Chapter 4 – Map – October 2023

• Fri Oct 27 135-143

• Mon Oct 30 143-149
• Tue Oct 31 150-156
• Wed Nov 1 156-162
• Thur Nov 2 163-166
• Fri Nov 3 166-172
• Mon Nov 6 172-179
• Tue Nov 7 179-189
• Wed Nov 8 prep essays 2010 #2 AND 2015 #1 (one essay
will be written in class)
• Thur Nov 9 Quiz and Cards
Chapter 4
The Developing Person
• Developmental psychologists
study how we change through
our life - physically, mentally
and socially
• 3 main issues are
nature/nurture,
continuity/stages and
stability/change
Prenatal Development and the Newborn -
Conception (136)
• Women are born with all their eggs, but only 1 in
5000 will mature and be released
• Men begin producing sperm at puberty and then
continue for life (but the rate of production
lessens with age)
• When one sperm (of about 200 million)
penetrates the egg, the egg’s surface blocks the
others and pulls the sperm in to the egg. The
nuclei of the egg and sperm fuse to create one
cell.
• [Link]
ure=related 30 second clip
Prenatal Development (136)
• Zygote - a fertilized egg - fewer than
50% survive beyond 2 weeks
• Zygote begins as a single cell and
divides
• Within 1 week, once the zygote is
100 cells, the cells begin to
differentiate (specialize in structure
and function)
Prenatal Development

• 10 days past conception - zygote’s outer part attaches to uterine wall

forming the placenta. The zygote’s inner cells become the embryo
Prenatal Development
• 6 weeks after conception - organs
form
• 9 weeks ---- embryo is now a fetus
• By 6 months the fetus is viable.
• At 6 months it can hear.
• At birth the infant prefers the mom’s
voice (Bushnel 1992)
Teratogens (137)

• Teratogens are harmful agents (viruses, chemicals) that cross the placenta and harm the zygote, embryo or
fetus
• Drugs, alcohol, pollutants, chemicals (kitty litter)
• Brennan (1999) found correlation between violent crime rates of men and their mothers’ smoking even
after controlling for economic status and father criminality
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (138)

• No safe amount to drink while pregnant

• Alcohol depresses the central nervous systems of mother and fetus
• FAS marked by a small, misproportioned head, and lifelong brain
abnormalities.
• About 4 in 10 mothers who drink during pregnancy have babies with
FAS
The Competent Newborn (138)
• Babies are born with reflexes
that help them survive
• Withdraw limb to escape pain
• Turn head to get out from
under a cloth
• Rooting reflex
• Sucking reflex
• APGAR test
Do Babies Know?
• Prior to 1960s it was thought (ex. William James) that babies
experienced just “blooming, buzzing confusion”.
• As neuroscience progressed, we learned that babies know a lot and
can tell us a lot if we ask them to respond by gazing, sucking, turning
heads
Competent Newborn (138)
• Babies are born preferring sights and sounds
that help social responsiveness
• Ex. Newborns turn heads to human voices
and prefer the mother’s voice
• Ex. Newborns gaze longer at human-like
faces (Johnson and Morton 1991)
• Ex. They gaze at objects (and have best
vision) 8 to 10 inches away (Maurer 1998)
• Ex. They prefer the smell of mom’s bra
(MacFarlane 1978)
Habituation (139)
• Def - decreased responsiveness
after repeated stimulation
• Novelty Preference - having
habituated to the old stimulus,
newborns preferred gazing at
new stimulus
Habituation (139)
• Using the concepts of habituation and novelty preference the dog head/cat body study (Spencer
Quinn 1997) shows:
• 1. Infants can see
• 2. Infants can remember
• 3. Infants focus on the face (they gaze longer at the new dog head/cat body after looking at cat heads)
• [Link]
[Link] (Article on head/body study)
Applied Psychology
• Using the concepts of “habituation” of “novelty
preference”, how should parents buy toys for infants?
Infancy and Childhood (140)
• Brain and mind develop together
• Association areas of the cortex
(linked to memory, thinking,
language) are the last brain areas to
develop.
• An infant’s biological development
underlies his psychological
development
Brain Development (140)
• At birth you have most of your
23 billion nerve cells, but, your
nervous system is immature
• After birth neural networks
develop which allow us to walk,
talk, remember
Brain Development (140)
• age 3 to 6 - frontal lobe neural
networks are most active
• Age 6 to puberty - neural
networks supporting language
and agility are most active
Maturation (140)
• A genetically designed biological
growth process
• Enables orderly changes in behavior
relatively uninfluenced by experience
• Maturation sets the basic course of
development, experience adjusts it.
Maturation & Infant Memory (141)
• Our lack of neural connections accounts for
our lack of memory prior to our 3rd year
• We have little conscious memory prior to 3
or 4
• (Newcombe 2000) 10 yr olds will recognize
only 1 in 5 of their preschool friends’
pictures but they will physiologically respond
(skin perspiration) to their former preschool
friends’ pictures
Motor Development (141)
Maturation v. Training
• Our developing brain enables physical
coordination
• the sequence of motor development is
universal (roll then sit; creep then walk) but
the timing is not
• Baby development reflects a maturing
nervous system NOT imitation or training.
(evidence - blind babies)
• Genes play a major role - identical twins tend
to sit up together!
Cognitive Development (143)
• By 6 months of age we can
comprehend
• Permanence
• number
• simple physical laws
Jean Piaget (143)
• Studying children’s IQ’s (Mental
Age/Chronological Age x 100 = IQ) in
the 1920’s and noticed that children
of the same age tended to give the
same wrong answers
• He concluded that children know
differently not less than adults
• He theorized that children develop
cognitively in stages
Jean Piaget (143)
A 12 Minute Interview of Piaget - Food
for Thought
Listen to this clip if you are REALLY
READY TO BE CHALLENGED
Schemas (143)
• Piaget said that we make sense of our world
using schemas
• Schema - concept/mental mold (ex. cats)
that we use to organize our experiences
• Assimilation - interpreting new experiences
by putting them into existing schemas (dog is
cat)
• Accommodation - adjust our schemas to fit
new experiences (“cat” doesn’t include all
animals)
Piaget’s
Stage Theory of Cognition (144)
• Cognition - all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing,
remembering and communicating.
• Piaget believed children’s cognition develops in stages - critiques say
it develops more continuously.
• Critiques also say that Piaget underestimated children’s cognitive
abilities
Piaget’s Theory
Sensory Motor Stage (144)

• 0 - 2 years of age
• Learn through motor (movement) and senses
• Develop object permanence
[Link] and stranger anxiety
• this kid does not have it
Piaget’s Theory
Pre-Operational Stage (146)
• 2 to 6/7 years old
• Too young to perform mental operations
• Fail conservation test
[Link]

• Egocentric - see the world from their point of

view
• [Link]
LohM
• Begin to develop “theory of the mind”
• Begin to be able to think in words (talk
through problems to themselves)
Theory of the Mind (147)
• Pre-operation children begin to develop theory of the mind - the
ability to think of other people as thinking individuals - the ability to
infer what others might be thinking or feeling
• Autism - a disorder characterized by deficient communication and
social interaction - marked by an impaired theory of the mind
Piaget’s Theory
Concrete Operational Stage (148)
• 7 to 11 years old
• Understand the concept of
conservation
• Can think in words
• Grasp math and logic
Piaget’s Theory
Formal Operational Stage (148)
• 12 years and older
• Move from concrete to abstract
thinking
• Can imagine and use symbols
• Can hypothesize and deduce
consequences
• Think logically
Piaget’s Theory
• Sensory motor
• Pre-operational
• Concrete operational
• Formal operational
Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory (149)
• Continuity verses stage development
• Underestimating children’s development
• Piaget did get the sequence of the milestones right
Social Development (150)

• Aristotle - “man is a social animal”

• Stranger Anxiety - emerges around 8 months of age when we
become mobile ----- why???
• Attachment - mutual bond infant-parent bond
Origins of Attachment (150)

• Attachment requires:
• Comfort/body contact
• Familiarity
• responsiveness
Body Contact (151)

• Nourishment alone is not enough

• In a study of monkeys, Harry Harlow separated the infants from the mothers for sanitation - the infants bonded to blankets
• In experiments with wire/feeding mothers and cloth/non-feeding mothers, Harlow found that the babies attached to the cloth
mothers using them as safe havens when distressed and a secure base from which to explore
• Harry Harlow clips – 6 minutes
• [Link]
Familiarity (151)

• Humans do not imprint, but do become attached to people/things that become familiar to them
• Critical Period - optimal period when a child will learn best and most easily - ex. Shortly after
birth child will bond to parent given the needed exposure to that parent
• Imprinting (Lorenz, 1937) - a gosling will imprint to the first moving thing it sees after birth.
Responsiveness (152)
• Parent notices what the baby needs and
responds to that need consistently, timely,
lovingly
• Securely attached infants are happy in
mom’s presence, are distressed when she
leaves, can be calmed by mom and
courageously explore
• scare the monkey (start at 2 minutes)

• Insecure infants are the opposite - are often

clingy or indifferent to the parent
Responsiveness - Studies
• Ainsworth (1979) strange situation
test - sensitive mothers had infants
who displayed secure attachment
(and vice versa) Ainsworth Clip 3
minutes
• Van den Boom (1990) experiment
varied parenting styles (nurture)
while controlling temperament
(nature). 68% of the difficult babies
became securely attached if parents
had sensitive response training.
Only 28% of the difficult babies
attached when the parent didn’t get
the training.
Secure Attachment Studies
• Harry Harlow learned that the
insecurely attached monkeys
were terrified in new situations
Fathers and Attachment (153)
• Expectant fathers’ sex hormones
change (Story 2000)
• Absent fathers put children at
increased risk for psych and social
disorders after controlling for income
and education differences (Myers
2000)
Secure Attachment (154)
• Socially competent
• Confident
• Attack challenges with more persistence and enthusiasm
• More responsive and outgoing to other children
• Develop the ability to trust that effects them lifelong (Erik Erikson’s 8
stage theory)
Insecure Attachment (154)
• Withdrawn
• Frightened
• Emotionally scarred
• Harlow’s monkeys either cowered or lashed out to other monkeys as
adults, were incapable of mating, were abusive as parents if
artificially mated
• But, (Helmreich 1992) also found that most abused children do not
grow to be abusers/criminals - they are more resilient
Insecure Attachment (155)
• Ferris (1996) found that hamsters who were repeatedly
threatened/attacked when young grew to be adults who were
cowards with same-size hamsters and bullies with smaller hamsters.
Their serotonin levels were lower.
• Early abuse and excessive exposure to stress hormones also can
permanently alter the development of the limbic system
Disruption of Attachment (155)
• Infants moved to new homes before 6 months of age or between 6
and 16 months will both have initial problems eating, sleeping and
relating to new parents - but by age 10 both groups are similar - you
can re-attach!
• Frequent changes of homes (ie foster parents) are much more
damaging to a child’s attachment
Day Care and Attachment (156)
• Erel (2000) finds no major effect on attachment
• A 2002 study of 1100 children is care from 1 month of age, found that by 4 1/2
years old the children had slightly advanced thinking and language skills but were
also more aggressive and defiant
• Family qualities, child temperament and goodness-of-fit appear to be more
important to a child’s attachment than whether or not they go to daycare.
• Cultures vary in child rearing - “it takes a village to raise a child”
Self-Concept (156)
• In infancy, the major social
achievement is attachment
• In childhood, it is developing a
positive sense of self.
• Self-concept - a sense of your
own identity and personal
worth
Self-Awareness/Self-Recognition
• In 1877, Charles Darwin thought that self-
awareness begins when we recognize our
image in a mirror
• At 6 months old the baby thinks the mirror
image is another baby
• Butterworth (1992) - by 18 months the baby
with a spot put on its face will touch its own
face when he sees the mirror image - they
have a schema for their own face and know
that the spot doesn’t belong
• Clip of the Rouge Test (2 minutes)
Self-Recognition
Leads to Self Concept
• By 5 or 6 kids describe themselves by gender, group membership,
psychological traits and in comparison to other kids.
• By 8 to 10 self concept is a stable trait
• Self concept affects your actions and expectations
Child Rearing Practices (157)
• Authoritative Parents
• Authoritarian Parents
• Permissive Parents
(Baumrind 1996)
• All differ in rules, reasons for rules,
communication, negotiation, warmth,
expectations
• All differ in the results- children’s self-
esteem, social competence, self-reliance,
self control
Correlation is not Causation
• Are there other reasons for how children turn out other than
parenting style?
• Does a child’s temperament elicit a parenting style?
• Are authoritative parents more educated? Wealthy? Less stressed?
Adolescence (159)
• Between childhood and
adulthood
• Starts with the beginning of
puberty - sexual maturity (this is
happening earlier)
• Ends with independent adult
status (this is happening later)
Adolescence
• Ellis (1999) study showing that obesity and father absence leading to
earlier puberty.
• Evolutionists say when body fat can support pregnancy and when
parent-child bonds are weak a female would be disposed to
reproduce earlier
Stanley Hall (160)
• One of the 1st psychologists to
describe adolescence
• Tension between biological
maturity and social dependence
creates a period of “storm and
stress”
Adolescence - Physical Development (161)
• Puberty - period of sexual maturation
• Primary Sexual Characteristics - body
parts required for reproduction
(ovaries, testes, genitals)
• Secondary Sexual Characteristics -
visible body parts not needed for
reproduction
Adolescence - Girls and Boys
• Girls usually develop earlier but boys usually
outgrow them in height by about 14
• Puberty landmark in girls is menarche
• Puberty landmark in boys is spermarche -
first ejaculation (usually nocturnal)
• The sequence of physical changes (breast
then menarche) is more predictable than the
timing
Early Maturation
• In boys is usually positive -
being large, athletic earlier
• In girls can be more problematic
Brain Development - Adolescence (162)
• Until puberty brain cells increase
their connections
• During puberty there is a “pruning”
of unused connections
• During puberty frontal lobe
development lags behind limbic
system explaining impulsiveness,
emotionality, risky behaviors
Adolescent
Cognitive Development (163)
• Ability to reason increases
• Invincibility theory, imaginary
audience, personal fable
• Learn to think about their thinking and
other’s thinking
• Become more critical about society,
parents, themselves
Adolescent
Reasoning Power (163)
• Piaget - Formal Operational
Stage - abstract logic develops
• They become capable of
thinking about how others
might think and how this may
differ from how they think
Adolescent Morality (164)
• Piaget said that cognitive development leads to moral judgments
• Lawrence Kohlberg agreed with Piaget
• Kohlberg studied moral reasoning (the thinking that occurs as we
consider right from wrong). As our thinking develops, so does our
moral reasoning powers.
Lawrence Kohlberg (164)
• Three-stage moral development theory
• 1. Pre Conventional - under 9 - do good to avoid punishment or get
rewarded
• 2. Conventional - early adolescence - do good to care for others and
follow rules/law
• 3. Post Conventional - early adult - do good to affirm “rights” and
personal ideals
Criticism of Kohlberg (165)
• Not many problems with his first 2 stages
• The post conventional stage is often considered too white/Western
European/middle class/individualistic.
• Also criticized for being biased against communal cultures and
women who may be more relational.
Moral Feeling (165)
• Jonathan Haidt has a “social intuitionist” account of morality - he says
that moral feelings precede moral reasoning. Moral judgment
involves quick gut feelings which then trigger moral reasoning.
• In other words, moral reasoning aims to convince others of what we
intuitively feel.
Moral Action (165)
• Moral action is doing the right thing
• Depends on social influences (Nazi Germany)
• We need to teach empathy, self-discipline, delayed gratification,
moral behavior
• Moral education must focus on thinking, feeling and action
• Youth Offender program example
Social Development (166)
• Erik Erikson – born 1902 – died
1994 - psychosocial
development theory based on 8
stages where we face certain
crisis/tasks.
Forming an Identity (167)
• Adolescents are in the 5th stage where they must
form their identities or face role confusion
• Erikson had a Jewish mother and Danish father -
he was scorned as a Jew in school but mocked as
a Gentile in the synagogue because of his blond
hair and blue eyes. No wonder he figured out the
importance of identity to an adolescent!
• Adolescents can assume the parent’s identity, an
anti-parent identity or they may try out different
identities depending on the time and place
Developing Intimacy (168)
• 6th stage of Erikson’s theory -
follows the adolescent stage of
identity formation
Intimacy and Gender (168)
• Boys - communicate to solve issues
• Girls - communicate to form connections
• Boys - more dominant and unexpressive as
adolescents
• Girls - less assertive and more flirtatious as
adolescents
• Older males - less domineering and more
empathetic
• Older females - more assertive and self
confident
Male Answer Syndrome
• Traci Giuliano (1998) found that
asked difficult questions, men
are more likely than women to
hazard answers rather than
admit that they don’t know the
answer
Separating From Parents (169)
• During adolescence conflicts between
adolescent and parents increases and the
closeness decreases
• Peer influence increases and parent
influences decreases
• Teens generally feel ok about their parents -
the better this relationship, usually the
better the teen is with his peers, school
performance, etc
Selection Effect
• Teens tend to choose friends
who are like themselves, who
share their interests
Emerging Adult
• This is a relatively new term
used to describe the adult in his
mid to late 20’s who is past
adolescence but not yet an
independent adult
Adulthood
Physical Development (172)
• Strength, reaction time, sensory keenness and cardiac output crest at
the mid-twenties (earlier for women) and then gradually declines
• Health and exercise become more important than raw age
• Physical changes (ie. wrinkles) have psychological effects
Raw Age?
Raw Age??? (81 in 2022)
How Old?????????????????????
Suit is from 1976 – Photo take in 2020
Adulthood and Fertility (172)
• Fertility decreases
• Women go through menopause - a total loss of fertility possibility -
the end of menstruation - lower estrogen - varying psychological
effects
• Men do not have a total loss of fertility - their sperm count and speed
gradually declines
Take the True/False Quiz on Page 174
Life Expectancy (174)
• 1950 - 49 years
• 1996 - 67 years
• Current in Canada - 80 years
• Women outlive men
• This coupled with a declining
birth rate means WHO will look
after me in the home?
Sensory Abilities (175)
• Visual sharpness (pupils shrink and
the lenses thicken), adapting to light
levels (65 year old needs 3x the light
to see as well as a 20 year old),
muscle strength, reaction time,
stamina, hearing, distance
perception, sense of smell all decline
with age
Health (176)
• Good News
• less likely to suffer short-term illnesses (cold/flu) because of a lifetime of
antibodies
• Only 5% of 65+ live in institutions
• If you are active, new cells and new connections develop
• Physical activity enhances mental ability
Health (176)
• Bad News
• Immune system decreases and cancer and pneumonia rates increase
• Neural processing slows therefore reaction time decreases
• Car accidents for +75 increase
• Brain regions for memory atrophy and shrink
Dementia and Alzheimer’s (177)
• Dementia means mental erosion. It can be caused by small strokes, brain tumors,
alcoholism or Alzheimer’s disease.
• Alzheimer’s strikes about 3% of the world’s population by the age of 75
• Alzheimer’s is a progressive, irreversible brain disorder leading to deterioration of
memory, reasoning, language and physical functioning. Patients have reduced
acetylcholine and gene abnormalities.
• Alzheimer’s is NOT the normal aging process
Aging
Cognitive Development (178)
• As we age we remember recent happenings but also what we did in
our 2nd 2 decades (teens and twenties)
• Recall (younger people better) v. Recognition memory (young and old
the same)
• We remember meaningful information better than trivial
• Kindergarten picture
Aging and Memory
• Prospective memory (pick up the dry cleaning) is strongest with
memory triggers
• Time based task memory (take a pill at 3) and Habitual task memory
(take a pill every day) are more of a challenge as you age
• Our memories vary as compared to others our own age.
• Constructive memory - confabulation
Aging and Intelligence (180)
• Cross Sectional studies - study people of different ages today
• Longitudinal studies - the same people are studied today and then
again in the future
Aging and Intelligence (180)
• Cross-sectional Wechsler IQ tests see older people as scoring lower
than the younger people
• Longitudinal IQ tests show that a person’s IQ either remains the same
or slightly increases over your life.
• Explanation???????
Why?
• Cross sectional study compares people of different eras - compares
well-educated with less-educated people - compares wealthy and
poor people
• Longitudinal studies study people who survive into their futures - are
they healthier and therefore less likely to have IQ decline?
• Or is the IQ test really about speed, vocabulary, the ability to process
information?????
Crystal v. Fluid Intelligence (181)
• Crystal intelligence is about knowing stuff -
vocabulary, facts, etc. This increases with
age. This is why I am smarter than you!
• Fluid intelligence is the ability to reason
speedily and abstractly, the ability to
problem solve. This decreases with age.
• Math peaks in the 20s/30s. Literature peaks
in the 50s and beyond.
Social Development (182)
• Research debunks the myth of
the mid-life crisis
• Because social clocks are
different in different cultures,
we question theories that age
causes stress.
• Social Clock?????
Adult Commitments (183)
• Erik Erikson’s theory says
adulthood is the time we
struggle with
• intimacy v. isolation and
• generativity v. stagnation
Love (183)
• Well-educated/post 20 year old
marriages are more likely to
succeed
• There is a positive correlation
between couples who first live
together and later divorce
Love and Marriage
• Marriage is a predictor of happiness, health, sexual satisfaction and
income
• Marriage also predicts crime rate, delinquency, emotional disorders
among children
• Gottman (1994) 5 to 1 positive to negative interactions predicts
marriage success
• The empty nest is usually a happy nest
Work (185)
• During the first 2 years of
college, few can predict their
career
• The quality of your role
(mother) is as important as
what your role is (career
woman)
Well Being and Life Span (185)
• Most common regret - not taking one’s education seriously
• Other regrets - family relationships/things you didn’t do
• Old people report as much happiness and satisfaction with life as
young people do
• Csikszentmihalyi (1984) - beeper experiment - teens report more
varying moods - adults report less extreme but more enduring moods
Death and Dying (186)
• Erikson’s last stage is integrity v. despair
• Grief on the death of a spouse or child is greatest when the death is
sudden and breaks the social clock
• Look at 187 for some myths on death and grief
• BIBLE stands for????
Question
Theories of human development have been most susceptible to
criticism for overemphasizing:
A discrete age-linked stages
B the interaction of nature and nurture
C maturation during adolescent development
D cognitive changes during adulthood development
Answer A
Question
After sucking one of two differently shaped pacifiers, 1-month old infants
look longer at the nipple they felt in their mouth. This suggests that Piaget:
A overestimated the continuity of cognitive development
B underestimated the cognitive capacities of infants
C overestimated the impact of culture on infant intelligence
D underestimated the impact of object permanence on infant
attachment
Answer B
Question
In order to test whether newborns can visually discriminate between
various shapes and colours, psychologists have made use of the process
of:
A conservation
B attachment
C habituation
D accommodation
E imprinting
Answer C
Question
52 year old Sue is beginning menopause. She will probably experience:
A significant loss of sexual desire
B significant depression
C a dramatic loss of physical energy
D hot flashes
Answer D
Question
Research shows that the elderly:
A grow increasingly fearful of death
B become increasingly prone to car accidents
C most eventually become senile
D experience less life satisfaction than younger adults
Answer B
Question
When children grow up and leave home, mothers most frequently
report feeling:
A depressed
B bored
C happy
D anxious
Answer C
Question
When infants between 6 and 16 months of age are removed from their foster
mothers and placed in stable adoptive homes, they typically show:
A initial distress in infancy and subsequent maladjustment at age 10
B initial distress in infancy but no subsequent maladjustment at age 10
C no initial distress in infancy but subsequent maladjustment at age 10
D neither initial distress in infancy nor subsequent maladjustment at age
10
Answer B
Question
For children from impoverished environments,
stimulating educational experiences during early
childhood are most likely to:
A facilitate the development of nucleotides
B decrease their emotional attachment to their
own parents
C have no discernable effect on subsequent
academic performance
D prevent the degeneration of activated
connections between neurons
Answer D
Question
The popular idea that terminally ill and bereaved people go through
predictable stages, such as denial, anger, and so forth:
A is widely supported by research
B more accurately describes grieving in some cultures than others
C is true of women buy not men
D is not supported by research studies
Answer D
Question
Testosterone replacement therapy may be used for the treatment of:
A depression
B sexual impotence
C physical weakness
D all of the above
Answer D