PSYCH101 Lecture : Developmental Psychology Lecture and textbook notes covering all of developmental psychology from prenatal to adulthood; includes cognitive and social development in the stages, the detailed theories of Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson and Lawrence Kohlberg, as

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH101
• Professor: Colin Mac Leod

Document Summary

Developmental psychology: the branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive and social change throughout the lifespan: how a child learns to walk, how a teenager learns morality, how one learns to interact with others. A way of studying psychology through development. Starts when a woman"s ovary releases a mature egg. Women are born with all the immature eggs they will ever have while men start producing sperm at puberty. 200 million plus sperm race toward the egg, the few that make it release digestive enzymes that eat away at the egg"s protective coating. Once one sperm begins to penetrate, the egg"s surface block out all others. Within half a day, the egg nucleus and sperm nucleus fuse. During the first week, cells begin to specialize in structure and function; they begin to differentiate. Ten days after inception, zygote attaches to mothers uterine wall. Fewer than half all fertilized eggs (zygotes) survive beyond first two weeks. embryo.