DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Developmental Psychology
Definition: The scientific study of biological, cognitive, social, and personality development throughout the life span Child Labor Slumdog Children of Mumbai

Developmental Psychology
Discussion Questions Do you think the children in these videos are missing any important parts of life? If so, what are they missing out on? What do you think the psychological impact of missing out on childhood has on these children? Putting aside money and status, do you think the children in these videos are any different from you at their age?

Developmental Psychology
Chapter 4

Human Growth and Behavior (4.1)

Cognitive Development (4.4) Emotional Development (4.5) Parenting (4.6)

Six Stages of Growth

Prenatal Conception to Birth

Newborn
Infant Childhood

Birth to 1 month
1 month to 2 years 2 to 12 years

Adolescence
Adulthood

12 to 18 years
18 and over

Note: There are many different theories

Psychology
Prenatal Phase: The mothers physical and emotional health have been shown to affect the baby prior to birth. Development at this stage can be effected by medications, drugs, or diseases. .
Newborn Phase: Newborns learn to cry when the need attention, sleep in cradle, and navigate the outside world. Talking and interacting with newborns in a highly stimulating environment aids in intelligence.

Psychology
Infant Phase: Curiosity grows quickly with each passing month. Walking and language skills are acquired in this phase Childhood Phase: Rapid development of social and cognitive skills. New experiences away from your parents in school aid in your development.

Psychology
Adolescence: Finding your personal identity occupies this stage. Gaining emotional and economic independence as well as approval from peers and family is important.
Adulthood: The ability to care for yourself outside of parental support. The adult is able to take on social and economic demands of their culture.

Developmental Psychology
How do we learn behaviors?
3 Theories of Behavior Development 1. Behavior-Learning Theory 2. Evolved-Primate Theory 3. Psychodynamic

Psychology
Behavioral Learning Theory:
What do we remember about behaviorism?

But what if we could condition learned behaviors? Rather than just innate behaviors?
Example

Developmental Psychology
Evolved-Primate Theory:
Named because of the strong belief in biological inheritance. (Nature Vs. Nurture)
We are born with certain innate abilities that MUST be fostered by the appropriate time or we lose them. Examples: Language Acquisition Athletic Abilities

Developmental Psychology
Psychodynamic Theory:
Children develop out of the interaction between ones inner needs and the demands of the environment.
Based on the findings and theory of Sigmund Freud. Healthy development occurs when our needs are met and then shaped by our culture. Example: Need for acceptance

Developmental Psychology
Genie:
What happens when our developmental and emotional needs are not met? What would happen if we were not properly cared for by our parents and/or guardians? Case Study: Genie

Theories of Lifespan Development

Cognitive Development

How we think How we learn/reason between right and wrong How we react to others in society

Moral Development

Social Development

Theories of Lifespan Development

Cognitive

Development

What happens to objects when they disappear from sight? Will mommy come when I cry? What was that loud noise?

Theories of Lifespan Development

Enter:

Jean Piaget

Born in Switzerland during the late 1800s he published his 1st paper at the age of 10! Believed that a child could not master a new intellectual concept before he or she reached the correct stage of maturation, knowledge can not be separated from biology. Conducted experiments on his own children.

Theories of Lifespan Development

1. 2. 3. 4.

Piaget Created 4 stages of Cognitive Development:

Sensory Motor Stage Preoperational Stage Concrete Operations Stage Formal Operations Stage

Piagets Cognitive Development

Sensory

Motor Stage

Birth 2 years old

They begin to distinguish themselves as a human being, different from the objects around them.
Sucking, reaching, grasping, some language.

Object Performance Video Examples

No Object Performance

No Object Performance Object Performance

Piagets Cognitive Development

Preoperational Stage

Age 2 Age 7

Whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine

Children learn that language can control what they want

Their thought process is illogical. Why do flowers grow? Where do babys come from? Santa Clause
Unable to understand another persons point of view (egocentrism) Egocentrism

Piagets Cognitive Development

Concrete

Operations Stage

Age 7 to age 11

Grouping (schemas, assimilations, accommodation)

Conservation (video examples)

Piagets Cognitive Development

Formal Age

Operations Stage

11 and 12

Begin
At

to understand political, moral, and other abstract thoughts

this stage all people should have mastered all the basic cognitive skills he/she will need (application remains)

Theories of Lifespan Development

Language Mastery

If you dont use it you lose it

Speech sounds (45 in English)

Vocabulary (10k words) Grammar (how to put words together)

Social Development
Theory of Mind: An understanding that people have mental states such as desires, beliefs, and intentions and that these mental states guide their behavior. False Belief Task

Social Development
Mind Blindness- in a recent study, 80% of children with Autism failed the Theory Of Mind (TOM) test. Failing the TOM test results in a person suffering from what is known as Mind Blindness, or not understanding why people behave certain ways. Want to know more? Google: Temple Grandin: College professor who explains this concept from experience.

Social Development
Children who master Theory of Mind skills have more advanced social skills and better social judgment than those who havent. They can understand that other people may have other points of view and emotional responses to the same situations.

Social Development
Describing Other People: Children younger than 7 or 8:
Describe Nice,

people using physical attributes. (nose, mouth, skin color) Mean, Good, Bad (can change moment to moment)

Social Development
Describing Other People: Children about 8 or 9
Getting

to know the person below the surface. (Shes funny and friendly to everyone. Shes in the gifted program because shes smart) to see differences between behaviors and motives

Starting

Social Development
Describing Other People: Adolescents: May spend hours thinking about what makes certain people tick. If they see peoples actions and personalities mismatching they may be confused about why a person acts the way they do. People begin to see how different personality traits fit together and we relate to people on a deeper level.

Social Development
Role Taking Skills: Once we establish Theory of Mind we can learn appropriate behaviors for the many roles we have.
Student

Friend
Male Female

Moral and Emotional Development (4.5)

So far we have talked about physical growth and intellectual growth. But what about the way we react to situations? What about our emotions?

Moral and Emotional Development

Emotions: a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others

Example: Mary is playing in the yard when her mother calls her inside to take a nap, she then throws a temper tantrum.

Moral and Emotional Development

Your

mind and body interact together during an emotional experience.

Clench

your fists, tighten your muscles, shorten your breath and then try to relax.

Although

instinctive, can be controlled by the conscious mind.(saving a friend)

Moral and Emotional Development

Page

120 the tree of feelings

development over 2

Emotional

years.

Ranges

from happy and sad to numerous feelings.

Moral and Emotional Development

Moral

development is looking at the development of Moral Reasoning: The thinking process in deciding whether an act is right or wrong mutual give and take by both people in a human relationship Development progresses through a series of different stages. Once you begin a new stage you do not go back.

Reciprocity: Moral

Moral and Emotional Development

Jean Piaget: John accidently knocked over a tray of 15 cups when coming to dinner when his mother told him to. Henry was sneaking some cookies before bed and accidently broke a single cup from the cabinet. Which child is naughtier and why?

Moral and Emotional Development

Premoral Period: Pre school aged children have little awareness of rules and cannot be considered moral. Heteronomous Period: 6-10 years old Rules are unalterable and breaking a rule is weighted by the amount of damage done, not the intentions of the culprit.

Moral and Emotional Development

Autonomous Morality: 10-11 years old people begin to understand that rules are agreements between people, agreements that can be changed. Intentions begin to matter not just results.

Moral and Emotional Development

In Europe, a woman was near death from cancer. 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, ten times what the drug cost him to make. The sick womans husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, No. The husband got desperate and broke into the mans store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband have done that? Why?

Moral and Emotional Development

Pavlov

taught us that we can look at animal behavior as a comparison to human behavior and created what is now known as behaviorism. what about morality? Can we learn anything about morals from the animal kingdom? In class we said that morals are based on society, religion, laws, etcBut what about morals that are innate? Do they exist or is morality a learned behavior?

But

Video

Parenting Styles
Authoritative vs Authoritarian Permissive

Parenting Styles
Authoritarian Parents are demanding, expect unquestioned obedience, are not responsive to their childrens desires, and communicate poorly with their children
Authoritative Parents are demanding but set rational limits for their children and communicate well with their children Permissive Parents make few demands and are overly responsive to their childs desires, letting their children do pretty much as they please Parents minimize both the time they spend with the children and their emotional involvement with them, doing little more than providing for basic needs

Uninvolved

Parenting Styles
An authoritative parenting style seems to have the most positive effect on cognitive and social development
o

Children are the most independent, happy, self-reliant, and academically successful of the four parenting styles

Parenting Styles
Things Children Need to Ensure Proper Development: Love and Affection Proper Nutrition Sensory Stimulation Consistent Discipline Motivation

Parenting Styles
Love and Affection
Nurturing building warm, affectionate parent-child relationships through love and affection. Infant: cuddling, kissing, kind words, frequent contact Child: frequent contact, hugging, verbal encouragement,

The child should spend a substantial amount of time with someone whos crazy about them

Parenting Styles
Adequate Diet:
Proper nutrition begins at the time of conception. Soon to be mothers need to ensure that they are getting enough calories and nutrients to help the baby properly develop. IQ scores can be directly influenced by carrying mothers diet. Any deficiencies caused by lack of nutrition as an infant can never be fully reversed as a child grows. What is proper nutrition? Obesity rates in America: 37% - 8th highest in the world.

Parenting Styles
Sensory Stimulation:
Activating one of your senses
It is of most importance to allow children to PLAY. They must experiment, explore, and attempt tasks that stimulate different senses and force them to figure things out on their own. Harvard Study on page 124

Parenting Styles
Consistent Discipline
A proper balance between allowing a child to do something and restricting a child from doing something.

6 rules of Discipline: (p125) 1. Fit the discipline to the childs maturity level 2. Consistent discipline 3. Physical discipline only in moderation 4. Make sure the child understands the reason for discipline 5. Reward GOOD behavior 6. Both adults raising the child should share discipline duties

Parenting Styles
Motivation:
Story of failure and letting Dad fix the problem. (126)
Self-fulfilling prophecy: When false beliefs or expectations become a reality because people believe them enough.

4 Positive messages from parents:

1. Learning is important 2. Encourage children to speak freely about their experiences and feelings 3. Express a warm interest in their child's accomplishments 4. Do not expect their children to achieve more than they are capable of