Unit 9:
Developmental
Psychology
• Introduction
• Physical development
Outline
• Cognitive development
• Social development
• Gender development
• Moral development
Introduction
What is developmental psychology?
DP is concerned Longitudinal: studies a person
with how people throughout their life; time and
money consuming
grow and change - There are 2 main methods to
physically, study DP:
cognitively, socially. Cross-sectional: studies people
from different age group to test
certain variables across lifespan.
What is developmental psychology?
Nature and nurture: how human dev. is
influenced by genetics vs. experiences
Continuity and discontinuity (stages): which
parts of human dev. change gradually (riding up
Main debates: escalator) or change abruptly (climbing up a
ladder)
Stability and change: which of our early traits
persist throughout life and which changes.
Psychological development: Stages theory
Prenatal Development: Timeline
Zygote (first 2 weeks): cell dvisions → Embryo (2-8th weeks): cells
begin to specialize to grow organs & heart; sexual differences → fetus
(9th week to birth)
Gender is determined by the 23rd pair of chromosomes: XX vs. XY -
determined by the father.
Placenta: connects the fetus and the uterine walls to get nutrients,
oxygen, and filters out harmful stuffs.
Prenatal Development: Prenatal influences on later
development
• Mostly genetics.
• Environmental:
• Teratogens: harmful chemical agents that can pass thru the placenta & cause harm
to the fetus.
• Fetal alcohol syndrome: heavy drinking → malformed skull, mental retardation
• Fetal alcohol effect: moderate drinking → learning disabilities, behavioral problems.
• Cocaine, heroine, psychoactive drugs → cause newborn to share physical drug
addiction.
• Bacteria or viruses (e.g. HIV)
Infant reflexes
Newborn: motor/sensory development
Maturation: our orderly sequence of biological development
Senses:
• Hear: dominant sense, can hear even before birth
• Taste & smell: born with some basic preferences, can learn to change these pref.
• Sight: born almost legally blind; can only see <12 inches → normal vision (12 months);
prefer to see faces or facelike objects.
Motor development:
• All humans go through the basic motor skills in the same sequence. Slight environmental
effects.
Infancy and
Childhood
Physical Development
• Maturation: the orderly sequence of biological growth that enable orderly
changes in behaviour; relatively uninfluenced by experience.
• Nature sets the basic course of development
• Nurture adjusts
Physical Development:
Brain development
• Brain size develops rapidly
• From 3-6: rapid growth in frontal lobes
• Association areas (linked to thinking, memory and language) are the last to
develop.
• Motor development sequence is universal
Physical An example of maturation (maturing
Development: system) and NOT imitation.
Infant motor • Muscular and neural maturation enables
development physical skills such as bowel and bladder
control.
• Influence of environment: not changing the
order but the speed?
Physical Development: Infant motor
development
Infancy and
Childhood
Cognitive development
Cognitive development:
• Same number of brain cells, but neural
networks grow fast → frontal lobe →
association areas (thinking, memory,
learning)
• Infantile amnesia until 3.5 year old.
• Despite lack of conscious recall, our brains
were still processing and storing
information.
Jean Piaget’s Theory of
Cognitive Development
• Jean Piaget (Switzerland, 1896 - 1980)
• Younger kids at the same age kept giving
the same wrong answers → humans must
go through specific stages of development
→ How does knowledge grow?
Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development:
Important Concepts
• Schemas: we always want to make sense of what we experience → we create
mental frameworks that help interpret information. e.g. seeing a dog →
schema for a dog (4 legs)
• How do we adapt to new experiences? Through 2 processes:
• Assimilation: apply our existing schemas to new experiences. e.g. calling
all 4-leg things a dog
• Accommodation: after learning that it’s not a dog, infant begins to adjust
their knowledge to this new learning.
Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive
Development
0-2 yo • Sensorimotor stage
2-7 yo • Preoperational stage
7-12 yo • Concrete-operational stage
12 yo onwards • Formal operational stage.
Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years old): explore the world through Object
senses & actions permanence
Preoperational stage (2-7 years old): learn their 1st words; mental
Egocentrism,
symbols, imagination theory of mind.
Concrete-operational stage (7-12 years old): able to think more logically, understand Conservation;
different characteristics of objects (decentration), understand conservation. mathematical
transformations
Formal operational stage (12- death): adult reasoning, begin to understand abstract
ideas → able to reason, think, reflect, contrast ideas in our mind without physically Metacognition
seeing them.
Jean Piaget’s Theory of
Cognitive Development
• Achievement: developed a theoretical explanation
to the concept that kids think very differently from
adults.
• Criticisms:
• He underestimates children: children may go
through the stages faster
• He relied too heavily on language
• Development maybe more continuous
Vygotsky’s zone of proximal
development
• Development is a continuous process.
• Piaget’s focus: children’s interaction with physical
environment.
• Vygotsky’s focus: parental instruction & interaction
with social environment (cultural influences).
• Scaffolding: provided by parents/teachers to help
the child get to its zone of proximal development.
Infancy and
Childhood
Social Development
Attachment theories
• Attachment: an emotional tie with another person
• Familiarity:
• Stranger anxiety: when faced with stranger, the infants grow upset and
reach out for the familiar person.
• Children have schemas for familiar faces, when they cannot
assimilate the new face into these schemas, they become distressed.
• Critical period: animals growth attached to things they see in this period
through a process called imprinting. Pass this period, cannot grow
attachment.
• Sensitive period: humans have more flexibility.
• Babies grow attached to things it’s familiar with e.g. same faces,
same routines → these things mean safe and comfort
Body contact –
Harlow’s experiment
• Physical comfort: touch
• Criticisms:
• Psychological/
emotional harm.
• Effects on female
monkeys later on.
Strange situation - Mary Ainsworth
Study the differences in attachment style
• Secure attachments (66%): explore → Where might the different reactions come
distress → come seek comfort from?
• Avoidant attachments (21%): explore • Interaction with parents.
• Temperament: a person’s genetic
→ do not seek comfort after
• Anxious/ambivalent attachment tendency as to how they react and
(12%): extreme distress → still, resist how intensely they react to a
comfort situation.
Securely attached children approach life
with a sense of basic trust - a sense that
the world is predictable and reliable. It
also forms our relationships in the future.
Developing self-concept
• Infancy’s major social achievement is attachment.
• Childhood’s major social achievement is a realistic and positive self-
concept.
• Self-concept: an understanding and assessment of who they are (self-
esteem is how they feel about who they are)
• Begins with self-recognition: looking at the mirror and knowing
that’s her/him.
• By school-age: becomes a detailed description that include
gender, group membership, traits, similarities and differences.
Parenting styles - Diana Baumrind
Parenting styles Standards Reinforcement Explanation Outcome
Authoritarian Strict Punishments No explanation; obedience > distrust, withdrawn
discussion children
Permissive Unclear, Inconsistent Rationale: the child should be children have
inconsistent, and reinforcement; able to express themselves emotional control
changing no punishments freely. problems; becomes
dependent.
Authoritative Consistent Consistent ● Reasonable explanation Children are more
standards ● Discussion socially capable,
● Encourage independent perform better
with limit to following academically, best
standards results.
Negligent neither Uninvovled Do not seek to develop a Poor academic and
demanding or relationship with children social outcomes
responsive
Adolescence
Physical and cognitive development
Physical development
• Adolescence: transitioning period from childhood to adulthood
• Puberty: the period of sexual maturation during which a person comes
capable of reproducing
• Puberty follows a surge of hormones which may intensify moods and
trigger bodily changes.
• Timing might differ: early maturation has fixed effects.
The Teenage Brain
• A work in progress.
• Selective pruning of unused connections
• Brain’s frontal lobes mature; myelin
growth
Improved judgement, impulse control and
long-term planning.
Cognitive
development:
• Reasoning: imagining realities;
comparision; deducing consequences, etc.,
• Moral reasoning
Moral development - Lawrence Kohlberg
• The Heinz dilemma
• Three stages of moral
development by
Lawrence Kohlberg
Moral development - Lawrence Kohlberg
Pre-conventional: concerned Conventional: focus on Post-conventional: reasoning in
with self-interest and self needs. conformity, and worry about a more abstract way. May be
Obey to avoid punishment or what other people will think? able to develop self-defined
gain rewards. Start to care about others, but morality principles.
still follow rules because simply
they are rules.
Heinz should not steal the medicine Heinz should steal the medicine because Heinz should steal the medicine because
because he will consequently be put in his wife expects it; he wants to be a good everyone has a right to choose life,
prison. husband. regardless of the law.
Heinz should steal the medicine because Heinz should not steal the medicine Heinz should not steal the medicine,
he will be much happier if he saves his because the law prohibits stealing; he will because others may need the medicine
wife, even if he will have to serve a prison be seen has a bad person. just as badly, and their lives are equally
sentence. significant.
Adolescence
Social development and Emerging
Adulthood
Forming an identity
• Identity: our sense of self.
• The adolescent’s task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and
integrating various [Link] identity: the part of self-concept
that comes from person’s group memberships
Psychosocial development
theory - Erik Erikson
• Developed from Freud’s.
• Focuses:
• Influence of socialization
• Development of sense of self
• Throughout life-span.
• Fluid intelligence vs. crystallized intelligence.
Psychological crisis Virtue Question Details
Trust vs. mistrust Hope Can I trust the world to fulfill If parents or caregiver don’t make them feel safe and cared for →
(infancy – 1 year) my needs? they will learn to mistrust the world.
Autonomy vs. shame Will Is it okay to be me? ● The child can now explore the world by themselves much
& doubt (1-3 year) better & satisfy some of their own basic needs → sense of
autonomy. Highly restrictive parents can lead to sense of
doubt, fear of challenge.
● The child learns that it can control certain self-sufficient
behavior e.g. toilet training. If parents demand too much,
too early, or ridicule → sense of shame/doubt over its
ability to solve problems.
Initiative vs. guilt (3-6 Purpose Is it okay to move, do, and ● The child is learning to master the world around them,
year) act? learn to speak, learn physics → activities that take risk and
require independence e.g. asking.
● Parents can encourage & help them make choice →
initiative: ability to plan and undertake activities.
● If parents dismiss or discourage these independent
activities → the child feels guilty about its desires & needs.
Psychological crisis Virtue Question Details
Industry vs. inferiority (6 Competence Can I make it in this world? ● The child starts formal education → their work is
year – puberty) evaluated.
● If they feel that a completed task is well-recognized →
sense of confidence.
● If they don’t → they feel inferior.
Identity vs. role confusion Fidelity Who am I and who can I be? ● Teens learn to find their social identity while struggling
(teen years into 20s) to fit into group in order to feel confident → they try
out different roles → fail to accomplish this mission will
lead to identity crisis.
Intimacy vs. isolation (20s Love Can I love? ● People still struggle to balance between their self-
to early 40s) identity vs. blending in with others.
● Finally, they move on to form an intimate relationship
with another → intimacy. Failure leads to sense of
isolation.
Generativity vs. stagnation Care Can I make my life count? ● Being able to guide the next generation → generativity
(40s to 60s) ● If the person is self-centered and unwilling to help
society → sense of stagnation.
Integrity vs. despair (late Wisdom Is it okay to have been me? ● Evaluate life accomplishments → either feel meaningful
60s and up) or fall into despair over lost opportunities.
Sexual differences
Gender Gender roles
development Gender stereotypes
Effects of parenting and culture
Sexual hormones and sexual
development
STIs
Sexual
Development Sexual behaviours and use of
contraceptives
Sexual orientation
Psychosexual development
theory - Sigmund Freud
• Psychoanalytic perspective: emphasis on influence of past
experience and unconsciousness; focus on satisfying the
pleasure zone (libido) and resolve conflicts.
• Fixation: if a conflict is not resolved, child is stuck at
this stage forever.
Oral (< 1 year old): A child’s pleasure zone is the mouth.
• Conflict (e.g. time of weaning) → oral traits
Anal (1-3 year old): A child’s pleasure zone is control & orderliness.
• Conflict (e.g. potty training: when, where, and ability to control)
Psychosexual
development theory: Phallic (3-6 years old): A child develops sexual desire for the mother
Main stages
• Conflicts (Oedipus complex & Electra complex) → adopt gendered traits and gender
role.
Latent (6- puberty): libido is dormant; repressed and sublimated into socially
acceptable activities such as school, hobbies, and friendships.
Genital (puberty-adulthood): adolescent sexual experimentation. The difference
from phallic stage is that sexual drives are now controlled by a much more
developed ego.
• Nature vs. nurture:
• Parents help the children learn and
navigate through the world through
political attitudes, religious beliefs,
personal manners.
• Yet in personality, environmental
Reflecting •
influences account for only 10% of
the differences.
Continuity vs. discontinuity:
on the • While humans do not follow the
same, fixed sequence of
development, these concepts remain
3 debates useful in understanding. Human of
one age may think and act
differently when they arrive at a
later age.
• Stability vs. change:
• Both are correct: stability helps us
develop our identity, while change
helps us grow.
