Life Span Development

Spring 2010
Chapter 1 –
Introduction to Life Span Development/
Introduction to Freud and Erikson’s Theories
Introduction to Life Span
Development
Basic terms:
◦ Development: The progressive and
continuous change in an organism from
birth to death
◦ Developmental Psychology: Studies of
pre- and post-natal growth, maturation of
behavior, stages of development, and the
effects of experiences on our development
◦ Lifespan Development: The field of
study that examines patterns of growth,
change and stability in behaviors that
occur throughout the entire life span.
Topical areas
Throughout this course, as we discuss each
of the phases of life, we will discuss the
following topical areas for each stage
◦ Physical development: focuses on the
physical
make-up of the human body and
emphasizes the
brain, nervous system, muscles, sensory
capabilities as well as our basic needs (food,
drink, sleep).
◦ Cognitive development: emphasizes
intellectual abilities, including learning, memory,
problem-solving and intelligence.
◦ Personality and social development:
emphasizes the characteristics that differentiate
one person from another as well as interactions
with one another and how social relationships
change over the lifetime.
Age ranges
Age ranges are typically divided into the
following categories:
◦ Prenatal period (conception to birth),
◦ Infancy and toddlerhood (birth to age 3)
◦ The preschool period (ages 3 to 6)
◦ Middle childhood (ages 6 to 12)
◦ Adolescence (ages 12 to 20)
◦ Young adulthood (ages 20 to 40)
◦ Middle adulthood (ages 40 to 65)
◦ Late adulthood (age 65 to death)
Controversy: Continuity
versus Discontinuity
 Do developmental changes occur
gradually (continuous) or in major
qualitative leaps?
 Some believe continuous: effects of
learning are
gradual
◦ Achievements at each level building on those of the
previous level
◦ Maturational theorists point out that the
environment
helps us very little until we are ready
 Stage theorists (discontinuous change)
◦ Others believe number of rapid qualitative changes
usher in new stages of development
◦ Discontinuous, biological changes provide potential or
psychological changes (personality and cognitive
development)
Nature vs. Nurture:
The extent to which human behavior
is result of heredity vs. environment
Nature: internal processes that
guide development according to
genetic code
Nurture: external processes
that influence development
Developmental Psychologists reject
the idea that behavior is the result
of solely one or the other
 The Scientific Method
 How Do We Study Child Development?
 The Scientific method is a way of formulating and answering research
questions.
 Allows scientists to test theories.
◦ Step 1: Formulating a research question
◦ Step 2: Developing a Hypothesis
 Specific statement about behavior that is tested by research
 An educated guess about research question
◦ Step 3: Testing the Hypothesis
 Test through carefully controlled information-gathering techniques
and research methods
 Naturalistic observation, case study, correlation, experiment
◦ Step 4: Draw Conclusions about Hypothesis
 Draw conclusions of accuracy based on results of research
findings
 When rejected, may modify their hypothesis and retest.
◦ Step 5: Publishing Findings
 Publish in professional journals and make available to public for
scrutiny
 Gathering Information
Psychologists use various methods to gather
information:
Naturalistic Observation
◦ Method of observation which subjects are observed
in their natural environment
◦ Field studies – observe kids at home, on
playground, in classroom.
◦ Try not to interfere to reduce bias (one way mirror)
◦ Typically first type of study in new areas of
investigation
◦ Gather an initial impression of what happens n
certain situations.
Case Study
◦ Carefully drawn biography of the life behavior of an
individual.
◦ Parents who keep diaries of children’s activity.
◦ May include observation, surveys, standardized
tests, and interviews
Gathering Information
Correlations
◦ Math method to determine whether one behavior/trait is related to
another.
◦ TV violence and aggression – assign numbers and obtain correlation
coefficient
◦ Correlation Coefficient
 The strength and direction of the relationship between two factors is
represented by the correlation coefficient
 Number ranges from +1.0 to -1.0.
◦ Positive Correlations
 Higher scores on one variable are matched by high scores on
another
 Hours of violent TV and aggressive behavior
◦ Negative Correlations
 Higher scores on one variable are matched by low scores on
another
 Hours of child-friendly TV and aggressive behavior
◦ Limitations
 Reveal relationships, but do not show cause and effect (Correlation
does not equal causation!!)
 What if children to watch violent TV prefer it b/c they are
aggressive?
 What if aggression and TV viewing are caused by poor parenting?
 Gathering Information
 The Experiment
◦ Preferred method for testing cause and effect.
◦ Experiment: Group of participants receives a treatment & another
does not.
◦ Participants are observed to determine whether the treatment
affects
behavior.
◦ Some children are exposed to TV violence and others are not.
◦ Independent Variables
 Condition that is manipulated for changed to observe its effects
 Violent TV
◦ Dependent Variables
 Measure of the assumed effect of the IV
 Aggressive behavior
◦ Experimental Group
 Participants who receive the treatment
◦ Control Group
 Participants who do not receive the treatment
 All other conditions are held constant
◦ Random Assignment
 Subjects assigned to groups on a chance or random basis.
Gathering Information
Longitudinal Studies: Development over Time
◦ The processes of development occur over time.
◦ Longitudinal Research
 Taking repeated measures of the same group of children
at various stages
 Gains in height, approaches to problem solving
 Some ambitious studies have followed people for
50 years
 Most studies span months or a few years
 Studies relationship between behavior at earlier and
later
ages
 Allows researchers to follow development over time
 Problems: volunteer rates, attrition, death
 Subjects who stay in are more motivated
(systematic differences)
 Patience: to compare 3 & 6 year olds –
wait 3 years
 Other options?
Gathering Information
◦ Cross-Sectional Research
 Measures of children of different age
groups at the same time
 More common b/c of drawbacks of
longitudinal studies
 Can be completed in a shorter period of
time
 Problems: does not study
development across time (differences
at ages)
 Cohort Effect: group of people born at
the same time experience cultural and
other events unique to their age group.
The Psychoanalytic
Perspective
 Freud’s theory that
childhood sexuality
and unconscious
motivations influence
personality and
behavior
 Our thoughts and
actions are due to
unconscious motives
and conflicts.
Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud proposes that unconscious forces
act to determine our personality and
behavior.
Freud believed that our wishes,
desires,
demands and needs were hidden
from
conscious awareness, due to their
disturbing nature.
◦ He believed that the unconscious
was
responsible for most of our everyday
behaviors.
Freud’s theory divided our
personalities
into three aspects: the id, the ego and
Freud’s Structure of Personality

Freud’s psychoanalytic theory

 Structure of personality
◦ Id: Pleasure principle
 Reservoir for all psychic energy
 Primitive, instinctive component of personality
 Raw, unorganized, inborn part of our personality and represents the primary
drives of hunger, sex, aggression, and irrational impulses.
 Wants immediate gratification of urges - the goal is to maximize satisfaction
and reduce tension

◦ Ego: Reality principle

 The mediator - buffer between the id and the real world
 Decision making component of personality
 Part of personality that is rationale and reasonable
 Seeks to delay gratification of urges to satisfy society’s norms

◦ Superego: Morality principle

 Moral component that internalizes social standards about right and wrong.
 Conscience
 The superego typically develops when we are about 5 or 6 years of age
Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual
Development
Both of Freud’s theories based on levels of
awareness – emphasis on the unconscious
Conceptualized 3 main structures of the
mind (Levels of Awareness)
◦ 1. Conscious: Currently aware of
◦ 2. Preconscious: Near the surface;
presently beyond awareness but can become
conscious by paying attention to them
 What ate for breakfast; sad due to death
◦ 3. Unconscious: genetic instincts and urges
(hunger, sex, aggression) that can only partly
perceive.
Freud’s internal conflicts & defense mechanisms

 Internal conflict
◦ Behavior is the outcome of series of internal
conflicts b/t id, ego, & superego
◦ Id wants immediate gratification, but norms of
society dictate otherwise
◦ Conflicting personality structures lead to
anxiety/tension
◦ Sex and aggression cause the most
tension

 Conflicts lead to anxiety & guilt….

Defense Mechanisms
Conflicts lead to anxiety & guilt, which cause ego to construct
defense mechanisms
Defense Mechanisms:
 Protect the Ego.
 Operate Unconsciously.
 Distort Reality.
 Defense Mechanisms
◦ Created by the ego to decrease internal tension
 Displacement
 Repression
 Rationalization
 Reaction Formation
 Projection
 Sublimation
 Defense Mechanisms
 Repression
◦ Motivated forgetting – repress memories into unconscious
◦ Keeping distressful or anxiety-arousing thoughts and feelings
buried in the unconscious.
◦ Repress desires that make them guilty; or painful memories

 Reaction Formation
◦ Unconsciously switching unacceptable impulses into their
opposites.
◦ Behaving in ways that are the opposite of one’s true
feelings.

 Rationalization
◦ Creating false, but plausible excuses to justify behavior
◦ “Everyone does it”
Defense Mechanisms
 Projection

◦ Own threatening impulses are attributed to others.

◦ Ex: An unfaithful husband suspects his wife of infidelity

 Displacement
◦ Diverting emotions from their original source onto another
◦ Ex: Aggressive impulses directed toward a more
acceptable or less threatening object or person

 Sublimation
◦ Rechanneling of unacceptable impulses into socially
approved activities
Psychosexual Stages of Development
 The ways that children deal with immature
sexual urges (physical pleasure) during different
stages shape personality.
 Developmental periods with characteristics
sexual focus that leave mark on adult personality.
◦ Focus shifts as progress from one stage to
another.
◦ Process by which libidinal energy is expressed
through different erogenous zones during different
stages of development.
◦ Each stage named for focus of erotic energy during
that period.
 Each stage has its own unique developmental
challenge.
◦ The way these challenges are handed shapes
personality.
Psychosexual Stages of Development
 1. Oral Stage (birth to 12 to 18 months)
◦ Main source of stimulation from mouth (eating, sucking)
◦ Handling of feeding experiences is crucial to development.
◦ Fixation can lead to obsessive eating, smoking, talking,
drinking, nail biting
 2. Anal Stage (1 to 1 ½ to about 2 or 3)
◦ Pleasure from bowel movements; expulsion or
retention of
feces
◦ Crucial events: toilet training (societies first
attempt to regulate biological urges)
◦ Excessive punishments leads to hostility toward trainer
(mother, women)
◦ Association b/t genitals and anxiety; sexual dysfunction
later
◦ Fixation: stubbornness; cleanliness; orderly;
detail oriented
Psychosexual Stages of Development
 3. Phallic Stage (3 to 5 years)
◦ Genitals become focus for energy; largely through self stimulation
 Parental punishment for masturbation
◦ Oedipal complex: manifest desires for opposite sex parent; hostility
toward same
 Oedipus: killed father and married mother
 Girls develop attachments to father; learn that boys have different
genitals
 Penis Envy: mad at mother for anatomic deficiency
 Little boys view father as competitor for mothers attention/affection
 Castration Anxiety: fear retaliation from father
 Child must resolve dilemma and identify with same sex parent
 Crucial for development of superego; gender roles; sexual
orientation
 4. Latency (5 or 6 – puberty)
◦ Child’s sexuality is suppressed: becomes latent
◦ Expanding social contacts beyond immediate family; playing with
same sex peers
 5. Genital Stage (puberty +)
◦ Sexual urges reappear and focus on genitals
◦ Normally channeled to peers of the same sex (rather than oneself)
Psychosexual Stages of
Development
 Evaluation of Freud’s Theory

 Major contribution to 20th century thought

 Rich theory explaining origins of behaviors and traits;
stimulating research on attachment; gender roles;
morality; and identification
 Implications for toilet training
 Defensive mechanisms based on guilt & anxiety
(repression; displacement; rationalization)
 However, criticized on many grounds
 Developed based on individual contacts with
female
patients with emotional problems
◦ Based on recollections versus childhood
observations
◦ Too much emphasis on sex, instincts, and
unconscious motives
 People are not motivated only by sex &
aggression
but learning, social relationships, conscious
desires.
Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial
Development
 Erikson versus Freud
 Modified Freud’s theory to focus on the development of self-
identity.
 Development results from social relationships versus intra-
psychic
conflict
 Psychosocial Development
◦ Stages are life crises that child experiences at certain
stages.
 Positive resolution sets the stage for resolution of later life
crises
◦ Early experiences exert a continued influence on future
development.
 With proper parental support during early years, most resolve
productively
 Bolsters sense of identity; who they are and what they stand
for; expectation for future success.
◦ Stages of psychosocial development
 Each carries developmental task
 Successful completion depends on child’s social relationships
at each stage
Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial
Development
Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust
Trust vs. Mistrust
◦ Task: trust caregivers and
environment; satisfaction; and
contentment
◦ Infant depends on adults who take care of
basic needs; must be able to trust them
◦ If needs are met: develop secure
attachments; optimistic trusting attitude
◦ If needs are not met: distrusting,
insecure personality
Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and
Doubt
 Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt
◦ Task: develop desire to make choices and gain
self
control
◦ Begin to potty train; regulate child (walking, talking)
◦ Self control & confidence emerge
◦ Child takes responsibility for feeding, dressing, and
bathing
◦ If parents are supportive & reassuring with mistakes:
self-sufficiency, confidence needed to cope with
future events.
◦ If parents are overprotective & never satisfied:
personal shame & self-doubt
Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt
Initiative vs. Guilt
◦ Task: gain initiative; become proactive
◦ Challenge to function socially within the family
◦ Children begin to exercise wills, develop
independence and initiate activities.
◦ Balance between eagerness for adventure &
responsibility and control
◦ If parents encouraging, consistent with discipline:
learn to accept without guilt that some things are
not allowed.
◦ If parents feel children are selfish: instill
guilt about independence; uncertain of doing
things for themselves.
Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority
Industry vs. Inferiority
◦ School is important; child learned to be a
worker & potential provider
◦ Challenge to learn to socially function
beyond family
◦ Pleasure in intellectual stimulation; able to
function outside nurturing environment:
sense of competence
◦ If not: sense of inferiority
The Behavioral Perspective
The Behavioral Perspective
◦ Suggests that the keys to understanding
development are observable behavior and
outside stimuli in the environment
◦ John B. Watson: argued that by
effectively controlling the environment, it was
possible to produce virtually any behavior.
◦ Theories of learning play an integral role in the
study of human development
Learning
◦ A relatively permanent change in behavior or
knowledge that is due to experience.
Classical Conditioning
Also referred to as
Pavlovian Conditioning or
Respondent Conditioning
Form of associative learning
first developed by Ivan Pavlov
Pavlov’s great discovery was that,
through experience, stimuli that
previously had no relation to a specific
reflex could come to trigger the
reflex.
Pavlov’s dogs
 Pavlov’s studies of classical conditioning were
an extension of his research of the process
of digestion
 Discovered by accident. Dogs began to
salivate when they saw the lab technician
who normally fed them (psychic secretions)
 Pavlov predicted that, if a particular stimulus in
the dog’s surroundings was present when the
dog was presented with meat powder, then this
stimulus would become associated with food
and cause salivation on its own
The experiment
Pavlov used bells to call the dogs to
their food and, after a few repetitions,
the dogs started to salivate in
response to the bell.
Thus, a neutral stimulus became a
conditioned stimulus (CS) as a result
of consistent pairing with the
unconditioned stimulus (US).
Pavlov referred to this learned
relationship as a conditional reflex
(now called Conditioned Response).
Classical Conditioning: Key
Phrases
 Unconditioned Stimulus (US) – A stimulus
which elicits a natural and automatic
response (reflexively elicits a response)
 Unconditioned Response (UR) – A
response naturally and reflexively elicited
by an unconditioned stimulus.
 Conditioned Stimulus (CS) – A neutral stimulus
(which does not elicit a natural and automatic
response) which, after conditioning, is able to
elicit a non-reflexive response.
 Conditioned Response (CR) – A response
that, after conditioning, is elicited by a
conditioned stimulus.
 Operant Conditioning
 Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner)
◦ Learning by consequences
◦ Individuals tend to repeat behaviors followed by
favorable
consequences and not
◦ repeat behaviors followed by undesirable
consequences
◦ Reinforcement – providing stimuli following a response
 increase
Operant
to frequency Terminology
Conditioning
 Positive Reinforcer: increase behavior when
applied
◦ Extinction
Negative– Reinforcer:
cessation of response
increaseperformed
behavior when
in the absence
reinforcement
of removed
◦ Punishment – providing stimuli following a response to
frequency
decrease
 Often undesirable due to adverse side effects
◦ Shaping – procedure for teaching complex behavior
reinforcing
by small steps toward target behavior.
Positive vs. Negative
Reinforcement
Negative Reinforcement vs.
Punishment