Theories of Human Development

Match five types of theories (Psychoanalytic, Behaviorist - Operant Conditioning, Behaviorist - Social Learning,
Cognitive, Systems) with their descriptions

Psychoanalytic Theories
● Development and behavior are the result of interplay of inner drives, memories, and conflicts we are unaware of
and cannot control.
● Two major Psychoanalytic theories/theorists:
1. Freud’s Psychosexual Theory - Behavior is driven by unconscious impulses outside our awareness.
2. Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory - Included the role of the social world in shaping our sense of self
● Freud's psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, and latency)
○ periods in which unconscious drives are focused on different parts of the body, making stimulation to
those parts a source of pleasure
● Erikson's 8 psychosocial stages:
○ Each stage presents a unique developmental task, which is referred to as a crisis or conflict that must be
resolved
1. how they understand and interact with others and changes in how they understand themselves
and their roles as members of society
○ Trust vs mistrust: if parent always responds to baby's cry then they learn to trust that their basic needs
will be met, if parent doesn't come then they learn mistrust
○ If learn mistrust in stage 1 they will have a difficult time forming bonds later in life

Behaviourist Learning Theory (John Watson)

● Classical conditioning: Person or animal comes to associate environmental stimuli with physiological responses.
○ Pavlov’s dog
● Operant conditioning: behaviour becomes more or less probable depending on its consequences; continue
rewarded behaviour, stop punished behaviour
○ Reinforcement: a behavior followed by a rewarding or pleasant outcome
○ Punishment: one followed by an aversive or unpleasant outcome will less likely to recur

Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura)

People actively process information—they think and they feel emotion—and their thoughts and feelings influence their
behavior
● Observational learning: people learn through observing and imitating models.
○ Ex. Younger sibling watches older sibling get punished and rewarded for certain behaviour, mimics
rewarded behaviours only
○ Ex. Bobo doll experiment
○ The kinds of toys that kids want imitate parents' behaviour (toy phone, toy vacuum, etc.)
● Reciprocal determinism: individuals and environment interact and influence each other
○ We learn from parents and parents learn from us, ex. parents become more patient within months of
baby being born

Cognitive Theory
● Development and behaviour are the result of thought or Cognition
● Piaget's Cognitive-Developmental Theory:
 ○ Children and adults use their ability to think to better understand their environment
○ Organization of learning results in Cognitive schemas or concepts ideas and ways of interacting with the
world
■ Schemas are ways for us to organize our knowledge so it makes sense in our brain eg. "food,"
"furniture" sit on chair, eat banana not the other way around
● Piaget's stages of cognitive development
1. Sensorimotor
2. Preoperational
3. Concrete operational
4. Formal operational

Systems Theories
● Emphasizes the role of social context in development
● People are inseparable from the familiar, neighbourhood and societal contexts in which they live
● Two systems theories:
○ Vygotsky's Sociocultural Systems Theory:
■ Examines how culture is transmitted from one generation to the next through social interaction
■ Ex. You grew up in Vancouver but Chinese parents - would be brought up with Chinese and
Canadian culture, Vygotsky would suggest that you understand the world based on your cultural
training
○ Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Systems Theory:
■ Addresses both the role of the individual and that individual's social interactions
■ Development is result of interactions among biological, cognitive and psychological changes
within a person and their changing context
■ Individuals are embedded in, or surrounded by, series of sociocultural contexts
■ Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological model: in slides
● Microecosystem: the immediate physical and social environment surrounding the
person (family, peers, and school.)
● Mesosystem: the relations and interactions among microsystems
○ experiences in the home (microsystem) influence those at school (microsystem)
● Exosystem: other settings in which the individual is not a participant but that
nevertheless influence him or her.
● Macrosystem: the greater sociocultural context in which the microsystem, mesosystem
and exosystem are embedded.

Biological and Environmental Foundations

Dominant-recessive Genetic Inheritance

Dominant-Recessive Disorders

Few severe disorders are inherited through dominant–recessive inheritance

- individuals who inherit the allele often do not survive long enough to reproduce and pass it to the next
generation.
Huntington’s disease: the central nervous system deteriorates
- Symptoms do not appear until age 35 or later (allele develop normally in early life)
- Most of them have children, hence ½ will inherit the dominant huntington gene
Phenylketonuria (PKU): common recessive disorder that prevents the body from producing an enzyme that breaks down
the amino acid phenylalanine from proteins
- Phenylalanine builds up to toxic levels that damage the central nervous system, leads to intellectual
developmental disability (mental retardation)
- intellectual disability results from the interaction of the genetic predisposition and exposure to phenylalanine
from the environment

Maternal Characteristics and Behaviors

● Age
○ >35 y/o = high risk pregnancy
○ Risk of miscarriage, low birth weight, and down syndrome goes up the most with age
● Nutrition
○ What the woman eats goes directly to fetus
○ 2000-3000 calories a day to maintain pregnancy
○ Spina bifida - lack of folic acid
● Emotional wellbeing
○ Chronic stress in pregnant women (domestic violence, dangerous neighbourhood) - low birth weight,
premature birth, longer hospital stay
○ Stress hormones go through umbilical cord to the baby = child has ADHD, anxiety, aggressive tendencies
● Prenatal care
○ Sonograms, doctors visits, amniocentesis, vitamins, advice on nutrition + emotional wellbeing
○ SES plays a role

Physical Development

* Contextual Influences on Pubertal Timing

● Nutrition
○ Fat: fatty diets --> protein leptin --> starts process of getting ovaries ready to work
○ Basically the more fat that a girls has = earlier puberty/ovulation
○ Most likely also happens with boys and spermarche but easier to track in girls
● Stress
○ Extreme stress (domestic abuse, sexual abuse, poverty, severe untreated anxiety) causes puberty
to occur earlier
● SES (socioeconomic status)
○ Low SES linked to earlier puberty because they are more likely to be overweight and obese

* Psychosocial Effects of Early and Late Puberty

Off-timed puberty

● Related to anxiety, depression

● Early: before 8 (10-20% of girls) or 9 (boys)
● Late: after 13 (girls) or 14 (boys)
○ Not nearly as problematic
○ More problematic for boys bc at 16 their friends will look fully developed but they look like a kid
○ Girls' friends typically won't shun them for not going through puberty
● Early maturation linked with more problems than late maturation especially in girls
○ Body image issues
○ Low self-esteem
○ Depression, anxiety
○ Girls who start early, once they get a bit older (13, 14) they usually end up being the victims of rumor
spreading about being really sexual/slutty because they look fully developed
● Contextual factors influence the effects of pubertal timing
○ Starting early wouldn't be a problem if people didn't treat them differently
○ Girls who are early end up maturing really early then get treated like they are older than they are then
they start participating in sexual activity early, use drugs/alcohol because they are being treated as
adults
■ Higher risk for STIs, teen pregnancy, termination of pregnancy or being a teen mom because
brain isn't that developed
○ Start hanging out with older kids
○ Sometimes girls who are early look really grown up so attract 18/19/20 year old men

Health

* Risk Factors for Child Maltreatment – Parent Characteristics

● Poor impulse control, coping (shaking babies), and problem-solving skills

● Little understanding of normal childhood development
● Poverty and marital instability
● Denise problems at home
● Blames problems on the child
● Shows indifference and little concern for the child
● Parents lack knowledge about child development and have unrealistic expectations
● find it difficult to recognize, manage, and express their own feelings appropriately

* Marijuana Use in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood – Common Substance Used by Teens and Young
Adults – Canadian Statistics

● Common substance used by teens and young adults

○ Canada statistics
■ Average at first use is 14
■ 14% of 10th-grade and 24% of 12th-grade students
■ 20% of 18- to 25-year-old emerging adults, and 13% of 26- to 34-year-old young adults
■ Haven't seen big increase in consumption of marijuana since legalization
■ 24% have used cannabis in last 3 months
■ One study surveyed consumption + perceptions of marijuana use + ideas of effects + what's
ok/not ok = big difference in males than females
■ Males perceive as less risky than females
■ Males consume more
■ Males are more likely to drive a car after using marijuana
○ Young people consume marijuana for different reasons
■ Experimentation (fewer marijuana-related problems)
■ coping, relaxation, and enjoyment
 ■ lower levels of academic attainment, lower income, greater unemployment, poor
relationship satisfaction, conflict with partners, and poor life satisfaction
○ People who try to quit marijuana use report irritability, difficulty sleeping, and anxiety
■ increased aggression, which peaks about a week after stopping the drug

Cognitive Change: Piaget and Vygosky

* Guided Participation

● providing a scaffold to help them accomplish more than the child could do alone (guiding instead of
helping)
● More skilled partner is attuned to needs of the child and guides her to accomplish more than she could
do alone

* Zone of Proximal Development

● The gap between a child's competence level (what she can do alone) and what she can do with
assistance

Cognitive Change: Information Processing

* The Information Processing System – Sensory, Working, and Long-term Memory

● Sensory memory: hold incoming sensory information in the original form

■ stimuli are stored for a brief moment in their original form to enable them to be processed
○ One of five senses has to be stimulated
○ Attention: awareness of information
● Working memory (short term memory): holds and processes information that is being "worked on",
manipulated (considered, comprehended), encoded (transformed into a memory) or retrieved
○ Nothing is stored here
○ Info processing approach: take info in from sensory memory and do something with it
(manipulate, encode, retrieve)
○ Trying to figure out if what we know is important and where we wanna put it
○ Two aspects:
○ Central executive: control processor that directs the flow of information and regulates cognitive
activities such as attention, action and problem solving
■ The "boss" in the brain
● combines new information with information already in working memory
■ Decides what your brain should do with that info: new: new place in long term memory
to store, related to something in long term memory and needs to be merged
○ Executive function: cognitive process of understanding information, making decisions and
solving problems
■ What's manipulating, encoding or retrieving information
● Long term memory: unlimited store that holds information indefinitely
○ Nothing is being done with the info here, if something needs to be done it's moved to working
memory then moved back
■ stored until it is retrieved to manipulate in working memory
● Suggested this system is in place since birth
* Information Processing in Adolescence – Risk-taking Behaviors

○ This is where the brain fails them because prefrontal cortex is not powerful enough to overpower the
limbic system:
○ Limbic system
■ Responds when we get a rush of adrenaline or something looks really fun or appealing
■ Part of reward center in brain
■ Become poor decision makers when we have the opportunity to do something that will
stimulate reward center/limbic system
■ Ex. If given opportunity to drag race in car and give them 5 things fun about drag racing and 5
things that could go really wrong they are bound to look at the positive things that are much
more likely to happen than the negative risks - prioritize rewards, downplay risks
■ Part of the personal fable
■ Less likely to listen to people that tell them they shouldn't do things (often parents with
functioning prefrontal cortex) than people that tell them they should do things (their friends
with underdeveloped prefrontal cortex)

Intelligence

* Large Cohort Effects in Intelligence – the Flynn Effect

○ Flynn Effect:
■ The idea that intelligence tends to go up with each generation
■ When looking at IQ scores, that score seems to go up ~3 points every decade for the last 100
years
■ Looked at 4 million people in 30 different countries (cross-cultural)
■ Over 100 years raw IQ scores went up 30 points
■ Attributed to better access to education + environmental stimulation
■ Most people didn't get more than a grade 6 education in early 1900's
■ 70-80% finishing grade 12 by like 1940
■ Need more knowledge and skills just to survive
■ This applies to raw IQ because as they noticed scores going up, they adjusted it so that the mean
remained at 100

* Group and Contextual Differences in IQ – Socioeconomic Status

○ Accounts for many ethnic differences in IQ scores

○ Differences based on SES are not inborn
■ Can do tests on infants to predict IQ, infants of different ethnicities = no difference
○ Contributes to IQ through differences in culture, nutrition, living conditions, school resources,
intellectual stimulation and life circumstances
○ Increasing IQ scores have mirrored socio-environmental changes in developing countries
■ If IQ test score changes are a product of socio-environmental improvements, then as
living conditions optimize, IQ scores should plateau

Language Development

* Match the Five Basic Components that Underlie All Languages with their Descriptions
 ● Phonology: Knowledge of sounds used in a given language
○ Learning how to detect, discriminate and produce speech sounds
● Morphology: Understanding the ways that sounds can be combined to form words
○ Infants learn that sounds can be combined in meaningful ways
● Semantics: Meaning or content of words and sentences
○ Growing vocabulary signals an increase in semantic knowledge
● Syntax: knowledge of the structure of sentences
○ Rules by which words are to be combined to form sentences
● Pragmatics: Understanding how to use language to communicate effectively
○ Ex. Learning how to talk to a child vs your boss vs your grandma
○ Different words, tone of voice

* Contextual Influences on Language Development: Poverty

● Less developed language skills

● Less exposure to speech
○ Smaller variety of words
○ High and middle SES children exposed to 4 million more words than low SES
■ Looked at thousands of families
○ One study in 1960's or 1970's said by the age of 3 kids in low income families are exposed to 30
million less words
■ Kinda sketchy study though - only look at 50 families
● Lower quality parent-child interactions
○ Parents are less likely to instruct their child to do things like "wash your hands," etc.
○ High SES children talk to and with their parents more + speech they learn is more complicated
■ low-SES households with lower levels of education: less responsive to their children’s language
● Increased household instability and disorder
○ More at risk for ACES
○ Instability + disorder = the kid retreats, plays by themselves, goes to their room
■ disorder: household crowding, lack of structure, excessive ambient noise in the home or
neighborhood
● overwhelming them with too much stimulation
● cope with overstimulation by withdrawing
● prohibits engaging in parent–child interactions essential for language
○ raised in poor and low-SES households
■ tend to know fewer words
■ use a smaller variety of words
■ produce shorter utterances
■ demonstrate less developed syntax

Emotional Development

* Attachment – Bowlby’s Four Stages of Attachment Formation

1. Indiscriminate social responsiveness (birth to 2 months)

■ That infant doesn't care who comes to their aid, they just need someone to respond to their
needs
 2. Discriminating sociability (2 through 6-7 months)
■ When they begin preferring familiar people
■ Happiest if someone familiar to them is meeting their needs
■ Start to connect/attach to their primary caregiver(s)
3. Attachments (7 to 24 months)
■ First said 7-12 but sometimes can take up to 2 years for full attachment to take effect
■ If the parent/caregiver isn't good at meeting their needs = insecure attachment
■ develop attachments to specific caregivers who attend, accurately interpret, and consistently
respond to their signal
4. Reciprocal relationships (24 to 30 months and onward)
■ children can engage in interactions with their primary caregiver as partners
■ Parent and individual want to maintain attachment
■ taking turns and initiating interactions within the attachment relationship
● Understanding goals and emotions

* Significance of a Secure Attachment – Adulthood – Securely Attached and Insecurely Attached) (2 questions will
come from this section of the lecture, 1 question requires you to know a number)

○ Securely attached
■ Desire closeness in a relationship because they trust that they can be vulnerable and their
partner won't reject them
■ Way more likely when they have children of their own to form a secure attachment with that
child
■ 65% of adults
○ Insecurely attached
■ Jealous type
■ Possessive
■ Don't really trust the relationship
■ Domestic violence - abuser
○ Sabotages adult relationships
○ 35% of adults

Self and Identity

* Self-Concept versus Self-Esteem

Self-concept: The way we describe ourselves

- Out assessments of our abilities, traits, and characteristics
- The way we see ourselves - which may not be in line with how others see us
- An ever-changing process, becoming more complex over our lifespan
- Becoming a parent changes who they are (alter the way they see themselves)
Self-esteem: Based on evaluation (how we feel)
- Feelings of self-worth, self-acceptance, and self-respect
- Relies on cognitive development and a sense of self that emerges over childhood

* Match the 4 types of Identity (Achievement, Moratorium, Diffusion, Foreclosure) with their Descriptions
 Identity achievement: The identity state in which after undergoing a period of exploration a person commits to
self-chosen values and goals
- establishing a coherent sense of self after exploring a range of possibilities
- individuals must consider their past and future
- See yourself at the end of the life and looking back at the life you lived
Psychosocial moratorium: a period in which the individual is free to explore identity possibilities before
committing to an identity
- sample careers, considering becoming an actor one week and a lawyer the next.
- explore personalities and desires, trying out different personas and styles.
- The unsuccessful resolution of the identity search is confusion
- withdraws from the world, isolating oneself from loved ones, parents, and peers
Identity diffusion: The identity state in which an individual has not undergone exploration nor committed to
self-chosen values and goals
Identity foreclosed: The identity state in which an individual has not undergone exploration but has committed
to values and goals chosen by an authority figure
- Parents decided what you are going to do
- Chosen an identity without engaging in exploration
- tend to be inflexible and view the world in black and white, right and wrong, terms

Moral Development

* Gender Differences in Moral Reasoning – Care versus Justice Orientation

● Less evidence for this today: period of time where researchers saw gender differences on moral
reasoning (1980s, 20 years after Kohlberg)
● Big push: she said Kohlberg only looked at boys/men
● Tried to replicate Kohlberg's stuff with boys and girls
● Found 2 different orientations, particularly in adults:
● Care orientation: desire to maintain relationships and responsibility not to cause harm
○ Similar to conventional reasoning
○ more likely to be expressed by women
● Justice orientation: based on abstract principles of fairness and individualism
○ Similar to post-conventional reasoning
○ predominantly by males
● Said one is not a higher level of development, just different way of looking at things
● Research NOW says individual people take on both perspectives depending on situation, no gender
difference

* Prosocial Behavior - Parents and Other Caregivers

● Prosocial behaviour: voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another

● Parent that encourages prosocial behaviour:
○ parents being kind to each other
○ encouraging kids to participate in household chores
○ Emphasis on community:"we're a community and everyone does chores to make the house
function" - for the good of the family, encourage older sibling to partake in caring for younger
sibling
 ○ use prosocial language, talk to kids about emotions

* Discipline - Induction

● Inductive discipline: Strategy to control children’s behavior that relies on reasoning and discussion
● Discipline method based on reasoning and guidance
○ Parents model effective conflict resolution
○ Focuses on behaviour and not child's characteristics
■ Focus on what they're doing not who they are
■ "I love you but I don't love what you just did"
○ helping children find and use words to express their feelings
○ provide children with choices, permitting them to feel some control over the situation and be
empowered

Gender

* Gender Terminology – Androgyny

● Integrating masculine and feminine characteristics

● Linked with positive adjustment in life
○ Higher self esteem, relationship, career, overall life satisfaction

* Contextual Influences on Gender Development – Parents and Peers

● Parents – Different perceptions and expectations for each gender

○ Encourage gender-typed behavior
○ Dads: find out they're gonna have a girl - think about how they'll have to protect them,
interrogate bf, walk down isle, etc.
■ competition, achievement, and activity as important for sons
○ Moms perceive relationship with daughter differently than son
■ Daughter: go shopping and get mani pedis
● label emotions for girls, teaching them to identify others’ feelings
● boys they tend to explain about emotions, emphasizing causes and
consequences
○ Many parents encourage their children to play with gender-appropriate toys
● Peers
○ Reinforce gender-typed behavior and criticize cross-gender activities

* The Maintenance of Gender – “Doing Gender” in Adult Relationships

● Seems natural that women need to be feminine, men need to be masculine

● Certain products that are identical but are marketed to be for one specific sex
○ Example: yogurt, sunscreen, earplugs and cheese
- Falling back into gendered behaviours --Selecting gendered behaviour in relationships because it was
‘natural for us to view and what we should be doing’

Sexuality

* Emerging Sexuality – Childhood Self-stimulation

 ● As young as 2 years
● normal for children to have sexual feelings
○ constructed through their everyday experiences
○ Childhood self-stimulation is common

* Teen Pregnancy – Protective Factors

● Participation of baby daddy

● Stable living environment
● Affordable childcare
● Stay in school
● Good parenting skills

* Sexual Coercion/Sexual Assault – Contextual Influences

● Prevalence of myths about sex/sexuality/sexual assault

● The idea that if she didn't want to have sex she would have fought him off, she was flirting with him, she
was dressed a certain way, belief you can't sexually assault someone you are in a relationship with
● Gender stereotypes - hypermasculinity: forcing it on boys who then grow up to think they have to be
hyper-masculine (competition, dominance, control, aggression) - think it's ok to have control over your
partner, etc.
● Sexual assault is about power/control
● Fraternities - high rates of sexual assault in their houses during parties
● Military
● Male athletes

* Sexual Activity in Adulthood – Sexual Activity Is Highest in Young Adulthood

● 20-30s
● Also high in new relationships
● Couple of 25 year olds who have been together for 4 years probably having less sex than a new couple in
their 50s
● Frequency of sexual intercourse associated with emotional, sexual, and relationship satisfaction, as well
as overall happiness

Family Formation and Diversity

* Family Formation – Cohabiting Households – Statistics and Who Cohabits?

● Statistics
○ 1981: 6%
○ 2017: 21%
○ More long term cohabiting couples in Canada than in the United States
○ Quebec and the three territories have way higher rates of cohabitation than the other nine
provinces
○ Across Canada - 16%, Quebec - 40%, Nunavut 50%
● Who cohabits?
 ○ There was a strong connection in Quebec to Catholicism then it went away in 50s/60s (?) so
that's why
○ Nationwide in Canada/US - the people who cohabit are individuals with lower levels of
education and income - explains high levels in territories (lower income/education) this is
because having a wedding is expensive so I guess they just don't get married for that reason also
cohabiting is more economical

* Single-Parent Families – Children’s Experiences – Protective Factors

● #1 most important factor: the parents get along

● #2: kids experiences few transitions/changes: not moving out of the home/not leaving the school
● Negative aspect of divorce is the kid is now more likely to live in a low-income neighbourhood

* Lesbian and Gay Families – Children’s Experiences

● Any family composition - if parents have formed a very strong, positive relationship with their kid =
positive child outcomes
● Kids raised by LGBT parents might actually be better off
○ Psychosocial and emotional development, levels of self-esteem, depression, suicidal ideology,
friendships = no difference between LGBT and hetero parents
○ Social competence, navigating social relationships, higher academic measures, fewer social and
behavioural problems in LGBT parents
■ Bc consciously became parents
○ Probably higher level of secure attachment
○ may score higher in some aspects of social and academic competence, and show fewer social
and behavioral problems and lower levels of aggression

Parent-Child Relationships

* Match the 4 Parenting Styles with the Most Likely Outcomes for Children

● Authoritative
○ Outcomes for children
■ Positive
■ High academic achievement, cooperative with everyone, have empathy for others, first person
they go to when they have a problem is their parents
● Authoritarian
○ Outcomes for children
■ Lower academic achievement compared to authoritative
■ Bc rules never explained or open to negotiation, these kids do not have conflict resolution and
compromising skills
■ Incredibly compliant (good) but out of fear (bad)
■ Easy to push them around in a relationship because it seems normal to them
● Permissive/Indulgent
○ Outcomes for children
■ No self regulation because have never been trained to monitor their own behaviour
■ People you don't want as a roommate bc will not feel a sense of obligation to treat the common
space respectfully + pretty spoiled
 ■ Challenging to have a relationship with
■ Lack impulse control (go into debt, get injured, etc.)
● Indifferent
○ Outcomes for children
■ Low academic achievement
■ Low on cognitive, psychosocial abilities
■ Sometimes physical development stunted
■ Behavioural problems
■ Delinquent behaviour
■ Peer rejection bc lack social skills
■ Early sexual activity
■ Early drug and alcohol users
■ Sociopaths likely to have indifferent parents

* Concerted Cultivation versus Accomplishments of Natural Growth

● Middle and Upper classes - Concerted Cultivation

○ parents doing everything possible to make sure their children succeed
○ Concerted - intentional effort
○ Cultivated - try to make things happen
○ Doing everything possible to make sure their children succeed - most of these things require money
○ Sports, musical instruments, tutors
○ Facilitate their kids' growth in lots of different areas bc expect the kids will go to college and these skills
are important for college and then college = career
○ Basically giving their kids a better college application and better resume
○ Family organized around their kids' activities
○ One parent spends their day taking kids from one event to the other usually when the other works
○ Don't spend a lot of time interacting with parents but parents drive them around and watch their
activities
● Working/Lower and Under classes (poverty) - Accomplishment of natural growth
○ Can't enrol kids in lots of activities bc not enough money
○ More free flowing, kids can create their own activities they do outside of school
○ Less structured
○ Typically have closer relationships with extended family members (kin)
■ Grandparents/aunts/uncles may be after school caretakers bc parent can't afford after school
care or programs
■ Often these are three generational households - not culturally like Asian families but bc none of
these generations can afford to live on their own - economic reasons

* Ineffective Forms of Discipline – Parents who Use Physical Discipline

● Characteristics of parents that spank:

○ Lower income bc typically fewer supports, less money
○ More in younger parent than older patent
○ Single parents bc more stressed, less resources
○ Parents who experience daily frustrations with their kids
■ Do not understand child development
 ■ No alternative they can use to deal with the situation (no appropriate tools)
○ Moms more likely to spank bc moms spend more time with their kids
○ Religious - Christians especially "spare the rod, spoil the child" - if you don't use the rod to hit
the kid into submission, you are spoiling them
● Parents who spank think it's ok
○ "I was spanked as a child and I turned out fine"
○ Believe it is a useful method of discipline
○ 93% of parents who spank will justify its use and 85% would rather not spank but don't know
any other options and were angry at the time they did it
○ Intergenerational transmission: things that go from one generation to the next

Sibling and Peer Relationships

* Sibling Relationships – Parental Contributions – Positive and Negative

● Positive
○ Use an authoritative parenting style
○ Be positive role models for close relationships - parents need to get along with each other, get
along with their own siblings
○ Parents help resolve conflict between siblings - when younger: "tell your sister you're sorry, tell
your sister you accept their apology"
○ Encourage to resolve conflict themselves as teenagers: "I want you two to sit and talk about this
and resolve this"
○ Form a secure attachment
● Negative
○ Model negative relationships with other parent and siblings
○ Other parenting styles that are not authoritative
○ Form an insecure attachment
○ Favour one child over the other
■ When it comes to privileges and punishments, should treat kids of different ages
differently: age at which you get phone, curfew, etc. Sometimes younger kid perceives
this as favouritism - "why can older sibling do this"

* Peer Relationships in Childhood – Childhood Play – Physical and Socioemotional Benefits of Play

● When we play (regardless of type) - physical benefits: exercise, use gross and fine motor skills, build muscle,
more control over muscle (climbing, jumping, learn how to skip, jump rope, playing tag)
○ Rough-and-tumble play: running, climbing, chasing, jumping, and play fighting
■ More in boys than girls
■ Father is more likely to participate with boys more than girls
○ Sociodramatic play: taking on roles and acting outside stories and themes
■ Imitate roles, reenacting
■ More in girls
● Social and emotional benefits: playing games + creating rules - really cognitive (what you do to win, lose, what
each person does), helps them learn how to negotiate and get along bc all kids have to agree on what the rules
are. Have to be able to articulate ideas, develops prosocial skills

Preschool and Formal Education Experiences

* Social Promotion and Grade Retention (Reasons and Outcomes)

● Social promotion: practice of promoting children to the next grade even when they have not met the
academic standards
○ Hope for them to catch-up (easier)
○ Believed holding students back to repeat a grade had a negative impact on their educational
experience, without providing many benefits (reason)
○ face a higher drop-out rate in later years because they are simply unable to handle the
increasing load of schoolwork, tests, and grades (outcome)
● Grade retention:
○ Practice of holding children back
○ Reasons for retention
■ Social promotion pulls down school average for standardized tests (underlying
motivation/reason)
■ Give these kids another year to master the material so they meet standards at the end
of the year (reason given)
■ Often kids with unexplained absences - indifferent/indulgent parents
■ Emotional age lower than actual age
○ Outcomes of retention
■ Damages self esteem
■ Don't do as well as socially promoted
■ Doing worse at math and English
■ Poor school attendance bc probably have parents who aren't getting them to school
(unexplained absences)
■ 2x as likely to drop out of high school
○ Socially promote but identify kids who need help + give additional support (social services,
tutoring)

* Contextual Influences on Motivation – Parents’ Beliefs and Attitudes About Ability

● Transfer onto their kids (growth mindset, fixed mindset, etc. - child will have same)
● Won't facilitate their kid changing/learning/advancing if they have a fixed mindset, won't provide tutors,
if they're bad at a sport - more likely to just say you're not good at that instead of finding them a new
sport to try
● Availability of opportunities and resources
○ Lack of financial resources to provide for their kids even though having master orientation and
growth mindset

Work and Career Experiences

* Career Development - Parental Influence on Vocational Choice

● Parents' attitudes about work/education have impact

○ If parent encourages child/children to do well in school
○ channels them to direction of post-secondary education
● Parents that don't value education, don't help w hw, don't make sure they're doing hw = more
challenging for those kids to do well in school + go to uni + get career
● Blue collar (unskilled, trades) vs white collar (educated, flexible hours, benefits, time off)
 ● Jobs parents have influences - kids have limited knowledge of jobs out there (parents' jobs,
grandparents' jobs, encounter: police, firemen, doctors, mailman, etc.)
● Parents' approach to work (like it or just do it to pay the bills) has impact

* Work-Life Balance – Paid versus Unpaid Work

● Unpaid work: household and childcare stuff that needs to be done but that isn't paid
● Paid work: like a job
● Dual earner, heterosexual households w children: women do 17.5 hours of unpaid work and men to 10 in
a week
○ Resentment
● Most couples argue about: chores, money, in-laws, sex, kids
○ Do not show in gay and lesbian couples
● Homosexual couples w kids less likely to have big gap with who does the unpaid work

Endings

* Mortality –Leading Causes of Death

● Infancy: leading cause = genetic abnormalities, usually die in first week or month , second = illness, third
= SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)
● Children (1-12): leading cause = accidents due to inappropriate supervision
● Adolescents: leading cause = accidents, second = drowning, third = unintentional poisoning (overdose)

* Bereavement in Childhood – Usually Experience Grief for their Parent . . . .

● Usually experience grief for their parent for a longer period of time than do adults
○ When a 5 y/o vs 35 y/o has a parent die, the child will grieve for longer bc it affects them
developmentally
○ If dad died when kid was 10, will grow up and have a child and be confused about their
relationship after the kid reaches 10 bc he didn't have relationship w dad past 10
● Need support, nurturance and continuity in their lives
○ Someone needs to step in and maintain the routine of things that the person that died did
○ Ex. Pick up from school, read book, watch soccer games - someone else needs to now take on
these roles
○ Helps w bereavement bc don't have to deal with other stuff changing in addition to losing a
parent/loved one
○ The person left (remaining person) will have a hard time - have to explain over and over that the
person is not coming back
○ Maintain routines for children
■ Someone else needs to step in and carry on with the routine