Developmen

tal
Psychology
“Nature is all that a man brings with
him into the world; nurture is every
influence that affects him after his
birth”
~Francis Galton
Developmental
Psychologists
The study of mental, physical, and
social changes throughout the human
life cycle.

Developmental psychology looks at

how we change over our lifetime with
our thinking, feeling, and behavior.
Focus of study:
1. Nature/Nurture
2. Continuity/Stages
3. Stability/Change
 Developmental Psychology:
Examines physical, cognitive and social
changes through our life span.

Focus of Study Essential Questions

Nature and Nurture How does experience influence
our behavior? How does our
genetics influence our
behavior?
How do the two influence our
mental processes?
Continuity and Stages Do we develop gradually or in
a series of stages?
Stability and Change Is our personality set in stone
or does it change and evolve
as we age?
Nature vs.
Nurture
 Developmental
psychology looks to
explain how nature and
nurture interact and how
much each one impacts a
person.
 Nature looks at the effects
of heredity and nurture
examines the influence of
environment.
 Twin and adoption
studies are used to
study nature and
nurture.
 Continuity View vs.
Discontinuity View

Continuity View Discontinuity View

• This perspective • This perspective has a
states that change is more abrupt view on
gradual. the changes we go
• As children grow, they
are taller and more through in life. They
intelligent. look at it like steps,
• Think about how you suddenly you move
learned to walk up a level.
• Followers of this look
at kids learning to
read suddenly moving
up the steps.
Developmental Stages
 Developmental stages are different
period of development marked by
distinct transitions in one’s physical
or psychological functioning.
 Example: Prenatal Stage
 Psychologists believe that we
progress through a series of stages
in life.
 These stages may not always occur at
the same moment of time from person
to person, but they do go in the same
order.
Prenatal Stage
 Both environmental and genetic factors
affect our development
 At the beginning of life, the placenta
brings nutrients and oxygen from mother
to fetus.
 It screens out many potentially harmful
substances, but cannot screen out all of them
 Environment
 A Danish study found that men born to
mothers who smoked heavily during
pregnancy were far more likely to be
involved in a violent crime (Brennan,
1999)
Prenatal
 From zygote to birth, the
Development and fetus develops in an orderly
the Newborn sequence of events.
Prenatal Stages of Development

Zygote Embryo Fetus

The egg is The The
fertilized developing developing
A 2-week organism human fetus
period of from 2 weeks from 9 weeks
rapid cell through 2nd after
division month of conception to
occurs pregnancy birth
 Prenatal Stage
 Prenatal Stage: 9-month developmental
period before birth.
 The genetic blueprint is followed,
determining how the baby will look,
forming the organs and body parts, and
helping the baby to grow.
 A fetus is susceptible to teratogens, or
substances from the environment that
enter through the placenta and harm the
developing baby.
 Virus
 Alcohol (FAS – Fetal Alcohol Syndrome)
Fetal Alcohol
Syndrome
Causes of
Infant
Deaths
Infancy and Childhood
 Infancy and childhood occur from birth
to the end of the teenage years.
 Throughout this time, the child grows
physically, cognitively, and socially.

 Infancy: Newborn through Toddler

Years
 Childhood: Preschool through Teens
 INFANCY
 Newborns shortly after being born will
turn their head to look at faces or
pictures.
 Rooting Reflex: Babies open their
mouth and search for the nipple when
their cheek is touched.
 A baby’s temperament or characteristic
of emotional excitability is seen a few
weeks after birth.
Maturation: the biological growth process
that enables orderly changes in behavior.
Example: standing before walking

We organize our memories differently after

we turn 5, so much of our early years are
no longer accessible.
 Socialization
 During infancy, babies engage
in social interaction.
 Synchronicity: close
coordination between the
baby and mother with looking
at each other, vocalizing,
touching and smiling.
 Babies recognize their mother’s
voice and even copy their
mother’s emotion.
 Mimicking
BABIES AND SOME OTHER ANIMALS IMITATE OR MIMIC THE FACE OF
THEIR MOTHER.
 Cognitive Development
•Jean Piaget began a study in 1920 of
children's intelligence and stages of
learning but was surprised and became
fascinated with the wrong answers that
the children made.
• He found similarities between the
children and their answers
•“children reason in wildly illogical
ways about problems whose solutions
are self-evident to adults” ~Brainerd
1996
 Piaget
 Piaget proposed that a child's mind develops through a
series of stages
 They hit various stages starting as a newborn through adulthood
 Schemas: a concept of framework that organizes and
interprets information
 Toddler using their finger to indicate that they want food from the
counter or a baby crying for a bottle.
 Assimilation: interpreting one's new experience in terms
of one's existing schemas
 Accommodation: Adapting your current schemas to bring
in new information.
Examples
Example: A 2-year-old

may call all 4-legged
animals kitties because
of the simple schema
for cat
New experience but old
lesson
By the age of 4 they
may ask for a name of a
new animal that they do
not know the word for
as they make
accommodations
Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive
Development
Stage Description of Age Range
Stage
Sensorimotor Senses and actions like Birth to close to 2 years
looking, touching, and old
grasping, help to form the
experiences of the world.
Preoperational Although they lack logical 2 to 6/7 years
reasoning, they can use
words and images to
represent things. Symbolic
thinking is observed.
Concrete Operational They can think logically 6/7 to 11 years
about concrete events and
perform arithmetical
operations.
Formal Operational Abstract reasoning 12 through Adulthood
develops and thought is
more idealistic.
 Sensorimotor Stage
●
Babies learn about the world through their senses
and motor activities
●
Grasping, touching, looking, hearing, and mouthing objects.
●
Object permanence: Most babies lack the
awareness that things continue to exist even
when not seen.
●
Piaget thought babies (2 and under) did not think.
●
Is there any evidence today to contradict that?
 Preoperational Stage
 Ages 2 to around 6/7 years of age.
 Child learns to use language but does not think
logically yet.
 Children lack the skill of conservation or that properties
like mass and volume stay the same even if the form
changes.
 Egocentrism: in Piaget's theory, the inability of the
preoperational child to take another's point-of-view
Example with a little boy
being interviewed

“Do you have a brother?”

“Yes”
“What's his name?”
“Jim”
“Does Jim have a brother?”
“No!”

How does this example show

egocentrism?
(Hide your eyes, they can't
see me)
 Theory of Mind

PEOPLE'S IDEAS AS THEIR ABILITY WHY IS MY

TO INFER PLAYMATE SAD?
ABOUT THEIR
INTENTIONS,
OWN AND EMOTIONS, AND
OTHER'S MENTAL STATES
MENTAL STATES DEVELOP,
– ABOUT THEIR CHILDREN WILL
SEEK TO
FEELINGS, UNDERSTAND
PERCEPTIONS, OTHERS
AND THOUGHTS
AND THE
BEHAVIOR
THERE MIGHT
PREDICT
  DeLoache (1987) showed that
children as young as 3 years
of age can use mental
Preoperationa operations.
l Stage:  When shown a model of a
dog’s hiding place behind the
Criticism couch, a 2 ½ year-old could
not locate the stuffed dog in
an actual room, but the 3 year
old did.
 Formal Operational Stage

●
Logical thinking about the
abstract
●
Ability to strategize
●
Can deduce consequences
●
Age 12 – adulthood
 Reflecting on Piaget’s Theory
 Piaget’s stage theory has been highly influential
worldwide. However, not all researchers believe in the
stages that he has created for the following reasons.
1. Development is a continuous process, not one
marked by stages.
2. Children express their mental abilities and
operations at an earlier ages than listed.
3. Formal logic is a smaller part of cognition.
 Social Development

 From birth, babies are social

creature seeking out faces
and interaction.
 Based on studies involving
feral children, how can we
substantiate this?
 Infants coo and gurgle when
they hear familiar voices.
 However, when a baby
begins to crawl, a curious
thing happens....
 ● THE FEAR OF STRANGERS
THAT INFANTS COMMONLY
DISPLAY, BEGINNING BY
ABOUT 8 MONTHS OF AGE
● ATTACHMENT: AN EMOTIONAL

Stranger TIE WITH ANOTHER PERSON;

SHOWN IN YOUNG CHILDREN

Anxiety BY THEIR SEEKING CLOSENESS

TO THE CAREGIVER AND
SHOWING DISTRESS ON
SEPARATION
● THEY BECOME DISTRESSED
WHEN SEPARATED
 Cupboard Theory

 Freud convinced most

doctors that young infants
and children only cared
about the breast or the
bottle.
 Cupboard Theory: Infants
become attached to those who
provide the “cupboard”
containing the food supply.
 Disproving Freud
 Harry and Margaret Harlow believed
physical contact was important to child
development.
 They conducted an experiment that used
infant monkeys who had been separated
from their mothers at birth.
 The monkeys had the choice between a
wire monkey that provided milk (a
cupboard), and a cloth covered monkey
that provided only a sense of softness and
warmth.
 Harlow Monkeys
•You saw how the monkeys can be attached to their cloth
mother.
•What happens if they take the cloth mother away?
•Why are they so attached to their cloth mother?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrNBEhzjg8I
 Attachment and Environment

Environment Type of Infant Effects

Parenting Attachment

Unsafe or harsh Unresponsive and Insecure Early sexual

environment inconsistent. attachment maturation and
without proper usually more
resources mating partners.
Safe environment Sensitive and Secure attachment Later sexual
with plenty of responsive maturation with
resources and parenting. quality of mating
emotional partner
attention emphasized.
What causes attachment?

 The Harlow monkeys falsified the

thought that infants become attached
to the one who gives nourishment
 Familiarity is also a base for
attachment
 Critical period: an optimal period
shortly after birth when an organism's
exposure to certain stimuli or
experiences produce proper
development
 Example: Ducks
  Places in a strange situation, 60%
of children demonstrate secure
attachments.
 They will explore their
surrounding confidently when
Attachment their mothers are present but will
Differences show distress when they leave.
 30% show insecure attachment
(10% are in the mix). These
children will cling to their
mothers or caregivers are less
likely to explore.
 Secure Attachment

 Relaxed and attentive

caregiving becomes the
backbone of secure
attachment.
Monkey’s and Morality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcQg
1EshfIE&ab_channel
=CrashCourse
 Insecure Attachment

 Harlow’s studies showed that monkeys

experience great anxiety if their cloth
mother were removed.

 Separation Anxiety
 Separation anxiety peaks at 13 months of
age, regardless of whether the child was
raised at home or sent to daycare.
Imprinting
 The process by which certain
animals form attachments
during a critical period very
early in life
 Ducklings will imprint to
humans and even a box with
wheels (study by Konrad
Lorenz 1937)
 Should newborns spend time
with their mothers
immediately after birth?
 Do babies imprint?
Effects of Attachment
 Basic Trust: a sense that the world is
predictable and trustworthy
 Formed during infancy by appropriate
experiences with responsive caregivers
 Erik Erickson stated that infants will
form a lifelong attitude of trust rather
than fear
 Conditions need to be right for this to
occur
 What happens if a child is deprived of
attachment?
Maturation
 Maturation is the orderly
sequence of growth by
which a person develops
over time, both physically
and mentally.
 Maturation follows a
predictable pattern when one is
raised in an adequate
environment
 Nature and nurture at work.
 Lev Vygotsky

 Vygotsky focused on how the

child’s mind grows through
interaction with the social
environment.
 Language is an important
component in social mentoring
that provides the building
blocks for thinking.
  Vygotsky found that children copy
adults gradually develop the
ability to do certain tasks without
help or assistance.
Zone of  Zone of Proximal Development
states “the distance between the
Proximal actual developmental level as
determined by independent problem
Development solving and the level of potential
development as determined through
problem solving under adult
guidance, or in collaboration with
more capable peers”
Zone of Proximal
Development
 Developing Morality
 Piaget believed that children's
moral judgments built on their
cognitive development
 Lawrence Kohlberg sought to
describe the development of
Moral Reasoning
 The thinking that occurs as we
consider right from wrong
 How did people react differently to
the story?
 Kohlberg’s
Stages

 Preconventional Morality
 Conventional Morality
 Postconventional Morality
 Preconventional morality

 Before age 9, most children have a

preconventional morality of self interest
 They obey to avoid punishment or to gain
concrete rewards
 Some people never move past this stage
as they become adults
 Relating to Heinz:
 “If you save your wife, you will be a hero”
 “If you steal, you could go to jail!”
Conventional Morality
 By early adolescence, morality usually
evolves to that of caring for others,
upholding the laws and social rules simply
because they are the laws and rules and
you want to fit into society.
 This level is typical of most adults.
 Relate to Heinz:
 “If you steal the drug, everyone will think
you are a criminal.”
 “It was right because most people would do
what they need to do to protect their family.”
Postconventional Morality

 Some of those who develop the abstract

reasoning of formal operational thought
may come to the 3rd level
 Affirms people's agreed upon rights or
follows what one personally perceives as
being basic ethical principles
 “If you steal the drug, you won't have
lived up to your own ideals.”
 “Heinz was right as everyone has the
right to live.”
 GROUP ACTIVITY

In your small group you will be assigned one

of the 6 steps on Kohlberg's ladder

Think of a way to explain the moral level

through a skit, monologue, or by telling
stories that fit.

Use the packet for assistance

  Theorist Erik Erickson contended that
each stage of life has its own
“psychosocial” task.
 Everyone needs to be social and
SOCIAL communicate at some level during their
DEVELOPMENT lifetime.
 A crisis that needs resolution.
 Young children wrestle with issues of
trust, then independence, then initiative.
 Erikson’s Theory of
Psychosocial Development

 Problems that we face throughout

our lifetime create the stages of
psychological development.
 Erikson identified 8 stages that
people move through as they age.
To move onto the next stage of
life, the problem of the previous
stage must successfully
answered.
  Like Freud and many others, Erik
Erikson maintained that personality
develops in a predetermined order.
Instead of focusing on sexual
development, however, he was
Erikson and interested in how children socialize
and how this affects their sense of
Freud self.
 He saw personality as developing
throughout the lifetime and looked
at identity crises at the focal point
for each stage of human
development.
  His model of development had
5 stages up to the age of 18
years and 3 in adulthood.
 According to the theory,
successful completion of each
stage results in a healthy
personality and successful
Erikson interactions with others.
 Failure to complete a stage can
Summarized result in a reduced ability to
complete further stages and
resulting in an unhealthy
personality and sense of self.
 Stages can be resolved
successfully later on.
 Erikson and Freud’s
Developmental Stages
  Critics of Erikson said his
research did not follow the
scientific method but was based
on clinical observations alone.
 Also, critics said it largely
Criticisms of focused on males, which could
Erikson lead to different conclusions if
more females were brought into
the “study”
 Can you think of “problems”
females face that do not have a
place in Erikson’s stages?
 Erikson’s Theory of Young
Adulthood
 The biggest challenge Erikson focused on
for young adults was establishing close
relationships with other adults.
 The individual must resolve the conflict
between wanting to establish closeness to
another and fearing the vulnerability and
risks such closeness can bring.
 Making intimate commitments requires
compromise, accepting responsibilities,
and yielding some privacy and
independence.
 You must know who you are first to be
successful at this stage.
 Differences over time

 While most psychologists support

Erikson’s developmental stages, they
realize that young adults today face
different situations than they have in the
past.
 Today, many young adults live together
before they are married. This may mean
that individuals maybe struggling with
identity issues at the same time they are
trying to deal with intimacy issues.
 Parenting
 Psychologists have found
four distinct styles of
parenting that are seen all
around the world.
 Authoritative
 Authoritarian
 Permissive
 Uninvolved
 Style Emotional Authority Autonomy
Involvement
Authoritati Parent is warm, Parent makes reasonable Parent permits
ve attentive and demands for the child’s child to make
sensitive to maturity level; explains/ decisions in accord
child’s needs and enforces rules with
interests developmental
readiness
Authoritari Parent is cold and Parent is highly Parent makes most
an rejecting; demanding; may use decisions for the
frequently coercion by yelling child; rarely listens
degrades the commanding, criticizing to child’s viewpoint
child and reliance on
punishment
Permissive Parent is warm Parent makes few or no Parent permits
but may spoil the demands-often out of child to make
child misplaced concern for decisions before
child’s self esteem the child is ready

Uninvolved Parent is Parent makes few of no Parent is indifferent

emotionally demands-often lacking in to child’s decisions
detached, interest or expectations and point of view.
withdrawn and for the child

Parenting Styles
inattentive
 Results of
Parenting
 Does the type of parent matter?
 Research shows that parents who were
authoritative tend to have confident,
self-reliant, enthusiastic and overall
happier children.
 Children with authoritarian parents
tend to be more anxious and insecure.
 Permissive parenting tends to lead to
immature, impulsive, dependent and
demanding children.
 Kids who attend daycare thrive socially
and have no adverse effects if the
daycare is authoritative and caring.
 Free time and chores
 U.S. children tend to have more free time
than children in any other country.
 In developing countries, children average
6 hours of work a day.
 The typical American child spends less
than ½ hour doing chores.
 Children more and more are spending
time in front of technology which is having
some adverse effects on their physical
and mental wellbeing.
 Less time in structured clubs or sports
 Psychology Beyond
Adulthood

• Until the last few years,

research on young adults were
rare, but now is an area of
focus in psychology. However,
people over the age of 50 have
been largely ignored.
• Within the next 10 years, a big
part of our population will be
made up by retired baby
boomers who are living longer
and encountering more issues
physically and psychologically
than any group before them.
 Aging
Boomers
 Challenges Facing Adults
 The transition from adolescence to young adulthood
is full of decisions about education, careers and
intimate relationships.
 Freud thought adulthood has two basic needs: work
and love.
 Abraham Maslow stated the needs were love and
belongingness.
 Other psychologists proposed social acceptance,
achievement and power as the basic needs of
adult development.
 Challenges of Midlife
 Erikson stated that generitivity as the
largest challenge facing middle aged adults,
ages 30-59.
 Generitivity is the process of making a
commitment beyond oneself to family,
work, society or future generations.
 Most people do not go through a midlife crisis.
 Erikson’s Last Stage

 The last stage of Erikson’s model deals with

people over the age of 60.
 The big challenge in this stage is ego-
integrity vs. despair.
 As people look back on their lives do they have
regrets? Do they feel whole?
 Dealing with Death
 As the Boomer generation
ages, the topic of death is
coming up more often.
 According to Elisabeth Kubler-
Ross, we process death in five
stages. While we each
experience the stages
differently, they are:
 Denial
 Anger
 Bargaining
 Depression
 Acceptance
 The Stages
 Denial: Refusing to believe the individual is sick.
 Anger: Displays anger that individual is sick.
 Bargaining: Making a deal, in return for a cure,
they will fulfill a promise.
 Depression: General depression affecting sleeping
and eating patterns.
 Acceptance: The realization that death is
inevitable.