Infancy & Childhood

Infancy & Childhood Chapter 8

Objectives • Describe the processes of intellectual development and Piaget’s theory • Discuss the development of language • Compare the theories of social development • Summarize the cognitive-development theory and Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning

Key Terms • Accommodation • Anal stage • Assimilation • Conservation • Critical Period • Developmental psychology • Electra complex • Genital stage • Grasping reflex • Identification • Imprinting • Latency stage • Maturation • Object permanence • Oedipal conflict • Oral stage • Phallic stage • Representational thought • Role taking • Rooting reflex • Schemas • Separation anxiety • Socialization • Sublimation • Telegraphic speech

Developmental Psych • Questions developmental psychologists seek to answer: • What does the newborn know? • How does the infant respond in the early years of life? • How do we learn to walk and talk, to think and feel? • How do we develop our unique personalities?

Developmental Psychology • Developmental psychology: the study of the changes that occur as people grow up and grow older. • Covers the entire life cycle from conception to death

The Beginning of Life • Development begins long before an infant is born. Expectant mothers can feel strong movement and kicking -even hiccuping- inside them during the later stages of pregnancy. • Birth puts new demands on a baby’s capacity to adapt and survive. • Baby goes from environment of extreme protection (inside the womb) to one in which they are incredibly unfamiliar with (lights, sounds, extreme temp. changes).

Developmental Psychology • Newborn is capable of certain inherited, automatic, coordinated movement patternscalled reflexes • Grasping reflex: a response to a touch on the palm of the hand • Infants can grasp an object, such as a finger, so strongly that they can be lifted into the air • Rooting reflex: when touched near the mouth, babies automatically turn to the source of the contact • Helps ensure successful breast feeding

The Maturation Process • Maturation: Internally programmed growth • Is as important as learning or experience, especially in the first years • Unless child is underfed, severely restricted in movements, or deprived of human contact and thing to look at, child will develop more or less according to schedule.

The Maturation Process • Unless something is wrong with an infant . . . • 3 months – lift head • 4 months – smile • 5-6 months – grasp objects • 8-10 months – crawling (can pull themselves up) • 13+ months - begin to walk • Parents shouldn’t try to push their children to master new skills. Child hasn’t reached maturation readiness.

The Maturation Process • Maturation readiness was tested in an experiment with identical twins (Gesel and Thompson, 1929). • Gave one child special training in climbing stairs, building blocks, etc. • Other child caught up and had same skills in a short amount of time w/ much less practice – why?

The Maturation Process • By studying thousands of infants, developmental psychologists have come up with an approximate schedule for infant maturation (Fig 8.4 in Ch. 8 – pg. 187). • Important to remember that each child is unique – maturation schedule is approximate, but it gives us a pretty good idea of where infants should be.

Learning/Intellectual Development • Learning is an important part of the process of growing up. • Maturation and learning work together in the development of intellect, language, love and morality. • Intellectual development involves quantitative changes (growth in the amount of information) as well as qualitative changes (differences in the manner of thinking).

Jean Piaget: How Knowing Changes Understanding the world involves the construction of schemas, or plans for knowing. In the process of assimilation, we try to fit the world into our schemas. In the process of accommodation, we change our schema to fit the characteristics of the world.

Object Permanence • A baby’s understanding of things lies totally in the here and now. • If they have a toy, the sight of it and the way it feels in their hands are all they know. • Object permanence – the reality that things exist even though we cannot see or touch them (occurs around 12-18 months) • HUGE step in intellectual development – go from a stage where children believe their own actions create the world, to a stage where they realize that people and objects are independent of their actions

Representational Thought • The achievement of object permanence suggests that a child has begun to engage in what Piaget calls representational thought. • Representational thought – children can picture or represent things in their mind (symbols) • Ex: temper tantrum • Representational thought is the gateway to language.

The Principle of Conservation • More complex intellectual abilities emerge as the infant grows in to childhood. • Conservation – the principle that a given quantity does not change when it’s appearance is changed • Happens between the ages 5-7

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Stage 1: Sensorimotor Stage (birth – 2 years) • Thinking is displayed in action, such as the grasping, sucking or looking schemas. Child gradually learns to discover the location of hidden objects, when the concept of object permanence is understood.

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Stage 2: Preoperational Stage (2-6 years) • Beginning of symbolic representation. Language first appears; child begins to draw pictures that represent things. Child cannot represent a series of actions in his or her head in order to solve problems. • Egocentrism – preoccupation with one’s internal world, inability to see other’s viewpoints • Ex: breaking/taking a toy, language

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Stage 3: Concrete Operational Stage (6-12 years) • Ability to understand conservation problems. Ability to think of several dimensions or features at the same time. Child can now do elementary math problems, such as judging the quantity of liquid containers and checking addition of numbers by subtraction (reversibility).

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Stage 4: Formal Operational Stage (12 years – adulthood) • Thinking becomes more abstract and hypothetical. The individual can consider many alternative solutions to a problem, make deductions, contemplate the future, and formulate personal ideals and values.

Emotional Development • As children develop, they begin to become attached to specific people. In most cases, the child’s first relationship is with their mother. • Konrad Lorenz • Imprinting: a social learning capacity in some species by which attachments are formed to other organisms or to objects very early in life • Geese experiment • Critical period – 13-16 hours after birth, deep impression that resists change

Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development • Freud believed that all children are born with powerful sexual and aggressive urges that must be tamed. • In learning to control these impulses, children acquire a sense of right and wrong – they become “civilized”.

Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development • In the first few years of life, boys and girls have similar experiences. • Erotic pleasures through breast feeding • Oral stage – weaning away from breastfeeding is a period of frustration/conflict – child’s first experience with not getting what they want • Anal stage – children associate erotic pleasure w/ anus • Child enjoys holding in or pushing out feces until he/she is required, through toilet training, to curb this freedom and learn social control

Freud • Major conflict comes between the ages of 3-5, when children discover the pleasure they obtain from their genitals • Become extremely aware of the differences between boys/girls • Phallic stage – child becomes a rival for the affections of the parent of the opposite sex • Boy in hostile conflict with father, girl shuts out her mother • TAKES PLACE ON UNCONSCIOUS LEVEL

Freud • Freud called this crisis the Oedipal conflict • Read pg. 207 • Identification – the process by which a child adopts the values and principles of the same-sex parent

Freud • Electra Complex – daughter finds herself sexually attracted to her father, while having extreme hostility towards her mother. The daughter identifies with her mother to reduce punishment. • Penis envy – to make up for her “deficiency” of not having a penis, sets her sight on marrying a man like her father, wishes to have babies

Freud • Latency stage – age 5 – sexual desires are pushed to the background, children become involved in learning new skills/exploring the world • Genital stage – reach at adolescence, one derives as much satisfaction on giving pleasure as receiving it

Freud • How do you feel about his psychosexual theory of development?

Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development • Erik Erikson – Theory of Psychosocial Dev. • Took a much broader view of human development (as opposed to Freud) • Recognizes the sexual and aggressive urges, but believes that the need for social approval is just as important • Erikson believes that childhood experiences have a lasting impact on the individual • Views development as a lifelong process

Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development • Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust – Ages 0-1 • Important Event: Feeding • If an infant is well cared for, he/she will develop faith in the future. However, if he/she experiences too much uncertainty about being taken care of, she will come to look the world with fear and suspicion.

Erikson • Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Doubt - Ages 2-3 • Important event: Toilet Training • Here the child learns self-control and self-assertion. If the child receives too much criticism, the child will be ashamed of themselves and have doubts about independence.

Erikson • Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt – Ages 4-5 • Important event: Exploration • When the child begins to make her own decisions, constant discouragement or punishment could lead to guilt and a loss of initiative.

Erikson • Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority – Ages 5-Puberty • Important event: School • The child masters new skills and takes pride in his competence. However, too much criticism of his work at this stage can lead to long-term feelings of inferiority.

Erikson • Stage 5: Identity vs. Role Confusion – Adolescence • Important event: Social relationships (friends) • The teenager tries to develop her own separate identity while “fitting in” with their friends. Failure to do so results in confusion over who you are as a person.

Erikson • Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation – Early Adulthood • Important event: Intimate relationships • A person secure in their own identity can proceed to an intimate partnership that involves mutual compromise. The isolated person may have many affairs or even a long-term relationship, but will always avoid true closeness.

Erikson • Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation – Middle Age • Important event: Work and parenthood • A person who becomes stagnant is absorbed in his/herself and tries to hang onto the past. Generativity involves a productive life which will serve as an example to the next generation.

Erikson • Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair – Late Adulthood • Important event: Reflection on life • Some people look back on life with a sense of satisfaction and feelings of wisdom. Others face death with regrets, bitterness, and despair.

Kohlberg and Moral Development • Kohlberg set out to study the development of moral reasoning (what is right and what is wrong). • His studies showed that being able to see other people’s points of view is incredibly important to social AND moral development.

Kohlberg and Moral Development • In Europe, a woman was near death from a disease. One drug might save her; a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The druggist was charging $2,000, which is ten times what the drug cost to make. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get about half of it. 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”. The husband got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that? Why?

Kohlberg & Moral Development • At every age, some children said that the man should steal, while others said that he should not. • The answers interested Kohlberg. More specifically, he wanted to know how the children came to this conclusions. What was their reasoning?

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development • After questioning 84 children, Kohlberg identified SIX stages of moral development: • Stage 1: Children are generally egocentric. • Do not consider other people’s points of view • No sense of right and wrong • Main concern is avoiding punishment • Children here will say: • Yes, because people will blame you for wife’s death. • No, because he might go to prison.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development • Stage 2: Children can work the system to receive awards, avoid punishment. • Interpret the Golden Rule as: “Help someone if they help you, and hurt them if they hurt you”. • Evaluate acts in term of consequence, NOT right and wrong.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development • Stage 3: Children become acutely sensitive to what other people want and think. • Children here will say: • Yes, because you’re cruel if you let your wife die. • No, because people will think you’re a criminal. • Children want social approval so they follow rules!

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development • Stage 4: People are less concerned with the approval of others. • KEY issue here is law and order; law is a moral rule and is obeyed because of a strong belief in established authority. • May stay in this stage for the rest of your life.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development • Stage 5: Person is primarily concerned with whether a law is fair or just. • Believes that laws must change as the world changes; laws are NOT absolute. • People question whether or not a law is good for society as a whole.

Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development • Stage 6: Involves acceptance of ethical principles that apply to everyone; the Golden Rule. • Moral laws CANNOT be broken; they are more important than written law.

Infancy & Childhood