established early in adolescence.

Physical Development

Puberty: The End of Childhood

Biological changes: Rapid growth in height/weight,changes in body proportions and form,

attainment of sexual maturity. Dramatic physical changes part of a long, complex process of
maturation beginning even before birth, psychological ramifications continue into adulthood.

How Puberty Begins

Age 5-9: Adrenal glands begin secreting larger amounts of androgens which will play a part in
growth of pubic, axillary (armpit) and facial hair. Few years later, in girls the ovaries produce more
estrogen, stimulating growth of female genitals and breast development. In boys, testes increase the
manufacture of androgens (particularly testosterone) stimulating growth of male genitals, muscle
mass and body hair. Boys and girls have both types of hormones, but girls have higher estrogen and
boys have higher androgen levels. In girls, testosteron influences growth of the clitoris and bones
and pubic and axillary hair.
Beginning of this hormonal burst seems to depend on reaching a critical weight level. Leptin, a
protein hormone secreted by fatty tissue and identified as having a role in obesity is needed to
trigger the onset of puberty, accumulation in the bloodstream may stimulate the hypothalamus to
send pulsating signals to the nearby pituitary gland which may signal the sex glands to increase
hormone secretion. May explain why overweight girls enter puberty earlier.
Heightened emotionality and moodiness of early adolescents may be due to hormonal changes.
Other influences, such as gender, age, temperament and timing of puberty may moderate or override
hormonal ones. Link with hormonal changes stronger in boys, especially in early adolescents, who
are still adjusting to pubertal changes.

Timing, Sequence and Signs of Maturation

There's about a 7-year range for onset of puberty in both boys and girls. Process typically takes
about 4 years for both sexes and begins about 2 or 3 years earlier in girls than in boys.
Both sexes: adolescent growth spurt, deeper voice, pubic hair development, muscular growth
Girls: beginning of ovulation. Boys: production of sperm.
Sequencing is more consistent than timing (see table 11-1 on page 390) but does vary somewhat.
Secular trend: trend that can be seen only by observing several generations, such as the trend
toward earlier attainment of adult height and sexual maturity, which began a century ago in US,
Western Europe and Japan. Most likely due to higher standard of living health, nourishment,
better care means earlier maturation and greater growth.

Individual and racial differences exist in the age of onset. There's an association between early onset
of puberty and overweight. There's also research suggesting a link between early female puberty
and a gene that controls breakdown of testosterone. A reduction of a girl's testosterone may trigger
breast development.
The Adolescent Growth Spurt
Adolescent growth spurt: Sharp increase in height and weight that precedes sexual maturity. Girls:
at age 9.5-14.5 (usually 10) Boys: at age 10.5-16 (usually 12/13) and lasts for about 2 years. Person
reaches sexual maturity soon after it ends. Because it starts earlier in girls, girls aged 11-13 are
taller, heavier and stronger. After their growth spurt boys are again larger. Muscular growth peaks at
12.5 in girls and 14.5 in boys. Both reach virtually their full height by age 18.
Boy: becomes larger overall, wider shoulders, longer legs relative to body, longer forearms relative
to upper arms and height.
Girl: Hips widen to facilitate childbearing. Layers of fat are deposited under the skin, giving a more
rounded appearance.
Adolescent growth spurt affects basically all skeletal and muscular dimensions. Even the eye grows
faster, causing an increase in near-sightedness (about of 12-17 year olds). Lower jaw becomes
longer and thicker, jaw and nose project more, incisor teeth become more upright. Each of these
changes follow their own timetable, which may lead to disproportion.
Most young teenagers are more concerned about their looks than any other aspect of themselves.
Girls tend to be unhappier about their looks, reflecting the greater cultural emphasis on women's
appearance. Girls, especially those advanced in pubertal development, tend to think they are too fat,
which can lead to eating problems. Concern with body image may be related to the stirring of
sexual attraction, which has been found to begin as early as 9-10.
Primary and Secondary Sex Characteristics
The primary sex characteristics: organs directly related to reproduction, which enlarge and mature
during adolescence. In the female: ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus and vagina. In the male: testes,
penis, scrotum, seminal vesicles, and prostrate gland.
First signs of puberty: growth of testes and scrotum in boys. In girls, this is not readily apparent
because these organs are internal.
Secondary sex characteristics: Physiological signs of sexual maturation that do not involve the
sex organs: breast development (f), broad shoulders (m), changes in voice and skin texture,
muscular development, growth of pubic, facial, axillary and body hair.
First reliable sign of puberty in girls is the growth of breasts. Nipples enlarge and protrude, the
aerolae (pigmented areas surrounding the nipples) enlarge, breasts assume first a co
nical and
then a rounded shape. Some adolescent boys experience temporary breast enlargement (normal and
may last up to 18 months).
Voice deepens: growth of larynx and (especially in boys) production of male hormones. Skin
becomes coarser and oilier. Increased activity of the sebaceous glands (secrete a fatty substance)
may give rise to pimples and blackheads.
Pubic hair is at first straight and silky and later becomes coarse, dark and curly, appears in different
patterns in males and females. Adolescent boys usually happy to see hair on the face and chest but
girls generally dismayed at the appearance of even a slight amount, although it is normal.

Signs of Sexual Maturity: Sperm Production and Menstruation

In males, the principal sign of sexual maturity is the production of sperm. Most adolescent boys get
a Nocturnal emission (wet dream): an involuntary ejaculation of semen, sometimes in connection
with an erotic dream. Spermache: First ejaculation.
Principal sign of sexual maturity in females is menstruation a monthly shedding of tissue from the
lining of the womb. Menarche: first menstruation. Occurs fairly late in the sequence of female
development and indicates that ovulation is occurring. Normal timing varies from age 10-16.5.
Combination of genetic, physical, emotional and environmental influences may affect the timing of
menarche. Age of menarche tends to be similar to that of mother. Bigger girls and those whose
breasts are more developed tend to menstruate earlier. Streuous exercise can delay menarche.
Nutrition is also a factor. Even when these factors are controlled, girls with early menarche tend to
be aggressive or depressed or have poor family relationships. Association with substance abuse.
Study: Girls who as preschoolers had close supportive relationships their parents especially with
an affectionate, innvolved father showed later pubertal development than when parental
relationships were cold, distant or those raised by single mothers.
Genetic explanation: father's tendency toward marital conflict and family abandonment and his
daughter's tendency toward early puberty may stem from the same shared genes.
Psychological effects of pubertal timing depend on how the adolescent and other people in his/her
world interpret the accompanying changes. Effects of early/late maturation most likely to be
negative when adolescents are much more/less developed than their peers, when they do not see the
changes as advantageous and when several stressful events occur at about the same time.

Psychosocial Development in Adolescence

The Search for Identity

Identity: Erikson: A coherent conception of the self, made up of goals, values and beliefs to which
a person is solidly committed. It is part of a healthy, vital process necessary for coping with
psychosocial issues of adult life.

Erikson: Identity versus Identity Confusion

Identity vs Identity (or role) Confusion: Erikson's 5th stage of psychosocial development.
Adolescent seeks to develop a coherent sense of self, including the role she or he is to play in the
society. Seldom fully resolved in adolescence. Issues concerning identity crop up throughout adult
life.
Erikson: Forming of new identity not by modeling but by modifying and synthesising earlier
identifications into a new psychological structure, greater than the sum of its parts.
Identity (role) confusion: can delay reaching psychological adulthood. Some degree of it is normal.
Accounts for both seemingly chaotic nature of much adolescent behaviour and self-consciousness.
Cliquishness and intolerance of differences are defences against identity confusion. May also show
confusion by regressing into childishness to avoid resolving conflicts or by committing themselves
impulsively to poorly thought-out courses of action.
Identity forms with the resolving of three major issues: choice of occupation, adoption of values,
development of a satisfying sexual identity. They now need to find a way to use the skills learned in
industry versus inferiority. Trouble in settling on an occupational identity/artificial limitations of
opportunities can lead to behaviour with serious negative consequences (ex.Crime, early pregnancy)

Adolescence provides a time out period (psychosocial moratorium) during which they search for
commitments to which they can be faithful with potentially long-lasting effects. Ability to remain
faithful influences ability to resolve the identity crisis.
Development of virtue fidelity: sustained loyalty, faith or a sense of belonging to a loved one or to
friends and companions. Also identifiction with a set of values, ideology, religion, political
movement, creative pursuit, ethnic group. Self-identification emerges when they themselves choose
values/people to be loyal to (not parents' choice). Fidelity is an extension of trust from trusting
parents (infancy) to, oneself, becoming trustworthy and extending trust to loved ones and mentors.
Clarifying a tentative identity by seeing it reflected in the eyes of the beloved through sharing
thoughts/feelings. Different from mature intimacy (=more commitment, sacrifice, compromise).
Erikson's theory describes male identity development as the norm. Erikson: women define
themselves through marriage and motherhood (truer then than now) and develop identity through
intimacy, not before it.

Marcia: Identity Status Crisis and Commitment

Identity statuses: James E. Marcia's term for states of ego development that depend on the
presence/absence of crisis: (Marcia): period of conscious decision making related to identity
formation, and commitment: (Marcia): personal investment in an occupation or system of beliefs.
Erikson also believed these to be crucial to identity formation. He found relationships between
identity status and characteristics like anxiety, self-esteem, moral reasoning, behavioural patterns.
(Also see tables 12-1 p. 427 and 12-2 p. 428)
1. Identity achievement: (crisis leading to commitment) Characterised by commitment to
choices made following a crisis, a period spent in exploring alternatives. People in this
category (across cultures) tend to be more mature and competent in relationships than those
in the other 3.
2. Foreclosure: (commitment without crisis) person who has not spent time considering
alternatives (that is, has not been in crisis) is committed to other people's (generally family)
plans for his/her future. Tendencies to have close family ties, be obedient, follow a powerful
leader who accepts to disagreement.
3. Moratorium: (crisis with no commitment yet) Person is currently considering alternatives
(in crisis) and seems headed for commitment. Will probably come out of crisis
eventuallywith the ability to make commitments and achieve identity.
4. Identity diffusion: (no commitment, no crisis) Characterised by absence of commitment
and lack of serious consideration of alternatives. People in this category tend to be unhappy,
often lonely because they have only superficial relationships.
These categories are not permanent. From late adolescence on, more and more reach identity
achievement or moratorium. Many remain in foreclosure/diffusion. When adults look back on their
lives, the most commonly trace a path from foreclosure to moratorium to identity achievement.
Gender Differences in Identity Formation
Much research supports Erikson's view that identity and intimacy develop together for women.
Intimacy matters more to girls even earlier on. Some see this as a weakness in Erikson's theory.
Carol Gilligan: Female sense of self develops more through establishing relationships than through
achieving a seperate identity. They judge themselves on their handling of their responsibilities and
on their ability to care for others as well as themselves. This appears to be true.

Some argue that individual differences are more important than gender differences. Marcia argues
that relationships and an ongoing tension between independence and connectedness are at the heart
of all of Erikson's stages for men and women.
Self esteem, during adolescence, develops largely in the context of relationships with peers,
particularly those of the same sex.
Some research suggests that adolescent girls have lower self esteem than boys. Recent analysis
suggests that boys/men do have higher self-esteem, especially in late adolescence, but the difference
is small. Both males and females seem to gains self-esteem with age.
Ethnic Factors in Identity Formation
Identity formation especially complicated for young people in minority groups. For some, ethnicity
may be central to identity formation. Skin colour and other physical features, language differences,
and stereotyped social standing can be extremely influential in molding minority adolescents' selfconcept.
Teenagers have wider social networks and more mobility than younger children, and greater
cognitive awareness of cultural attitudes and distinctions. There may be a conflict of between values
stressed at home and those of the wider society. Despite positive appraisals of others, minority
adolescents' self-perceptions may reflect negative views of their group by the majority culture.
Members of different ethnic groups find different issues critical.
Four stages of ethnic ethnicity based on Marcia's identity statuses:
1. Diffuse: Little or no exploration of one's ethnicity and no clear understanding of issues
involved.
2. Foreclosed: Little or no exploration of one's ethnicity but clear feelings about it (positive or
negative, depending on attitudes absorbed at home)
3. Moratorium: Has begun to explore ethnicity but confused about what it means to him/her.
4. Achieved: Has explored his/her ethnicity and accepts it.

Is Adolescent Rebellion a Myth?

Adolescent rebellion: Pattern of emotional turmoil, characteristic of a minority of adolescents
(only about 1/5 adolescents worldwide), which may involve conflict with family, alienation from
adult society, reckless behaviour and rejection of adult values.
The idea may have originated with the first formal theory of adolescence of G. Stanley Hall: young
people's efforts to adjust to their changing bodies and to the imminent demands of adulthood usher
in a period of emotional storm and stress which produces conflict between the generations.
Sigmund and Anna Freud: Storm and Stress as universal and inevitable growing out of resurgance
of early sexual drives toward the parents.
Margaret Mead: When a culture provides a gradual, serene transition from adulthood to childhood,
storm and stress isn ot typical. Was eventually supported.
Adolescents may defy parental authority with some regularity but emotions attending this transition
normally don't lead to major family conflict or sharp break with parental/societal standards.
Family conflict, depression, risky behaviour more common during adolescence than any other time.
Many feel self-conscious, embarrassed, awkward, lonely, nervous or ignored and most take
occasional risks. Negative emotionality and mood swings most intense during early adolescence

(perhaps due to stressful events of puberty). By late adolescence emotionality tends to stabilise.

Changing Time Use and Changing Relationships

One way to assess changes in adolescents' relationships with the important people in teir lives is to
see how they spend their discretionary time. There's cultural differences in how it is spent and how
much discretionary time is available, as well as in changes in family ties and importance of peers.
Time spent with peers with whom they identify and feel comfortable(increasingly with opposite sex
as well) increases. Time spent with family tends to decrease because time alone is needed to step
back from the demands of social relationships, regain emotional stability and reflect on identity
issues.

Adolescents and Parents

Adolescents/parents face tensions between dependency on the parent/need to protect the child from
immature lapses in judgment and the need to be break away/give independence to child. This may
lead to family conflicts.
Conversation, Autonomy and Conflice
Time spent watching TV together tends to decrease, whereas time spent in one-on-one conversation
is the same or, among girls, more.
As they grow older adolescents see themselves as taking the lead in these discussions and their
feelings about contact with parents becomes more positive. With increased autonomy and more
mature family relationships, they continue to look to parents for comfort, support and advice.
Conflicts may arise over pace of growth towards independence, generally more so over day-to-day
matters (although they may be proxies for more serious ones). Accumulation of frequent hassles
can add up to a stressful family atmosphere.
During early adolescence family conflict is most frequent (Possibly related to strains of puberty and
need to assert autonomy) but conflicts are most intense in midadolescence (emotional strains that
occur as they try their wings). Reduction of conflict in late adolescence may signify adjustment to
the changes of the teenage years and a renegotiation of the balance of power between parent and
child.
Subjects of conflict similar across ethnic lines, but frequency varies. In many cultures conflict with
the mother is more frequent cause she tends to be more closely involved with her children in the
day-to-day issues that may excite conflict. Regardless of ethnicity the primary influence on family
discord is adolescents' personalities and parents' treatment of them.
Parenting Styles
Most adolescents excel in most areas of their lives when they simply feel that they come from a
loving home with responsive parents.
Authoritative parenting seems to work best. Authoritarian parenting may be especially
counterproductive as children enter adolescence and want to be treated more as adults. When
parents don't adjust the adolescent may reject parental influence and seek peer support/approval at
all costs.
Authoritative parents exercise appropriate control over a child's conduct but not its sense of self.
Disappointment is a more effective response than punishment to misbehaviour.
Questionnaire-survey: Authoritative parenting may bolster their self-image. At the same time, teens
whose parents enforce behavioural rules more strictly had fewer behavioural problems than those

with more lenient parents and tended to develop self-control, self-discipline and good study and
personal habits. Those whose parents gave them psychological autonomy tended to become more
self-confident and competent in academic and social realms.
Family Structure and Mothers' Employment
Detrimental effects of single-parent living have been overstated. It is the atmosphere in the home
that makes the difference regarding school-achievement, self-esteem and attitudes toward gender
roles. Divorce, if it leads to reduced face-to-face conflict with the family, can be beneficial.
Parental support may be more important than family structure.
Genetic factors may play a role in some aspects of adjustment to parental divorce.
Impact of mother's work outside the home may depend on whether there are two parents or only one
in the household. Often a single mother must work to stave off economic disaster. How her work
effects the children depends on how much time/energy she has left over to spend with the children,
how well she keeps track of her whereabouts and what kind of role model she provides.
Without close, consistent supervision, adolescents are more susceptible to peer pressure. As long as
parents know where their son or daughter is, their physical absence does not significantly increase
the risk of problems (risky behaviour, depression, low grades).
When parents feel pressure at work, parent-child conflict tends to rise, and adolescents' well-being
may suffer. When mothers are stressed/overloaded, they may become less caring and accepting and
tensions between adolescents and fathers increase as well.
Mother's work status helps shape adolescents' attitudes towards women's roles. If the mother has a
good relationship with them and is happy with their dual roles the effect is positive. Some of the
strongest gender-typing, however, occurs in families with full-time emploued mothers. Gender
divisions may be fairly egalitarian during the week but on weekends girls like their mothers- do a
larger share of the housework and of care of younger siblings.
Economic Stress
Poverty can complicate family relationships and harm adolescents' development through its impact
on parents' emotional state. Single, unemployed mothers tend to become depressed, perceive their
maternal roles negatively and punish their children harshly, which in turn tends to depress the
children.
In two-parent families that are economically stressed, parental depression and marital conflict may
worsen financial conflicts between parents and adolescents. The parents may be hostile and
coercive, increasing the risk of teenage behaviour problems.
Many adolescents in economically distressed families benefit from social capital (social support,
strong kinship networks etc.)
The family's ability to reap potential benefits of social support is influenced by neighbourhood
characteristics.

Adolescents and Siblings

Adolescents are less close to siblings than to either parents or friends, are less influenced by them
and become even more distant as they move through adolescence.
Changes in sibling relationships may precede similar changes in parent-adolescent relationships:
more dependence on the part of the younger person and less authority exerted by the older person.

As they reach highschool their relationships with their siblings become progressively more equal.
Adolescents still show intimacy, affection and admiration for their siblings but their relationships
are less intense.
These changes seem to be fairly complete when the younger sibling is about 12 years old. It needs
less supervision and differences in competence and independence between older and younger
siblings are shrinking.
Older sibling may see the newly assertive younger sibling as a pesky annoyance, while younger
sibling tends to look up to the older ones and try to feel more grown up by identifying
with/emulating them.

Adolescents and Peers

Peers are an important source of emotional support and a source of pressure for behaviour that
adolescents may explore, as the adolescent takes comfort from being with others going through
similar changes as they are (both physical and in terms of challenging adult standards). The peer
group is a source of affection, sympathy, understanding and moral guidance, a place for
experimentation and a setting for achieving autonomy and independence from parents. The intimate
relationships they form serve as rehearsals for adult intimacy.
Peer influence is strongest in early adolescence, peaks around 12/13 and declines during middle and
late adolescence, as parental relationships are renegotiated.
Attachment to peers in early adolescence does not forecast trouble unless the attachment is so
strong that the young person is willing to give up obeying household rules, doing schoolwork and
developing talents in order to win peer approval and popularity.
Popularity
Five peer status groups have been identified (the descriptions after the : come from a Greek study)
1. popular (receiving many positive nominations from other peers)
2. rejected (receiving many negative nominations): have the greatest adjustment problems.
Tend to have academic difficulties and low achievement test scores. Particularly boys tend
to be aggressive and antisocial. Girls (and older rejected boys) more likely to be shy,
isolated, unhappy and have negative self-image.
3. neglected (receiving few nominations of either kind) By highschool age includes more boys
than girls. Less prosocial, more learning difficulties than average, contributing to a poor
self-image.
4. controversial (receiving many positive and many negative nominations): Generally viewed
positively by teachers, perhaps due to doing well in school and not being viewed as having
behavioural problems. By peers: viewed as aggressive and antisocial but also as leaders,
perhaps due to expectance and acceptance of such behaviour in boys. The girls often rated as
snobbish and arrogant, perhaps reflecting girls' tendency to form cliques at this age. By high
school these girls were better liked than before and also seen as leaders.
5. Average (those who do not receive an unusual number nominations of either kind)
Friendships
Friendships are more egalitarian than family relationships. Based on choice and commitment. Also
more unstable than family relationships. Awareness of the distinctive character of friendships and
what it takes to maintain them emerges in adolescence. Adolescents quarrel less angrily and resolve

conflicts more equitably with friends than with family, or sometimes just drop the issue, perhaps
because the realise that too much conflict can end the friendship.
They tend to choose friends who are like them, and friends influence eachother to become more
alike. Friends are not necessarily of the same race/ethnicity but do tend to have similar academic
attitudes and performance and especially similar levels of drug use and have a similar status within
the peer group.
Genetics influence the choice of peers but environment is the main influence on choice of antisocial
peers.
Intensity and importance of friendships as well as the time spent with friends is greatest in
adolescence. Friendships become more reciprocal. Early adolescents begin to rely more on friends
than on parents for intimacy and support and they share confidences more than younger friends.
A stress on intimacy, loyalty and sharing marks a transition to adultlike friendships.
++Intimacy with same-sex friends increases during early to midadolescence, after which it typically
declines as intimacy with the other sex grows (so much for broz before hoz).
Increased intimacy of adolescent friendship reflects cognitive and emotional development. They are
bettr able to express private thoughts and feelings. They can also more readily consider another
person's point of view. It also reflects early adolescent's concern with getting to know themselves as
confiding in friends helps young people explore their own feelings, define their identity and validate
their self-worth. Friendship provides a safe place to venture opinions, admit weaknesses and get
help with problems.
Capacity for intimacy is related to psychological adjustment and social competence. Adolescents
with close, stable, supportive friendships generally have a high opinion of themselves, do well in
school, are sociable, unlikely to be hostile, anxious or depressed. Good friendships foster
adjustment which in turn fosters good friendships.
Shared confidences and emotional support more vital to female friendships than to male friendships,
which focus less on conversation and more on shared activity. Girls feel better after telling a friend
about an upsetting experience than boys do, boys may express support by just spending time doing
things together. Boys tend to gain self-esteem from competing with friends, girls from helping
them.

Young Adulthood

Foundations of Intimate Relationships

Unless young adults resolve conflicts with parents in a wholesome way, they may find themselves
reenacting similar conflicts in the new relationships they develop with friends, colleagues, partners.
As they become their own persons, they seek emotional and physical intimacy in relationships with
peers and romantic partners. Such relationships require skills like self-awareness, empathy,
communicating emotions, sexual decision making, conflict resolution, sustaining commitments.
These are pivotal as they decide to marry, form unwed or homosexual partnerships or live alone,
and to decide to have children or not.
Erikson: crucial task of this stage is development of intimate relationships. Intimacy may or may not
include sexual contact. Important aspect is self-disclosure: revealing important information about
onself to another. Intimacy is initiated and sustained through shared disclosures, responsiveness to
another's needs and mutual acceptance and respect.

Require a sense of belonging. Intimate attachments satisfy the need for strong, stable, close, caring
relationshipsand the strongest emotions (positive/negative) are evoked by intimate attachments.
Having satisfying close relationships is linked to longevity and better health (physical/mental).
Online relationships tend to be weaker than face-to-face ones. Study: internet users tend to become
less socially involved, communicate less with family, have fewer friends, associated with increase
in loneliness and depression. May be related to initial use of a new technology and may diminish.
Friendship
Friendships during young/middle adulthood tend to center on work and parenting activities and the
sharing of confidences and advice. Vary in intimacy, supportiveness, frequency of conflict, how
many shared activities they are based on, how long-lasting they are. Some best friendships are
more stable than ties to lover/spouse (forget what I said about broz before hoz).
Young singles rely more on friendships to fulfill social needs than young marrieds/young parents,
but newlyweds have the greatest number of friends. Number of friends and time spent with them
generally decreases by middle age due to career/parenting constraints, but friends still important.
People with friends tend to have a sense of well-being (may be bidirectional).
Young women (single/married/with or without children) tend to have more of their social needs met
by friends than young men do. Women tend to have more intimate friendships and find friendships
with other women more satisfying than those with men. Men more likely to share information and
activities, not confidences, with friends.
Love
Most people like love stories, including their own. (See box 14-1 p. 502 for cross-cultural stories,
the Ancient Greeks really understood broz before hoz)
* Sternberg's Triangular theory of love: Patterns of love hinge on the balance among three
elements:
1. Intimacy: emotional element, involves self-disclosure leading to connection, warmth, trust.
2. Passion: motivational element, based on inner drives translating physiological arousal into
sexual desire
3. Commitment: cognitive element. The decision to love and stay with the beloved.
See table 14-2 p 503. for patterns of loving based on presence of these elements.
* Matching hypothesis: dating partners who are about equally attractive are most likely to develop
close relationships. Lovers often resemble eachother in physical appearance, mental/physical health,
intelligence, popularity and warmth, degree to which parents are happy as individuals/couples,
socioeconomic status, race, religion, education, income, temperaments.
Sexuality: Issues and Attitudes
Three categories of views on sexual activity:
1. Reproductive: Sex permissible only for reproductive purposes, within marriage.
2. Recreational: Whatever feels good and doesn't hurt anybody is fine. #YOLO
3. Relational: Sex should be accompanied by love/affection but not necessarily marriage.

The following is all about views in America so idk how relevant it is: Reproductive (30%),
recreational (25%, more men than women), relational (45%). Disapproval of premarital sex has
fallen since the 60s. (1965-1994: m: 63-30%, f: 80-44%)
Median number of sex partners after age 18 is 6 for men and 2 for women. Most people meet their
partners through mutual acquaintances and thus tend to be similar in many aspects. Since the threat
of AIDS, many have modified their sexual behaviour by having fewer partners, choosing them more
carefully, using condoms, abstaining from sex.
Acquaintance rape is a problem on many college campuses. College women more likely to be
raped. Rape prevention programs have had some success.
Between adolescence and young adulthood, gender differences in frequency of
intercourse/masturbation increase (men masturbate more and approve of casual/premarital sex
more). Study showed that there's no gender differences in sexual satisfaction/participation in oral
sex, similarities in attitudes about masturbation, homosexuality, civil liberties for gays and lesbians.
Negative attitudes toward homosexuality are slowly diminishing in the US but there's still a lot of
dumb rednecks and bible-bashers.
Social stigma and discrimination against homosexuals may have significant effects on homosexuals'
mental health higher risk of anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric disorders.
Disapproval of extramarital sex is even greater than disapproval of homosexuality in the US.
Similar patterns of strong disapproval for homosexuality, stronger disapproval of extramarital sex
and far weaker disapproval of premarital sex holds true for many European countries but degrees of
disapproval vary and the US still tops them (except in Catholic Ireland). In other countries views
are liberalising as well. Younger, more educated and less religious people tend to have more liberal
attitudes about sex, and men are still more liberal than women.

Nonmarital and Marital Lifestyles

Rules for acceptable behaviour regarding whether or not one should marry and have children, when
to have children, divorce, remarry etc. are more elastic. People marry later. More have children
outside of marriage, if at all. More divorce.
Single Life+
There are cultural/ethnic differences in how one perceives being single. Many are single by choice.
More women are self-supporting, less social pressure to marry. Some people want to be free to take
risks, experiment and make changes, pursue their quest for self-fullfilment without having to worry
about it affecting another person. Some enjoy sexual freedom. Some find the lifestyle exciting.
Some just like being alone. Some postpone/avoid marriage out of fear for divorce. The younger
people are when they first marry, the more likely they are to divorce. Most singles like their status,
are not lonely, are busy/active and feel secure about themselves.
Gay and Lesbian Relationships
Adults are more likely than adolescents to identify as homosexuals. It is more common in big cities.
Coming out: Process of openly disclosing one's homosexual orientation. Occurs in 4 stages (which
may never be fully achieved):
1. Recognition of being homosexual: May happen early in childhood or not until adolescence
or later. Can be lonely, painful, confusing.

2. Getting to know other homosexuals and establishing sexual and romantic relationships. May
not happen until adulthood. Contact with other homosexuals can diminish feelings of
isolation and improve self-image
3. Telling family and friends: Many can not bring themselves to do this for a long time if
ever. Can bring disapproval, conflict, rejection or may deepen family solidarity/support.
4. Complete openness: Includes telling colleagues, employers and others. Healthy acceptance
of their sexuality as part of who they are.
Homosexual relationships take many forms, but most (like most heterosexuals) seek love,
companionship and sexual fullfilment through a relationship with one person. Such relationships are
more common in societies that tolerate, accept and support them. Ingredients of long-term
satisfaction are very similar in homosexual and heterosexual relationships.
Lesbians are more likely to have a stable, monogamous relationship than gay men. Since the AIDS
epidemic, gay men have become more interested in long-term relationships. Homosexual partners
who live together tend to be as committed as married couples.
In many countries, homosexuals are struggling to obtain legal recognition of their unions and the
right to adopt children or raise their own (in places like the Netherlands this is possible). Many
homosexuals who have been married and had children before coming out have been unable to gain
or keep custody. Others are adopting or conceiving through assisted reproduction techniques.
Having 2 parents, regardless of their sex, is beneficial.
They are also pressing for an end to discrimination in employment and housing. The ability to
receive the customary benefits of marriage is already in effect in France, Sweden, Norway,
Denmark and the Netherlands. Increasing in other countries as well.
Cohabitation
Cohabitation: Status of an unmarried couple who live together and maintain a sexual relationship.
Also called a consensual or informal union. In many European countries they have become the
norm and cohabiting couples receive practically the same legal rights as married ones. Increasing in
other countries as well, decreasing social pressure to marry.
Can either be a substitute for marriage or a trial marriage. In many Latin American countries it
has long been accepted as an alternative to marriage. Increasing tend towards cohabitation instead
of remarriage. Has also accompanied the trend toward delayed marriage. Most end up marrying.
Cohabiting relationships tend to be less satisfying than marriages. Cohabitants miss out on some of
the economic, psychological and health benefits of marriage, which come from the security of a
long-term commitment, greater sharing of economic and social resources, and a stronger
community connection. They also tend to be less stable. If they have a child they are less likely to
break up, whether or not they marry.
Some research shows that couples who cohabit before marriage tend to have unhappier marriages
and greater likelihood of divorce, but that may reflect the kinds of people who cohabit, as
cohabitants tend to have unconventional attitudes about family life, and less likely than most other
people to select partners like themselves in age, race or ethnicity and previous marital status. More
likely to have divorced parents and stepchildren and to have liberal attitudes toward divorce. All
these factors tend to predict unstable marriages.
Marriage
Marriage customs vary widely but universality of some form of marriage throughout history and
around the world suggests that it meets fundamental needs.

Monogamy: Marriage to one mate. The norm in most developed societies.

Polygyny: A man's marriage to multiple women. Common in Islamic countries, African societies
and parts of Asia.
Polyandry: Woman taking multiple husbands. Societies where women wield more economic power.
In most societies, marriage is considered the best way to ensure orderly raising of children. Allows
for division of labour within a consuming and working unit. Ideally it offers intimacy, commitment,
friendship, affection, sexual fulfillment, companionship, an opportunity for emotional growth,
sources of identity and self-esteem and in some philosophical traditions essential to spiritual
fulfillment and survival of the species.
Nowadays many of these benefits are not confined to matrimony, but married people tend to be
happier, unless they are in an unhappy marriage. Women and men are equally happy in marriage.
People who marry and stay married, especially women, tend to accumulate more wealth.
Entering Matrimony
Arranged marriages are historically and cross-culturally the most common for mate-selection.
Sometimes betrothal takes place in childhood. The bride and groom may not even meet until their
wedding day. Free choice based on love has become the norm in the western world.
Typical marrying age varies across cultures. In industrialised societies there is a trend toward later
marriage as it allows time to pursue educational and career goals or explore relationships.
Transition to married life brings major changes in sexual functioning, living arrangements, rights
and responsibilities, attachments, loyalties, redefining family connections, balancing intimacy with
autonomy.
To help newly weds adjust, some traditional societies give them extra privacy, in others their sexual
and other activities are subject to prescribed rules and supervision. In some cultures they set up their
own household, in others they live with parents, temporarily or permanently.
Sexual Activity After Marriage
Cohabitors have sex most frequently, followed by married people followed by singles. Married
couples report more emotional satisfaction from sex. Frequency of sexual relations in marriage
drops sharply after the early monrhs and declines gradually as time goes on. Satisfaction with the
marriageis the second most important factor after age, though it is unclear whether satisfaction
influences frequency of sex or vice versa.
Some seek sexual intimacy extramaritally, especially after the first few years when excitement of
sex with the spouse wears off or problems in the relationship surface. Difficult to measure how
common it is, but it is more common among younger cohorts. Has been curtailed by fear of STDs.
Factors in Marital Success or Failure
Sense of commitment is very important, in which mutual dependence and most of all a feeling of
obligation have been identified as important factors. How they communicate, make decisions, deal
with conflict are also important. Arguing and openly expressing anger are good for marriage but
whining, defensiveness, stubbornness and withdrawal are not.
Young age of marriage, less education and income, cohabitation before marriage and having
divorced parents, becoming pregnant or bearing a child before marriage, having no children, having

stepchildren in the home can predict divorce. People who attach high importance to religion are less
likely to.
Economic hardship can severely stress marriage. Study: Those most resilient in this situation show
mutual supportiveness.
Study: Women's most frequently cited reasons for divorce were incompatibility and lack of
emotional support. For more recently divorced, presumably younger women this included lack of
career support. Third was spousal abuse.
Differences in expectations of marriage may be a subtle underlying factor for conflict. To many
women, marital intimacy entails sharing feelings and confidences. Men tend to express intimacy
through sex, practical help, companionship and shared activities. Mismatch between what women
expect of husbands and the way men look at themselves may be promoted by the media, which
tends to reinforce traditional gender roles.

Parenthood

The traditional family in the West is the nuclear family, whereas in many other cultures the
extended family is the norm. In Western industrialised societies, family size, composition, structure
and division of labour have changed dramatically. Most mothers now work for pay, in or outside the
home, and a small but growing number of fathers are primary caregivers. More single women and
cohabiting couples are having/adopting children, many children live with gay/lesbian/stepparents.
Increasing number of couples remain childless by choice, for a variety of reasons.
Becoming Parents
In preindustrial farming societies, people had more children: to help with the family's work and care
for the aging parents, high death rate in childhood.
In industrial societies, death rate has improved, and large families are no longer a necessity. In
developing countries there is recognition of the need to limit family size and space children further
apart due to hunger and overpopulation.
People are having fewer children and are having them later in life due to education and career.
Economically, delaying childbirth may pay off for women who intend to work later on. Babies of
older mothers may benefit from their mothers' greater ease with parenthood. Study: the older
mothers may be more satisfied with parenting, spend more time at it, be more affectionate, sensitive
to their babies and effective in encouraging desired behaviour. Another study: those who became
father after 35th birthdays spent more leisure time with the children, had higher expectations for
their behaviour and were more nurturing. Older parents are more likely to become a burden when
their children reach middle age.

Parenthood as a Developmental Experience

Men's and Women's Involvement in Parenthood
Both may have mixed feelings about becoming parents: excitement vs anxiety over responsibility
and commitment of time and energy required.
Fathers today are more involved in the children's lives, care and housework than ever before, but
mothers are still vastly more involved.
Even working mothers are the primary caregivers in most families, especially on weekdays, but on
weekends the fathers spend almost as much time with the children, increasing as the children get

older. Fathers spend considerably more time with children in television or video viewing, outdoor
play, coaching or teaching sports than mothers.
Some are equally sharing parents, which challenges still-prominent social expectations. Studies
show that fathers who are primary caregivers can be almost as nurturing as mothers.
Study: Fathers living with their dependent children less involved in outside social activities, but
more likely to be engaged in school/community service/church related activities. Tended to work
more hours and less likely to be unemployed. The most involved fathers were more satisfied with
their lives and more involved in work, family, community and socialising.
How Parenthood Affects Marital Satisfaction
Typically declines during the childraising years.
Study: This is an average but not necessarily true of all couples. Some marriages got stronger.
Others deteriorated, especially in the eyes of the wives. In these marriages, the partners tended to be
younger and less well-educated, earn less money, had been married for a shorter time and had lower
self-esteem. The mothers who had the hardest time were those whose babies had difficult
temperaments. The women who had planned their pregnancies were unhappier, possibly because
expectations were set too high.
Study: Fathers who saw themselves as caring, nurturing and protecting experienced less decline in
marital satisfaction and felt better about parenthood. Men who were less involved with their babies,
and whose wives were more involved tended to be more dissatisfied. Mothers who saw themselves
as disorganised and unable to cope with the demands of motherhood were most dissatisfied.

How Dual-Earner Families Cope

More women are starting to work and feweer are taking time out for motherhood. Reasons for this
may be rising cost of living; changes in the divorce, social security and tax laws; changing attitudes
about gender roles; availability of labour-saving household appliances; and the reduced income gap
between female and male workers. Some simply want to be gainfully employed.
There are differences in these kinds of families. In some there may be a primary (usually the man)
and secondary provider whereas in others both may have high-powered careers and high earnings.
In some, one or both partners may scale back (cut back on working hours, refuse overtime, or turn
down jobs that require excessive travel) so as to increase family time and reduce stress. They may
also make trade-offs: trading a career for a job, or trading off whose work takes predecence,
depending on shifts in career opportunities and family responsibilities. Wives are more likely to
scale back (usually during early years of child rearing). Race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, life stage
and social class may make a difference.
Benefits and Drawbacks of a Dual-Earner Lifestyle
Benefits: second income can raise SES, makes women more independent and gives them a greater
share of economic power, reduces pressure on men to be providers. May also create a more equal
relationship between husband and wife, better health for both, greater self-esteem for the woman,
closer relationship between father and children, increased opportunities for social support and
experiencing success in more than one area; balancing of failure or stres in one role by success and
satisfaction in another; broader perspective or fram-e of reference; increased complexity of the selfconcept which may buffer swings in mood and self-esteem; similarity of experiences which can
eenhance communication and marital quality. The benefits of multiple roles depend on how many
roles each partner carries, the time demands of each role, and most importantly the success or

satisfaction the partners derive from their roles. Extent to which they hold (non)traditional views on
gender roles also moderates the benefits.
Drawbacks: Extra demands on time and energy, conflicts between work and family, possible rivalry
between spouses, anxiety and guilt about meeting children's needs. Family is most demanding,
especially for women who are full-time employed, when there are young children. Careers are
especially demanding when a worker is getting established or being promoted. Both kinds of
demands occur frequently in young adulthood.
Working men and women seem equally affected by physical and psychological stress due to work
interfering with family life or vice versa. Husbands more likely to suffer from overload and women
more likely to feel the strain of conflicting role expectations.
Two researchers suggest combining work and family roles is generally beneficial to both of them in
terms of mental and physical health and the strength of their relationship.
Division of Domestic Work and Effects on the Marriage
In most societies women have primary responsibility for hosuework and child raising.
Division of labour among dual-income couples tends to be more equal.
Burdens of dual-earner lifestyle still generally fall most heavily on the woman.
Effects of dual-earner lifestyle on a marriage may depend largely on how husband and wife view
their roles. May be perception of unfairness that contributes most to marital instability.
What spouses perceive as fair may depend on the size of the wife's financial contribution, whether
she thinks of herself as a coprovider or merely as supplementary and the meaning she and her
husband place on her work. When the woman is regarded as primary breadwinner, there may be a
reversal of traditional gender roles.
Regardless of actual labour-division, couples who agree on their assessment of it and who enjoy a
harmonious, caring, involved family life are more satisfied than those who do not.

When Marriage Ends

The average divorce takes place after 7-8 years. There is also a high remarriage rate, however.

Divorce
The US has one of the highest divorce rates in the world, and it has skyrocketed in many other
developed countries.
Why Has Divorce Increased?
More liberal divorce laws, which eliminate the need to find one partner at fault, more financial
independence for women (women are more likely than men to initiate a divorce), the idea that
staying together for the children may actually do them more harm (not always true), more childless
couples, to whom it is easier to return to a single state. Perhaps most important is the tendency not
to expect the first marriage (some sociologists refer to this as starter marriages) to last.
In some ways young people may expect too much from marriage. Those who live far away from
their families of origin may expect their spouses to take the place of parents and friends. Men and
women may expect different things from marriage, producing tension.

Adults with divorced parents are more likely to become divorced themselves.
Adjusting to Divorce
Divorce is a process a sequence of potentially stressful experiences that begin before physical
separation and continue after it (Morrison & Cherlin). Ending even an unhappy marriage can be
painful, especially when there's children.
Some may adjust quickly but divorce tends to reduce long-term well-being, especially for the
partner who did not initiate the divorce or does not remarry. May be due to disruption of parentchild relationships, discord with former spouse, economic hardship, loss of emotional support,
having to move out from the family home. Can bring feelings of failure, blame, hostility, selfrecrimination, high rates of depression, illness and death, but when a marriage was highly conflicted
it tends to improve well-being.
Women are more likely to live in poverty after separation or divorce. Higher income and good legal
representation during divorce tends to lead to better adjustment.
It's harder to adjust when people argue with their ex-mates or have not found a new lover/spouse.
Active social life helps.

Remarriage and Stepparenthood

High divorce rate is not a sign that people do not want to be married, but reflecting a desire to be
happily married and a belief that divorce is like surgery.
Young women are likelier to remarry than older ones but also more likely to redivorce. Men are
likelier to remarry than women.
Remarriages are more likely than first marriages to end in divorce. Likelihood of redivorce is
greatest during the first five years, especially when there are stepchildren. Remarried partners may
be less likely than first marriage partners to have similar interests and values and having once
divorced may be more likely to see divorce as a solution to marital problems. Adjustment to living
in a stepfamily can be stressful to both the adults and children.
Becoming a stepparent may be especially challenging for women. May be because women spend
more time with the children. The more recent the current marriage and the older the stepchildren,
the harder stepparenting seems to be.
Stepparents seem less able to separate their feelings about the marriage from their feelings about
their success as stepparents than they can with regard to their relationships with their biological
children. May be because both begin at the same time. When problems arise the stepparent is likely
to blame the biological parent whose relationship is more secure with the child and is less likely to
blame the stepparent for trouble involving the child.
For people who have been bruised by loss, the blended family has the potential to provide a warm,
nurturing atmosphere as does any family that cares for all its members.
Papernow: several stages of adjustment. First they expect a smooth, rapid adjustment while children
fantasise that the stepparent will go away and the original parent will return. As internal conflicts
develop, each parent may side with his/her biological children. Eventually, the adults form a strong
alliance to meet the needs of all the children. The stepparent gains the role of a significant adult
figure and the family becomes an integrated unit with its own identity.

Middle Age

When is Middle Age?

There are no defined biological/social events marking the beginning and end of middle age, and due
to improvements in health and length of life the subjective upper limits of middle age are rising.
In this case, middle adulthood is defined as the years 40-65. This definition is arbitrary. May also be
defined contextually: someone with grown children and/or elderly parents (does not always apply)
and there's a biological aspect to age, as someone who is older and lives more healthily is probably
biologically younger than a younger person who is a couch-potato.
The Meaning of Middle Age
The meaning of middle age varies with health, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, cohort and
culture. There are thus marked individual differences in how physically, cognitively and
emotionally in shape a person is.
Middle age is often filled with heavy responsibilities and multiple, demanding roles. At the same
time many middle-aged adults have anincreased feeling of freedom having made their mark and
rasied their children. Many experience a heightened sense of success and control in work and social
relationships, and a more realistic awareness of their limitations and of outside forces they cannot
control.
It can be a time of reevaluating goals and aspirations and how well they have been fulfilled, and
deciding how best to use the remaining part of the lifespan.

Physical Changes

Biological aging, genetic makeup, behavioural and lifestyle factors dating from youth can affect the
likelihood, timing and extent of physical change, and the lifestyle and health habits of middle age
influence what happens in the years beyond: Limiting sun exposure can minimise wrinkling and
risks of skin cancer. Being physically active can ensure retention of muscle strength and general
physical condition.
People who become active early in life have more stamina and resilience after age 60. People who
lead sedentary lives lose muscle tone and energy and become even less inclined to exert themselves
physically. However it is never too late to reverse some earlier bad choices.
Most are realistic enough to take in stride alterations in physical appearance and functioning.

Sensory and Psychomotor Functioning

Age related visual problems occur mainly in 5 areas: near vision, dynamic vision (reading moving
signs), sensitivity to light, visual search (e.g. Locating a sign) and speed of processing visual
information. Also common is a slight loss in visual acuity (sharpness ofvision). Changes in the
pupil of the eye means middle aged people may need about 1/3rd more brightness to compensate for
the loss of light reaching the retina.
The lens becomes progressively less flexible and its ability to shift focus diminishes. This change
usually becomes noticeable in early middle age and is practically complete by age 60. Many past
age 40 need reading glasses for presbyopia: farsightedness. Incidence of myopia: nearsightedness,
also increases. Bifocals and Trifocals aid the eye in adjusting between near and far objects.
The gradual hearing loss speeds up in the 50s, mostly upper frequency sounds: presbycusis.
Happens twice as quickly in men. Hearing loss occurs ages 45-65 due to continuous/sudden
exposure to noise in everyday life. Can be prevented by wearing hearing hearing protection.

Sensitivity to taste/smell generally begins to decline in midlife. Women tend to retain these longer.
There are individual differences though, and they might only ose sensitivity to specific tastes.
Loss in sensitivity to touch begins after age 45, to pain after age 50. Less pain is felt but they
become less able to tolerate it, thus it retains its protective function.
Strength and coordination peak in the 20s and then decline gradually. Some loss of muscle and
strength is usually noticed by age 45. 10-15% of maximum strength may be gone by 60. Most
people's back weakens first, then legs, then arm and shoulder (the latter not until well into 60s).
Reason is loss of muscle fiber, replaced by fat. By middle age body fat reaches around 20% (10%
during adolescence). Individual differences are great and become even greater with each passing
decade. Strength training can prevent muscle loss and regain strength.
Endurance tends to hold up better. Loss of endurance results from a gradual decrease in the rate of
basal metabolism: use of energy to maintain vital function, after age 40. Overpracticed skills are
more resistant to the effects of aging, thus athletes show a smaller-than-average loss in endurance.
Manual dexterity usually becomes less efficient after midthirties, but some pianists remain
seemingly unaffected. Simple reaction time slows by about 20% from age 20-60 but when a vocal
response is called for the age differences are less.
Tasks involving a choice of responses and complex motor skills involving many stimuli, responses
and decisions decline more, but the decline does not necessarily result in poorer performance.
Typically middle-aged adults are better drivers and 60-year-old typists are as effecitive as 20-yearolds. Middle-aged workers are less likely to suffer disabling injuries on the job.
This illustrates that knowledge based on experience may more than make up for physical changes.

Structural and Systemic Changes

By 5th/6th decade layer of fat below the skin's surface becomes thinner, collagen molecules become
more rigid and elastin fibres more brittle: less smooth and taut skin. Hair may become thinner due
to slower replacement rate, grayer as result of melanin production decline, sweat glands decrease so
they perspire less, weight gain due to accumulation of bodyfat, height loss due to shrinkage of
intervertebral disks.
Bone density normally peaks in 20s/30s, then gradually some net loss of bone occurs as more
calcium is absorbed than replaced = bones become thinner and more brittle. Bone loss accelerates in
50s and 60s. Occurs twice as rapidly in women, sometimes leading to osteoporosis. Bone loss can
be affected by lifestyle factors earlier in adulthood: smoking, alcohol use and poor diet tend to
speed bone loss. Can be slowed by aerobic exercise, resistance training, increased calcium and
vitamin C intake. Joints may become stiffer due to accumulated stress. Exercises expanding range
of motion and strengthening muscles supporting a joint can improve functioning.
Many show little or no decline in organ functioning. In some he heart begins to slow down and
become more irregular in the mid 50s. By 65 it may lose up to 40% of its aerobic power. Arterial
walls may become thicker and more rigid. Heart disease becomes more common beginning in late
40s/early 50s. Vital capacity: amount of air that can be drawn in with a deep breath, may begin to
diminish around age 40 and may drop by as much as 40% by age 70. Temperature and immune
response may begin to weaken and sleep may become less deep.

Sexuality and Reproductive Functioning

(See table 15-1 p.532)
Menopause and Its Meanings

Menopause: cessation of menstruation and of ability to bear children. Typically around age 50.
Generally considered to have occured 1 year after last menstrual period.
Perimenopause: Period of several years beginning in mid 30s-mid 40s production of mature ova
begins to decline as ovaries produce less estrogen. Also known as climacteric. Adrenal and other
glands produce smaller amounts of estrogen (individually different). Menstruation becomes
irregular and with less flow and a longer time between menstrual periods before it ceases. In women
who have hysterectomies menopause comes abruptly.
Attitudes Towards Menopause
The attitude that women become useless when they are no longer able to reproduce was typical in
western societies until fairly reecently.
Early 19th century: climacteric as period of life at which the vital forces begin to decline. Was seen
as a disease.
In some cultures, menopause seems to be virtually ignored. In others (like India/South Asia) it is a
welcome event as women's status and freedom to movement increase because they are free of
taboos connected with menstruation and fertility.
For many it is a sign of transition into the second half of adult life. How she views it depends on the
value she places on being young and attractive, her attitudes towards women's roles, and her own
circumstances, whether she's had children yet or not.
Symptoms and Myths
Most experience little or no physical discomfort during perimenopause. There's individual
differences in the degree to which these symptoms are felt (or absent): Most common are hot
flashes sudden sensations of heat flashing through the body due to hormones affecting the
temparature control centres in the brain. Administering artificial estrogen can alleviate it but it
carries risks. Other symptoms include vaginal dryness, burning, and itching; vaginal and urinary
infections; urinary dysfunction caused by tissue shrinkage.
Hormones linked so sexual desire are androgens so estrogen declones to not seem to affect sexual
desire in most women, as long as intercourse remains comfortable and there are no health-related
problems that interfere with a healthy sex life. Some do not become sexually aroused as readily as
before and some find intercourse painful because of thinning vaginal tissues and inadequate
lubrication. Small doses of testosterone may solve the first problem and use of water-soluble gels
can prevent or relieve the second.
Research shows no reason to attribute mental disturbances to menopause. May derive from the fact
that women at this time are undergoing changes in roles, relationships and responsibilities, which
may be stressful, and the woman's perception of it affects her view of menopause, as well as
societal views of women and of aging. In cultures where menopause is a positive thing or a way to
acquire social, religious or political power, few problems are associated with it.
Changes in Male Sexuality
Testosterone tends to decrease slowly after age 60 in many pause. Has been called andropause.
Male climacteric: term sometimes used to refer to a period of physiological, emotional and
psychological change involving a man's reproductive system and other body systems. Much more
gradual than female menopause and its severity varies widely. Associated symptoms: depression,
anxiety, irritability, insomnia, fatigue, weakness, lower sex drive, erectile failure, memory loss and

reduced muscle, bone mass and body hair. Not clear if these often vaguely defined complaints are
related to testosterone levels. Men's psychological adjustments, like women, may stem from events
associated with this period of life and negative cultural attitudes toward aging.
No strong relationship exists between testosterone levels and sexual desire/performance. Changes in
endocrine and circulatory systems as well as lifestyle/health factors and social factors influence
sexual functioning. Man can continue to reproduce until late in life but sperm count begins to
decline in the late 40s/50s. Erectiosn tend to become slower and less firm, orgasms less frequent
and ejaculations less forceful, and it takes longer to recover and ejaculate again. Sexual excitation
and sexual activity can remain a normal,vital part of life.
Testosterone supplements/therapy is medically advisable only to those with clear deficiencies. It can
increase risks of cancer, enlarged prostate gland, higher cholesterol, infertility and acne.
Sexual Activity
Sex, contary to popular belief, can be a vital part of life even during midlife and later years.
Surveys suggest only a slight/gradual diminishing of sexual activity during 40s and 50s. Often it has
nonphysiological causes. Possible physical causes include chronic disease, surgery, medication and
too much food or alcohol.
Many find their sexual relationship to be better than it has been in years due to more time and no
worries about pregnancy. Women that age may know their own sexual needs and desires better, feel
freer to take initiative and have more interest in sex. Because of men's slowed response, they may
enjoy longer, more leisurely periods of sexual activity and women may find that it allows them
reach their own orgasm. Couples who hold and caress eachother, with or without genital sex, can
experience heightened sexuality as part of an intimate relationship.
Sexual Dysfunction
Sexual dysfunction: Persistent disturbances in sexual desire or sexual response (lack of interest in
or pleasure from sex, painful intercourse, difficulty in arousal, premature orgasm or ejaculation,
inability to reach climax, anxiety about sexual performance). Among women this decreases with
age (nonpleasurable sex or sexual anxiety) and among men it increases with age (erection problems,
low desire).
Sexual dysfunction appears to be widespread but few actually seek medical treatment.
Most severe form in men is erectile dysfunction (impotence): The inability of a man to achieve or
maintain an erect penis sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance. About 39% of 40 year old
men and 67% of 70 year old men experience it at least sometimes.
Erectile dysfunction is associated with health conditions and chronic diseases, lifestyle choices and
psychological factors.
Some can be helped by treating the underlying causes or by adjusting medication. Sildenafil
(viagra) is a safe and effective method. Other treatments like a wraparound vacuum constrictive
device, injections of prostaglandion E1, and penile implant surgeries exist, having both benefits and
drawbacks. If there is no apparent physical problem, psychotherapy or sex therapy may help.
Concern with Appearance and Attractiveness
In a youth-oriented society, middle-aged people spend a great deal of time, effort and money trying
to look young, but no intervantion that actually slows the rate of aging has been found.

Common example is botox, which temporarily paralyses the muscles causing worry wrinkles.
Until recently mostly women fell prey to the relentless pursuit of youth.
The idea of a mature man as wise, contrasted with a mature woman as cold and dry has existed
for a long time in western society. This affects the body image and self-worth of women.
Today this double standard is waning and men also suffer from the premium placed on youth,
especially in the job market and business world. They are spending as much on cosmetic products
and are increasingly turning to cosmetic surgery.
Self-esteem suggers when people devalue their physical being. A balance must be found between
trying to maintain youth and vigor and becoming too obsessive.

Work and Education: Are Age-Based Roles Obsolete?

Age-differentiated: Life structure in which primary roles learning, working, and leisure are
based on age; typical in industrialised societies.
According to M.W. Riley, age-differentiation comes from a time when life was shorter and
nowadays it doesn't make much sense to spend a third of one's lifetime in said leisure (retirement).
By doing most of the lifetime's work in middle-age, retired people may not know what to do with
all that leisure. Increasing numbers of older adults are able to contribute to society but lack the
opportunity to.
Age-integrated: Life structure in which primary roles learning, working, and leisure are open to
adults of all ages and can be interspersed throughout the lifespan. Things seem to be moving this
way in some societies.

Occupational Patterns and Paths

Eli Ginzberg (1972): Career paths fall into one of two patterns:
1. Stable career pattern: People stay with a single vocation and, by midlife, often reach
positions of power and responsibility. Middle-aged men with stable careers tend to be either
workaholics or mellowed. The best adjusted among them have a sense of relaxation
rather than failure.
2. Shifting career pattern: Try to achieve a better match between what they can do, what they
want/expect from their work, and what they are getting out of it. Can lead to career change.
Middle age is a typical time for career shifting. Fewer middle-aged/older women have
worked throughout adulthood and are thus less likely than men to exhibit the stable pattern
and if they do may reach the traditional stages of career development later than men
typically do.

Work versus Early Retirement

After age 60, intrinsic values become more important determinants of whether a person will
continue to work than financial reasons.
In many industrialised countries, inducements to make way for younger workers have contributed to
a trend toward early retirement. Nowadays many choose not to retire or try a new line of work due
to being caught between inadequate savings/pensions and a strained social security system.
Retirement is no longer a clear transition from midlife.

Main predictors of retirement age are health, pension eligibility and financial circumstances. Being
married, of a younger cohort, lower SES, traditional career paths, dissatisfaction with job, planning
for retirement are indicators of early retirement.

Work and Cognitive Development

Flexible thinkers tend to obtain work requiring thought and independent judgment, which in turn
makes them more flexible thinkers and allows them to do complex work and this means stronger
cognitive performance in comparison to peers as they age. Education, occupation and
socioeconomic status are influential factors on variance in changes in cognitive ability.
Seattle Longitudonal Study: Workplace changes that emphasise flexible thought are associated with
gains in cognitive abilities, but age-discrimination means it's less likely for older workers to be
offered/volunteer for training, education and challenging job assignments. However declines in
cognitive ability generally do not occur until well after the working years and work performance
varies more within age groups than between them.

The Mature Learner

Changes in the workplace often entail a need for more training or education. Many adults seek to
develop their cognitive potential and keep up with the changing world of work or simply to update
knowledge or skills or just because they enjoy learning, through formal learning. Some colleges
grant credit for life experience and previous learning and offer part-time/weekend/night
courses/classes, independent study, child care, financial aid, free/reduced tuition courses and
distance learning via computers or closed-circuit broadcasts.
Cooperative study built around self-generated problems or projects is most appropriate for mature
adults.

The Self at Midlife: Issues and Themes

Is There a Midlife Crisis?

Midlife crisis: In some normative-crisis models, stressful life period precipitated by the review and
reevaluation of one's past, typically occuring in the early to middle 40s. Coined by psychoanalyst
Elliott Jacques (1967) according to whom awareness of mortality is what brings it on and that in
order to make up for dreams they haven't fulfilled, or dreams of which the fulfillment has not been
satisfying, they need to act fast. Many maintained that it is inevitable but research has not supported
this and it actually seems to be fairly unusual.
The onset of middle life may be stressful but no more so than some events of young adulthood, it is
just one of life's transition typically involving a midlife review: introspective examination that
often occurs in middle age, leading to reappraisal and revision of values and priorities.
It also involves simultaneous managing of gains and losses and recognition of the finitude of life.
Midlife review may involve the considerations that are characteristic of a midlife crisis as well as
the imminence of developmental deadlines, time constraints on certain things etc. Whether it turns
into a crisis may depend more on individual circumstances and personal resources. People with
ego-resiliency (the ability to adapt flexibly and resourcefully to potential sources of stress) are more
likely to navigate the midlife crossing succesfully. (See table 16-1 p. 573 for characteristics.) They
may even see negative events as springboards for personal growth.

Changes in Relationships at Midlife

Theories of Social Contact

Social convoy theory: Theory, proposed by Kahn and Antonucci, that people move through life
surrounded by concentric circles of intimate relationships of varying closeness, on which they rely
for assistance, well-being and social support and in turn offer care, concern and support.
Characteristics of the person and the person's situation influence the size and composition of the
convoy (support network); the amount and kind of social support a person receives; and the
satisfaction derived from this support. All of this contributes to health and well-being.
Convoys usually show long-term stability but their composition can change. Middle-aged people in
industrialised countries tend to have the largest convoys, particularly women (and particularly their
inner circle).
Socioemotional selectivity theory: Theory, proposed by Carstensen, that people select social
contacts on the basis of the changing relative importance of social interaction as (1) a source of
information, (2) as an aid in developing and maintaining a self-concept, (3) and as a source of
emotional well-being.
In infancy, the 3rd goal is most important, from childhood through young adulthood, the 1st comes to
the fore, by middle age, the 1st remains important but the 3rd begins to reassert itself.

Relationships and Quality of Life

Survey: Most middle-aged/older adults are optimistic about their quality of life as they age,
satisfying sexual relationships are important but social relationships are even more important.
Relationships are good for physical and mental health (and the lack of them has negative effects.)
Midlife relationships also present demands that can be stressful and restrictive, mostly for women.
Sense of responsibility and concern for others may impact a woman's well being when problems
beset those close to her. May help explain hy middle-aged women are especially susceptible to
depression and other mental health problems and why they tend to be unhappier with their
marriages than men.
Quality > quantity of relationships.

Consensual Relationships

Marriage
Today more marriages end in divorce but couples who stay together have around 20+ years of
married life after the last child leaves the home.
Marital satisfaction generally declines after the first few years and then rises again sometime in
middle age. (U-shaped curve). The methodology of studies that show this have been criticised
though.
However an analysis of 2 surveys in which the methodology was more sound affirmed the Ushaped pattern. The couple tends to become even more satisfied after the rise than they were in the
first 4 years. The years of decline tend to be those in which parental/work responsibilities are the
greatest. The pressure of too little income and too many mouths to feed burdens a relationship,
especially if the burdens are not equally shared.
The curve generally hits bottom early in middle age, when many couples have teenage children and
are heavily involved in careers. Satisfaction usually reaches a height when children are grown and

many retire or are entering into retirement and wealth has been accumulated. These changes may
also produce new pressures and challenges.
Researchers recognise that research into marital satisfaction needs be more complex.

Midlife Divorce
Divorces in midlife are relatively rare, and when divorces (at any age) occur they impact women
more negatively. Middle-aged people who divorce and do not remarry tend to have less financial
security than those who remain married (especially women). The stress of divorce may lead to
personal growth and the sense of violated expectations may be diminishing as midlife divorce
becomes more common. This change appears to be due largely to women's growing economic
independence.
Marital capital: Financial and emotional benefits built up during a long-standing marriage, which
tend to hold a couple together. College education decreases the risk of separation after the first
decade or marriage, perhaps because they have accumulated more marital assets and have more to
lose financially.
Empty nest: Transitional phase of parenting following the last child's leaving the home. May usher
a second honeymoon in a good marriage or take away the reasons to prolong the bond in a shaky
marriage.
Other reasons for a higher divorce rate therefor may be the having of fewer children and increased
number of years that people can expect to live in good health after child rearing ends.
Divorce may be less of a threat to well-being in middle age than in young adulthood due to more
adaptability.

Gay and Lesbian Relationships

Homosexuals who are now middle aged grew up in a time when it was considered a mental illness,
many are only now beginning to explore the opportunities inherent acceptance of homosexuality.
Many are only now coming out, forming relationships, working out conflicts or still hiding it.
Secrecy and stigma have made studies difficult and limited. Older homosexuals may be more
uncomfortable about living together. Gay men who do not come out until midlife often go through a
prolonged search for identity marked by guilt, secrecy, heterosexual marriage and conflicted
relationships with both sexes. Those who recognise and accept it early in life tend to do better and
some move to places where they can more earily seek out and form relationships.
Pretty much the same principles that apply to sustaining heterosexual marriage apply to homosexual
partnerships. Homosexual partnerships tend to be stronger if known as such to family and friends
and if they seek out supportive homosexual environments. Coming out to parents is often difficult
but need not have adverse effects on the couple's relationship. When family and friends are
supportive and validate the relationship its quality tends to be higher. Homosexual relationships
tend to be more egalitarian but balancing commitments to careers is difficult either way. Gay
couples in which one partner is less career-oriented have an easier time but couples in which both
partners are relationship-centred tend to be happiest.

Friendships
Middle-aged people have less time and energy to devote to friends, but friendships do persist and
are a strong source of emotional support and well-being, especially for women. Friendships often

revolve around work and parenting or neighbourhood contacts or association in volunteer

organisations.
The quality of these friendships makes up for the lack of quantity of time spent. Especially during a
crisis. Conflicts with friends often centre on differences in values, beliefs and lifestyles. Friends
usually can talk this out while remaining mutual dignity and respect.
Study: friends more important to women's well-being in early middle age, but to men's in late m.a.
Lesbians more likely to get emotional support from lesbian friends, lovers and even ex-lovers than
from relatives. Gay men also rely on friendship networks which they actively create and maintain.
Friendship networks provide solidarity and contact with younger people, which middle-aged
heterosexuals normally get through family. Loss of friends to AIDS has been traumatic for many.

Relationships with Maturing Children

Trends toward later marriage and parenthood mean that some middle-aged parents are facing issues
associated with younger children, but for most it means having children who will soon leave the
nest or who are having children themselves. Middle-aged parents, usually women tend to be the
ones maintaining ties among the various branches of the extended family. Parents' well-being tends
to hinge on how their children turn out.

Adolescent Children: Issues for Parents

It's usually middle-aged adults who are the parents of adolescents. While dealing with their own
special concerns they have to cope daily with young people who are undergoing great changes.
Some rejection of parental authority is necessary and an important task for the parents is accepting
maturing children as they are rather than what they'd hoped they would be.
This period as being one of questioning, reappraisal or diminished well-being for parents is not
inevitable. Survey: work can bolster a parent's self-worth despite these challenges. For some other
parents (especially white-collar and professional men with sons, their children's adolescence
brought increase satisfaction, well-being and pride For most it elicited a mixture of positive and
negative emotions, particularly mothers with early adolescent daughters (generally both close and
conflict-filled relationships).

When Children Leave: The Empty Nest

Some women do have problems at this time but most find it liberating. Today, the refilling of the
nest by grown children is far more stressful.
Transition to a new stage: relationship between parents and adult children. Gutmann: Relief from
chronic emergency of parenthood to many women. They can now pursue their own interests as
they bask in their grown children's accomplishments. May be harder for parents whose identity
depended on the parental role or who pushed away their marital problems under the press of
parental responsibilities.
Married women with multiple roles are unaffected in terms of psychological health, but cutting
back on work can increase distress and going to work full-time can decrease it.
Men in the empty nest stage most likely to report health-related stress.

Parenting Grown Children

In middle-class families, middle-aged parent generally give more support than they get from their
children as they establlish careers and families. Some parents have difficulties treating them as
adults and many young adults have difficulty accepting their parents' continuing concern. In a
warm, supportive family environment such conflicts can be managed by open airing of feelings.
Most enjoy eachother's company and get along well. An estimated x% of intergenerational families:

25%: tight-knit: both geographically and emotionally. Frequent contact and mutual support.

25%: sociable but with less emotional affinity or commitment

16%: obligatory relationships with much interaction but little emotional attachment

17%: detached both emotionally and geographically.

16%: intimate but distant, little interaction but retaining warm feelings that may lead to a
renewal of contact and exchange. Adult children tend to be closer to their mothers.

Parents of grown children are generally satisfied with how they turned out and their own parenting.
Parents who believe their children turned out well tend to feel good about themselves.

Prolonged Parenting: The Cluttered Nest

Since the 80s, in most western nations, more and more adult children have delayed leaving home.
Revolving door syndrome: Tendency for young adults to return to their parents' home while
getting on their feet or in times of financial, marital or other trouble. Becoming more common,
especially among men, sometimes more than once and sometimes with their own families.
Adult children living with their parents is now less non-normative, making the empty-nest transition
seem more like a prolonged process. Most likely to come home are single, divorced, or separated
children and those ending a cohabiting relationship.
Prolonged parenting contradicts traditional expectations on the parts of both parents and children.
Adult child's autonomy is a sign of parental success. Conflicts may arise out of delaying departure
or returning, especially if the chuld is unemployed and financially deendent or has returned after the
failure of a marriage. Relations are smoother when the child moves toward autonomy.
Adult children tend to be less satisfied than the parents with having to live in their parents' home.
Disagreements may centre on household responsibilities and the child's lifestyle. Certain things
must be negotiated for the child's return to work best.

Other Kinship Ties

Relationships with Aging Parents

Today, more middle-aged people have at least two parents alive due to increased life expectancy.
They may view their parents more objectively, as someone with both strengths and weaknesses, and
when they are old they may need a daughter's or son's care.
Contact and Mutual Help
Most middle-aged children and their parents have close, affectionate relationships based on frequent
contact and mutual help and many live near each other and see eachother frequently. Relations with
older mothers are especially likely to be tightly knit.
Mostly help and assistance continue to flow from parents to child, especially during crisis, but while

most older adults are independent and healthy, some seek their children's assistance in making
decisions and may depend on them for daily tasks, financial help, or they may need the child's help.
Filial maturity: Stage of life proposed by Marcoen and others, in which middle-aged children, as
the outcome of a filial crisis, learn to accept and meet their parents' need to depend on them. Filial
crisis: normative development of middle age in which adults learn to balance love and duty to their
parents with autonomy within a two-way relationship. Most middle-aged children do, and often
expect more of themselves than the parents do of them.
Becoming a Caregiver for Aging Parents
Many dependent elders receive long-term care in their own home or in a caregiver's. Often the need
arises when a mother is widowed or when a woman divorced earlier cannot manage alone anymore.
Longer life-expectancy means more risk of chronic diseases and disabilities and smaller families
mean fewer siblings to share in a parent's care.
The daughter is most likely to assume the role of caregiver due to cultural assumptions. Mothers
may prefer the daughter's care due to more intimate bond, and although sons do contribute they are
less likely to provide primary, personal care. Caregiving is universally mostly a female function.
The relationship between parents and children may become strained when the parents become
infirm, especially if they undergo mental deterioration or personality changes, especially when the
caregivers work full-time or lack support and assistance. Strain can also come from the need to
balance caregiving with other aspects of the caregiver's life.
Sandwich generation: Middle-aged adults squeezed by competing needs to raise or launch children
and to care for elderly parents. Result may be caregiver burnout: condition of physical, mental and
emotional exhaustion affecting adults who care for aged persons. 95% of caregivers accept their
responsibility, despite the argument that the needs of aging parents represent nonnormative,
unanticipated demands. Recent research has challenged the prevalence of the sandwich generation
as children have generally left the nest before the need for caregiving arises. Particular
circumstances and contexts as well as the attitudes of individuals means that it does not always
signify severe stress, may be an opportunity for growth.

Relationships with Siblings

Relationships with Siblings are the longest-lasting in most people's lives Most have at least one and
remain in contact, especially sisters. Step- and half-siblings also likely to remain in contact
depending on how long they lived together during childhood, but not as much as full siblings and
they may provide less help. These differences may diminish as stepfamilies become more common.
Sibling contact over the lifespan seems to take the shape of an hourglass: most contact during
childhood and middle-late adulthood and least contact during the childraising years. Other studies
suggest a decline in frequency of contact throughout adulthood, which may be why sibling conflicts
diminish with age.
The more contact both men and women have with their siblings, the less likely they are to show
symptoms of psychological problems. For women positive feelings toward siblings are linked with
favourable self-concept while for men they are linked with high morale.
Dealing with care of aging parents may unite or divide siblings. Quality of sibling relationship
during early years may affect how they deal with such issues. Conflicts may arise over division of
care or inheritance.

Grandparenthood
Grandparenthood is generally an important event in most cultures.
It may begin before the end of active parenting. Lengthening life-spans means most are
grandparents for several decades and due to longer lifespan among women, grandmothers typically
live to at least see the oldest granchild become an adult and to become great-grandmothers.
People nowadays have less grandchildren and may be divorced, widowed or separated
grandparents. Many children have stepgrandparents. Grandmothers of young children are more
likely to be in the workforce, thus having less time, but a trend towards earlier retirement free more
grandparents to spend time with grandchildren. Many grandparents have still-living parents and
they must balance the needs of grandchildren and aging parents. Many grandparents in both
developed and developing countries provide part-time or primary care for grandchildren.
The Grandparent's Role
Where extended-family households predominate, grandparents play an integral role in child raising
and family decisions.
Where nuclear families predominate, grandparents may see their grandchildren less frequently or
live too far away to see them regularly, but that doesn't necessarily affect the quality of relationship.
Grandparents often have to balance reluctance to interfere in adult children's family lives with
obligation to provide help and support and their level of involvement is often up to the parents.
Even if they play a limited role they do tend to play an important role and many have strong
emotional ties to their grandchildren. The grandmothers tend to be closer, warmer and more
affectionate with the grandchildren and see them more often than grandfathers.
Grandparents may do a variety of activities with the grandchildren and many help grandchildren
financially with eucation or living expenses. Many provide child care while the parents work.
As grandchildren grow older, contact tends to diminish, but affection grows.. Decline in contact is
more rapid among younger cohorts of grandparents, who tend to be healthier, wealthier and busier.
Grandparenting After Divorce and Remarriage
After a divorce, because the mother usually gets custody, her parents tend to have more contact and
stronger relationships with their grandchildren than the paternal grandparents.
Divorced mother's remarriage tends to reduce her need for support from her parents but not their
contact with their grandchildren. For paternal grandparents it increases the likelihood that they will
be displaced or that the new family will move away, thus making contact more difficult.
Remarriage of either parent often brings a new set of stepgrandparents and often stepgrandchildren
as well. Stepgrandparents may find it hard to become close to their new stepgrandchildren,
especially if the latter are older and those who do not live with the stepgrandparent's adult child.
Tension may arise from presents for a biological grandchild's step/half-siblings, or which
grandparents are visited or included at holidays. All-inclusiveness in outings, trips and other
activities offer a safe haven for the children when they are unhappy or upset and for building
bridges between members of the stepfamily.
Raising Grandchildren
Many grandparents are sole or primary caregivers for their grandchildren. In many developing
coutnries this may be due to migration of rural parents to urban areas for work. In sub-Saharan
Africa the AIDS epidemic has left many orphans whose grandparents step into the parents' place.

In the US reasons may be that the parent is unable to care for them (due to teenage pregnancy,
substance abuse, illness, divorce, death etc.). Many of them are financially strained or are
divorced/widowed.
Unplanned surrogate parenthood can be a physical, emotional and financial drain on middle-aged or
older adults who may have to quit their jobs, shelve retirement plans, drastically reduce leisure
pursuits and social life, and endanger their health. Most grandparents lack the energy, patience and
stamina they had when they were younger and may not be up on current educational and social
trends.
Most grandparents who do this do so out of love for the children but the age differences can become
a barrier and both generations may feel cheated out of their traditional roles. The grandparents have
to deal not only with the failure of their children but also with their own rancor toward this adult
child. It may also strain their own relationship.
Kinship care: Care of children living without parents in the home of grandparents or other
relatives, with or without a change of legal custody. No legal status and limited rights may cause
them to face many practical problems.
Those who do not become grandparents may develop the virtue of care as defined by Erikson
through other means, such as becoming foster grandparents.

Late Adulthood
Young Old, Old Old and Oldest Old
Economic impact of graying population depends on how many are able-bodied. Many symptoms
that used to be associated with old age are now understood to be due to lifestyle factors or diseases.
Primary aging: gradual, inevitable process of bodily deterioration throughout lifespan.
Secondary aging: preventable aging processes resulting from disease and bodily abuse and disuse.
Keeping physically fit and eating sensibly can stave off these things.
Education and other aspects of SES are associated with health and longevity. Some factors
associated with this that affect health deterioration are beyond the individual's control, some at least
partly controllable.
Three groups of older adults:
1. Young old: ages 65-74, usually active, vital and vigorous
2. old old: ages 75-84
3. oldest old: ages 85> Old old and oldest old are more likely to be frail, infirm and have
difficulty managing activities of daily living.
Functional age: Measure of a person's ability to function effectively in his or her physical and
social environment in comparison with others of the same age. The same labels described above can
be used to describe people along functional age.
Gerontology: Study of the aged and the process of aging
Geriatrics: branch of medicine concerned with the processes of aging and age-related medical
conditions.
Life expecancy: Age to which a person in a particular cohort is statistically likely to live (given
his/her current age and health status) on the basis of average longevity of a population.
Longetivty: :Length of an individual's life.

Life span: Longest period that members of a species can life to.
Gains in life expectancy come mainly from reductions in diseases that mainly affect older people.
Life expectancy is not likely to go much higher than 90 unless the basic processes of aging can be
modified on a widespread scale.

Why People Age

Early in adulthood, physical losses are typically so small and gradual as to be barely noticed. With
age, individual differences increase. Senescence: period marked by changes in physical
functioning, sometimes associated with aging, begins at different ages for different people.
Two categories of theories about biological aging:
1. Genetic-programming theories: Explain biological aging as a result of genetically
determined developmental timetable. Might imply genetically decreed maximum life span.
Hayflick limit: genetically controlled limit, proposed by hayflick, on the number of times
cells can divide in members of a species. If the same occurs in the body, there may be a
biological limit to lifespan of human cells and thus human life. Hayflick's estimate was at
110 years.
Programmed senescence theory: specific genes switching off before age-related losses become
evident.
Endocrine theory: Biological clock might act through genes that control hormonal changes
Immunological theory: Programmed decline in the immune syste causesincreased vulnerability to
infections disease and thus to aging and death.
Another hypothesis is that the telomeres (protective tips of chromosomes) shorten each time the
cells divide until cel division can no longer continue. Supporting evidence: Human cells injected
with telomerase (enzyme enabling sex chromosomes to repair their telomeres) which was then
activated, continued to divide beyond normal life-span without apparent abnormalities.
Recently, Hayflick and colleagues: genes influencing aging do so indirectly, as a by-product of
complex processes involved in normal growth and development.
2. Variable-Rate Theories: Theories that explain biological aging as a result of processes that
vary from person to person and are influenced by both the internal and external
environment. Sometimes called error theories.
Wear-and-tear theory: Body ages as a result of accumulated damage to the system beyond the
body's ability to repair it. As cells age they are believed to be less able to repair/replace damaged
components. Internal and external stressors may aggravate the wearing-down process.
Free-radical theory: harmful effects of free radicals: highly unstable and reactive oxygen atoms or
molecules, formed during metabolism (: conversion of food and oxygen into energy, which may
directly or indirectly influence the rate of aging) which can cause internal bodily damage. Damage
accumulates with age. Mutations in the DNA of aging mitochondria, which generate energy in
human cells, may cause them to produce free radicals. High intake of certain antioxidants seem to
protect against early death, particularly from heart disease.
Rate-of-living theory: Body can do limited amount of work, the faster it works the faster it wears
out. Speed of metabolism determines length of life. Some evidence supports this.
Autoimmune theory: Autoimmunity: tendency of an aging body to mistake its own tissues for
foreign invadersand to attack and destroy them. Thought to be responsible for some aging-related
diseases. Normally cell-death is genetically programmed, but when mechanisms for destruction of
unneeded cells malfunctions, a breakdown in cell clean-out can lead to stroke damage, Alzheimer's,

cancer or autoimmune disease. May be triggered by exposure to environmental insults like

radiation. Problems may also be caused by death of needed cells. Growing receptivity of T Cells
(white cells that destroy invading substances) to signals to self-distruct may help account for
weakening of the aging immune system.
It's likely that the truth is in the middle and that both factors interact.

Physical Changes

Older skin tends to become paler, splotchier, less elastic and as fat and muscle shrink wrinkly.
Varicose veins of the legs become more common. Hair onthe head turns white and becomes thinner
and body hair sparser. They become shorter as disks between spinal vertebrae atrophy. Thinning of
the bones may cause a dowager's hump at the back of the neck, especially in women with
osteoporosis. Chemical composition of bones changes, creating a greater risk of fractures. Internal
organs and body systems, brain, sensory, motor and sexual function also affected.
Organic and Systemic Changes
Changes in organic and systemic function highly variable both within and between individuals.
Aging + chronic stress can depress immune function. Digestion remains relatively efficient. Heart
rhythm tends to slow and become more irregular, fat deposits accumulate around it and may
interfere with function, blood pressure often rises.
Decline in reserve capacity: ability of body organs and systems to put forth four to ten times as
much effort as usual under stress. Also called organ reserve. Their body systems will exhaust faster.
Many normal, healthy older adults barely notice channges. Many activities do not require peak
performance to be enjoyable/productive. By pacing themselves most can do whatever they
want/need to do.
The Aging Brain
In normal, healthy older people, changes in brain are generally modest and don't affect functioning
much. After age 30 brain loses weight until by age 90 it may have lost up to 10% of its weight
shrinkage in neuronal size due to loss of axons, dendrites and synapses in cerebral cortex, firstly and
fastest in frontal cortex (imp for memory and high-level cognitive functioning). Lesios in the
whitem atter of axons can affect cognitive performance.
Certain brain structures incl. cerebral cortext shrink faster in men. Cortical atrophy occurs more
rapidly in less well-educated people. Education or related factors may increase the brain's reserve
capacity ability to tolerate potentially injurious effects of aging. Aerobic exercise can slow brain
tissue loss. Diet heavy in fruits and vegetables may also.
Along with loss of brain matter may come a gradual slowing of responses, beginning in middle age.
Slowdown of CNS may affect physical coordination and cognition as well.
Discovery that older brains can grow new nerve cells: evidence of cell division in hippocampus.

Sensory and Psychomotor Functioning

Vision
Many have trouble perceiving depth or colour or doing daily activities. Losses in visual contrast
sensitivity can cause difficulty reading very small/light print. Vision problems can be dangerous.

Older eyes need more light to see, are more sensitive to glare and may have trouble locating and
eading signs so driving can become dangerous, especially at night. May be more related tto
impaired visual attentiveness, slowed reaction time, less efficient coordination and slowed visual
processing than to loss in visual acuity (sharpness of vision).
Moderate visual problems can be corrected but many have uncorrectable visual losses.
Most visual impairments due to:
cataracts: cloudy or opaque areas in the lens of the eye causing blurred vision. (>50% of
65+ people get this. Surgery is usually successful.)
age-related macular degeneration: centre of the retina gadually loses its ability to discern
fine details; leading cause of irreversible visual impairments in older adults.
Glaucoma: Irreversible damage to optic nerve caused by increased pressure in eye. Can
cause blindness if left untreated.
diabetic retinopathy: not age related but a complication associated with diabetes.
Hearing
Many have hearing loss, often caused by presbycusis. Makes it hard to hear what other people are
saying, especially when there is competing noise.
Other causes may be extreme/chronic exposure to loud noise, smoking, a history of middle ear
infections, long exposure to certain chemicals. May contribute to false perception of older people as
distractible, absentminded and irritable.
Hearing impairments increase with age. Men more likely to have hearing problems. Hearing aids
may help but magnify background noises as well. Another device is built-in telephone amplifier.
Taste and Smell
Taste is affected by smell. Losses in both senses can be normal but can also be caused by other
things (diseases, medications, surgery, exposure to noxious substances in environment).
Loss of tastebuds in tongue, improper functioning of taste receptors, damage in olfactory bulb or
other related brain structures can cause loss of taste. Sensitivity to sour, salty, bitter may be affected
more. Women seem to retain the senses of taste and smell better.
Strength, Endurance, Balance and Reaction Time
Loss of strength (about 10-20% upto age 70 and more after that), especially in lower body. Walking
endurance declines more consistently with age, especially in women, than things like flexibility.
Exercise can reverse this largely, even morerate-intensity, low-impact aerobic dance and exercise
training can increase peak oxygen uptake, leg muscle strength and vigor. This plasticity of
performance is important as the more muscles atrophy, the more likely falls/fractures and the need
for assistance in tasks of day-to-day living are. Another reason for older adults' susceptibility to falls
is reduced sensitivity of receptor cells that give the brain information about body's position in space.
Slower reflexes and impaired depth perception also contribute. They may also find it harder to
recover when they lose their balance. Boosting muscle strength, balance (exercises like tai chi) and
gait speed and eliminating hazards at home can prevent many falls and fractures. Response time can
be improved with training as well (video games with joy sticks and trigger buttons. Video game
club people can do something with this to validate their club ;))

Sexual Functioning
Consistent sexual activity is most important. Healthy man who has remained sexually active
normally can continue some form of sexual expression into 70s-80s. Woman is physiologically
capable of sexual activity life-long, main barrier is likely to be lack of partner.
Men typically take longer to develop erection/ejaculate, may need more manual stimulation and
may experience longer intervals between erections. Erectile dysfunction may increase but is often
treatable. Women's breast engorgement and other signs of arousal less intense. Vagina may become
less flexible and may need artificial lubrication.
Most older people can enjoy sexual expression. Recognising the sexual needs of elderly people is
important.

Psychosocial Development in Late Adulthood

Models of Coping
Coping: Adaptive thinking or behaviour aimed at reducing or relieving stress that arises from
harmful, threatening or challenging conditions. Important aspect of mental health.
George Vaillant: Factors in Emotional Health
Three studies examined by Vaillant: Use of mature adaptive defenses in coping with problems imp.
predictive factor in mental health, psychological adjustment, higher income, marital satisfaction and
joy in living in later life (e.g. Altruism, humour, suppression, anticipation, sublimation). Relatively
independent of IQ, education and parents' social class.
Vaillant: adaptive defenses can change people's perceptions of realities they are powerless to
change. Adaptive defenses may be unconscious or intuitive.
Cognitive-Appraisal Model
Cognitive-appraisal model: proposed by Lazarus and Folkman, holds that, on the basis of
continuous appraisal of their relationship with the changing environment, people choose (unlike
adaptive defenses these are thus conscious strategies) appropriate coping strategies to deal with
situations that tax their normal resources. (See figure 18-1
Coping strategies are either:
Problem-focused coping: directed toward eliminating, managing or improving a stressful
situation. Generally predominates when a person sees a realistic chance of changing the
situation.
Emotion-focused coping: (or palliative coping) directed toward managing the emotional
response to a stressful situation so as to lessen its physical or psychological impact. Likely
to predominate when person concludes that little to nothing can be done about the situation.
In general, older adults do more emotion-focused coping than younger people. This may be because
older people can better use emotion regulation when required (and problem-focused action might be
futile or counterproductive). Problem-focused coping tends to have a more positive effect on older
people's well-being than emotion-focused coping, as it may give an increased sense of
environmental mastery and purpose in life.

Emotion-focused coping may be more appropriate and beneficial in certain situations, especially in
ambiguous loss: (Pauline Boss): a loss that is not clearly defined or does not bring closure.
Religion and Well-Being in Late Life
Religion plays a supportive role for many elderly people, possibly due to social support,
encouragement of healthy lifesytyles, the sense of some control over life through prayer, fostering
of positive emotional states, reduction of stress and faith in God as a way of interpreting
misfortunes.
Some studies suggest that religious involvement has mostly positive effects on physical and mental
health and longevity.
People with the most or the least religious commitment tend to have the highest self-esteem. May
be due to the fact that either one may be committed to certain values or that self-esteem is highest
when behaviour is consistent with beliefs, whatever those may be.

Models of Successful or Optimal Aging

How optimal aging is measured differs, may be through subjective or objective measurements.
Disengagement theory: Proposed by Cummings and Henry, holds that successful aging is
characterised by mutual withdrawal between the older person and society; a gradual reduction of
social involvement and a preoccupation with the self introspection and a quieting of the emotions.
This has been shown only to apply to societies where elders have no established roles and may
result in less-than-optimal satisfaction with life and underuse of human potential.
Activity theory: Proposed by Neugarten and others. The more active people remain, the better they
age. Research on engagement hypothesis suggests that involvement in challenging activities and
social roles promotes retention of cognitive abilities and positively affect health and social
adjustment.
Original framing of this theory may be oversimplified. Some disengaged people are also welladjusted and the results of research into activity theory have been correlational but not necessarily
causal. Therefore successful aging mostlikely cannot be generalised.
Healthy older people do tend to cut back on social contacts and activity in and of itself bears little
relationship to psychological well-being or satisfaction with life.
A new view is that activities do affect well-being but mostly through impact on the sense of selfefficacy, mastery and control rather than through social roles.
Continuity theory: Proposed by Robert Atchley, in order to age successfully people must maintain
a balance of continuity and change in both the internal and external structures of their lives. People
who were active tend to remain active, people who were inactive may do better remaining inactive.
Support from family, friends or community services may help minimise discontinuity.
The Role of Productivity
Productive activity plays an important part in successful aging and older people may even become
more productive. May contribute to sense of control, mastery and self-efficacy.

Frequent participation in leisure activities can be as beneficial to health and well-being as in

productive ones. Perhaps any activity that expresses and enhances some apsect of the self can
contribute to successful aging.
Selective Optimization with Compensation
Baltes and colleagues: Successful aging depends on having goals to guide development and
resources that make those goals potentially achievable. Throughout life this occurs through
selective optimization with compensation: brain selectively optimises abilities to make up losses in
certain other areas. Also applies to psychosocial development (I suggest you read this yourself on p
656 for examples).
These various different views illustrate that optimal aging is an individual thing.

Lifestyle and Social Issues Related to Aging

Work, Retirement and Leisure

Retirement is relatively new idea. Mandatory retirement at age 65 became almost universal
eventually, but after some time it became outlawed as a form of age discrimination and retirement
has become less normative. Biggest factors in the decision are usually health and financial reasons.
Trends in Late-Life Work and Retirement
Most who can, do retire. Increasing longevity means more time spent in retirement. Elders are a
small proportion of the workforce. Older men more likely to work than older women although
women's economic activity may be difficult to measure, especially in developing countries (e.g.
Subsistence farming). Women in developed countries are more likely to work part-time than men.
Whether older adults can afford to retire generally depends on whether a country is rich or poor.
Public and private pension programs and other inducements to make way for younger workers have
contributed to a trend toward early retirement in many developed countries but this trend appears to
have stopped or leveled off, perhaps to do with the financial crisis. Men are more likely to retire
early than women. For many here, retirement may be a phased phenomenon, involving multiple
transitions out of and into paid and unpaid work or may cut down on the same work (semiretired).
People who continue to work after 65-70 usually enjoy their work and dont find it unduly stressful.
Tend to be better educated, more likely to be in good health, more active during leisure time.
How Does Age Affect Job Performance and Attitudes Toward Work?
Older workers tend to be slower but more accurate; more productive; more dependable, frugal,
careful, responsible with time and materials; suggestions more likely to be accepted. Work requiring
quick responses done better by young person, work requiring precision, steady pace, mature
judgment by older person. Maybe due to more experience rather than age.
Older workers more involved, commmitted to employers, better paid, less likely to change jobs.
Commitment toward work ethic may reflect a difference between cohorts, not how long a person
has lived.
Despite anti age discrimination laws many employers exert subtle pressures on older employees.

Study: 1. physical fitness and mental abilities vary increasingly with age and differ more within age
groups than between them. 2. tests of specific psychological, physical and perceptual-motor abilities
can predict job performance far better than age can.
How Do Older Adults Fare Financially?
Most older adults face financial issues after retirement. Sources of income may include pensions,
earnings from work and public assistance. Age of eligibility for full social security benefits is
scheduled to rise in many countries based on better life expectancy and health improvements.
Many older adults are poor and once poor are likely to stay poor due to eroding of savings and
pensions due to inflation or medical bills. Older women are more likely than older men to live in
poverty.
In countries with a greying population and proportionately fewer workers benefits may be in
danger. Non-fixed retirement plans also make the financial future less certain for many.
Life After Retirement
Retirement may cause sense loss of role central to person's identity, they may enjoy the loss of the
strains accompanying said loss, alter household income, division of household work, marital
quality, distribution of power and decision making, more time for contact with extended
family/friends/caring for grandchildren. Unexpected illness,disability,marital troubles of adult
children can affect the retirement experience.
Retirement is an ongoing process. Personal resources, economic resources, social-relational
resources and a person's morale before retirement can affect how well this transition is weathered.
Women's well-being tends to be less affected by retirement (their own or their husband's) Their
morale more affected by marital quality than changes in income. Sense of personal control key
predictor of morale. People who had a strong sense of competence and self-esteem during working
lives more likely to have positive feelings about retirement.
During the first few years after retirement people may have a special need for emotional support to
make them feel they are still valued and to cope with the changes in their lives.
Continuity theory suggests people who maintain their earlier activities and lifestyles adjust most
successfully. Patterns of retired lifestyle:
1. Family-focused lifestyle: pattern of retirement activity that revolves around family, home
and companions.
2. Balanced investment: pattern of retirement activity allocated among family, work and
leisure. These patterns may change with age: Younger retirees: regular travel and cultural
activities.After age 75 family- and home-based activity yields most satisfaction.
3. Serious leisure: leisure activity requiring skill, attention and commitment. Tend to be
extraordinarily satisfied with their lives.
Volunteer work is closely tied to well-being during retirement.
Doing satisfying things and having satisfying relationships are most important in all of these.
Living Arrangements
Personal as well as societal/cultural/traditional factors influence older people's living arrangements.
In developing countries they typically live with adult children and grandchildren. In developed
countries the minority of older adults living alone has greatly increased since the 60s. With

increases in survival the main person many older people in both developed and developing
countries depend on for care and support is their spouse. Living arrangements do not necessarily
reflect the person's well-being.
Aging in Place and Other Options
Most elders stay in their own home, many even after being widowed.
For those who have impairments that make it hard to get along entirely on their own, minor support
or modifications within the home can often help them stay put. Those who do not have a house or
want to maintain one, do not have family nearby, prefer different locale or climate or want to travel
may move into low-maintenance or maintenance-free living establishments.
Most older people do not need much help and those who do can often remain in the community if
they have at least one person to depend on. Being married is the single most important factor
keeping people out of institutions. When one or both become frail, infirm or disabled or dies the
issue of living arrangements becomes more pressing. Those living without a spouse generally get
help from a child (usually daughter). In case they cannot call upon spouse or child they usually turn
to friends.
Living Alone
Older women are more likely to live alone due to higher life expectancy. Increase of elderly singleperson households may have to do with governmental policies as well.
Those who live alone are more likely to be poor, but generally in better health than those without
spouses who have other living arrangements.Rather than living alone factors like, personality,
health, social network, social activities are more significant in vulnerabiltiy to loneliness.
Living with Adult Children
In many societies elders can expect to live and be cared for in their children's or grandchildren's
homes. Most older people in societies like the US do not want to burden their families or give up
their freedom. Many do live with adult children though. Success depends on quality of the
relationship that existed in the past and ability of the family members to communicate fully/frankly
and mutual respect of dignity, autonomy and differences.
Living in Institutions
Institutionalisation is very rare in devleloping regions but is becoming less rare in some regions. In
developed countries a variety of institutions and comprehensive geriatric home visitation programs
are in place. More women than men spend time in a nursing home and the likelihood of living one
increases with age in all countries.
At highest risk of institutionalisation are those living alone, those who do not take part in social
activities, those whose daily activities are limited by poor health or disability and those whose
caregivers are overburdened. Many are incontinent, have visual/hearing problems, cognitively
impaired. On average they need help with 4-5 of 6 basic activities of daily living: bathing, eating,
dressing, getting into a chair, toileting, walking.
Good nursing home has an experienced professional staff, an adequate government insurance
program, and a coordinated structure that can provide various levels of care. Offers stimulating
activities and opportunities to spend time with people of both sexes and all ages. Provides privacy
and a full range of social, therapeutic and rehabilitative services.

An essential element is providing opportunity for autonomy.

Alternative Housing Options
A variety of group living arrangements allow many older people with health problems to remain in
the community longer and obtain needed services or care without sacrificing independence and
dignity. (See table 18-1 p 667).

Mistreatment of the Elderly

Elder abuse: Maltreatment or neglect or neglect of dependent older persons or violation of their
personal rights. 5 categories:
1. Physical violence
2. Psychological or emotional abuse
3. Material exploitation or misappropriation of money or property
4. neglect intentional or unintentional
5. violating personal rights such as right to privacy or to make health/personal decisions.
Most elder abuse does not occur in institutions, where there are laws and regulations to prevent it,
but to frail or demented elderly people living with spouses or children. Spouse is more likely to be
the abuser since more older people live with spouses. Often abuse of an elderly wife is a
continuation of abuse that went on throughout the marriage. Neglect by family caregivers is usually
unintentional.
Elder abuse should be recognised as a type of domestic violence and abusers/abused should be
counselled/treated accordingly.
UN has adopted a set of Principles for Older Persons in response to this problem (table 18-2 p 669)

Personal Relationships in Late Life

Social Contact
Social contact tends to decrease with age due to lack of workplace contact, infirmities and are also
generally more satisfied with smaller social networks. The contacts they do have are more
important to their well-being than ever, for better or worse. Explanations:
Social convoy theory: changes in social contact typically affect only a person's outer circles.
Socioemotional theory: older adults become increasingly selective about the people with whom they
spend their time due to perception of less remaining time due to which immediate emotional needs
become more important than long-term needs.
Older people tend to be more satisfied with the close relationships that they have than younger
people. The qualityvof social support does not decline, despite the decline in quantity.
Relationships and Health
There is a relationship between social support and later physical health.
Social interaction seems to prolong life.

Throughout the developed world, married people are healthier and live longer than unmarried
people. Being married itself seems to have health benefits for older men but older women's health is
linked to quality of marriage.
The Multigenerational Family
Due to increased longevity it is possible for multigenerational families to include more generations.
May be enriching but may also cause special pressures: Longer life = more risk of chronic illnesses.
Many who are themselves becoming old need to be caretakers. Many women spend more of their
lives taking care of parents than children.
There are cultural differences in the way families deal with these issues: nuclear, lineal, or collateral
relationships.

Consensual Relationships

Long-Term Marriage
Long-term marriages are relatively new phenomenon due to increased longevity. In most countries
more men are married in late life (women live longer, more men remarry after divorce).
Married couples who are still together in late adulthood are more likely than middle-aged couples to
report their marriage as satisfying and many say it has improved. Children tend to be a shared
source of pleasure and pride rather than conflict due to the end of child rearing.
Conflict resolution is important throughout marriage, better regulation of emotions among elders
may make conflicts less severe.
Late-life marriage and advancing age and physical ills may mutually stress eachother and put the
caregiver's life at heightened risk. Caregiving spouses who stay in touch with friends and are
optimistic and well-adjusted to begin with generally cope best.
Divorce and Remarriage
Divorce in late life is rare, but will likely increase especially as younger cohorts with larger
proportions of divorced parents reach late life.
Remarriages in late life may have a special character (more trusting and accepting, less in need of
deep sharing of personal feelings). Men but not women tend to be more satisfied in late-life
remarriages than in midlife ones.
Has societal benefits: Older married couples less likely to need help from community.
Widowhood
Many more women than men are widows, but the gender gap in life expectancy is narrowing.
Single Life
Some elders have never married. In Europe this may be due to the toll on marriageable men taken
by WWII. In some countries due to the prevalence of consensual unions.

Older never-marrieds more likely than older divorced/widowed people to prefer single life and less
likely to be lonely.
Gay and Lesbian Relationships
There is little research on this (for the same reasons mentioned in earlier chapters). Those who
recognised themselves as homosexual before the rise of the gay liberation movement had a selfconcept shaped by the prevailing stigma against homosexuality, whereas those who recognised
themselves as homosexual afterwards tend to view it as simply a status: characteristic of the self.
Older adults of any orientation have strong needs for intimacy, social contact and generativity.
Homosexuals' relationships in late life tend to be strong, supportive and diverse. Many have
children from earlier marriages or have adopted. Friendship networks or support groups are
substitute for the traditional family.
Many, especially those who have maintained close relationships and strong involvement in the
homosexual community, adapt to aging with relative ease. Coming out whenever it occurs is an
important developmental transition which can enhance psychological well-being and smooth the
adjustment to aging.
Main problems grow out of societal attitudes.
Friendships
The meaning of friendship changes little over the lifespan, but friendships typically no longer linked
to work and parenting but focus on companionship and support.
Most older people have close friends. Those with active circle of friends are happier and healthier.
Friends allow better to deal with the impact of stress on physical and mental health and help them
with the effects of aging. Also tend to live longer.
Element of choice in friendships may be even more important to older people who may feel their
control over their lives slipping away. Intimacy is important as well. May be that women's greater
comfort with self-disclosure and expression of feelings contribute to their greater life-expectancy.
Older people enjoy time spent with friends more than time spent with families, as they revolve
around leisure and pleasure rather than every day needs and tasks. Spending time with friends does
not result in higher overall life satisfaction whereas spending time with spouse does. Friends are
more for immediate enjoyment.
People usually rely on neighbours for emergencies and relatives for long-term commitments but
friends may occasionally fulfill both and can help compensate for lack of spouse.
Longtime friendships may persist into very old age but sometimes it may be hard to keep up with
them due to relocation, illness or disability. Many older people do make new friends, even after age
85 but they are more likely than younger ones to attribute the benefits of friendship to specific
individuals.

Nonmarital Kinship Ties

Relationships with Adult Children or their Absence

Older people seek to spend more of their time with people who mean the most to them, such as their
children. Most have children, interact/visit eachother frequently and live close to eachother.

Children provide a link with other family members, especially grandchildren. Older people in better
health have more contact with their families and report feeling closer to them.
Especially in developing countries, the balance of mutual aid between parents and their adult
children tends to shift towards the children providing more support as they age, but they continue to
make important contributions to family well-being.
Institutional supports have lifted some responsibilities for the elderly from family members in
developed countries but many adult children do provide significant assistance and care. Many
elderlyparents still do provide financial support more than receiving it.
Older adults are likely to be depressed if they need help from their children, but may also be
depressed if they fear the children will not take care of them.
Older parents continue to show strong care and concern about their children and help them when
needed. Elderly parents tend to be distressed or become depressed if their children have serious
problems which they may consider a sign of their own failure. Many whose adult children are
mentally/physically handicapped or seriously ill dontinue to serve as primary caregivers for as long
as both parent and child live. Growing number of grandparents and even great-grandparents raise
or help raise children.
Elderly caregivers, even more so than middle-aged ones, who are pressed into active paenting at a
time when such a role is unexpected, frequently feel strain, due to their own (prospective) condition.
Most elders who have never had children are psycholohically no less well-off, but some older
women who never had children are regretful, and that feeling may intensify with age. They may
lack a ready source of care and support if they become infirm.
Relationships with Siblings
Siblings, more than any other family members, provide companionship, as friends do; but siblings,
more than friends, also provide emotional support. Conflict and overt rivalry tend to decrease with
age and some try to resolve earlier conflicts. Underlying feelings of rivalry may remain, especially
between bothers.
Few older adult siblings provide help to and turn to a sibling for help except in emergencies or
death of a spouse. Siblings in developingcountries are more likely to furnish economic aid. Siblings'
readiness to help is a source of comfort and security in late life. To those unmarried or those with
few to no children, relationships with siblings and their children may become increasingly
significant.
The nearer older people live to siblings/the more they have, the likelier they are to confide in them.
Sisters are especially vital in maintaining family relationships and well-being. Older people who are
close to their sisters feel better about life and worry less about aging.
Losing a sibling can be a source of intense grief, in the case of a sister perhaps even more than a
spouse or parent.
Becoming Great-Grandparents
As grandchildren grow up, grandparents see them less. Great-grandparents typically less involved in
a child's life due to age, declining health and scattering of families. Most great-grandparents find the
role fulfilling.

DEATH

The Many Faces of Death

The Cultural Context

There's variety in cultural customs surrounding death, the dying, and what do do after death, which
express the culture's view of death as well as ways to deal with it.
The Mortality Revolution
Especially in developed countries, advances in medicine, sanitation, new treatments for once-fatal
illnesses, better-educated more health-conscious population has lead to a mortality revolution. It has
increasingly become a phenomenon of late adulthood.
Thanatology: study of death and dying.
Care of the Dying
Hospice care: warm, personal patient- and family-centered care for a person with a terminal illness.
Focuses on palliative care: care aimed at relieving pain and suffering and allowing the terminally
ill to die in peace, comfort and dignity. Hospice care usually takes place at home but can be given in
an institution of some kind or a combination of home and institutional care.
(See table 19-2 p 688 and 689 for Dignity-conserving interventions for patients nearing death)
It is important for the dying to know they are seen as being worthy of honour and esteem by those
who care for them.

Facing Death and Loss: Psychological Issues

Confronting One's Own Death

In the absence of any identifiable illness, people around age 100 usually suffer cognitive and other
functional declines, lose interest in eating and drinking, and die a natural death. Such changes have
also been noted in younger people whose death is near. Some have had near-death experiences
involving a sense of being out of the body and visions of bright lights or mystical encounters. These
are sometimes interpreted as resulting form physiological changes accompanying the process of
dying or psychological responses to the perceived threat of death.
Kbler-Ross: 5 stages in coming to terms with death:
1. denial
2. anger
3. bargaining for extra time
4. depression
5. acceptance
She noted similar progression in the feelings of people facing imminent bereavement.
These are common but not universal and not necessarily in the same order. Dying is an individual
experience.
Patterns of Grieving
Bereavement: loss, due to death, of someone to whom one feels close and the process of
adjustment to the loss. Often brings change in status and role. May have social and economic

consequences. First there is grief: emotional response experienced in the early phases of
bereavement. Highly personal experience. Some recover quickly, some never do.
Grief-work: pattern of working out of psychological issues connected with grief. Most wiedely
studied pattern which generally follows 3 stages:
1. Shock and disbelief. Immediately following death, survivors often feel lost and confused. As
awareness sinks in the numbness makes way for overwhealming feelings of sadness and
frequent crying. May last several weeks, especially after a sudden or unexcpected death.
2. Preoccupation with the memory of the dead person. May last 6 months or longer. Tries to
come to term with the death but cannot yet accept it. Person may occasionally feel that the
deceased is present. This diminishes with time but may recur -perhaps for years- on such
occasions as anniversary of the marriage or of the death.
3. Resolution. Person renews interest in everyday activities. Memories of the deceased bring
fond feelings mingled with sadness, rather than sharp pain and longing.
Common pattern, but it does not necessarily follow a straight line. And some common assumptions
may not hold true:
depression is far from universal
failure to show distress at the outset does not necessarily lead to problems, opposite may be
true
not everyone needs to work through a loss or will benefit from doing so. Opposite may be
true
not everyone returns to normal quickly
people cannot always resolve their grief and accept their loss
Acceptance may be particularly difficult when a loss is ambiguous.
Three main patterns have been found:
1. person goes from high to low distress
2. person does not experience intense distress immediately or later
3. remains distressed for a long time
Expecting people to follow a certain pattern of grief or the pattern of Kbler-Ross in case of dying
may be harmful. Respecting different ways of coping can be helpful to make people feel their
reactions are not abnormal.
Most can come to terms with loss. Some require grief therapy: treatment to help bereaved cope
with loss.