Human Development

Unit 8: Chapter 9
Themes in Development
 Development Thoughts…
• Identify 5 life events that have influenced your
development
• Identify 5 future events that will influence
your development
 Themes/Methods of Study
1. Nature vs. Nurture
– Development: mixture between biology and how you were
raised
2. Twin Studies
– Compare/contrast similarities and differences between
fraternal/identical twins
3. Continuity vs. Discontinuity
– Continuity à changes happen gradually/seamlessly
– Discontinuity à stage-like progression
4. Adoption Studies
– Examine the Nature vs. Nurture debate
– IQ à product of genes/environment
 Themes/Methods of Study
5. Critical Period Theory: limited time when
events can occur
– Example: Genie (feral child)
6. Socialization: social environment affects
development
– Social skills, attitudes, behaviors, etc.
7. Maturation
– Potty train when ready, walk when ready, talk
when ready, etc.
 Themes/Methods of Study
• Longitudinal Method: study same individuals
over extended periods of time to examine
development
• Cross-sectional Method: compare children at
different ages at specific points in time to
examine development
Human Physical Development
PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT
THROUGH INFANCY
Prenatal Development
 Prenatal Development
• Zygote: fertilized egg
• Embryo: 2nd – 8th weeks of prenatal development
• Fetus: 9th week – birth

• Placenta: organ interface between mother and

child
• Teratogens: substances that can cause damage
during prenatal development
– Examples: alcohol, German measles, syphilis,
radiation, etc.
Neonatal Development
 Neonatal Development
• Birth – one month old
• Respond to stimulation from all senses
• Meltzoff: infants can imitate facial gestures
• Reflexes:
– Sucking
– Grasping
– Rooting: suck when face/cheek is touched
– Moro/Startle: respond to loud noise
– Babinski: toe curls when bottom of foot is touched
 Infancy
• 1 month – 18 to 24 months
• Able to distinguish mother’s voice and forms
attachment to mother
• Brain development: what happens?
• Synchronicity: give an example
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=FbhCnmmSNVg
 Infancy
• Perceptual
Development
– Frantz: infants prefer
pictures of human faces
to any other pictures
– Visual cliff experiment:
place infant on Plexiglas
topped table à stop at
cliff (perceive danger)
 Infancy
• Attachment: who do
infants usually attach
to?
• Imprinting: primitive
form of learning à
infants follow first thing
they see/hear
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Social Development
• The way in which
infants learn to relate to
other people
 Social Development
• Stranger anxiety:
distress when exposed
to unfamiliar people
• Separation anxiety:
distress experienced
when separated from
primary caregiver
Mary Ainsworth: P. 371
• Separated children from
mothers to watch
reactions and examine
attachment
 Mary Ainsworth
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=QTsewNrHUHU
 Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situations
• Secure attachment: comfortable with mother
present or missing
• Anxious ambivalent attachment: cried when
separated à difficult to console when mother
returns
• Avoidant attachment: unconcerned about
separation and when reunited (may show
signs of repeated rejection)
Harlow’s Monkeys
 Harlow’s Monkeys
• What did scientists take away from this study?

– Contact comfort: stimulation/reassurance derived

from physical touch
– Transitional object: takes the place of the
mother(parent)/child bond
• Example: blanket, stuffed animal, etc.
 How do the following affect your
personal development?
• Socialization
• Maturation
• Temperament
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Development
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=0BX2ynEqLL4
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Development
• Zone of Proximal
Development (ZPD): range
of tasks a child is capable of
mastering with guidance
• Emphasizes role of mentors
(parents, older siblings,
coaches, teachers, etc.)
Parenting Styles:
Diana Baumrind
 Parenting Styles
Style Emotional Authority Autonomy
Involvement

Authoritative Warm, attentive, Explains and enforces Child: input into

sensitive to child’s rules decisions
needs
Authoritarian Cold and rejecting; Demanding, yells, Parent makes
degrades child criticizes, punishes decisions for child

Permissive Warm but may spoil Few demands, Parent allows child to
child misplaced concern for make decisions before
self-esteem ready

Uninvolved Emotionally detached, Few/no demands, lack Indifferent to child’s

withdrawn, interest in child decisions and POV
inattentive
 Parenting Styles
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=O0iUqvEKvGs
 Gender Identity Roles
• Sexes tend to separate themselves
• Learn roles through observational learning

• Boys: more aggressive in play

– Organize into hierarchy (pecking order)
• Girls: organize into small, cooperative groups
 What are some of the common
stereotypes that you have heard about
the following?
• Only child
• Oldest child
• Middle child
• Youngest child
 Adler’s Birth Order Theory
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Zj0DEebVqJA
 Adler’s Birth Order Theory
• Birth order affects
personality
• Parenting styles also affect
personality
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
 Jean Piaget
• Cognitive development
• product of assimilation and
accommodation
– Assimilation: modify new
information into existing
schemas
• Example:
– Accommodation: restructures
existing schemas so that new
info is better understood
• Example:
Assimilation vs. Accommodation
Piaget’s Stages
 Sensorimotor
(Birth – 2)
• Explore environment
– Rely on motor responses to stimuli
– Understands cause and effect
• Uses mental representations
– Object permanence
• Understands that object exists even if hidden from
view or cannot see
• Example: imagine Mickey Mouse if he’s not in front of
the child
Object Permanence
 Preoperational
(2 – 6/7)
• Language develops and mental representations
become more detailed
• Egocentrism: inability to see other’s perspectives
• Animistic thinking: inanimate objects have
feelings/thoughts
• Centration: focus on one aspect of the situation
à neglect other key aspects
• Irreversibility: unable to go backwards through
thought process
Egocentrism
Centration
 Concrete Operational
(7 – 11)
• Conservation: realize that physical properties
of a substance do not change due to container
• Mental operations: solve problems in mind;
do not need to write them down
Conservation
 Formal Operations
(12 – adulthood)
• Abstract thought: understand ideas about
behaviors outside own experience and utilize
divergent thinking
• Hypothetico-deductive reasoning: ability to
formulate hypothesis about external world
– Formulate hypothesis as to why the economy is
lackluster
 Criticism of Piaget
• Underestimates the abilities of children at
many points in growth process
• Does not account for social interaction
Adolescence
 Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial
Development
• Psychological stages – eight major challenges that appear
across the lifespan, which require an individual to rethink his
or her goals and relationships with others
 Trust vs. Mistrust
• Age: 0 – 1.5 years
• Adequate Resolution: Basic sense of safety,
security; ability to rely on forces outside
oneself
• Inadequate Resolution: Insecurity, anxiety
 Autonomy vs. Self-Doubt
• Age: 1.5 – 3 years
• Adequate Resolution: Perception of self as
agent; capable of controlling one’s own body
and making things happen
• Inadequate Resolution: Feelings on
inadequacy about self-control, control of
events
 Initiative vs. Guilt
• Age: 3 – 6 years
• Adequate Resolution: Confidence in oneself as
being able to initiate, create
• Inadequate Resolution: Feelings of lack of self-
worth
 Competence vs. Inferiority
• Age: 6 - puberty
• Adequate Resolution: Adequacy in basic social
and intellectual skills; acceptance by peers
Inadequate Resolution: Lack of self-
confidence; feelings of failure
 Identity vs. Role Confusion
• Age: Adolescence
• Adequate Resolution: Comfortable sense of
self as a person, both unique and socially
accepted
• Inadequate Resolution: Sense of self as
fragmented, shifting, unclear sense of self
 Intimacy vs. Isolation
• Age: Early Adulthood
• Adequate Resolution: Capacity for closeness
and commitment to another
• Inadequate Resolution: Feeling of aloneness,
loneliness, separation; denial of intimacy
needs
 Generativity vs. Stagnation
• Age: Middle Adulthood
• Adequate Resolution: Focus of concern
beyond oneself, to family, society, future
generations
• Inadequate Resolution: Self-indulgent
concerns; lack of future orientation
 Ego-integrity vs. Despair
• Age: Late Adulthood
• Adequate Resolution: Sense of wholeness;
basic satisfaction with life
• Inadequate Resolution: Feelings of futility;
disappointment
 Critical Reflection of Erikson
• Lacks scientific basis and does not adequately
address problems faced by females
ADOLESCENCE
 Industrial Societies
• Developmental period begins at puberty and
ends (less clearly) at adulthood
 Rite of passage

• Social rituals that mark the transition

between developmental stages, especially
between childhood and adulthood
 Puberty

• Onset of sexual maturity

– Primary Sex Characteristics – the sex organs and
genitals
– Secondary Sex Characteristics – Gender-related
physical features that develop during puberty
• Facial hair, deepening voices in males, widened hips
and enlarged breasts in females, pubic hair, etc.
 Connection to Piaget

• Corresponds with Formal Operational Stage

– Abstract thought and hypothetico-deductive
reasoning emerge
 Moral Thinking
• Heinz Dilemma – created by Lawrence
Kohlberg based on Piaget’s stages of cognitive
development
– Examined the way people think about moral
problems by presenting them with a moral
dilemma
– Would you steal a drug to save a life?
 Would you Steal the Drug?
• In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer.
There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was
a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently
discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was
charging ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200
for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The
sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow
the money, but he could only get together about $ 1,000 which is
half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and
asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist
said: "No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from
it." So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's store to steal
the drug-for his wife. Should the husband have done that?
(Kohlberg, 1963, p. 19)
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
Level and Stages Reasons for Moral
Behavior
Level 1: Pre-conventional
Morality
Stage 1: egocentric Avoid pain or avoid getting
pleasure/pain/profit caught
orientation
Stage 2: cost/benefit Achieve/receive rewards
orientation; reciprocity (I’ll or mutual benefits
scratch your back if you
scratch mine)
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
Level and Stages Reasons for Moral
Behavior
Level 2: Conventional
Morality
Stage 3: “Good child” Gain acceptance, avoid
orientation disapproval
Stage 4: Law-and-order Follow rules, avoid
orientation penalties
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
Level and Stages
Level 3: Post-Conventional
Morality
Stage 5: Social contract
orientation
Stage 6: Ethical Principle
orientation (Gandhi, Jesus,
Mohammed)
Reasons for Moral
Behavior
Promote the welfare of
one’s society
Achieve justice, be
consistent with one’s
principles, avoid self-
condemnation
ADULTHOOD AND AGING
 Memory
• Short term and long term memory declines
• Alzheimer’s Disease afflicts a large percent of
the aging population
 Social Clock
• Cultural, specific time
table for events to
occur
– Example: college,
marriage, having
children, etc.
 Empty Nest Syndrome
• Adjustments parents make to the last of their
children leaving home
 Death and Dying
• Elizabeth Kubler-Ross: created a stage theory
for dying/grief (influenced hospice movement)
– Denial: do not accept that they are ill
– Anger: resentment toward situation (“Why me?”)
– Bargaining: occurs with higher power (“If I live, I
promise to be a better person.”
– Depression: total loss to everything and everyone
– Acceptance: peaceful acceptance of fate