Myers

1
Myers PSYCHOLOGY (5th Ed)

• Chapter 3
• The Developing Child
• James A. McCubbin, PhD
• Clemson University
• Worth Publishers

2
The Developing Child

• Developmental Psychology
• study of changes across the life span

3
Developmental Issues

• Nature versus Nurture
• How is our development influenced by our heredity
  (nature) and by our experience (nuture)?
• Continuity versus Stages
• Is developmental change gradual and continuous or
  does it proceed through a sequence of separate
  stages?
• Stability versus Change
• Do we grow into older versions of our early
  selves or do we become new persons?

4
Union of Egg and Sperm
5
Genetic Influences

• X- Chromosomes
• sex chromosome found in both males and females
• females have two, males have one
• an X-chromosome from each parent produces a
  female
• Y-Chromosomes
• sex chromosome found only in males
• when paired with a X-chromosome from the mother,
  it produces a male child

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The Developing Child

• Testosterone
• most important of the male sex hormones
• both males and females have it
• additional testosterone in males
• stimulates growth of male sex organs in the fetus
• stimulates development of male sex
  characteristics during puberty
• Gender
• characteristics, whether biologically or socially
  influenced, by which people define male and female

7
Prenatal Development

• Zygote
• fertilized egg
• enters a 2 week period of rapid cell division
• develops into an embryo
• Embryo
• developing human organism from 2 weeks through
  2nd month
• Fetus
• developing human organism from 9 weeks to birth

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Prenatal Development

• Teratogens
• agents that can reach the embryo or fetus during
  prenatal development and cause harm
• chemical, e.g. alcohol, some medicines, cocaine,
  nicotine
• viral, e.g. HIV, Rubella
• Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
• physical and cognitive abnormalities in children
  caused by drinking in pregnancy

9
The Newborn

• Rooting Reflex
• tendency to turn head, open mouth, and search for
  nipple when touched on the cheek
• Preferences
• human voices and faces
• facelike images--gt
• smell and sound of
  mother preferred

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Infancy and Childhood

• Maturation
• biological growth processes that enable orderly
  changes in behavior
• relatively uninfluenced by experience
• sets the course for development while
  experience adjusts it

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Infancy and Childhood

• Babies only 3 months old can learn that kicking
  moves a mobile- and can retain that learning for
  a month (Rovee-Collier, 1989).

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Infancy and Childhood

• Rats reared in an environment enriched with
  playthings show increased development of the
  cerebral cortex (Rosenzweig, et al., 1972).

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Infancy and Childhood

• Plasticity
• the brains capacity for modification
• evidence for plasticity
• brain reorganization following damage
• especially in children
• experiments on the effects of experience on brain
  development

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Infancy and Childhood

• A finger-tapping task activates more motor cortex
  neurons after training (right).

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Infancy and Childhood

• Cognition
• mental activities associated with thinking,
  knowing, and remembering
• Schema
• a concept or framework that organizes and
  interprets information
• Assimilation
• interpreting ones new experience in terms of
  ones existing schemas
• Accommodation
• adapting ones current schemas to incorporate new
  information

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Piagets Stages of Cognitive Development
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Piagets Theory of Cognitive Development

• Object Permanence
• the awareness that things continue to exist even
  when not perceived
• Conservation
• the principle that properties such as mass,
  volume, and number remain the same despite
  changes in the forms of objects
• part of Piagets concrete operational reasoning
• Egocentrism
• the inability of the preoperational child to take
  anothers point of view

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Cognitive Development

• Habituation
• decreasing responsiveness with repeated
  stimulation
• newborns become bored with a repeated stimulus,
  but renew their attention to a slightly different
  stimulus

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Cognitive Development
Percentage of time spent looking
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Familiar stimulus
Novel stimulus
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Cognitive Development
Time spent looking (seconds)
Presentation
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Cognitive Development

• Baby Mathematics
• Shown a numerically impossible outcome, infants
  stare longer (Wynn, 1992)

4. Possible outcome Screen drops, revealing
one object.
1. Objects placed in case.
2. Screen comes up.
3. One object is removed.
4. Possible outcome Screen drops, revealing
two object.
22
Social Development

• Stranger Anxiety
• fear of strangers that infants commonly display
• beginning by about 8 months of age
• Attachment
• an emotional tie with another person
• shown in young children by seeking closeness to
  the caregiver and showing distress on separation

23
Social Development

• Harlows Surrogate Mother Experiments
• Monkeys preferred contact with the comfortable
  cloth mother, even while feeding from the
  nourishing wire mother

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Social Development

• Critical Period
• an optimal period shortly after birth when an
  organisms exposure to certain stimuli or
  experiences produces proper development
• Imprinting
• the process by which certain animals form
  attachments during a critical period very early
  in life
• Temperament
• a persons characteristic emotional reactivity
  and intensity

25
Social Development

• Monkeys raised by artificial mothers were
  terror-stricken when placed in strange situations
  without their surrogate mothers.

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Social Development

• Basic Trust (Erik Erikson)
• a sense that the world is predictable and
  trustworthy
• said to be formed during infancy by appropriate
  experiences with responsive caregivers
• Self-Concept
• a sense of ones identity and personal worth

27
Social Development

• Groups of infants who had and had not experienced
  day care were left by their mothers in a
  unfamiliar room.

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Social Development

• Percentage of children experiencing school
  problems in the previous year

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Social Development- Child-Rearing Practices

• Authoritarian
• parents impose rules and expect obedience
• Dont interrupt
• Why? Because I said so.
• Authoritative
• parents are both demanding and responsive
• set rules, but explain reasons
• encourage discussion

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Social Development- Child-Rearing Practices

• Permissive
• submit to childrens desires
• make few demands
• use little punishment
• Rejecting-neglecting
• disengaged
• expect little
• invest little

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Social Development- Child-Rearing Practices

• Three explanations for correlation between
  authoritative parenting and social competence

(1) Parents behavior may be influencing child.
(2) Childs behavior may be influencing parents.
Self-reliant, Socially competent child
Authoritative parents
Self-reliant, Socially competent child
(3) Some third factor may be influencing both
parents and child.
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Gender and Child-Rearing

• Gender Identity
• ones sense of being male or female
• Gender-Typing
• the acquisition of a traditional masculine or
  feminine role
• Social Learning Theory
• we learn social behavior by observing and
  imitating and by being rewarded or punished
• Gender Schema Theory
• children learn from their cultures a concept of
  what it means to be male and female
• adjust behavior accordingly

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Gender and Child-Rearing