Chapter 1:

-An essential feature of human development is that the timing of experiences influences their effects.
-Children deprived of necessities early on are heavily affected in their development.
-Aristotle: Knowledge from experience/Care according to individual child’s needs; Plato: Discipline/innate knowledge
-Rousseau: maximum freedom for children/Locke: instilling discipline, then gradually increasing the child's freedom
-If one identical twin has schizophrenia, the other has a 40-50% chance of also having schizophrenia.
-By 2 months, children’s smiling and cooing elicits smiling and talking by the mother, which elicits more smiling and cooling by the infant. Nine to 15 month old children produce
“crib speech”
-Starting around 2 years of age, children sometimes pretend to be different people in make-believe dramas.
-Play also teaches children values lessons • coping with fears • resolving disputes • interacting with peers
-Continuity or Discontinuity: Sometimes it all depends on how you look at the data.
-According to Piaget, 2-5 year olds are able to focus on only one type of information at a time. By age 7, they can focus on and coordinate between two or more aspects of an
event.
-Mechanisms of Change Can Be: • Genetic • Neural • Behavioral
-The Hippocampus Is thought to be an important part of the brain for creating long-term memories. Sleep provides a crucial period for long-term memory consolidation.
-Parents of children in low SES communities read to their children less, provide fewer books at home, and are less involved in schooling.
Chapter 3:
-Genotype is the inherited genome; phenotype is the physical expression of the genome.
-Phenotype includes both physical characteristics such as height and eye color, but also behavioral characteristics such as temperament and intelligence.
-Humans have a total of 46 chromosomes divided into 23 pairs.
-The co-action between genetic and environmental factors is complex. • Chaos Theory • Butterfly Effect
-100 billion neurons in the brain and over 100 trillion synapses.
-Nucleus, Cell body, Axon Terminal, Dendrites, Myelin sheath, Synapse
-The cerebral cortex Comprises 80% of the total brain mass. Much larger in humans than any other species.
-Four cortices (or lobes) • Frontal • Parietal • Temporal • Occipital
-Most of the 100 billion neurons you currently possess were present at birth, although new neurons are generated throughout a lifetime, particularly in the hippocampus.
-Gray matters in the nervous system refers to cell bodies. White matter refers to myelin sheaths of the axons.
-Synaptogenesis creates far more synapses than what is necessary for the human experience. About 40% of synaptic growth is eliminated by adulthood. Synaptic reduction
occurs in different parts of the brain at different timescales.
-Sensitive periods - Timing is a key component of plasticity: the brain is particularly sensitive to particular inputs at particular windows of time during development.
Chapter 4:
-Piaget Assimilation - process by which people incorporate new information with what they already know Accommodation - process by which people enhance current
understanding in response to new experiences Equilibration - the balance between assimilation and accommodation • equilibrium • disequilibrium • re-equilibrium
-Qualitative change - evaluating events in terms of consequences versus intent, for example.
-Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years) - children learn sensory and motor capabilities, where they live largely in the here and now Preoperational (2 to 7 years) - children represent
experiences in language and mental imagery, though lacking the ability to perform certain mental operations such as considering multiple perspectives simultaneously Concrete
operational (7 to 12 years) - logical reasoning about concrete objects (e.g., pouring water into a narrower glass), although still lacking the ability to think in abstract terms Formal
operational (12 years and beyond) - think in abstract terms as well as in hypothetical situations

-
-Basic Processes in Memory Development Associating events with one another Recognizing objects as familiar Recalling facts and procedures Generalizing from one context to
another Encoding attended-to events Important contributors to the speed of processing: • Myelination of axons • Increased connectivity throughout the brain.
-What types of knowledge have been useful throughout human evolution (innate)? • Manipulating other people’s thinking (deception) • Recognizing faces (prosopagnosia?) •
Locomoting across time and space • Understanding cause and effect • Acquiring language If many types of (core) knowledge are innate, would they be domain specific? The
modular view of mind. • Distinguish between living and non-living things. • Acquiring language • Develop a theory of (others’) mind
-Guided participation - more knowledgeable individuals organize activities in a way that allow for less knowledgeable people to perform the activity at a higher level than they
could on their own
-Social scaffolding - adults with greater expertise organize the physical and social environment to help children learn
-Children are social learners.
-Children are innately motivated to learn about the world. • Cognitive development is inseparable from sensorimotor development. • There are many routes to achieving the
development of a particular skill. • Development is nonlinear (periods of slow or fast).
Chapter 5:
-Perception and action are tools for learning. This includes: • Looking • Listening • Tasting • Smelling • Touching • Reaching
-Preferential-looking technique - if an infant looks on one stimulus more than another, it can be inferred that the infant can 1) discriminate between them and 2) prefers one over
the other.
-Habituation - infants’ response to a stimulus repeatedly presented declines, whereas the response to a novel stimulus will increase
-When a stimulus move away from or toward us, the retinal image of that stimulus changes, but we do not detect a change in the physical dimensions of the stimulus: perceptual
constancy
-Perceptual narrowing: we are better able to discriminate among faces that are more frequently experienced. Humans are far better at distinguishing among human faces
compared to other species.
-By four months, infants begin to learn more about the world through greater control of hand and arm movements
-Movement exists in the womb. Infants acquire motor skills during a time of rapid changes in the body, including body mass, height, and muscle strength. Reflexes are common
in infancy
-Statistical learning occurs when an infant internalizes the regularities in the physical or social environments. Classical conditioning occurs when an originally neutral stimulus is
paired with a stimulus that elicits a physiological response. Operant conditional occurs when the frequency of a behavior is increased or decreased by reinforcement or
punishment (positive or negative).
Chapter 10:
-Place a marshmallow in front of a child and wait a period of time, and if the child has not eaten the marshmallow, they will get another. Some children were unable to resist the
treat in front of them, and others were successful in exerting self-control to gain two treats. Is this ability to regulate one’s impulses a predictor of lifelong success? Children who
were successful in exerting self-control were evaluated at 10 year intervals and were found to be more intelligent, attentive, strategic, and self-reliant.
-Like so many other traits that humans exhibit, emotions fall into a normal distribution, where some children are better able to regulate their emotions than other children. This
indicates that for both the expression of emotions and the regulation of emotions, children exhibit individual differences.
-Neurological and biological systems have evolved a set of basic or discrete emotions that allow us to adapt to a evolutionary common situations
-
\
-Happiness - closed or open mouth, corners of mouth pulled up, raised cheeks, squint in the eye. Sadness - corners of mouth pulled down, furrowed eyebrows, muscle tremor
(Children exhibit sadness in response to a painful event and particularly when they are unable to control events in the environment. Sadness can also occur with separation
anxiety. Like fear, sadness elicits a response from an adult who is in a position to regulate the child’s emotions.) Anger - furrowed brow, square-shaped mouth, baring of teeth,
flared nostrils (Children express anger in response to frustrating or distressing interpersonal experiences. As such, children are more likely to show anger at other people rather
than objects. Reactions with anger peaks around 18 months to 24 months of age, and declines from 3 to 6 years of age.) Fear - eyes wide open, eyebrows raided, corners of
mouth pulled back. Surprise - eyes wide open, eyebrows raised, mouth open. Disgust - nostrils flared, mouth open, corners of mouth pulled back.
-Self-Conscious Emotions • shame • guilt • pride • jealousy • empathy • embarrassment
-Children use social referencing to relate facial and emotional cues to novel, unfamiliar, or potentially threatening situations.
-By three years of age children are able to conceal their emotions from others. By five years of age, children are able to understand that a person is unable to express one
emotion while displaying a different emotion.
-Every culture has display rules that govern when, where and how much emotion should be expressed or suppressed.
-Co-regulation occurs when a parent provides comfort or distraction to alleviate the experiences of distress.
-Children engage in self-comforting or self-soothing behaviors, which consist of repetitive, physical actions such as sucking a finger or rubbing hands.
-Recall that children who pass the marshmallow test engage in self-distraction.
-Through emotional socialization, children learn about what emotions are appropriate in what contexts, contributing to the child’s development of social competence.
-Temperament refers to the individual differences in emotion expression, emotional arousal, and the ability to regulate emotions.
-A child’s genes provide a strong influence on a child’s temperament. MZ twins are more alike in temperament than are DZ twins.
-Depression is a mental disorder that involves sad or irritable mood that affect a child’s ability to participate in social and cultural enterprises.
-Anxiety disorders involve inability to regulate the experience of fear or worry about real or perceived threats.
Chapter 11:
-The attachments that children develop early in life set the stage for near- and long-term development. This includes the enduring emotional bonds to parents and other
caregivers
-Early behaviorists believed that physical bonds, such as breast milk, were sufficient to form attachments. In this framework, children learn to form attachments via classical
conditioning, where the presence of the unconditional stimulus (milk) was paired with the conditional stimulus (mother)
-John Bowlby proposed that infants require a secure base: a trusted caregiver, who functions as a haven for safety in a world of full of threats
-Besides food and physical security, a secure base provides a child the means to learn and explore as well as a means of regulating emotions
-Secure attachments for a child provide a positive model of interpersonal relationships that a child can depend on over the course of development.
-Mary Ainsworth’s study of infant-mother interactions demonstrated that the quality of attachments can be observed 1) by an infant being able to rely on a caregiver as a secure
base and 2) the infant’s reaction to separation from and reunion with a caregiver. (. An experimenter rates the child’s behavior: • Attempts by the child to seek closeness with the
mother • Resistance to or avoidance of the parent • Interactions with the stranger • Behavior upon reunion with the parent)
-Secure attachment - infants use their mother as a secure base as they play; are not distressed when left alone and are happy at reunion - 60% of children in the U.S. are in this
category
-Insecure/resistant - infants are clingy, preferring to stay close to their mother, get upset when mother leaves, can be resistant when mother returns - 9% of children
-Insecure/avoidant - infants tend to avoid their mothers, often fail to greet or might ignore mother upon return - 15% of children
-Disorganized/disoriented - infants have no consistent way of coping with stress in the Strange Situation procedure, may exhibit fearful smiles, calm gives way to anger, may
appear frozen in their behavior, the infant may want to approach but also regards mother as source of fear - 15% of children (higher among maltreated)
- - parent sensitivity, the expression of warmth as well as contingent responses to the
child’s needs.
-Children who experience sensitive, supportive parenting are likely to express emotions in
appropriate ways.
-A “self-concept” might begin as an infant is able to differentiate one’s physical presence
from the environment. Recall Piaget’s “sensorimotor” stage. It continues to develop as a
child is able to imagine other people’s perspectives on the world, including perspectives
On one’s own self..
-“By the end of the second month, infants show clear signs that they have a sense of how
Their own body is situated in relation to their environment
- By - by 3, infants are aware of the temporal self.
- - “By 4–5 years, children begin to be capable of holding multiple representations and
p perspectives on objects and people
- -precursors to the emergence of the self: A child begins to understand cause-effect r
e relationships, such as the effect that one’s own behavior has on the action of adults.
- Separation anxiety depends on a child being able to differentiate one’s self from a parent..
- At the end of the first year of life, children engage in joint attention with adults, where a
h child is able to see the world through the perspective of others.
- At 18 months, children are able to recognize themselves in the mirror.
- By 24 months of age, children can recognize themselves in photographs.
-
-Two year old children show evidence of secondary emotions such as embarrassment and shame.
-Susan Harter argues that the self is a social construction based on how children evaluate others and how they believe how others evaluate them.
-the self is a set of physical attributes that people can observe versus how children relate to others via social comparison.
-Elementary school students can recall aspects of the self in the past and imagine future versions of the self.
-Daniel Dennett: “The Self is an illusion.” Joseph LeDoux: “Your Self is not a thing. It is a story you create about who you are.
-By adolescence a child might possess multiple “selves,”,Adolescents invent personal fables as they come to regard their own feelings as unique (“No one understands me!”)
-Adolescents become preoccupied with what others think of them, thinking that all eyes are focused on them (the constant focus of an imaginary audience).
-Parents can undermine children’s self-esteem by using social comparison as a means of motivation or give children unrealistically high self-esteem by praising too often.
- Piaget suggested in his book The Moral Judgment of the Child that moral reasoning changes from a rigid acceptance of the rules presented by authority figures to an
appreciation that moral rules can be modified through social interaction.-
- Piaget observed two stages: a first stage in which the outcome is more important than intention, and a second stage in which intention is seen as paramount.
-More recent research suggests that Piaget underestimated the extent to which young children take into account intentionality in moral reasoning.
-Lawrence Kohlberg suggested that moral development is discontinuous and hierarchical, where each stage reflects a qualitatively different and more advanced ways of
thinking.
-The Heinz dilemma: should a man break into a store to steal a lifesaving drug that he cannot afford? What might be the different types of moral reasoning to justify the man’s
actions?
-According to Kohlberg, people who have higher-level cognitive and perspective-taking skills exhibit higher-level moral reasoning.
-children and adults reason at different levels according to different situations
-Social Knowledge: Moral domain - universal concepts of right and wrong, fairness, justice, and individual rights / Societal domain - rules sand conventions established by a
society to maintain order / Personal domain - actions are based on individual preferences
-By age 3, children generally believe that violations of moral rules are more wrong than violations of social conventions. By age 4, children believe that moral, but not societal,
transgressions are wrong even if an adult does not share them.
-children have an innate drive to prefer actions that help others rather than hinder them.
-By age 2, toddlers start to recognize moral standards and rules and show signs of guilt when they do something wrong.
-. Individual differences in two components of conscience, the desire to comply with rules and the experience of guilt when failing to do so, are quite stable across early
development.
-As children mature, they are increasingly likely to take on their parent’s moral values, and exhibit guilt for violating those values, which is facilitated by secure parent-child
relationships.
-Children with different temperaments will develop conscience in different ways, but most children will arrive at the same moral standards one way or another.
-The secondary emotion of empathy is part of prosocial behavior in that one is able to be sensitive to the emotional state of another individual
-By 14 months of age, an infant exhibits cooperation when assisting another child or adult in reaching for an object / By 18-25 months of age, toddlers are able to share with an
adult who they perceive has been harmed, and are willing to comfort another person who they perceive is feeling distress.
- humans are biologically predisposed to be prosocial
-In studies with adults, twins' reports of their own prosocial behaviors are considerably more similar for MZ than DZ twins.
-Anti-Social Behavior - Defined as disrupt, hostile, or aggressive behavior that violates social norms or rules or takes advantage of others. Conflict over the possession of
objects such as toys is referred to as instrumental aggression. On the other hand, relational aggression involves the intention to damage peer relationships.
- aggression involves acts intended to harm others physically or emotionally. This emerges in some infants by 12 months of age, and by 18 months can involve hitting or
pushing over the possession of an object. This type of behavior increases in frequency until about 2-3 years of age, then decreases in frequency when verbal aggressions such
as insults rise in frequency
–. Overall, self-reported violent crimes peaks at age 17 and is higher for boys
- Children who are more prone to antisocial behavior in the elementary school years tend to be more aggressive and delinquent in adolescence, particularly boys
- Children identified as aggressive by their peers at age 8 had more criminal convictions and engaged in more serious criminal behavior at age 30
-Antisocial behavior is heritable, where aggressive behavior appears to be more influenced by genes in early childhood and adulthood than in adolescence, when environmental
factors are a major contributor.
-Reactive aggression is emotionally driven and associated with perceiving others’ actions as hostile. Proactive aggression is not emotionally driven and associated with fulfilling
a need or desire
-Children whose parents use harsh but non-abusive physical punishment are prone to aggression in childhood and criminality in adolescence and adulthood.
-Parents who use abusive punishment provide a behavioral model to their children, who are more likely to be anxious or angry and thus less likely to follow parent instructions or
demands.
-t children who are high in antisocial behavior or low in self-regulation are more likely to elicit harsher parenting behaviors, a type of negative reciprocal relationship.
-