Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Psychology Core Concepts 7Th Edition Zimbardo Solutions Manual Full Chapter PDF
Psychology Core Concepts 7Th Edition Zimbardo Solutions Manual Full Chapter PDF
Psychology: Core
Concepts
Seventh Edition
Philip G. Zimbardo
Stanford University
Robert L. Johnson
Umpqua Community College
Vivian McCann
Portland Community College
Instructor’s Manual for Zimbardo/Johnson/McCann, Psychology: Core Concepts, 7th Edition
CHAPTER 7
DEVELOPMENT OVER THE LIFESPAN
▲ TABLE OF CONTENTS
To access the resource listed, click on the hot linked title or press CTRL + click
To return to the Table of Contents, click on click on ▲ Return to Table of Contents
To return to a section of the Lecture Guide, click on ► Return to Lecture Guide
► LECTURE GUIDE
7.1 What Innate Abilities Does the Infant Possess? (p. 392)
7.2 What are the Developmental Tasks of Childhood? (p. 397)
7.3 What Changes Mark the Transition of Adolescence? (p. 406)
7.4 What Developmental Challenges Do Adults Face? (p. 410)
Chapter Summary (p. 414)
LECTURE GUIDE
7.1 WHAT INNATE ABILITIES DOES THE INFANT POSSESS? (text p. 268)
Lecture Launchers/Discussions Topics:
Measuring Intelligence in Infants (p. 416)
Talk That Talk, Baby (p. 417)
Ultrasound Pictures (p. 417)
Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises:
Constructing a Life Line to Illustrate Erikson’s Stages of Development (p. 435)
Evaluating Baby Toys (p. 436)
Newborn Reflexes (p. 436)
Reflexes and Motor Development (p. 436)
Students as Infants (p. 437)
Take a Stand (p. 437)
Video Resources
NEW MyPsychLab Video Series (p. 464)
Multimedia Resources in MyPsychLab (www.mypsychlab.com)
7.1 LECTURE OUTLINE: What Innate Abilities Does the Infant Possess?
(text p. 268)
I. Prenatal Development
The prenatal period, the developmental period between conception and birth, is a time of
furious development that readies the organism for life outside the womb.
Development typically occurs over the span of nine months and is divided into three
phases: the germinal, embryonic and fetal stages.
During the germinal phase, one cell divides many times, and when the number of
cells reaches about 150, the zygote implants itself in the lining of the uterus.
At this point, it becomes an embryo , now connected to the mother’s body and thus
affected by anything she eats or drinks or to which she is otherwise exposed.
During the embryonic phase, the genetic plan determines how all the organs that
will ultimately be part of the newborn starts to form, and in accordance with this
plan, cells start to specialize as components of particular organ systems.
One example of specialization, or differentiation, is the development of anatomical
sex; if the embryo’s plan contains two X chromosomes, the child will be female, but
if it contains an X and a Y chromosome, a male will develop.
After the eighth week, the developing embryo is called a fetus, and in the fetal stage,
spontaneous movements and basic reflexes begin to appear.
By the 16th week, the brain is fully formed and the fetus can feel pain.
By the 27th week, the fetus can hear sounds outside the womb, enabling the ability to
recognize certain sounds and rhythms shortly after birth.
The brain continues to develop, growing new neurons at a rate of 250,000 per minute
until at birth the baby’s brain contains some 100 billion neurons.
Newborns are nearsighted, which helps them recognize their mother’s face, usually
close by, in a few days after birth.
Their focal point lengthens over time, and by about seven weeks infants’ visual
pathways and motor coordination enable them to develop eye contact with a
caregiver – an important element in establishing a relationship.
They have visual preferences as abilities: while color vision is present at birth, their
ability to distinguish them becomes dramatically better a month or two later; they
also prefer to look at objects with a high degree of contrast, such as checkerboards.
At three months, babies can perceive depth.
Infants seem to possess a sense of “more” or “less”, comparing a current observed
quantity with that observed in the past, and later providing the foundation for the later
development of more complex skills, such as those required for arithmetic.
Infants prefer human voices over other sounds, female voice to male, and the sound
and rhythms of their own language to other nonnative languages; within a few weeks
after birth they can recognize the sound of their mother’s voice.
B. Social Abilities
Infants are built for social interaction and will imitate other people’s behavior, a
response known as mimicry.
Synchronicity, the close coordination between the gazing, vocalizing, touching and
smiling of infants and caregivers, is the means through which infants interact with
their caregivers, beginning immediately after birth.
These early interactions, the combined result of nature (mirror neurons) and nurture
(positive reinforcement gained through mimicry, form the basis for the later
development of empathy.
C. Innate Reflexes
Babies are born with a set of innate reflexes, providing a biological platform for later
development.
Among these are the postural reflex, allowing babies to sit with support; the
grasping reflex, enabling them to cling to a caregiver; the rooting reflex, enabling
them to turn their heads toward anything that strokes their cheeks and suck on it; and
the stepping reflex, in which babies stretch their legs in a “walking” motion when
they are held upright.
All of these, plus the cooing, smiling and crying that build social relationships, are
highly adaptive and promote survival.
A. Neural Development
When the prenatal brain focused on producing new brain cells, many of the neurons
are not fully connected with each other at birth.
Stimulation from the environment assumes an important role in creating and
consolidating connections.
The more frequently the fledgling neurons are utilized, the more permanent they
become.
1. Sensitive Periods
Not only are the early years the most productive time for brain development in
many areas, including language and emotional intelligence, in some domains
such as hearing and vision, stimulation must occur during a specific window of
opportunity, called sensitive periods, or the ability will not develop normally.
2. Brain Development
As the dendrites and axons grow and connect, the total mass of neural tissue in
the brain increases rapidly.
After a 50 percent increase in the first two years and after doubling in the first 4
years, in the next ten years the types of experiences the infant is exposed to will
largely determine which regions and functions of the brain become most
developed.
By about 11 years of age, unused connections begin to be trimmed away in a
process called synaptic pruning.
This process does not destroy the neurons themselves but instead returns them to
an uncommitted state, awaiting a role in future development.
C. Contact Comfort
As infants develop greater sensory and motor abilities through both nature and
nurture, they rely on caregivers to provide the necessary stimulation.
Touch, provided by caregivers, provides stimulation and reassurance.
The Harlows’ experiments with infant monkeys demonstrated that preferred a
terrycloth monkey to a wire monkey that presented food.
In humans, touch stimulates the release of endorphins and a daily massage results in
faster weight gain.
Other benefits associated with contact comfort include faster intellectual
development, improved digestive tract functioning, improved circulation and
decreased production of stress hormones.
D. Attachment
Attachment is the enduring socio-emotional relationship between a child and a
parent or other caregiver.
The establishment of attachment is important because it lays the foundation for other
close relationships that follow throughout a person’s life.
Attachment, not limited to biological parents, occurs in other species, as well; birds
will imprint on the first moving object or individual that they see.
Human attachment begins in the first few weeks and functions as a survival strategy
for infants.
1. Attachment Styles
Researchers Ainsworth and Lamb found that children differ in their styles of
attachment.
Securely attached children are relaxed and comfortable with their caregivers and
tolerant of new situations and strangers, experiencing separation anxiety when
caregivers left them, but calming down when caregivers returned.
Insecurely attached children can be divided into two categories: anxious-
ambivalent and avoidant.
Anxious-ambivalent children wanted contact with their caregivers but
cried with fear and anger when separated from then and proved difficult
to console when reunited.
Avoidant children weren’t interested in contact, displaying no distress
when separated from their caregivers and no particular happiness when
reunited.
Overall, some 65 percent of American children are securely attached, about 20
percent are avoidant and 15 percent are anxious ambivalent.
Since attachment patterns in infancy affect a variety of childhood and adult
behaviors, including aggression, job satisfaction, relationship choices and
intimacy experiences, there has been much research on the topic.
Attachment styles seem to be a result of the interaction between heredity and
environment.
PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: Not Just Fun and Games: The Role of Child’s Play in Life
Success (text p.277)
The sooner that self-control is nurtured, the sooner it is developed. Clear, consistent rules and
routines can help children learn self-control by helping children manage their worlds and
providing guidelines for achieving their goals. Too much structure in childhood play is a concern
to psychologists, however, because it deprives a child of opportunities for imaginative play.
Improvisional thinking requires more thinking, planning creativity and self-management, all of
which are executive functions. Imaginative play also helps build vocabulary and lengthens
attention spans. Parents and teachers should encourage behaviors, including play that encourages
self-control.
3. First Sentences
In their early two and three-word sentences, children produce
telegraphic speech – short, simple sequences of nouns and verbs
without plurals, tenses or function words.
To develop the ability to make full sentences, children must learn to
use other forms of speech, such as modifiers (adjectives and adverbs)
and articles (the, those), and they must learn to put words together
grammatically.
As children’s language ability develops, they become skilled in using
morphemes, the meaningful units that make up words.
Often, children make mistakes because they don’t know the rules or
apply an inappropriate one.
A common error is overregularization, applying a word too widely.
A. Schemas
Mental structures that guide a developing child’s thought are called schemas.
Schemas form and change as we develop and organize our knowledge to deal
with new experiences and predict future events.
Assimilation is a mental process that incorporates new information into
existing schemas, while accommodation is the process of restructuring or
modifying schemas to accommodate the new information.
For Piaget, cognitive development results from the continual interweaving of
assimilation and accommodation.
returning to the mental starting point; they lack the mental trial-and-
error ability of older children.
These features might seem as limitations, but actually children are
experimenting with their newly acquired ability to use mental
repr4esentations, and in the process they are often highly creative.
2. Theory of Mind
These cognitive advances signal development of a theory of mind,
which is an understanding that others may have beliefs, desires and
emotions different from one’s own and that these mental states
underlie their behavior.
It includes expectations about how people will act in certain
situations.
This understanding facilitates empathy for others, enables deception,
and increases our chance of making sound judgments about people
when it counts.
These abilities may begin as early as 6 months of age.
3. Stages or Waves?
A second criticism of Piaget’s theory questions his notion of the
stages as abrupt transition.
Newer research suggests the transition between one stage and
another are more continuous than the stage theory implies.
Psychologist Robert Siegler uses the term “waves”, suggesting
gradual change, rather than “stages”, which suggests abrupt
beginnings and endings.
A. Temperament
Temperament is an individual’s characteristic manner of behavior or
reaction, and it is assumed to have a strong genetic bias.
It is a powerful influence upon the way children interact with the world.
Researcher Jerome Kagan observed that 20 percent of children are born with
tendencies toward shyness, while about 40 percent are born predisposed to
boldness.
Brain-imaging studies indicate that these differences are physiological.
While basic temperaments can be recognized almost at birth, the
environment interacts with these genetic tendencies, so that parenting and
other aspects of a child’s experience can modify the way that temperament
expresses itself.
Children are capable of learning a variety of responses to the world within
their hereditary temperamental range, as long as people in their environment
teach them.
Temperament is stable over time, capable of being modified, but subject to
the genetic leash.
B. Socialization
Socialization is the lifelong process of shaping an individual’s behavior
pattern, values, standards, skills, attitudes and motives to conform to those
regarded as desirable in a particular society.
Institutions such as family, schools, day care and the media exert pressure on
a child to adopt socially approved values.
One example of socialization is the teaching of gender: boys and girls are
often taught different ways of behaving and interacting.
3. Leisure Influence
On average, American children today spend between 40 and 50
percent of their waking hours in discretionary activity, of which
almost seven hours per day (averaged to include weekends) is spent
with media.
Research findings are mixed as to the influence of leisure time on
development.
Associated with well-being is time spent with friends and sports; the
effects of television seem to depend primarily upon the type of
program being watched – the content matters more than the medium
itself.
Educational television has a positive impact on literacy and cognitive
development, whereas heavy viewing of entertainment television is a
strong predictor of later deficiency in reading ability in young
children.
Violent television, as well as violent videogames, increases
aggressive behavior in viewers and decreases sensitivity to real-
world violence.
Viewing any kind of entertainment television prior to the age of 3 is
strongly linked to attention problems later on.
Frequent video-gaming appears to improve visual-spatial processing.
Educational video games can improve critical thinking and learning
in a variety of subjects.
This stage usually occurs between the ages of 6 and 12, which
coincides with school activities and sports that offer more complex
intellectual and motor skills and provide opportunities for greater
social interaction.
Supportive parenting in which parents help children reflect on their
experiences and learn from both their successes and failures,
promote industry.
Children with overly demanding or disengaged parents may have
troubles seeing their failures in perspective and ultimately a sense of
inferiority.
Likewise, children who had trouble working through one or more of
the earlier stages may become discouraged spectators rather than
performers, leading to the term industry versus inferiority for this
stage.
Research to determine the causes of ADHD is in its early stages, although twin studies point to a
strong genetic component. From a nurture standpoint, prenatal exposure to nicotine and alcohol
has been found to increase the incidence. A recent longitudinal study with a national
representative sample found that viewing noneducational television before the age of three
predicts attention deficits later in life; the fats-paced movement of entertainment programming
during the time when neural pathways are forming limits the brain’s ability to create pathways for
extended focus and concentration.
Physiologically, the ADHD brain differs from a “normal” brain in dopamine transmission:
people with ADHD seem to receive fewer and weaker dopamine bursts. While ADHD brains
develop normally and achieve normal size, they take a few years longer to do it.
ADHD can be treated effectively with medication and psychological techniques, but optimal
treatment varies from individual to individual. Medication should be carefully monitored.
Behavioral therapy helps children with ADHD control some of their problematic behaviors and
replace them with more effective behaviors. Behavioral therapy is the treatment of choice for
very young children for whom medication is not recommended. It is too soon to know what the
long-term effects of prescribed medication might be.
It should be remembered that ADHD –affected children have many positive traits, as well.
Developmental psychologist William Perry has found that thinking abilities continue to develop
well past the formal operational stage, and that cognitive development proceeds in students of all
ages. Perspectives on learning change: what the social sciences are about, and what students are
supposed to learn in college. As students progress through their college experience, they move
away from the “one way of thinking” view and realize that multiple perspectives exist and are
valuable.
B. Transitions
Adult life is a progression of transitions that involve redefining, or
transformation of life roles.
Successful transitions typically involve heightened self-reflection,
reappraisal of the current role exploration of new possibilities offering a
renewed sense of meaning, the decision to let go of an old role and a
commitment to a new role.
Transitions are a natural response to the changing conditions of life, and
adults who live the longest and healthiest lives are the ones who
successfully navigate through them and emerge from each with a renewed
sense of meaning and passion for life.
B. Physical Changes
Aging people develop wrinkles, have thinning hair and decrease in height
by an inch or two.
Senses dull and heart and lungs operate less efficiently, decreasing physical
stamina.
Adults can take control of their bodies in ways that are reducing
deterioration thought at one time to be inevitable, although successful aging
takes into consideration both individual potential and realistic limits.
A myth in Western culture is that elderly people cannot be physically active.
There is no age in which sex cannot be enjoyed in late adulthood.
C. Cognitive Changes
Certain parts of the brain lose mass, but there is little evidence that this
causes general mental decline.
Performance on tasks requiring imagination seems to decline, and people
acquire information more slowly in their 70’s and 80’s.
Brain imaging shows that older people’s brains compensate by processing
information differently, using more brain regions.
Mental exercise keeps aging brains working more effectively.
Vocabulary is consistently better in the elderly, as are social skills and some
types of skilled performance.
Physical exercise improves improves learning, memory and other cognitive
functions.
Age-related memory problems appear in the memory system associated
with processing and storing new information.
Memory loss does not diminish access to information stored long ago.
People explain memory loss differently depending upon the age of the
forgetful person; younger adults attribute forgetfulness to a lack of effort in
other young adults’ memory failure but to old age in older adults.
Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative disorder of the brain that produces
diminished thinking ability, memory problem, and ultimately, death, is
estimated to occur in about 10 percent of the population over the age of 65,
with the incidence increasing to more than 50 percent in people over 85
years.
An early symptom is memory loss, causing anxiety among older adults
experiencing incidents of forgetfulness.
PSYCHOLOGY MATTERS: A Look Back at the Jim Twins and Your Own Development
(text p. 313)
This chapter began with an account of a pair of identical twins raised apart and the similarities in
their traits. Twin studies are an important form of research, but their results have brought
criticism, as well. Studies have shown that identical twins show remarkable similarities, mainly
in the categories in which they might be expected: intelligence, temperament, gestures, postures,
and pace of speech, all of which are genetically influenced. Identical twins do not display
identical behavior across the board, however, and twins reared together show greater similarities
than those raised apart – pointing to the effects of environment. Twin pairs, originally separated
by later reunited before they were studied, resemble each other more closely and have an
incentive to maximize their similarities to researchers. Also, identical twins are often treated
alike because they look alike. Thus, neither heredity nor environment acts alone: they work
together to shape an individual.
Could listening to Mozart improve IQ? This finding was announced by a pair of research
scientists and after receiving extensive media coverage, spawned a host of innovations and new
childrearing practices. Using critical thinking questions to analyze research results, it cannot be
concluded that listening to Mozart raises IQ scores.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
Lecture Launchers/Discussions Topics:
Scaffolding (p. 430)
The Consequences of Sexual Abuse (p. 431)
Case Study Lecture Launcher (p. 431)
Einstein’s Brain (p. 432)
Suggestions for Further Reading (p. 433)
Classroom Activities, Demonstrations, and Exercises:
Decade Word Association (p. 451)
Developmental Comparisons Across Species (p. 451)
Take a Stand (p. 451)
Constructing a Moral Development Quiz (p. 452)
Using Children’s Books to Illustrate Developmental Principles (p. 452)
Using Homemade Videotapes to Teach Developmental Concepts (p. 453)
The Day Center (p. 453)
Video Resources:
NEW MyPsychLab Video Series (p. 464)
Multimedia Resources in MyPsychLab (www.mypsychlab.com)
Songs to Launch the Lecture (See Suggested Activity 1 in Chapter 1 for instructions):
Child Development: “Don’t You Wanna Keep Him Up All Night” (Talking Heads)
“Kristofer David” (David Soul)
Language: “People Just Love to Play with Words” (Men at Work)
“So Much to Say” (Dave Matthews Band)
“Speechless” (Fenix, TX)
Adolescent Development: “Eighteen” (Alice Cooper)
Sexual Orientation: “Lola” (The Kinks)
Adult Development: “When I’m 64" (The Beatles)
Lifespan Development: “Cat’s in the Cradle” (Harry Chapin)
Most of the intelligence tests discussed in the textbook are designed to assess intelligence in older children
and adults. There are, however, several instruments that are designed to assess intellectual functioning in
infants and very young children. These measures may be examining different aspects of intelligence, such
as physical, psychomotor, and social and emotional development rather than the verbally based measures
typically used by intelligence tests. Although these measures may not accurately predict later intelligence,
they can be useful in identifying potential developmental problems.
“Does baby want to play with the beads?! Do yoooooouuuu want to play with the beeeeeaaaaads? Yes you
doooooo!! Yes you doooooooo, don’t yooouuuuuuuuu?!!” The high-pitched, drawn-out baby talk that new
babies seem to find mesmerizing and new parents seem to find necessary may have a deeper significance
than previously suspected. That semi-annoying tendency to repeatedly accentuate vowel sounds may serve
an important function in language development, and may have a universal component.
Patricia Kuhl, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington, studied mothers in Sweden, Russia, and
Seattle as they talked to their infants. Swedish, Russian, and English have substantially different vowel
systems, yet the vowel sounds that are common to each language—“ee,” “ah,” and “oo”—were the same
sounds that were unintentionally accentuated in the mothers’ speech. These parents did not accentuate all
sounds or raise the pitch of all words, as might someone pretending to speak “baby talk.” Rather, acoustic
profiles of some 2,363 words across all three groups revealed that just these important vowels were
exaggerated, and, according to Kuhl, for good reason. By providing an infant with unambiguous examples
of what vowel sounds belong together, the task of language acquisition is presumably made that much
easier. To a 5-month-old learning to enunciate vowel sounds this can be an important boost.
Some intriguing unanswered questions remain, however. First, although Kuhl and her associates have
demonstrated the type of input given to these infants, it’s not known what babies do with this information
or how and when learning takes place. If an adult did not exaggerate vowel sounds, for example, it’s not
clear whether there would be a negative effect on an infant’s learning or simply no effect at all. Second, the
universality of this effect suggests a biological basis for knowing how to talk to an infant. “Ee,” “ah,” and
“oo” are in fact sounds common to all human languages. Why they are spontaneously stressed under certain
circumstances hints at an important adaptive tendency.
Neergaard, L. (1997, August 1). Baby talk contributes to an infant’s learning. Austin
American-Statesman, A19.
Bring pictures of sonograms to class and see if students can identify the various anatomical parts of the
fetus. (You may want to make an overhead out of a sonogram.) Try contacting a local hospital or clinic for
access to sample sonograms.
Infants often fail to search for a hidden object until approximately one year of age, which
suggested to Piaget that the infant lacked the concept of object permanence. Flavell, Miller, and Miller,
however, noted that recent research suggests infants may have a greater understanding of object
permanence earlier than Piaget assumed. The belief that object permanence does not stabilize until the
end of the first year may have been the result of Piaget's methodology. That is, his observations were
based upon the child's ability to perform certain motor behaviors that do not appear until later in
development. Flavell and his colleagues noted, however, that a failure to perform a search for the
object does not necessarily mean that the child lacks the concept of object permanence. Researchers
have developed several techniques that visually present situations that are either possible or impossible
given the rules of object permanence. Based upon observations of the reactions of infants to these
presentations, the results indicated that infants as young as 3 to 4 months exhibited surprise reactions
when situations were presented that were impossible given the rules of object permanence. Such
findings suggest that the concept of object permanence may appear much earlier than originally
proposed by Piaget.
Flavell, J. H., Miller, P. H., & Miller, S. A. (1993). Cognitive development (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Reprinted from Hill, W. G. (1995). Instructor's resource manual for Psychology by S. F. Davis and J. J. Palladino.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
The accumulated data from many studies of day care reveal no consistent negative effects. On the contrary,
many studies find that children actually do better in day care than in home care. According to one such
study of 150 children, ages 2 to 4, the social and intellectual development of children who were attending
day-care centers (part time or full time) was advanced over that of children in home care (with the mother,
a sitter, or a day-care provider in the home) (Clarke-Stewart, 1991).
What about the effects of putting infants in day care during their critical first year? In a major longitudinal
study of 2,387 children, Frank Mott (1991) investigated whether various forms of infant care were related
to the child’s performance on tests of physical, cognitive, and social development several years later. First,
he controlled for a wide range of factors that would have been linked with a child’s having been put in day
care during infancy, such as mother’s use of drugs or family income. That done, Mott found no statistically
significant association between day care in infancy and the child’s later motor or social development. As
for cognitive development, the children who had been in day care as infants scored higher than those who
had been at home. On closer inspection, Mott found that healthy baby girls benefited the most by being
away from their mothers in day-care arrangements; healthy baby boys neither gained nor lost by being in
day care; but boys who were physically unhealthy in their first year benefited by being home in maternal
care. Mott concluded that “no type of infant care arrangement can be generalized as being uniformly
preferable or detrimental.”
Most psychologists today, instead of assuming that day care is universally helpful or harmful, are asking
different questions. Specifically, they are concerned with how the quality of day care affects children’s
development, which children do well and which do poorly in different environments, and how parents and
day-care programs can work effectively together. Children develop well in many kinds of caretaking
arrangements. They go through the same stages of indiscriminate friendliness, fear of strangers, and
independence, whether they are at home or in day care, as long as the care is good (Clarke-Stewart, 1991;
Mott, 1991).
Clarke-Stewart, K. A. (1991). A home is not a school: The effects of child care on children’s development. In S.
L. Hofferth & D.A. Phillips (eds.), Child Care Policy Research. Journal of Social Issues, 47(2), 105-124.
Mott, F. L. (1991). Developmental effects of infant care: The mediating role of gender and health. In S. L.
Hofferth & D. A. Phillips (eds.), Child Care Policy Research. Journal of Social Issues, 47(2), 139-158.
In 1970, a thirteen-year-old girl was discovered in Los Angeles. Her name was Genie, and the conditions in
which she was found were appalling. Genie had been treated like an animal since the age of twenty months.
She was confined to a small, curtained room and spent most of her days strapped to a potty chair, unable to
move except for her hands and feet. At night, Genie was confined in a cage-like crib and restrained in a
straightjacket-type garment. She had no bowel or bladder control, could not stand in an erect posture, was
severely malnourished, and was unable to chew solid food. Genie was also mute; she could not speak and
could not understand language. The only sounds she had ever heard were those made by her father on the
occasions he beat her for crying or making noises. Genie had been held prisoner by her father, a man who
never spoke to her and would not allow anyone else to do so.
Genie was removed from her father’s custody and taken to Los Angeles Children’s Hospital, where she was
nursed back to physical health. She underwent psychological evaluation to determine her mental status and
level of cognitive functioning, including her ability to produce and comprehend language. Following all
necessary assessments, psychologists embarked on the task of teaching Genie language. Because Genie was
attempting to acquire language at age thirteen, her psychologists were presented with a unique opportunity
to study the critical period theory relative to learning language, the notion that there is a time early in a
child’s life when language learning must begin, if language is to be learned at all. Genie was far past that
proposed critical period. Further, she knew no grammar and had virtually no language ability.
The researchers working with Genie approached the task of teaching her language in much the same
manner they would teach a younger child, by direct exposure to spoken language as a function of
engagement in daily activities. Initially, Genie would speak only one or two words at a time, but she did
progress, up to a point. Though she eventually progressed to the degree of combining two and three words
into phrases, she never progressed beyond the level of a three- or four-year-old child in her language
abilities, and never made the progression from simple words into grammatically correct sentences.
The fact that Genie actually did acquire some facility for language denied support for the hypothesis that
there is a critical period for language acquisition, and that this period falls somewhere between age two and
puberty. However, Genie’s failure to attain fluency and grammar did point to the potential for an optimal
period for language acquisition, a period that, if missed, would result in failure ever to attain complete
facility for language. Unfortunately, no more specific information could be gained from Genie’s
experiences, because her lack of facility for language could be attributable to her severely malnourished
state, the emotional and physical abuse suffered at the hands of her father, and her social isolation, as much
Diana Baumrind noted that some researchers have suggested that androgynous individuals may assume a
more authoritative parenting style, exhibiting more flexibility and competence as parents. In order to test
this hypothesis, she examined parenting and child behaviors as a function of degree of sex-typing. Data
were gathered on 9-year-old children and their parents using naturalistic and structured observations,
interviews, tests (including the Bem Sex Role Inventory), and self-reports.
Overall, Baumrind found that there were no differences in parenting styles between androgynous and
nonandrogynous women. Androgynous men, however, tended to be more similar to women in their
approach to childrearing. In addition, she found that androgynous men were also more unconventional and
autonomous in their overall lifestyle patterns. Furthermore, androgynous parents were more child-centered
(responsive to the child), less demanding, and less authoritative in their parenting practices. Corresponding
to their general attitude, sex-typed fathers tended to be firm, demanding, and positively reinforcing with
their children, while sex-typed mothers were more loving and responsive. Baumrind also reported that both
male and female children of sex-typed parents were somewhat more competent on several social and
cognitive tasks, and females were more assertive. Baumrind concluded that her results indicated that
assumptions by some researchers of advantages associated with androgynous parents with respect to
childrearing and development may not be correct.
Baumrind, D. (1982). Are androgynous individuals more effective persons and parents? Child Development, 53, 44–
75.
David Reimer, a Canadian, was born in 1965 as a healthy boy. During circumcision, his penis was
inadvertently destroyed, and he was subsequently raised as a girl. Psychologist John Money oversaw the
case and reported the reassignment as successful, as evidence that gender identity is primarily learned. This
case was particularly interesting as David had an identical twin brother. Much controversy followed,
including David’s admission that he never identified himself as a female and his subsequent suicide in
2004. Extensive information about this case is available online, as well as in a book by John Colapinto, As
Nature Made Him.
Young children sometimes have difficulty recalling information. A recent study suggests that
drawing can enhance children’s memories for events.
Sarnia Butler, of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, led a study involving 5- and
6-years-olds who took a field trip to a fire station. While there the children clambered on the fire engines,
watched drills performed by the firefighters, tried on the firefighting gear, and even watched as one of their
chaperones slid down the firepole, much to the displeasure of the tour leader, who reprimanded her. (This
event, and several others, were prearranged ahead of time.) Both one day and one month later, the children
were asked about their outing. Those children who were asked to draw and describe the events of that day -
how they got there, what they saw, the events that transpired - accurately reported much more information
than those children who were simply asked to tell what happened. This effect was not observed among 3-
to 4-year-olds, although among both groups drawing did not appear to increase errors in recall.
This research indicates that memory for pleasant events may be increased by coupling words and
pictures. It remains to be seen whether the same effect would hold for negative events. If so, this
technique may hold promise for boosting children’s recall of abuse, incest, or other traumatic events.
Staff (1995). Kids draw on their memories. Science News, 148, 111.
Sometimes a concept from academic research or theory catches the attention of the public and becomes
integrated into the framework of society's “general knowledge.” Perhaps this occurs because the concept is
particularly relevant at the time, or because it provides a framework for a generally recognized problem or
issue. The “identity crisis” proposed by Erik Erikson is such a concept. It was eagerly adopted by American
society in the 1960s. At that time, the baby-boom cohort was reaching youth and adolescence. The Vietnam
War loomed as a threat to youth, civil rights activists challenged the thoughtless discrimination of older
generations, and the women's liberation movement contested traditional ideas of female identity.
Also, by the 1960s, adolescence had become established as a life stage created by technological society: a
span of years between childhood and full adult status in which the young person prepared to live and work
in an increasingly complex society.
Erikson saw adolescence as a pivotal stage of development in which earlier psychosocial conflicts return in
a new form, and in which the foundations are laid for the intimacy, generativity, and wisdom that are the
favorable outcomes of later stages.
Developmental psychologists sometimes organize discussion of life stages around the developmental tasks
of the stage, the things we must do to be ready to move on to the next stage. The elements of the identity
crisis can be considered “tasks of adolescence.''
3. Role experimentation. During childhood, we usually look to parents or teachers for role
models. In adolescence, young people are likely to reject earlier models and to go through
a series of “trying on” different roles. The movies and television provide a smorgasbord
of roles and role models. Role models can be real people, characters from fiction,
historical personages, or creations of our own imagination. Erikson thought that role
experimentation is a healthy manifestation of the search for identity, but at some time we
have to take the pieces we like from our role experimentation and put them together into
a consistent identity. The opposite of role experimentation is role fixation. Sometimes
one encounters a young person who has had an identity laid on him so heavily by parents
that attempts at role experimentation produce too much guilt to be pursued.
5. Sexual polarization. The obvious meaning of this aspect of identity is that adolescents
must decide whether they are heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual. It must be very
difficult for the young person who has a homosexual orientation to establish a positive
identity during adolescence. There are great pressures for denial and for conformity to
sexual roles that parents and most peers consider “normal.” Erikson wrote about the
aspect of sexual polarization that can be described as “comfort and confidence in the role
of male or female.” In early adolescence, young people often feel sexually inadequate
because their bodies are less than perfect, or because they feel inferior to peers who tell
tall tales of sexual adventures and prowess. Sexual roles are not as clearly delineated as
they formerly were, particularly in the case of the female role, and young females may
feel less than feminine if they have ambitious career aspirations and inadequate as
humans if they don't.
7. Ideological commitment. As the identity is formed, young people must select a basic
philosophy, a set of values, an orientation toward religion and politics. Excessive zeal for
a cause, dramatic religious conversion, or allegiance to a cult are some of the more
extreme symptoms of young people searching for something to believe in. The task the
adolescent faces is to adopt an ideology that is internally consistent and compatible with
the self and the self-image.
It may seem as though identity formation requires that one lay down plans for the remainder of one's life
and adopt beliefs that will guide one's behavior for all future time. This is, of course, not the situation.
Identity formation is bringing together various aspects of the self into a coherent whole and establishes a
psychic “core” that defines the self. It is probably not a coincidence that Erikson's identity crisis begins
concurrently with Piaget's stage of formal operations. Some of the cognitive skills of the mature intellect
represented by this stage of cognitive development are instrumental in bringing together the threads of the
self.
Many of the negative stereotypes about adolescents involve their “laziness” and inability to pay attention
and complete tasks. Since most college students are in their early 20’s they can easily recall situations in
which their parents seemed to get frustrated by their behaviors and decisions. There is a general sense that
teenagers are “flaky” and seem to “lose their minds” during puberty. It may make students relieved to find
out that many of the attention and concentration problems of adolescence are related to a lack of brain
maturation. Recent studies have demonstrated that the brain areas related to multi-tasking, which are
located in the frontal cortex, are continuing to develop throughout adolescence. Another source of conflict
between parents and teens is associated with teen sleeping patterns. Contrary to earlier beliefs that teens are
just lazy, research has shown that teenagers need to sleep longer and later than adults in order to function
optimally.
Ask students to complete the sentence "When I hit puberty…” After a few students share their responses,
lead a discussion about the psychological impact of the timing of puberty and how it can shape the self-
image with which we enter adulthood.
A number of reports have shown that students in East Asian countries achieve at a higher level in
school than do American children. One possible explanation for these cross-national differences is that
children and adolescents in East Asian countries have different patterns of time use. In order to investigate
this possibility, Andrew Fuligni and Harold Stevenson studied the use of time by 11th-grade adolescents
(ages 16-17) in three cities in three countries: Minneapolis (United States, n = 204), Taipei (Taiwan, n =
222), and Sendai (Japan, n = 152). There were some differences among the samples in the three cities. For
example, the Minneapolis sample had the highest level of education and highest percentage of working
mothers. Parents of the Minneapolis sample were more likely to be employed in professional and semi-
professional occupations than parents in the other cities. Sendai is the Japanese city most comparable to
Minneapolis in socioeconomic and cultural status; Taipei was the only large Chinese-speaking city where
the study could be conducted.
The researchers asked identical questions of these students during the 1990-1991 school year. The
information was gathered from interviews of the students conducted by native speakers residing in each
city. In addition, the students completed a mathematics achievement test.
When the researchers examined information about the normal school day (from the time a student
arrived to the time he or she left), they found that Japanese and Chinese students were at school for an hour
or two longer than the American students: 8.6 and 9.2 hours versus 7.3 hours. A closer examination of
students in each sample who were in the top 16 percent (one standard deviation above the mean) of time
spent at school found the Japanese students spent over 10 hours a day and Chinese over 11½ hours a day at
school compared to 8½ hours for the corresponding American students. Moreover, half-day classes on
Saturday result in substantially more time spent in school by Chinese and Japanese than American students.
The average number of hours spent at school per week was approximately 50 hours in Taiwan, 47 hours in
Japan, and 36 hours in the United States. As a result of the differences in number of hours spent at school,
students in Taiwan and Japan take more classes compared to American students.
Summing the amount of time spent studying, taking lessons, and reading for pleasure leads to an
average of 25.5 hours for Chinese students, 17.2 hours for Japanese students, and 15.4 hours for American
students. Once again, the researchers looked at the upper 16 percent within each sample and found for
Chinese, Japanese, and American students the number of hours was 44.5, 30.9, and 30.4 hours respectively.
"The large amounts of time spent in academic pursuits by the Chinese students placed them at an advantage
in terms of opportunities for learning and practice related to their schoolwork" (p. 834).
Eighty percent of the American teenagers held part-time jobs, but only 26 percent of the Chinese
students and 27 percent of the Japanese students worked outside the home. Nearly all of the Chinese and
half of the Japanese students who worked were enrolled in vocational high schools and were employed in
jobs that were closely related to those for which they were receiving vocational training.
Compared to Chinese and Japanese students, American students spend a great deal of time after
school socializing with friends. In fact, they spend 80 percent more time socializing with friends than
studying. The relative emphases were reversed for Chinese adolescents, who spent nearly twice as much
time studying as they did socializing with friends. Japanese students engaged in both types of activities
with nearly equal amounts of time. The amount of time spent studying was correlated (low but significant)
in each city with scores on the mathematics achievement test. The amount of television watched and time
spent with friends were also negatively correlated with achievement on that test.
These cross-national findings corroborate the relationship between use of time and academic
achievement. However, despite the amount of time that East Asian students spend on schoolwork compared
to American students, "they did not appear to lead lives that were notably less well balanced than those of
their American peers" (p. 840). Although the Japanese students are most frequently described as being
overburdened by the demands of schoolwork, they were more similar to American than to Chinese
students. Yet even the Chinese students participated in sports and extracurricular activities, spent time with
their friends, and engaged in various types of social and artistic activities.
Fuligni, A. J., & Stevenson, H. W. (1995). Time use and mathematics achievement among American, Chinese, and Japanese
high school students. Child Development, 66, 83-842.
Adapted from Davis, S. F., & Palladino, J. J. (1996) Interactions: A newsletter to accompany Psychology, 2(Spr), 3.
McGue and Lykken noted that one of the strongest predictors of divorce is a family background that
includes parental divorce. Although most researchers have attributed this effect to environmental factors
such as social modeling, McGue and Lykken investigated potential genetic factors. Using subjects from the
Minnesota Twin Registry, they obtained survey information on marital history from 722 same-sex
monozygotic twins, 794 same-sex dizygotic twins, their parents, and their spouse’s parents. They reported
that the concordance rate for divorce was significantly higher for monozygotic twins than for dizygotic
twins. Based upon their results, they estimated that the predicted divorce rate for a hypothetical marriage
between two monozygotic twins with divorced parents and a divorced co-twin would be 77.5%, while the
predicted divorce rate for a marriage between two monozygotic twins with a background of no familial
divorce would be 5.3%. The researchers concluded that their “data suggest that cultural factors influence
the threshold for divorce while, within a given culture, variations in underlying aggregate risk are strongly
influenced by genetic factors” (p. 372). They do, however, emphasize that genetic factors may be mediated
by personality factors such as personal values and the individual’s capacity for happiness.
McGue, M., & Lykken, D. T. (1992). Genetic influence on risk of divorce. Psychological Science, 3, 368–373.
Alzheimer’s disease tragically afflicts many elderly people each year, resulting in a gradual deterioration of
memory, reasoning ability, and personality. Even more disturbing is that the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s can
only be made conclusively upon autopsy, when the plaques and tangles in the brain characteristic of the
disorder can be confirmed. However, the results of an archival study have suggested that linguistic markers
may predict Alzheimer’s with some degree of accuracy.
David Snowdon, an epidemiologist at the University of Kentucky, led a research team that examined the
writings of 93 nuns. In the 1930s, when these women entered a Milwaukee convent, they composed brief
autobiographical essays, which subsequently were scored by Snowdon’s team for linguistic markers such
as the density of ideas or grammatical complexity. For example, a nun who might have written “I plan to
give my all to God” probably would score low on such measures, whereas a nun who composed the
beatitude “I long to linger in the sweet garden of Christ, rejoicing in the splendor that He is and thanking
Him daily for His abundances” might not win a literature contest, but certainly shows a greater degree of
complexity in her writing. All of the nuns lived under highly similar conditions. Sixty years later, however,
those nuns who scored low on the psycholinguistic markers were more prone to develop Alzheimer’s. Of
the 14 nuns who had died, in fact, five had low idea density scores, and all five had Alzheimer’s disease.
What this reveals about the course of Alzheimer’s is still something of a mystery. It may be, for example,
that as young women these nuns were already showing signs of the disorder, suggesting that Alzheimer’s
develops slowly and insidiously over a prolonged period of time. Studies showing that some forms of
Alzheimer’s can afflict people in their 20s complement this idea. An alternative, however, is that linguistic
skills may offer some “immunity” to the development of Alzheimer’s, much as the adage “use it or lose it”
suggests. Perhaps those nuns with more highly developed linguistic ability were better able to stave off the
effects of this disorder. As with most studies of this nature, the causality of events remains murky. Other
archival data, or other markers of ability (such as mathematics scores, or measures of reasoning or
memory) may shed more light on this encouraging line of research.
Indeed, Snowdon and his associates have imposed on the generous nuns of the School Sisters of Notre
Dame one more time. The research team has recently discovered an important link between strokes and
declines in mental abilities seen in Alzheimer’s patients. Among 61 deceased nuns whose brains all clearly
showed signs of Alzheimer’s, 19 seemed in life to have escaped the confusion, dementia, and mental
deterioration so characteristic of the disease. In one case, a 101-year-old nun remained, by all accounts, as
sharp as a tack, even though her brain was a battlefield of plagues, tangles, and gaping holes. The key was
that she, like 18 of the others, had not suffered from strokes during old age. In fact, only 57% of stroke-free
nuns developed Alzheimer’s, compared to 93% of nuns who had a history of ministrokes. In an additional
comparison, Snowdon looked at the brains of 41 nuns who did not have Alzheimer’s-like brains but who
had suffered strokes; these women had no significant decrease in their overall mental competence.
An avenue for treatment suggests itself. By preventing strokes it may be possible to delay the onset of
symptoms in Alzheimer’s patients. The “double-whammy” of dealing with two brain diseases in a single
individual may be halved, providing substantial comfort to those dealing with Alzheimer’s.
Rogers, A. (1996, March 4). The weight of words: Can writing style predict dementia? Newsweek, 55.
▼Return to complete list of Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics for Chapter 7
▲ Return to Chapter 7: Table of Contents
Growing old, it’s been said, sure beats the alternative. The process of aging may be inevitable, but
at least the mechanisms of aging can be understood with some degree of certainty.
This general class of theories proposes that the human body is analogous to a machine in that our
parts begin to wear down and malfunction as they age. Although this seems to make sense and may apply
to some body systems (e.g., elbow or knee problems experienced by athletes), it fails to account for the fact
that the body's systems are continuously engaged in repairing and replacing damaged tissue. In addition, it
does not explain why continued use or exertion of body systems, such as that associated with routine
exercise, actually improves functioning.
Accumulation Theories
This group of theories focuses on explanations of aging that are the result of problems at the
cellular level. One theory attributes aging to an accumulation of cellular reproduction errors. For example,
the aging of the skin may be the result of increasing errors in cellular reproduction due to damage in
cellular DNA from exposure to the sun and other toxic substances. Another accumulation theory is the
metabolic waste theory. This theory suggests that aging results from the accumulation of undisposed waste
products in the cells. Waste accumulation, however, seems to result from changes in the body's ability to
remove waste and thus may be more a symptom of aging than a cause. A third accumulation theory
attributes aging to the buildup of fibrous proteins (collagen and elastin) in the body. The buildup of these
proteins is associated with external aspects of aging such as wrinkles and sagging skin.
Another theory focuses on the potential contribution of declines in immune system functioning
with age. For example, research has demonstrated that the ability of the immune system to produce
antibodies begins to decline after adolescence. Some studies also have suggested that the immune system
may lose its ability to detect and destroy slightly mutated cells, allowing them to reproduce and accumulate
in the body. The autoimmune theory of aging, however, suggests that the immune system loses its ability
to differentiate between normal and abnormal cells, resulting in the destruction of healthy cells.
Genetic Clock
This approach suggests that cells are preprogrammed to survive and reproduce for a specific
period, after which they begin to degenerate and die. Based upon studies of human cell regeneration limits,
researchers estimate that the maximum human life span would be between 110 and 120 years.
Berger, K. S. (1994). The developing person through the life span (3rd ed.). New York: Worth.
Hayslip, B., Jr., & Panek, P. E. (1993). Adult development and aging (2nd ed.). New York: HarperCollins.
Adapted from Hill, W. G. (1995). Instructor's resource manual for Psychology by S. F. Davis and J. J. Palladino. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Aging is one of the mysteries of human life that has been a focus of science for a number of years.
Researchers divide aging into two categories: primary aging and secondary aging. Secondary aging is
change that occurs as a result of disease, stress, poor diet, lack of exercise, or exposure to toxic
substances—any factor that contributes to aging that is actually or potentially preventable. What is left is
primary aging. If genes were programmed to effect changes with age that would be primary aging.
As research progresses, many of the myths, misconceptions, and stereotypes associated with aging are
being shattered; more of what was thought to be primary aging is, in fact, secondary aging. For example,
research done in the 1950s and 1960s by highly regarded psychologists showed that IQ scores reach a peak
in the twenties, remain stable until forty, decrease slowly from forty to sixty, and decline very rapidly after
the age of sixty. The idea of deterioration of cognitive functions with age seemed to be established, but
more recent research using longitudinal data has challenged the earlier studies. Recent research has shown
that significant changes in cognitive functions do not begin until the mid-seventies, and even then
intellectual capacities remain intact for people who continue to exercise them and remain in good health. In
studies with rats, Marian Diamond has shown that rats that live in an enriched environment continue to
show thickening of the cortex when they are beyond the normal life span of rats.
One of the myths of aging is that people undergo personality changes as they grow older. Longitudinal data
have been collected on a large group of volunteers for thirty years by the Gerontological Research Center
for the National Institute on Aging. The data show stability of personality from young adulthood through
old age. The director of the research noted that a person who is warm, sociable, and outgoing at twenty is
likely to be warm, sociable, and outgoing at eighty. He also observed that if you are likely to complain
about physical symptoms when you are eighty, you were probably a complainer when you were twenty.
Based on research in the 1950s, it was concluded that there is an age-related decrease in cardiac output, the
amount of blood the heart pumps per unit of time. Thirty years later, using the same treadmill test, the
results were different. Many of the older participants showed no decrease in cardiac output, and among
those who showed a decrease, the problem was associated with lack of exercise. During the thirty years, a
great deal was learned about heart disease. Many of the participants in the earlier study were not the
healthy-hearted specimens they were believed to be. The conclusions from the recent research are that
decrease in cardiac output is probably secondary aging, and not an inevitable consequence of growing
older.
Growing old is something we do not like to think about. When you consider the alternative, growing old is
not bad. Many young people do not like to face the fact that habits and lifestyles they adopt today are likely
to have a profound effect at the other end of life. Some young people say they don’t want to live that long,
but there is never a good day to die, and most young people of today are likely to grow old, to live to be at
least seventy-five or eighty. When you get there, you may not consider yourself old, like the 83-years-old
woman that refused to shop in a certain store because she considered the clothes they carried only
appropriate for old ladies.
AN AGING SOCIETY
With the emphasis on “saving social security” that everyone saw in the 2004 presidential election, we have
just begun to see the coming impact of the aging of American society. As the population continues to age,
and there are relatively fewer young people to physically and economically care for older people, there will
clearly have to be some major changes in many social programs and how some elements in our society
function. For example, social security will have to be changed to keep it from becoming insolvent when the
“baby boom” generation reaches its peak retirement years. Programs like Medicare will also have to be
revamped. Retirement ages may be moved farther back, so that the standard retirement age in the not-too-
distant future may be seventy instead of sixty-five. While today’s elderly are generally healthier than the
elderly of previous generations, as they reach their eighties and nineties (and even one-hundreds) many will
need extensive health care and nursing home care. This will require record numbers of health-care workers
to help care for the elderly. In what other ways might an aging population impact society? This can be a
thought-provoking discussion for students.
EUTHANASIA
One of the more controversial issues related to aging, and the health problems that often accompany it, is
the issue of euthanasia. Dr. Jack Kervorkian’s active euthanasia efforts eventually resulted in his being
jailed but brought a lot of controversy and publicity to this issue. You might ask students how they feel
about this issue. Is active euthanasia ever justified? If so, under what circumstances? What moral issues
does active euthanasia raise? What potential abuses could result from legalized active euthanasia? What
about the slippery slope argument that once we begin allowing active euthanasia in some cases, it becomes
easier to begin allowing it for less severe cases, and eventually it becomes just an easy way of getting rid of
“inconvenient” elderly people who are a “nuisance” because of their ill health and discomfort?
While most Americans oppose active euthanasia, because of these potential abuses, the picture is not as
clear when it comes to the issue of passive euthanasia, in which no active steps are taken to shorten the
person’s life, but no efforts are made to keep them alive when the person could be kept alive with outside
help. Some researchers claim that well over 50 percent of physicians have occasionally engaged in passive
euthanasia. How do students feel about this? How do their feelings about passive euthanasia differ from
their feelings about active euthanasia?
► Return to Lecture Guide Section:
7.1: What Innate Abilities Does the Infant Possess?
7.2: What are the Developmental Tasks of Childhood?
7.3: What Changes Mark the Transition of Adolescence?
7.4: What Developmental Challenges Do Adults Face?
Chapter Summary
▼Return to complete list of Lecture Launchers and Discussion Topics for Chapter 7
▲ Return to Chapter 7: Table of Contents
A sad reality of aging in the United States is that the elderly are sometimes demoted to the status
of “second-class citizens.” Consigned to nursing homes due to frailty, hardship, or the indifference of
family members, the elderly often find themselves in an environment not of their choosing and inconsistent
with their previous lifestyles. Consequently, they may feel unable to control, predict, or determine their
outcomes, even on a day-to-day basis. A classic study by Ellen Langer and Judy Rodin did much to
illustrate the benefits to the elderly of being in control.
Langer and Rodin enlisted the cooperation of the Arden House nursing home in Connecticut to
perform an intervention using its residents. Those who lived on the four floors of the Arden House were all
from similar backgrounds, of similar states of health, and generally assigned to floors and rooms on a
random basis. Langer and Rodin therefore randomly chose the residents of one floor to receive an
increased responsibility treatment, leaving the residents of another floor as a comparison group.
Both groups attended information meetings led by the director of the facility, who worked in
cooperation with the researchers. However, the increased responsibility residents were told that they
should take charge of arranging their room as they wished, making their complaints known to the director,
and scheduling the activities they wished to participate in. For example, these residents were told of
upcoming movies to be shown on a Thursday and Friday night, and were asked to indicate their preference
for attending. Similarly, these residents each selected a small houseplant to care for and were told that it
would be their responsibility to tend to its needs. In contrast, the residents of the comparison group were
given slightly different information. They were also told that their comfort and happiness were of primary
importance, although the director stated that it was the staff’s responsibility to make sure that happened.
As an example, the houseplants given to this group would be watered and tended to by the nurses. And
although they too heard about the upcoming “nights at the movies,” they were informed that they would be
told which night they could attend. In short, Langer and Rodin manipulated the amount of responsibility
the two groups had for their own outcomes.
All the residents had completed a questionnaire on their satisfaction with the living arrangements a
week prior to the director’s presentation. A similar questionnaire was completed three weeks after the talk.
The increased responsibility residents reported being happier and more active (compared to the control
group) on the second questionnaire, which was complemented by interviewer’s ratings of increased
alertness for this same group. Furthermore, nurses (who remained uninformed about each resident’s
experimental status) rated the increased responsibility residents as showing greater general improvement
and as spending more time visiting other residents, talking to staff, and visiting with guests, and
significantly less time simply sitting and watching the staff. Interestingly, more members of the
responsibility group attended the film that was shown, and although 10 “responsibility residents” entered a
jellybean-guessing contest that night, only 1 member of the comparison group did.
Finally, the most provocative difference was in the mortality rate of the two groups of residents:
Thirty percent of the comparison group had died during the 18-month interval between the original study
and a subsequent follow-up visit, compared to only fifteen percent of the increased responsibility
participants. Although other factors surely played a role, this “ultimate DV” provides startling evidence of
the importance of control in our daily lives.
Langer, E. J., & Rodin, J. (1976). The effects of choice and enhanced personal responsibility for the aged: A field
experiment in an institutional setting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 191-198.
Retrieve some change from your pocket or purse and count it silently. Look up at the class and explain that
your throat is dry and you would like to buy a drink from a vending machine before beginning or
continuing your lecture. Tell the class that you are a dime short of having enough change. Ask if there is
anyone who will lend you a dime. After a student responds, give the coin back and explain that the class
has just witnessed a demonstration of one of Lev Vygotsky's most important concepts about cognitive
development: scaffolding. Ask students to generate examples of how teacher and parents provide minimal
help to children (analogous to the dime you borrowed) that enables them to achieve tasks they would not be
able to do on their own.
There is evidence that severe childhood sexual abuse leaves a permanent mark on the brain. The
researchers in both cases used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine the hippocampus, a brain
structure involved in organizing memory, in groups of women. The studies found that the hippocampal
volume of women who had suffered severe sexual abuse as children was smaller than that of women who
were comparable in age, but who had not been abused. Both groups of women were recruited from the
same women’s health clinic, where they were receiving general care.
The research teams suggest that this cerebral alteration may predispose people to experience dissociation
and to develop the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Other investigators have reported
similar reductions in hippocampal volume among Vietnam combat veterans suffering from PTSD.
However, the point at which the reduction takes place is not clear, especially given that many adults who
develop PTSD have experienced prior traumas.
If the severe traumas of child sexual abuse or combat release stress hormones that harm the hippocampus, it
may account in part for the fragmented memories experienced by many people suffering from PTSD.
However, it is also known that many trauma survivors display no memory disruptions, dissociation, or
symptoms of PTSD. This has led some researchers to speculate that a genetic predisposition to react
strongly to extreme stress may also be implicated, especially in men. Further research will hopefully clarify
this link between behavior and brain.
Bower, B. (1995). Child sex abuse leaves mark on brain. Science News, 147, 340.
At the age of sixteen, Edith Eva Eger’s world turned upside down. She and her family were suddenly
arrested and interned in Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp in Poland. Shortly after they arrived at
Auschwitz, her mother was sent to the gas chamber. Before she was taken away, she urged Edith and her
sister to live their lives fully. “Remember,” she said, “What you put inside your brain, no one can take
away.” (Eger, 1990, p. 6).
In the horror-filled existence of concentration camp life, Edith found that the basic logic of the world was
reversed. The notions of good behavior she had learned growing up “were replaced by a kind of animal
quiver, which instantly smelled out danger and acted to deflect it.” Matters of life and death were decided
as casually as flipping a coin. You could be sent to the “showers of death” for having a loosely tied
shoelace.
After years of being brutalized, the camp inmates longed for freedom, yet, paradoxically, also dreaded it.
When their liberators arrived, some prisoners “rushed forward but most retreated and even returned to their
barracks.”
Edith was a fortunate survivor. She later married, immigrated to the United States, and became a clinical
psychologist. Recently, at the age of 61, Dr. Eger’s need to understand the twisted reality of the camps
motivated her to return to Auschwitz. “I came to mourn the dead and celebrate the living, I also needed to
formally put an end to the denial that I had been a victim and to assign guilt to the oppressor.” For many
years, she had denied the horrible truths of her camp experiences, but eventually denial was unacceptable to
her. By reliving the events of her incarceration and forcing herself to think about the meaning of that
horror, Dr. Eger believes she has become better able to help others understand events that seem
inexplicable in the context of their everyday lives.
The fundamental human desire to comprehend the nature of one’s existence that motivated Dr. Eger was
eloquently described by another survivor of Auschwitz, Italian writer Primo Levi. He reports, “It might be
surprising that in the camps one of the most frequent states of mind was curiosity. And yet, besides being
frightened, humiliated, and desperate, we were curious, hungry for bread and also to understand. The world
around us was upside down and somebody must have turned it upside down . . . to twist that which was
straight, to befoul that which was clean” (Levi, 1985, p. 99).
Edith took her mother’s last words to heart. No one can take away what she has put in her brain. No one
can take away what you have put in your brain. By becoming a psychotherapist, Dr. Eger chose a career in
which she helps others cope with personal realities that defy rational explanation. Noting that today’s
college students have little knowledge of the Holocaust, she hopes “that some day, when they are ready, my
grandchildren will have the curiosity to ask their grandmother questions about the time when the world was
turned upside down. So that if it starts tilting again, they and millions of others can redress it before it is too
late” (p. 9).
After Albert Einstein died of a hemorrhaged abdominal aneurysm in 1955, pathologist Dr. Thomas
Harvey removed Einstein’s brain and kept it for scientific study. He noted that on a gross-anatomical level,
Einstein’s brain was no larger or heavier than the normal human brain. Since 1955, Einstein’s brain has
been photographed extensively and sectioned for further investigation. In 1996, Dr. Sandra Witelson
obtained a significant section of Einstein’s brain and has reported with her colleagues that although
Einstein’s brain was reported as average in size and weight, Einstein’s inferior parietal lobe was 15% wider
than comparable parietal lobes. This brain area is associated with visual-spatial cognition, mathematical
thought, and imagery of movement. Note that Einstein’s theoretical insights were usually the result of
mental imagery that he translated into the mathematical language. Witelson and her colleagues also found
that the sylvian fissure, which separates the frontal and temporal lobes, was shorter than average,
suggesting tightly packed neurons and interconnections and thus increased communication between
neurons in this brain region.
It is still unknown whether Einstein was born with an extraordinary mind, or whether the brain reorganized
itself around Einstein’s life work (following the principles of neural plasticity). As long as humans are
intrigued by intelligence, we will always be interested in the mystery behind genius.
Witelson, S. F., Kigar, D. L., & Harvey, T. (1999). The exceptional brain of Albert Einstein. The Lancet, 353,
2149-2153.
Baumrind, D. (1978). “Parental Disciplinary Patterns and Social Competence in Children.” Youth and
Society, 9, 239–276. Contains a description of each of the three patterns of parenting styles:
authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. Somewhat dated in that new parenting styles are evolving,
but still highly relevant in parenting research.
Bee, H. (1994). Lifespan Development. New York: Harper Collins. Presents a comprehensive overview of
research and theory on development across the life span.
Bigner, J. J. (1994). Individual and Family Development: A Lifespan Interdisciplinary Perspective.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice -Hall. A comprehensive womb-to-tomb text that details physical,
emotional, and cognitive developmental issues across the life span.
Carstensen, L., & Turk-Charles, S. (1994). “The Salience of Emotion across the Adult Life Span.”
Psychology & Aging, 9(2), 259–264. Presents research that shows emotionality does not diminish as one
ages, and, in fact, may increase as we grow older.
Cox, M. V. (1991). The Child’s Point of View, 2nd Edition. New York: Narvester Heartsheaf. An
investigation of development of awareness in children, challenging notions that they are “inferior
adults,” and demonstrating their sophisticated level of awareness of others’ beliefs and feelings.
Craig, G. J., & Kermis, M. D. (1995). Children Today. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Csikszentimihalyi, M., & Larson, R. (1984). Being Adolescent: Conflict and Growth in the Teenage Years.
New York: Basic Books. Although an older text, this volume provides an excellent report of day-to-day
adolescent life, complete with research that records adolescent thoughts and activities at all hours of the
day and night.
Cutler, N., Gottfries, C., & Siegfried, K. (Eds.). (1995). Alzheimer’s Disease: Clinical and Treatment
Perspectives. New York: J. Wiley & Sons.
Flavell, J. (1963). The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand. Includes a
presentation of Piaget’s theoretical systems, such as the concepts of assimilation and accommodation,
grouping, equilibrium and their various roles within Piaget’s schema of developmental stages. Offers a
critical evaluation, both methodologically and in the light of related research by others, of Piaget’s
system and work.
Flavell, J. (1996). “Piaget’s Legacy.” Psychological Science, 7(4), 200–203. Presents eleven contributions
by Piaget to the field of cognitive development to explain what is known and thought about concerning
his theories of cognitive development.
Flavell, J., Miller, P., & Miller, S. (1993). Cognitive Development (3rd ed). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, Inc. An interesting introduction to human cognitive development. Appeals to individuals
from diverse backgrounds, and, in keeping with trends in the field, devotes much attention to current
theories and research.
Fried, S. B. (1988). “Learning Activities for Understanding Aging.” Teaching of Psychology, 15, 160–162.
Detailed instructions on five activities usable in conjunction with lectures on aging.
Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple Intelligences: The Theory In Practice. New York: Basic Books. Provides an
excellent overview of Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Brings together work on the subject in
one convenient book.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press. A classic, exploring the differences in the way that men and women think. An
alternative to Kohlberg and seminal in its own right as the first true criticism of Kohlberg’s theory of
moral development.
Ginsburg, H., & Opper, S. (1998). Piaget’s Theory of Intellectual Development (3rd Ed). Englewood
Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Provides examples of Piagetian cognitive tasks that are easily adapted to lectures
on cognitive development.
Hanin, I., Mitsuo, Y., & Fisher, A. (Eds.). (1995). Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases: Recent
Developments. New York: Plenum Press.
Henry, C., & Ulijaszek, S. (Eds.). (1996). Long-Term Consequences of Early Environment: Growth,
Development, and the Lifespan Developmental Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lawton, M., & Salthouse, T. (Eds.). (1998). Essential Papers on the Psychology of Aging. New York: New
York University Press.
Lerner, R., & Galambos, N. (1998). “Adolescent Development: Challenges and Opportunities for Research,
Programs, and Policies.” Annual Review of Psychology, 49, 413–446. Discusses the basic challenges and
opportunities facing both adolescents and the psychologists who study them.
Levine, M., & Levine, A. (1992). Helping Children: A Social History. New York: Oxford University Press.
A narrative of how our American society addresses children’s issues, from the formation of the foster
care system to the Gary Schools Project and Ben Lindsey’s formation of the juvenile courts system. An
excellent resource for the history of children’s issues.
Parke, R., Ornstein, P., Rieser, J., & Zahn-Waxier, C. (1994). A Century of Developmental Psychology.
Washington: American Psychological Association. Highlights the contributions of the most important
developmental psychologists in the field. Traces the theoretical and empirical changes in developmental
psychology over the past one-hundred years.
Sternberg, R. J. (1990). Metaphors of Mind: Conceptions of the Nature of Intelligence. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. An overview of human intelligence from the combined, rather than
individualistic, perspectives of psychology, anthropology, and sociology.
Turner, J., & Helms, D. (1995). Lifespan Development (5th ed.). Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace College
Publishers. An introduction to life span development that focuses on seven essential themes. These
themes are the interrelatedness of aging processes, theoretical perspectives on life span development, the
interaction of heredity and environment, epigenetics, continuity and discontinuity, active and reactive
models of development, and gender issues.
Van Hasselt, V., & Hersen, M. (1992). Handbook of Social Development: A Lifespan Perspective. New
York, Plenum Press. Investigates the process of social development from a life span perspective. Covers
all stages of life from the crib to old age. An excellent reference.
Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and Language. Revised and edited by A. Kozulin. Cambridge: MIT Press. A
1986 revision of the original volume, this text helps balance the various trends of thought on the
connections between psychology and language.
Language: English
BOARDING PARTY
By ROBERT F. YOUNG
Illustrated by FINLAY
(1)
Why the Uxurient put in to an Out-of-Bounds System during the
Frimm 4-Urtz 2 Run
Two light-cycles out from Frimm 4, the first shoots of the yumquat
trees broke through the greendeck precisely on schedule. A little
over a light-cycle farther out I noticed during one of my periodic
inspections that the young leaves were beginning to turn yellow, and
subsequent tests of several greendeck soil samples revealed an
acute deficiency of mineral elements D-2 and Z-1, plus an advanced
aridity. I immediately retired to the greenship's subdeck, where I
found the contents of the soil-solution vat to be at a shockingly low
level. An analysis of the contents indicated a near-total absence of
mineral elements D-2 and Z-1.
Further investigations have since convinced me that the
responsibility for this critical shortage rests upon the shoulders of
none other than Ur-Lon-Ho-Lee, Interstellar Nurseries' senior
shipping clerk, but at the time, the yumquat-tree shipment pre-
empted my attention to the exclusion of all other matters. If the trees
were to be allowed to shoot up at the usual accelerated growth rate
and were to be delivered in satisfactory sapling stage to the Urtz 2
customer who had ordered them, I had but one course of action
open to me: to put in to the nearest system, find a planet with a soil
rich in moisture and rich in mineral elements D-2 and Z-1, and
replenish the soil-solution vat by means of the Uxurient's ship-to-
ground capillary tube. Fortunately, there happened to be a system in
the vicinity of the Uxurient's present position, but unfortunately it
happened to be one of the many systems that are out-of-bounds to
Interstellar Economic Community ships. Before coming to a decision,
then, I had to weigh the importance of my mission against the risk of
causing "a substantial interference in the normal evolution of an
extra-Community culture"—a possibility that is always present when
a Community ship is forced to enter an out-of-bounds system. I
decided that it was my responsibility both to the customer and to the
company to run this risk, and proceeded to put in to the system at
once.
I wasted no time on the outer worlds, knowing from experience that
such worlds rarely yield anything in the way of flora and hence could
not possibly possess the kind of soil I needed, but arrowed in to the
orbital regions of the first four. Perceiving at once that Four would not
serve my purpose, I continued on to Three. Three turned out to be a
Frimm 4-type planet in all respects save its slightly smaller size; it
also turned out to be the reason for the system's having been placed
out-of-bounds. I was not surprised: One seldom finds soil of the type
employed by Frimm 4 nurseries without finding intelligent life in the
immediate vicinity. In this instance, I used the term "intelligent life" in
its broadest sense, for the several civilizations I transchecked at
random revealed technologies not far removed from the paleolithic
stage, and in one case, in the very midst of it.
How a Boarding Party of One gained the Greendeck and made off
with a Uterium 5 Snirk Bird, a Toy Friddlefork, and Two Containers of
Yellow Trading Disks.
Arriving at my living quarters, I removed my greendeck fatigues and
laid them upon the arms of the rack beside the entrance, wondering
as I always do on such occasions how Ho-Hat-Li-Tum, the
company's morale manager, could have fallen for so blatantly
whimsical an appointment as a clothes rack in the form of a life-size
woman. Granted, greenship pilots lead lonely lives, but tell me this:
how can the mere act of their laying their outer garments upon the
outstretched arms of a brainless, speechless, feelingless mannequin
in the least alleviate their loneliness? If Ho-Hat-Li-Tum were really
concerned about the morale of the greenship pilots, he would spurn
such halfway measures and concentrate his energies on getting the
regulation that forbids pilots to take their wives into space with them
rescinded.
To continue: Once in my living quarters, I proceeded directly to the
galley where I cut two large steaks from one of the lliaka
hindquarters. Placing the steaks upon the grill to sear, I got a loaf of
bread and decanter of wine out of the provision closet, after which I
set the table. When the steaks were done, I placed them on a large
platter and sat down to eat. It was at this point that I received a very
definite impression that I was being watched.
I looked around the galley. Other than myself, of course, no one was
there, and certainly the various cupboards were much too small to
harbor a secret onlooker. A secret onlooker indeed! Angry with
myself, I put the matter from my mind, concluding that the condition
of the yumquat trees had depressed me to a greater extent than I
had realized, and that I had fallen prey to preposterous imaginings. I
wish now that I had been less eager to ascribe what proved to be a
perfectly valid psychosensory perception to my emotional letdown.
I ate ravenously, devouring both of the steaks and the entire loaf of
bread. Afterward, a feeling of peace and good will stole over me, and
on an impulse I called the Uterium 5 snirk bird down from its perch
above the galley doorway and persuaded it by means of a crust of
bread to perch upon my forefinger. Despite the large and ovoid
xanthous droppings which these birds sporadically deposit on chairs,
tables and floors, they make wonderful pets, and I envied the
particular customer who was to receive this one—a tiny, bright-eyed
female—as a partial bonus for his yumquat-tree order. The other
components of his bonus—the toy friddlefork and the two containers
of yellow trading disks—stood on a shelf just behind me, and
reaching around and procuring them, I set them on the table before
me. Such evidence of largess invariably renews my faith in the
company, and on long runs I often get out customer bonuses and
speculate on the munificence of a concern such as ours. Thus I
speculated now—but not for long. I had not slept for nearly two zodal
periods and was far more tired than I realized, and to complicate
matters, the heavy meal which I had just consumed had had a
soporific effect upon me. Almost before I knew it, I dozed off.
(signed)
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum
THE END
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOARDING
PARTY ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the
United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms
of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying,
performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this
work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes
no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in
any country other than the United States.