Chapter 11: Human Development Across the Life Span

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Chapter 11 Human Development Across the Life Span
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Progress Before BirthPrenatal Development

• 3 phases
• germinal stage first 2 weeks
• conception, implantation, formation of placenta
• placenta is a structure that allows oxygen and
  nutrients to pass into the fetus from the
  mothers bloodstream and bodily wastes to pass
  out to the mother

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Progress Before BirthPrenatal Development

• embryonic stage 2 weeks 2 months
• formation of vital organs and systems (such as
  the heart, spine, and brain emerge)
• time of great vulnerability

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Progress Before BirthPrenatal Development

• fetal stage 2 months birth
• bodily growth continues, movement capability
  begins, brain cells multiply
• age of viability between 22 and 26 weeks, the
  baby could survive if born prematurely
• the muscles and bones begin to form
• sex organs developing in the 3rd month

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Figure 11.1 Overview of fetal development
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Environmental Factorsand Prenatal Development

• Maternal nutrition
• malnutrition has been shown to have negative
  effects for many years after birth. Research
  links maternal malnutrition to vulnerability,
  schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders in
  adolescence and early adulthood

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Environmental Factorsand Prenatal Development

• Maternal drug use
• Tobacco, alcohol, prescription, and recreational
  drugs linked to birth defects
• Fetal alcohol syndrome one of the leading causes
  of mental retardation
• Problems include microcephaly, heart defects,
  irritability, hyperactivity, and delayed mental
  and motor development
• also related to increased incidence of
  depression, suicide, and criminal behavior in
  adulthood

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Environmental Factorsand Prenatal Development

• Maternal illness
• Rubella, syphilis, mumps, genital herpes, AIDS,
  severe influenza
• the nature of the damage depends on when the
  mother contracts the illness
• Prenatal health care associated with higher
  survival rates and reduced prematurity

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The Childhood Years Motor Development

• Motor development refers to the progression of
  muscular coordination required for physical
  activities
• Basic Principles
• Cephalocaudal trend head to foot
• Proximodistal trend center-outward

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The Childhood Years Motor Development

• Motor development depends in part on physical
  growth, as well as on the process of maturation,
  and the infants ongoing exploration of the
  world.
• Maturation gradual unfolding of genetic
  blueprint
• Developmental norms age at which individuals
  display various behaviors and abilities
• median age (useful benchmarks only)
• Cultural variations in motor development
  indicate the importance of experience on the
  development of motor skills

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Easy and Difficult BabiesDifferences in
Temperament

• Longitudinal studies observe one group of
  participants repeatedly over time
• more sensitive to developmental influences
• cross-sectional designs compare groups of
  participants of differing age at a single point
  in time
• easier, quicker, and cheaper
• Temperament an individuals characteristic mood,
  activity level, and emotional reactivity

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Easy and Difficult BabiesDifferences in
Temperament

• Thomas, Chess, and Birch (1970)
• temperamental individuality is established by
  about 2-3 months of age, it was stable over time
• 3 basic temperamental styles
• easy 40 happy, regular in sleep and eating,
  adaptable, and not readily upset
• slow-to-warm-up 15 happy, regular in sleep
  and eating, adaptable, and not readily upset,
  with moderate reactivity
• difficult 10 glum, erratic in sleep and
  eating, resistant to change, and relatively
  irritable
• mixed 35

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Easy and Difficult BabiesDifferences in
Temperament

• Thomas and colleagues used parent reports, Jerome
  Kagan and colleagues relied on direct
  observations
• Kagan Snidman (1991)
• Inhibited shyness, timidity, and wariness of the
  unfamiliar
• uninhibited temperament less restraint with
  regard to the unfamiliar and little trepidation
• inhibited 15 - 20
• uninhibited 25 - 30
• stable over time, genetically based

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Figure 11.6 Longitudinal versus cross-sectional
research
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Early Emotional Development Attachment

• Harry Harlow
• Made 2 monkeys
• Wanted to see if feeding was the key determinant
  in infant attachment
• Found that the real monkeys went to the
  comfortable monkey when scared
• Also found that babies are programmed to emit
  behavior that triggers an affectionate,
  protective response from adults

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Early Emotional Development Attachment

• Attachment refers to the close, emotional bonds
  of affection that develop between infants and
  their caregivers
• Separation anxiety emotional distress seen in
  many infants when they are separated from people
  with whom they have formed an attachment
• Ainsworth (1979)
• The strange situation and patterns of attachment
• Secure playing and exploring comfortably when
  mom is present, becoming visibly upset when she
  leaves, and calming quickly upon her return.
• Anxious-ambivalent show anxiety even when mom is
  near and protest excessively when she leaves, but
  are not particularly comforted when she returns
• Avoidant some babies sought little contact with
  their mothers and were not distressed when she
  left

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Early Emotional Development Attachment

• Developing secure attachment
• Bonding at birth first few hours after birth
  does not appear to be crucial to secure
  attachment
• Daycare recent research by the NICHD indicates
  that day care is not harmful to childrens
  attachment relationships, and there is evidence
  that there may be beneficial effects of day care
  on social development in children from deprived
  backgrounds.
• Cultural factors vary across cultures

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Early Emotional Development Attachment

• Evolutionary perspectives on attachment
• John Bowlby,assumed attachment to be a function
  of natural selection, with infants programmed to
  emit behaviors that trigger affectionate,
  protective responses in adults.
• Jay Belsky (1999) asserts that children have been
  programmed by evolution to respond to sensitive
  or insensitive care with different attachment
  patterns.

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Stage Theories of Development Personality

• Stage theories, three components
• progress through stages in order
• progress through stages related to age
• major discontinuities in development

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Figure 11.10 Stage theories of development
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Stage Theories of Development Personality

• Erik Erikson (1963)
• Eight stages spanning the lifespan
• Psychosocial crises determining balance between
  opposing polarities in personality
• there is a specific psychosocial crisis during
  each stage, the outcome of which determines the
  balance between opposing polarities in personality

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Figure 11.11 Eriksons stage theory
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Stage Theories Cognitive Development

• Jean Piaget (1920s-1980s) asserting that
  interaction with the environment and maturation
  gradually alter the way children think
• Assimilation interpreting new experiences in
  terms of existing mental structures without
  changing them
• Accommodation changing existing mental
  structures to explain new experiences
• IPOD example

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Stage Theories Cognitive Development

• 4 stages and major milestones
• Sensorimotor
• Object permanence the recognition that objects
  continue to exist even when they are no longer
  visible.
• (birth to 2 years)
• Preoperational
• Centration tendency to focus on just one feature
  of a problem
• Egocentrism the limited ability to share
  anothers viewpoint
• Irreversibility cant reverse an action
• (2-7 years)

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Stage Theories Cognitive Development

• Concrete Operational
• Decentration able to focus on more than one
  feature of a problem simultaneously
• Reversibility mentally undoing an action
• These new cognitive skills lead to conservation,
  or recognizing that amount of a substance does
  not change just because appearance is changed
• 7-11 years-old
• Formal Operational
• marked by the ability to apply operations to
  abstract concepts such as justice, love, and free
  will
• 11- adulthood

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Figure 11.12 Piagets stage theory
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Figure 11.13 Piagets conservation task
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Figure 11.14 The gradual mastery of conservation
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Weaknesses of Piaget

• 1) might have underestimated the pace at which
  children progress
• 2) Did not see individual development there can
  be a mixing of stages as a child progresses (no
  clearly defined stage)
• 3) Further research has shown that the sequence
  of stages is largely correct, but the timetable
  at which you progress varies across cultures
  (underestimated culture)

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Vygotskys Sociocultural Theory

• Vygotsky (Russian 1920-30s) died early in
  career
• Emphasized how childrens cognitive abilities are
  fueled by social interactions (parents, teachers,
  peers) who can provide guidance
• Both good and bad
• Argued the mastery of language plays a central
  role in fostering cognitive development

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Vygotskys Sociocultural Theory

• Cont.
• New Ideas
• Zone of Proximal Development the difference
  between what a person can accomplish alone and
  with a more skilled mentor
• Scaffolding adjusting the difficulty of a task
  as the learner progresses
• Private Speech children talk to themselves to
  work out strategies (Piaget discarded as
  egocentric), as the children age the speech
  becomes internal

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Are some Cognitive Abilities Innate?

• Research was done on infants
• Used Habituation a gradual reduction of a
  response after an event is presented repeatedly
• Dishabituation a new stimulus elicits an
  increase in the strength of a habituated response
• Ex show infants same picture over and over
  (heart rate and respiration decrease)- Hab.
• new picture introduced (heart rate- respiration
  increase) Dishab.

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Are some Cognitive Abilities Innate?

• Results
• 3-4 mos.
• Children understand that objects have solid
  boundaries
• take continuous paths
• Objects cant pass through each other or opening
  smaller than the objects
• Things roll down a slope, not up
• 9-12 Mos. Children can group things into
  categories

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Are some Cognitive Abilities Innate?

• But can they add and subtract?
• Featured Study
• What were the results?

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Featured Study Result

• Researcher said the results pointed to the fact
  that 9 mos. Olds could add and subtract
• Other psychologists argue that the findings do
  not show mathematic ability, but the ability to
  track groups
• So dont feel bad if math is hard

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The Development of Moral Reasoning

• Kohlberg (1976)
• based on subjects responses to presented moral
  dilemmas
• interested in a persons reasoning, not
  necessarily their answer
• Moral dilemmas
• Measured nature and progression of moral reasoning

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The Development of Moral Reasoning

• 3 levels, each with 2 sublevels
• Preconventional Children think in terms of
  external authority
• Conventional rules are necessary for maintaining
  social order
• Postconventional rules are worked out as a
  personal code of ethics

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Figure 11.17 Kohlbergs stage theory
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Adolescence Physiological Changes

• Pubescence the two-year span preceding puberty
  during which the changes leading to physical and
  sexual maturity take place
• Secondary sex characteristics physical features
  that distinguish one sex from the other but that
  are not essential for reproduction

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Adolescence Physiological Changes

• Puberty the stage during which sexual functions
  reach maturity, marking the beginning of
  adolescence
• Primary sex characteristics
• Menarche the first occurrence of menstruation
• Sperm production spermarche

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Adolescence Physiological Changes

• Maturation early vs. late
• Puberty is occurring at younger ages
• explanations for this trend include improvements
  in nutrition and medical care maybe family
  relationships
• Sex differences in effects of early maturation
• early maturing girls and late maturing boys
  having greater risk for psychological problems
  and social difficulties
• 10-15 for girls is typical, 11-16 for boys

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Figure 11.19 Physical development at puberty
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Adolescence Neural Changes

• Increasing myelinization
• white matter increases
• Synaptic pruning
• The brain becomes more efficient
• Changes in prefrontal cortex
• last area of the brain to mature fully. Some
  researchers have suggested that this is connected
  with the increase in risky behaviors during
  adolescence.
• Controls planning, organization, and emotional
  control

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The Search for Identity

• Erik Erikson (1968) Identity vs. Confusion
• Key challenge - forming a sense of identity
• James Marcia (1988)
• presence or absence of crisis and commitment
  during the identity formation stage can combine
  in various ways to produce four different
  identity statuses
• Focused on adolescence, but said these can occur
  at anytime
• They progress through the following order of
  maturity

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The Search for Identity

• 4 identity statuses (Marcia)
• Identity Diffusion is a state of lack of
  direction and apathy
• Social and psychological problems
• Foreclosure premature commitment to a role
  prescribed by ones parents
• Anxiety, conformity, and not open to new ideas

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The Search for Identity

• Moratorium involves delaying commitment and
  engaging in experimentation with different roles
• Self-doubt and confusion
• Identity Achievement arriving at a sense of self
  and direction after some consideration of
  alternative possibilities
• Higher self-esteem, security, conscientiousness,
  achievement motivation, intimacy

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The Expanse of Adulthood

• Personality development marked by both stability
  and change
• Extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to
  experience decline
• Agreeableness and conscientiousness increase
• Adults who move successfully through Eriksons
  stages develop intimacy, generativity, and
  integrity.

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The Expanse of Adulthood

• Social development
• Marriage marital satisfaction indicate that when
  spouses have differing role expectations,
  adjustment to marriage is more difficult.
  Research also shows highest rates of marital
  satisfaction at the beginning and end of the
  family cycle

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The Expanse of Adulthood

• Parenthood adjustment to parenthood proceeds
  more smoothly if unrealistic expectations are not
  held
• parent-adolescent relations and the adjustment
  difficulties that parents may have when children
  leave home (empty nest syndrome) may not be as
  stressful as once believed

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The Expanse of Adulthood

• Erikson View of Adulthood
• Intimacy vs. Isolation
• Early adulthood empathy and openess vs
  shrewdness and manipulativeness
• Generativity vs. Self-absorption
• Middle adulthood a concern for future
  generations vs. self-indulgent concerns
• Integrity vs. Despair
• Late adulthood has my life meant anything

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The Expanse of Adulthood

• Career development
• tends to proceed through stages of exploration of
  careers, establishment of a career, maintenance,
  and decline.
• 40s most productive decade
• Physical changes
• changes in appearance, neuron loss, sensory loss,
  and hormonal changes.
• Research indicates that menopause is not as
  problematic as once thought.

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The Expanse of Adulthood

• Alzheimers Disease

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The Expanse of Adulthood

• Cognitive changes
• general mental ability remains fairly stable,
  with small declines in IQ after age 60
• Fluid intelligence is more likely to decline with
  age
• crystallized intelligence remains stable or
  increases
• Mental speed declines in late adulthood, and
  memory losses have been reported in many studies.
  These are moderate and variable