What do Developmental Psychologists Do?

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What do Developmental Psychologists Do?

• Study physiological (physical, biological)
  changes over the lifespan.
• Study cognitive (thinking, learning, memory)
  changes over the lifespan.
• Study socialization how we learn what society
  expects of us.

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Development

• Used to be a field looking at humans from
  conception through adolescence.
• People used to do the same things in the same
  sequence (go to school, get married).
• Now we see the entire life cycle as a process of
  development. This is known as the
• You and your friends are done with adolescence.
  Are you done changing?

Lifespan Development Perspective
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Prenatal Effects on Development

• Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs), such as
  gonorrhea, syphilis, and others

• mental retardation blindness physical disorders
• genital herpes can be transmitted through vaginal
  birth
• HIV/AIDS, especially if untreated

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Prenatal Effects on Development

• Smoking (during pregnancy)

• low birth weight
• Miscarriage
• SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome)
• Asthma
• Hyperactivity
• learning disabilities

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Prenatal Effects on Development

• Alcohol (during pregnancy)

• leading cause of non-genetic retardation
• lesser cognitive problems due to death of neurons
• fetal alcohol syndrome smaller brains, facial
  deformities, uncoordinated, mental retardation

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Babies need human contact

• Some evidence that babies recognize human faces
  as early as 9 minutes old thats very early!!!

Violet, at 30 minutes
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When do babies recognize faces?

• Clear evidence that babies have a preference for
  human faces by 2-3 months old

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• What happens if babies dont get human contact?

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Harry Harlows Wire Monkeys

• http//users.rcn.com/napier.interport/cwm/experim.
  html
• Separated infant monkeys a few hours after birth
• Infant monkeys liked soft cloth caregivers
  better, even when they didnt offer food
• But the absence of a living caregiver had
  devastating effects on sexual, caregiving and
  other social development

Is this experiment ethically OK with you?
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Mary Ainsworths Strange Situation

• Observes babies in a lab full of toys, when a
  stranger comes in, Mom leaves and comes back
  again
• Securely Attached Cries when Mom leaves, happy
  when she returns.
• Insecurely Attached Dont care much if Mom
  leaves and ignore her when she returns or mostly
  ignore her but still cry when she leaves

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What causes insecure attachment behavior?

• Abandoned or deprived from birth to 2 years old
• Abusive or neglectful parenting (by irresponsible
  or very depressed parents)
• Genetic temperament
• Temporarily, this behavior might be caused by
  stressful family circumstances

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When/how do we learn to talk?

• Parents baby talk (vs cat and dog talk)
  exaggerates vowels
• So by 4-6 months
• Lose ability to make/recognize sounds from other
  languages

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When/how do we learn to talk?

• More at 4-6 months
• Lose ability to make/recognize sounds from other
  languages
• Recognize emotionally important, frequent words
  Mommy, Daddy

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When/how do we learn to talk?

• 6 months 1 year
• Can tell the difference between nonsense and real
  words and sentences
• What does this suggest about babies ability to
  understand compared to what they can say?

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When/how do we learn to talk?

• About 1 year Naming things
• About 18 months 2-3 word sentences
• (a full year since theyve known about sentence
  structure)

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Do babies have a Language Acquisition Device?

• Proposed by Noam Chomsky. Evidence
• Similar stages around the world active nouns
  first
• Invented word combinations
• Toddlers learn (best!) without being corrected
• If theres no language around, we make one up

Or are babies natural statisticians keeping
track of familiar patterns?
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Jean Piaget

• A stage theorist
• We now know stages arent so rigid, but

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Piagets stages

• Sensorimotor stage (0-2) Learning by touching
• Object permanence peek-a-boo separation
  anxiety
• Preoperational stage (2-7) Language,
  make-believe symbols
• Concrete operations (7-12) - cause/effect
  order categorization
• Formal operations (adolescence)- abstract,
  hypothetical

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What Piaget Missed

• Stage changes arent sudden It depends whos
  asking, where, howchanges come gradually with
  some back and forth
• Kids understand people well by 3 or 4 Slow down
  for younger children, can think about thinking
  and knowing
• Babies know a lot! will study images of
  impossible events longer than possible ones
• Cognitive processing speed helps changes
  (adolescence)- abstract, hypothetical
• Education and culture shape knowledge Children
  in hunting cultures develop spatial skills sooner
  than children in farming cultures

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Where Does Good Behavior Come From?

• Power Assertion (Authoritarian) dont work very
  well.
• because I said so
• punishment (and therefore anxiety, fear, anger
  and very little learning)
• Spanking usually doesnt work well for this
  reason. Especially because parents often use it
  when they dont know what else to do!

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Where Does Good Behavior Come From?
Induction Authoritative
Explain Sam might get hurt if you keep swinging
that stick.

• Recognize positive intentions. I know you care
  about your sister.

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Authoritative parenting and induction
Is NOT Is
permissive clear, consistent
Motivated by anger Motivated by desire to teach
because I said so Listening and explaining
Unreasonable expectations Appropriate, high standards
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Good Outcomes of Induction A Longitudinal Study
(of children aged 2-4 years and their Moms)

• Greater Self-regulation
• Fewer aggression problems (incidents of getting
  into trouble)
• Greater conscience (self-report, self-ratings,
  observed behavior for combined score)

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Coming on Friday

• Gender development
• Adolescence
• Adulthood and aging