DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

JT. Llanillo
Erikson’s Theory

Psychosocial theory - Erikson theory that personality

Human Development
development is determined by the interaction of an
internal maturational plan and external societal demands.
Human development is the multidisciplinary study of
how people change and how they remain the same over Epigenetic principle - Means by which
time. each psychosocial strength has its own
special period of particular importance.
Nature–Nurture issue - The degree to which genetic or
hereditary influences (nature) and experiential or Psychosocial stages of Development
environmental influences (nurture) determine the kind of
person you are.

Continuity–Discontinuity -issue Concerns whether a

particular developmental phenomenon represents a
smooth progression throughout the life span (continuity)
or a series of abrupt shifts (discontinuity).

Universal and context-specific - the development issue

Concerns whether there is one path of development or
several.

Basic Forces in Human Development:

The Biopsychosocial Framework Learning Theory

Learning Theory - In contrast to psychodynamic theory,

Biological forces - All genetic and health-
related factors that affect development.
Psychological forces - All internal
perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and
personality factors that affect
development.
Sociocultural forces - Interpersonal,
societal, cultural, and ethnic factors that
affect development.
Life-cycle forces - Differences in how the
same event affects people of different
ages.
Biopsychosocial framework – a useful way to organize
the biological, psychological, and sociocultural forces
on human development.
Neuroscience - The study of the brain and the nervous
system, especially in terms of brain– behavior
relationships.
learning theory concentrates on how learning influences
a person’s behavior. This perspective emphasizes the
role of experience, examining whether a person’s
behavior is rewarded or punished.
Behaviorism
Behaviorism - Early in the 20th century, John Watson
(1878–1958) believed that infants’ minds were essentially
“blank slates” and argued that learning alone determines
what people will become.
Operant conditioning - Technique in which
the consequences of a behavior determine
whether a behavior is repeated in the future.
Reinforcement - A consequence that
increases the likelihood of the behavior that it
follows.
Punishment - A consequence that decreases
the likelihood of the behavior that it follows.

Theory - An organized set of ideas that explains

development. Social Learning Theory

Imitation or observational learning - learning by simply

Developmental Theories watching those around them.

Psychodynamic theories - Hold that development is Self-efficacy - People’s beliefs about their own abilities
largely determined by how well people resolve conflicts and talents.
they face at different ages.

Cognitive-Developmental Theory
In cognitive-developmental theory, the key is how
people think and how thinking changes over time. Three
distinct approaches have developed.
Piaget’s Theory - The cognitive-developmental
perspective began with a focus on how children construct
knowledge and how their constructions change over time.
Information-processing theory - proposes that human
cognition consists of mental hardware and mental
software.
Vygotsky’s Theory - Vygotsky believed that because all
societies aim to help children acquire essential cultural
values and skills, every aspect of a child’s development
must be considered against this backdrop.
The Ecological and Systems Approach
Ecological theory - theory that views human
development as inseparable from the environmental
contexts in which a person develops.
Bronfenbrenner’s Theory - the best-known advocate of
the ecological approach was Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–
2005), who proposed that the developing person is
embedded in a series of complex and interactive systems
Biological Foundations
Mechanisms of Heredity - At conception, egg and sperm
unite to create a new organism that incorporates some
characteristics of each parent. Each egg and sperm cell
has 23 chromosomes, threadlike structures in the nucleus
that contain genetic material. When a sperm penetrates
an egg, their chromosomes combine to produce 23 pairs
of chromosomes. The first 22 pairs of chromosomes are
called autosomes. The 23rd pair determines the sex of the
child, so these are known as the sex chromosomes.
When the 23rd pair consists of an X and a Y chromosome,
the result is a boy; two X chromosomes produce a girl.
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNa) - molecule composed of
four nucleotide bases that is the biochemical basis of
heredity.
Gene Group - of nucleotide bases that provides a specific
set of biochemical instructions.
Genotype - person’s hereditary makeup.
Phenotype - Physical, behavioral, and psychological
features that result from the interaction between one’s
genes and the environment.
Alleles - Variations of genes.
Homozygous - When the alleles in a pair of
chromosomes are the same.
Heterozygous - When the alleles in a pair of
chromosomes differ from each other.
Dominant Form of an allele whose chemical instructions
are followed.
Recessive Allele- whose instructions are ignored in the
presence of a dominant allele.
Incomplete dominance -situation in which one allele
does not dominate another completely.
Sickle-cell trait Disorder - in which individuals show
signs of mild anemia only when they are seriously
deprived of oxygen; occurs in individuals who have one
dominant allele for normal blood cells and one recessive
sickle-cell allele.
Genetic Disorders
Genetics can derail development in two ways. First, some
disorders are inherited. Sickle-cell disease is one
example of an inherited disorder. Second, sometimes
eggs or sperm do not include the usual 23 chromosomes
but have more or fewer chromosomes instead. In the next
few pages, we’ll see how inherited disorders and
abnormal numbers of chromosomes can alter a person’s
development.
Inherited Disorders
Most inherited disorders are like sickle-cell disease and
PKU in that they are carried by recessive alleles
Phenylketonuria (PKU) - Inherited disorder in which the
infant lacks a liver enzyme.
Huntington’s disease - Progressive and fatal type of
dementia caused by dominant alleles.
Abnormal Chromosomes
Sometimes individuals do not receive the normal
complement of 46 chromosomes. If they are born with
extra, missing, or damaged chromosomes, development
is disturbed.
Neurodevelopmental disorders
Are a group of conditions with onset in the developmental
period. The disorders typically manifest early in
development, often before the child enters grade school,
and are characterized by developmental deficits that
produce impairments of personal, social, academic, or
occupational functioning.
*Refer to your DSM – 5 for the specific types disorders*
NEWBORN
The Newborn’s Reflexes - most newborns are well
prepared to begin interacting with their world; they are
endowed with a rich set of reflexes, unlearned responses
that are triggered by a specific form of stimulation.
Reflexes - unlearned responses triggered by specific
stimulation.
Assessing the Newborn
● Autonomic: the baby’s ability to control body
functions such as breathing and temperature
regulation.
●Motor: the baby’s ability to control body
movements and activity level.
● State: the baby’s ability to maintain a state (e.g.,
staying alert or staying asleep).
● Social: the baby’s ability to interact with people.
The Newborn’s States
Alert Inactivity State - in which a baby is calm
with eyes open and attentive; the baby seems to
be deliberately inspecting the environment.
Waking Activity State -in which a baby’s eyes
are open but seem unfocused while the arms or
legs move in bursts of uncoordinated motion.
Crying State - in which a baby cries vigorously,
usually accompanied by agitated but
uncoordinated movement.
Sleeping State - in which a baby alternates
between being still and breathing regularly to
moving gently and breathing irregularly; the eyes
are closed throughout.
Basic cry - cry that starts softly and gradually
becomes more intense; often heard when babies
are hungry or tired.
Mad cry - More intense version of a basic cry.
Pain cry - cry that begins with a sudden long
burst, followed by a long pause and gasping.
Movements
Motor skills - coordinated movements of the
muscles and limbs.
Locomote - to move around in the world
.
Fine motor skills - Motor skills associated
with grasping, holding, and manipulating
objects.
Locomotion
Toddling - Early, unsteady form of walking done by
infants.
Toddler -Young children who have just learned to
walk.
Dynamic systems theory - Theory that views motor
development as involving many distinct skills that are
organized and reorganized over time to meet specific
needs.
Fine Motor Skills
A major accomplishment of infancy is skilled use of the
hands. Newborns have little apparent control of their
hands, but 1-yearolds are extraordinarily talented.
Senses
Perception - Processes by which the brain receives,
selects, modifies, and organizes incoming nerve impulses
that are the result of physical stimulation.
Newborns have a keen sense of smell. Infants respond
positively to pleasant smells and negatively to unpleasant
smells
Newborns also have a highly developed sense of taste.
Newborns are sensitive to touch.
Infancy and early childhood
Attention
Processes that determine which information will be
processed further by an individual.
Orienting - response an individual views a
strong or unfamiliar stimulus, and changes in
heart rate and brain-wave activity occur.
Habituation - act of becoming unresponsive
to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly.
Learning
From birth, babies rapidly learn about the people and the
objects in their environment. This learning reflects several
processes:
Classical conditioning - a form of learning
that involves pairing a neutral stimulus and a
response originally produced by another
stimulus.
Operant conditioning - form of learning that
emphasizes the consequences of reward and
punishment.
Memory Young babies remember events for days and
even weeks at a time, an ability that was revealed by
experiments in which a ribbon from a mobile is attached
to a 2- or 3-monthold’s leg
Autobiographical - memory memories
of the significant events and experiences
of one’s own life.
Vygotsky’s Theory
Vygotsky and other sociocultural theorists, the social
nature of cognitive development is captured in the
concept of intersubjectivity, which refers to mutual,
shared understanding among participants in an activity.
For example, when parents and children play board
games together, they share an understanding of the goals
of their activity and of their roles in playing the games.
Such shared understanding allows parents and children
to work together in complementary fashion on the
puzzles. Such interactions typify guided participation, in
which cognitive growth results from children’s
involvement in structured activities with others who are
more skilled than they.
Zone - of proximal development Difference between what
children can do with assistance and what they can do
alone.
Scaffolding - a style in which teachers gauge the amount
of assistance they offer to match the learner’s needs.
Private Speech
A child’s comments that are not intended for others but
are designed to help regulate the child’s own behavior.
The Road to Speech - when a baby is upset, a concerned
mother tries to console him. Unable to talk, the infant
conveys his unhappiness by crying.
Steps to Speech
Infant-directed speech - speech that adults use with
infants that is slow and has exaggerated changes in pitch
and volume; it helps children master language.
Cooing - early vowel-like sounds that babies produce.
Babbling – speech-like sounds that consist of vowel–
consonant combinations; common at about 6 months.
Fast mapping - a child’s connections between words
and referents that are made so quickly that he or she
cannot consider all possible meanings of the word.
Underextension - when children define words more
narrowly than adults do.
Overextension - when children define words more
broadly than adults do.
Phonological - memory ability to remember speech
sounds briefly; an important skill in acquiring vocabulary.
Referential - style language-learning style of children
whose vocabularies are dominated by names of objects,
persons, or actions.
Expressive - style language-learning style of children
whose vocabularies include many social phrases that
are used like one word.
Attachment
Enduring socioemotional relationship between infants
and their caregivers.
Secure attachment - relationship in which
infants have come to trust and depend on
their mothers.
Avoidant attachment - relationship in which
infants turn away from their mothers when
they are reunited following a brief separation.
Resistant attachment - relationship in which,
after a brief separation, infants want to be
held but are difficult to console.
 Disorganized (disoriented) - attachment
relationship in which infants don’t seem to
understand what’s happening when they are
separated and later reunited with their
mothers.
The Function of Emotions
Why do people feel emotions? According to the
functional approach, emotions are useful because they
help people adapt to their environment.
Basic emotions - Emotions experienced by humankind
that consist of three elements: a subjective feeling, a
physiological change, and an overt behavior.
Social smiles - Smile that infants produce when they
see a human face.
Stranger wariness - first distinct signs of fear that
emerge around 6 months of age when infants become
wary in the presence of unfamiliar adults.
Social referencing - behavior in which infants in
unfamiliar or ambiguous environments look at an adult
for cues to help them interpret the situation.
Interacting with others; Play
Parallel play - when children play alone but are aware
of and interested in what another child is doing.
simple social play - play that begins at about 15 to 18
months; toddlers engage in similar activities as well as
talk and smile at each other.
Cooperative play - play that is organized around a
theme, with each child taking on a different role; begins
at about 2 years of age.
Enabling actions - Individuals’ actions and remarks that
tend to support others and sustain the interaction.
Constricting actions - Interaction in which one partner
tries to emerge as the victor by threatening or
contradicting the other.
Prosocial - behavior any behavior that benefits another
person.
Altruism - prosocial behavior such as helping and
sharing in which the individual does not benefit directly
from his or her behavior.
Empathy - act of experiencing another person’s feelings.
Gender Roles and Gender Identity
Social role - Set of cultural guidelines about how one
should behave, especially with other people.
Gender stereotypes - beliefs and images about males
and females that are not necessarily true.
Relational aggression - aggression used to hurt others
by undermining their social relationships.
Gender identity - Sense of oneself as male or a female.
Gender-schema theory - theory that states that children
want to learn more about an activity only after first
deciding whether it is masculine or feminine.
School-Age Children
The Concrete-Operational Period
Mental operations - Cognitive actions
that can be performed on objects or
ideas.
The Formal-Operational Period
Deductive reasoning - Drawing
conclusions from facts; characteristic of
formal-operational thought.
Information-Processing Strategies for Learning
and Remembering
Working memory - type of memory in which
a small number of items can be stored briefly.
Long-term memory - Permanent storehouse
for memories that has unlimited capacity.
Memory Strategies
Organization - as applied to children’s
memory, a strategy in which information to be
remembered is structured so that related
information is placed together.
Elaboration Memory - strategy in which
information is embellished to make it more
memorable.
Metacognition
Metamemory - Person’s informal
understanding of memory; includes the ability
to diagnose memory problems accurately
and to monitor the effectiveness of memory
strategies.
Metacognitive - knowledge a person’s
knowledge and awareness of cognitive
processes.
Cognitive self-regulation - skill at identifying
goals, selecting effective strategies, and
 monitoring accurately; a characteristic of
successful students.
Theories of Intelligence
Psychometricians - Psychologists who specialize in
measuring psychological traits such as intelligence and
personality.
Parenting Styles
Authoritarian parenting - Style of parenting in which
parents show high levels of control and low levels of
warmth toward their children.
Authoritative parenting - Style of parenting in which
parents use a moderate amount of control and are warm
and responsive to their children.

Permissive parenting - Style of parenting in which

parents offer warmth and caring but little control over their
children.

Uninvolved parenting - Style of parenting in which

parents provide neither warmth nor control and minimize
the time they spend with their children

Young Adulthood
Emotional intelligence - ability to use one’s own and
others’ emotions effectively for solving problems and Sternberg’s triangular theory of love
living happily.

Intelligence quotient (IQ) - Mathematical

Intimacy
representation of how a person scores on an intelligence
test in relation to how other people of the same age
score.

Sternberg’s Theory of Successful Intelligence

Analytic ability - in Sternberg’s theory of

intelligence, the ability to analyze
problems and generate different Passion Commitment
solutions.

Creative ability - in Sternberg’s theory of

intelligence, the ability to deal adaptively
with novel situations and problems.
Practical ability - in Sternberg’s theory
of intelligence, the ability to know which
problem solutions are likely to work.
Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Passion - an intense physiological desire for someone.
Intimacy - the feeling that you can share all your
thoughts and actions with another.
Commitment, the willingness to stay with a person
through good and bad times. Ideally, a true love
relationship has all three components

Intellectual disability - substantially below-average

intelligence and problems adapting to an environment that Di ko na Makita yung health risk at sexual habits
emerge before the age of 18.

Learning disability - when a child with normal

intelligence has difficulty mastering at least one academic
subject.