Chapter 8 Overview

1. Chapter 8 Overview • Theories of development • Prenatal development • Infancy • Early and middle childhood • Adolescence • Early and middle adulthood • Later adulthood

2. Theories of Development • Developmental psychology • The study of how humans grow, develop, and change throughout the life span

3. What did Piaget find regarding stages of cognitive development? • During the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years),infants gain an understanding of the world through their senses and motor activities • Infants act on objects and events that are directly perceived • Major achievement of this stage is object permanence • The realization that objects continue to exist when they can no longer be perceived

4. What did Piaget find regarding stages of cognitive development? • During the preoperational stage (age 2-7), children acquire symbolic function • Understanding that one thing can stand for another • During this stage, children exhibit egocentrism • Belief that everyone sees what they see, thinks what they think, etc.

5. What did Piaget find regarding stages of cognitive development? • In the concrete operational stage (7 to11 or 12 years), children acquire the concept of conservation • Understanding that a given quantity of matter stays the same despite rearrangement or change in its appearance, as long as nothing is added or taken away • Conservation develops because children begin to understand reversibility • Realizing that any change in the shape, position, or order of matter can be reversed mentally

6. What did Piaget find regarding stages of cognitive development? • In the formal operational stage (age 11 or 12 years and beyond) preadolescents and adolescents acquire the capacity for hypothetico-deductive thinking • The ability to apply logical thought to abstract and hypothetical situations in the past, present, and future

7. What did Kohlberg claim about the development of moral reasoning? • Lawrence Kohlberg proposed a stage theory of moral development • He presented moral dilemmas to research participants and analyzed the moral reasoning that they described • He classified moral reasoning into three levels, with each level having two stages • People progress through the levels and stages in a fixed order • Each level has a prerequisite stage of cognitive development

8. What did Kohlberg claim about the development of moral reasoning? • Preconventional level • Lowest level of moral development • “Right” is whatever gains a reward or avoids punishment • Conventional level • Right and wrong are based on the internalized standards of others • “Right” is whatever is approved by others or is consistent with the laws of society • Postconventional level • Highest level of moral reasoning • “Right” is whatever furthers basic human rights

9. How does Erickson’s theory describe the process of psychosocial development? • Basic trust vs. basic mistrust • Birth to 1 year • Autonomy vs. shame and doubt • 1 to 3 years • Initiative vs. guilt • 3 to 6 years • Industry vs. inferiority • 6 years to puberty

10. How does Erickson’s theory describe the process of psychosocial development? • Identity vs. role confusion • Adolescence • Intimacy vs. isolation • Young adulthood • Generativity vs. stagnation • Middle adulthood • Ego integrity vs. despair • Late adulthood

11. Prenatal Development • The development from conception to birth

12. What happens during each of the three stages of prenatal development? • Period of the zygote • Zygote attaches to the uterine lining • Ends 1 to 2 weeks after conception • Period of the embryo • Major systems, organs, and structures of the body develop • Ends when bone cells appear, 3 to 8 weeks after conception • Period of the fetus • Rapid growth and development of body structures, organs, and systems • 9 weeks after conception until birth

13. Infancy • A neonate, a newborn infant up to one month old, comes equipped with an impressive range of reflexes, built-in responses to certain stimuli that they need to ensure survival in their new world

14. How do infants’ perceptual and motorabilities change over the first 18 months of life?

15. Temperament • A person’s behavioral style or characteristic way of responding to the environment

16. How does temperament shape infants’ behavior? • Thomas, Chess, and Birch (1970) identified three general types of temperament • Easy • Have pleasant moods, approach new people and situations positively • Difficult • Have generally unpleasant moods, react negatively to new people and situations • Slow-to-warm-up • Tend to withdraw, are slow to adapt, somewhat negative in mood • Infant temperament is strongly influenced by heredity and is somewhat predictive of personality later in life

17. How do the four attachment patterns identified in infants differ? • Attachment is the strong affectionate bond a child forms with the mother or primary caregiver • Harry Harlow found that contact comfort forms the basis of attachment in rhesus monkeys • Human infants exhibit separation anxiety and stranger anxiety once attachment has formed, at about 6 to 8 months of age

18. How do the four attachment patterns identified in infants differ? • Secure attachment • About 65% of infants • Use mother as a secure base for exploring • Distressed by separation from caregivers, greet caregivers when they return • More cooperative and content than other infants • Display better social skills as preschool children • Avoidant attachment • About 20% of infants • Not responsive to mother, not troubled when she leaves • May actively avoid contact with mother after separation

19. How do the four attachment patterns identified in infants differ? • Resistant attachment • 10 to 15% of infants • Seek close contact with mother, and tend not to branch out and explore • After separation, may display anger toward mother; not easily comforted • Disorganized/disoriented attachment • 5 to 10% of infants • Protest separation, but exhibit contradictory and disoriented behavior when reunited

20. Early and Middle Childhood • Mastery of language, both spoken and written, is just one of several important developmental processes that happen in early and middle childhood.

21. What are the milestones of language development, and how do various theorists explain them? • Babbling • Vocalization of basic speech sounds, which begins between 4 and 6 months • One-word stage • First words spoken at about 1 year • First words usually represent objects that move or that infants can act on • Two-word stage • Usually begins about 18-20 months

22. What are the milestones of language development, and how do various theorists explain them? • Telegraphic speech • Between 2 and 3 years, children start using short sentences that contain only essential content words • Children follow grammatical rules in their speech, as indicated by overregularization • Misapplying a grammatical rule, such as adding “ed” to form a past tense • Children say “goed”, comed”, “doed”, etc.

23. What outcomes are often associated with the three parenting styles identified by Baumrind? • Authoritarian parents • Make arbitrary rules, expect unquestioning obedience, punish transgressions • Authoritative parents • Set high but realistic standards, reason with the child, enforce limits, and encourage open communication and independence • Permissive parents • Make few rules or demands, allow children to make their own decisions and control their own behavior

24. What outcomes are often associated with the three parenting styles identified by Baumrind? • Children with authoritative parents • tend to be happier and have higher self-esteem, and be more self-reliant, socially competent, and responsible than their peers • Children with authoritarian parents • tend to be withdrawn, anxious, and unhappy • Children with permissive parents • tend to be the most immature, impulsive, and dependent, and the least self-reliant and self-controlled

25. How do social learning, cognitive developmental, and gender-schema theorists explain gender role development? • Social learning theory • Gender role development results from modeling and reinforcement • Cognitive developmental theory • Development occurs in stages marked by increasingly sophisticated reasoning about the permanence of gender • Gender-schema theory • Children acquire schemas for maleness and femaleness from their culture and use them to process information about gender

26. Adolescence • The developmental stage that begins at puberty and encompasses the period from the end of childhood to the beginning of adulthood

27. How does puberty influence adolescents’ self-concepts and behavior? • A period of rapid physical growth and change that culminates in sexual maturity • Puberty and self-concept • Early maturation in boys is associated with higher self-esteem • But may also be associated with greater aggression and hostility • Early maturation in girls is associated with higher risk of eating disorders, earlier sexual experiences, more unwanted pregnancies, and earlier exposure to alcohol and drug use

28. How does puberty influence adolescents’ self-concepts and behavior? • Incidence of sexual activity increases dramatically through teen years • Factors associated with later onset of sexual activity include • Living with both biological parents • Higher academic achievement • Involvement in sports • Frequent attendance of religious services

29. What are the neurological and psychosocial characteristics of emerging adulthood? • Neuroimaging studies indicate that parts of the brain involved in decision making and self control mature between the late teens and early twenties • Jeffrey Arnett has proposed that this age-range is a unique developmental period, which he calls emerging adulthood • A period when individuals explore options and develop new skills in work and romantic domains before committing to adult roles

30. Early and Middle Adulthood • Early adulthood • Ages 20 to 45 or 45 • Middle adulthood • Ages 40 or 45 to 65 • Late adulthood • After age 65 or 70

31. What are two themes of social development in early and middle adulthood? • Establishment of an intimate partnership • Majority of adults marry and have children • But they do so at later ages today than in past generations • Career development • Job satisfaction is strongly related to satisfaction with other aspects of life, such as romantic relationships

32. Later Adulthood • The life expectancy in the United States has increased from 49 to 76 years from the beginning to the end of the 20th century • People older than age 65 constitute about 15% of the U.S. population

33. How does the body change in the later adult years? • General slowing, the reduction in the speed of neural transmission leading to a slowing of physical and mental functions • Decline in sensory capacity • Development of chronic conditions such as arthritis, heart disease, high blood pressure • But, physical exercise can improve strength and mobility in older adults

34. What happens to cognitive ability in later adulthood? • Crystallized intelligence tends to increase over the lifespan • Verbal ability and accumulated knowledge • Fluid intelligence peaks in early 20s and declines slowly as people age • Reasoning and mental flexibility

35. What are some of the adjustment challenges in the social lives of older adults? • Retirement • Loss of a spouse • Altered living arrangements • Most older adults cope with these adjustments and maintain a sense of life satisfaction

36. What are the components of successful aging? • Maintaining one’s physical health, mental abilities, social competence, and overall satisfaction with life • An optimistic outlook • Eating a healthy diet • Staying active cognitively and socially