SOSC1960

Discovering Mind and Behavior

Lecture 9
Development

Developmental psychology is the scientific

study of the patterns of growth and
change throughout life

Psychosocial development
Cognitive development

Psychosocial development

Development of an individuals interactions

and understanding of each other and of their
knowledge and understanding of themselves
as members of society

Attachment

Attachment is an emotional bond or tie to

the caregiver (Bowlby, 1969)

The child can use the caregiver as a safe base

from which he/she derives _______________

The ability to make strong emotional

bonds is innate because it ensures survival

Phase 1: Non-focused orienting and

signaling (0-3 months)

Exhibition of an innate set of behaviors to

everyone they come across with to signal
needs

Phase 2: Focus on one or more figures

(3 6 months)

Signals directed to ____________ figures

Smiles more at people who regularly care for them

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Phase 3: Secure base behavior (6 24

months)

Proximity seeking behaviors directed at the

primary caregiver especially when they are
_________________________

Phase 4: Internal model (24 months and

beyond)

Child can imagine how her behavior would

affect the bonds with her caregiver
Attachment with the primary caregiver forms
the basis of subsequent interpersonal
relationship

Characteristics of attachment

The 4 phases appear in a fixed sequence that

naturally unfold with age (i.e. ____________)

The first 2 years constitute a ___________

period for attachment in human infants

Characteristics of attachment

The most essential component in attachment

formation is ________________

The opportunity for parent and infant to develop a

mutual, interlocking pattern of attachment behaviors

Characteristics of attachment

Harlows surrogate mother study

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Characteristics of attachment

Attachment is more than fulfilling physical

needs, it provides a _________________

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Attachment Behaviors

___________ anxiety

Expressions of discomfort in the presence of

strangers

____________ anxiety

Expressions of discomfort when separated

from the caregiver

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Social ________________

An infants use of the caregivers facial

expressions as a guide to his/her own
emotions

Joseph Campos of UC Berkeley's Visual Cliff

experiment shows that young children look for
cues and clues from others to determine how
to proceed in uncertain circumstances.

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Mary Ainsworths Strange Situation

A widely used measure to assess the quality of

attachment
Strange situation: a procedure involving
several brief episodes during which
experimenters observe a babys responses to
strangers, separation from mother, and
reunion with mother

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1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Baby plays with toys while mother is present

Stranger enters
Mother leaves
Stranger tries to interact with baby
Mother returns, first union, and stranger leaves
Mother leaves
Stranger returns
Mother returns, second union
Strange situation (Ainsworth et al., 1978)

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Secure Attachment
Child easily become absorbed in exploration
When threatened or frightened, child seeks
comfort and contact from caregiver and is
readily consoled
Upon reunion, child greets the parent
positively or easily soothed if upset
The child prefers the parent to stranger

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Insecure Attachment
_______________ attachment

Avoid contact with caregiver, especially at

reunion

When offered a choice, these children will

show no preference between a caregiver and a
complete stranger.

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Insecure Attachment
______________ attachment

Little exploration; clingy to the parent

Extreme separation anxiety in the absence of
the parent, but not reassured by parents
return or comfort

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Insecure Attachment
_____________ attachment

Seem dazed, confused, apprehensive

Terrified by the situation
Contradictory behavioral pattern

Approaching the parent but gaze averted

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What determines the quality of

attachment?

Synchrony: Quality of parent-infant

interactions

______________________

Is the parent emotionally available and willing to

form emotional attachment to the infant

_______________________

Sensitive to the infants cue and respond

appropriately

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Avoidant attachment

Ambivalent attachment

The parent rejects the infant or withdraw from

contact or
The parent is overly intrusive or overly stimulating

The parent is inconsistent or unreliably available

Disorganized attachment

Abusive parents

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Does attachment change over time?

Attachment with parents provides an

_____________________________ of
how the world works

Early emotional attachment shapes subsequent

interpersonal relationship
Attachment style is relatively stable

Major upheavals can alter attachment

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What is your attachment style in intimate

relationship?

Relationship Scale Questionnaire (RSQ; Griffin

& Bartholomew, 1994)

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Scoring
Reverse scoring

1
2
3
4
5

=
=
=
=
=

5
4
3
2
1

The domain with the highest score

indicates your attachment style with your
intimate partner
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Adult Attachment with Intimate Partners

Secure attachment

Positive view of themselves and partners

Feel emotionally close to the partner
Feel comfortable both with intimacy and
independence

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Dismissive-avoidant attachment (avoidant

attachment)

Attempt to avoid intimate relationship

Self-sufficient/ desire a high level of
independence

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Anxious-preoccupied attachment
(ambivalent attachment)

Seek high levels of intimacy from their partner

Become overly dependent on their partner
(clinginess)
Distressful when being abandoned

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Fearful-avoidant attachment (disorganized

attachment)

Mixed feeling: desire to have emotionally close

relationships but feel uncomfortable with
emotional closeness
Lack of trust in partner
Seek less intimacy and frequently suppress or
hide feelings

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Individuals with secure attachment have

greater satisfaction and longer-lasting
intimate relationship

Trust
Intimacy

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Out of the conflict between trust and

mistrust, the infant develops hope, which
is the earliest form of what gradually
becomes faith in adults Erik Erikson
(1983)

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Cognitive Development

The process by which a childs understanding

of the world changes as a function of age and
experience

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Piagets Cognitive Development Theory

Schema

Beliefs, cognitions, and ideas about things

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_________________

_________________

Process of using schemes to make

sense of experiences

Changing a scheme to incorporate new

information
We refine our skills and knowledge

_________________

Balancing assimilation and accommodation

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Piagets Cognitive development Theory

From action-, physical reality-based thinking

to abstract, symbol-based thinking

1.

4.

Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years)

Preoperational stage (2-7 years)
Concrete operations stage (7-12 years)
Formal operations stage (12 years-adulthood)

Operations: mentally acting on objects

2.
3.

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1.

Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years old)

Infants acquire knowledge of the world from

the ______________________they perform
on the environment
Infants progresses from reflexive actions at
birth to the emergence of symbolic thoughts
toward the end

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Reflexes (birth-1 month)

Automatic body reactions to specific

simulation
Some reflexes persist into adulthood (e.g.,
eye-blink reflex, pupillary reflex)
Some reflexes disappear gradually in the first
year of life

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________reflex
_________ reflex

__________ reflex

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Reflexes (birth-1 month)

Some reflexes are essential to the infants

survival
Some reflexes are important to development
of later voluntary movements

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Circular reactions

Experimentation with body and the outer world

based on trial-and-error learning
Means-end behavior

The understanding that behavior can lead to certain

outcomes

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Circular reactions

1-4 months: primary circular reactions

4-12 months: secondary circular reactions

Discover body actions by accident, repeat them until

they become habits
Repeat some actions in order to trigger a reaction in
the environment

12-18 months: tertiary circular reactions

Try to produce novel reactions with variations of

previous actions

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Object permanence

The understanding
that objects
continue to exist
even when they
cannot be seen,
heard, or touched

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Until the age of about 9 months, children

will make no attempt to locate hidden
toys
Soon after that age they will actively
search for hidden objects

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Infants use information from

their senses and motor actions
to learn about the world

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2. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)

During this stage, the child learns to use and to
represent objects by symbols (e.g., images,
words, and drawings)

Preoperational thought is still illogical

Egocentricism
Centration
Inrreversibility

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________________

The belief that everyone sees and

experiences the world the way he/she does
Inability to take the perspective of others

Piagets Three Mountains Task

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Gzesh & Surber (1985)

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Centration

Childs tendency to think of the world in terms

of one variable at a time

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____________________

The inability to mentally reverse actions or

ideas

Inability to solve conservation tasks due

to centration and irreversibility

Conservation: the understanding that

quantity is unrelated to arrangement or
appearance of objects

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Increased proficiency in the use of symbols

but still have difficulty thinking logically

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3.

Concrete operations stage (7-12 years)

Elimination of egocentrism
Development of a set of powerful, abstract
concrete operations critical to logical thinking

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Operations

Conservation: understanding that quantity is

unrelated to arrangement or appearance of
objects

Decentration: taking multiple variables into account

Reversibility: mentally undoing a physical or mental

transformation

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Operations

Classification: naming and identifying sets of

objects according to appearance, size or other
characteristic

Transitivity: understanding logical

relationships among elements in a serial order

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Operations

Inductive logic
General principles are inferred from specific
experiences
Operate on reality
Require concrete things and events as
objects of thoughts

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Children are better capable of thinking logically

about objects and events in the real world

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4. Formal operations stage

Individuals move beyond concrete

experiences and begin to think abstractly,
reason logically, and apply these processes to
hypothetical situations

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Systematic problem solving

The ability to search methodically for an

answer
Example: which factor determines the period
of the swinging pendulum:

Length of string
Weight of object
Force of push
Holding the weight at different height

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 Hypothetical-deductive reasoning

The ability to derive conclusions from

hypothetical premises

All men are mortal

You and I are men
(Therefore,) we are mortal

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Criticisms of Piagets theory

Stage changes are not as clear-cut as Piaget

believed
Under-estimation of childrens cognitive ability
Piaget overestimated the cognitive skills of
many adults

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Required readings
Chapter 12

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