PSYC 1101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Moral Reasoning, Immune System, Emerging Adulthood And Early Adulthood
6 Jun 2018
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Notes on Developing Through the Life Span
Developmental Issues, Prenatal Development, and the Newborn
Developmental Psychology’s Major Issues
● Developmental psychology → examines physical, cognitive, social development across
life, with a focus on:
○ Nature and nurture → how does genetic inheritance interact with experiences to
influence development?
○ Continuity and stages → what parts of development are gradual and continuous?
What parts abruptly change?
○ Stability and change → what traits stay the same through life? Which ones
change?
Continuity and Stages
● Set stages of development vs. unfixed experiences in adult life
● Growth spurts correspond roughly to Piaget’s stages
Stability and Change
● Some things change but others, like temperament tend to be stable
● Social attitudes less stable
Prenatal Development and the Newborn
Conception
● Females born with all egg cells, males produce sperm cells
Prenatal Development
● Zygotes → fertilized egg, enters 2 week period of development to become embryo -
fewer than half make it past 2 weeks
● Cells divide and become different organs
● Embryo → developing human organism from 2 weeks to 2nd month - formed from
zygote’s inner cells
● Placenta → transfers nutrients and oxygen to embryo - from zygote’s outer cells
● Fetus → developing human from 9 weeks to birth - can survive if born prematurely
● Babies cry and babble with the intonations and sounds of their mother’s language(s)
● React to outside stimuli 2 weeks before birth
● Teratogens → agents that can reach the fetus during pregnancy and cause harm
● Fetal alcohol syndrome → physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a
pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. Signs include small head and abnormal facial
features.
● Stress experienced by women can affect child
The Competent Newborn
● Babies are born with pre-wired skills and reflexes
● James hypothesized that babies could essentially do nothing and understand nothing
● Habituation → decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants become
more familiar with something, they grow less interested in it.
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● Newborns prefer social stimuli
● Babies know the scent of their mother
Infancy and Childhood
● Maturation → biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior,
relatively uninfluenced by experience
Physical Development
Brain Development
● Ages 3 to 6 - rapid growth in frontal lobes
● Thinking, memory, and language - last association areas to develop
● Pruning → the shutting down of unused links between neurons
Motor Development
● Progression of motor development pretty much universal
● Nearly all babies walk by 15 months
● Genes affect motor development
Brain Maturation and Infant Memory
● Infantile amnesia → usually no lasting memories before the age of three
● Babies consciously experience things and are capable of learning
Cognitive Development
● Consciously aware from a young age
● Cognitive → all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering,
and communicating
● Jean Piaget noticed similarities between the actions of children of the same age
● Children reason differently than adults
● Schemas → concepts or framework that organizes and interprets information
● Schemas:
1. Assimilate → interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas
2. Accommodate → adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate
new information
Piaget’s Theory and Current Thinking
● Cognitive development consists of four stages:
○ Sensorimotor
○ Preoperational
○ Concrete operational
○ Formal operational
Sensorimotor Stage
● Sensorimotor stage → in Piaget’s theory the stage (from birth to nearly 2 years) during
which the infant knows the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor
activities
● Lack object permanence
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find more resources at oneclass.com
● Object permanence → the awareness that objects continue to exist even when not
perceived
● Preschoolers test ideas and make make inferences
● Infants look at unexpected events longer
● Piaget somewhat underestimates the cognitive abilities of babies
Preoperational Stage
● Preoperational stage → in Piaget’s theory, the stage (from about 2 to 7 years) during
which the child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations
of concrete language
● Cannot perform mental operations such as reversing actions
● Lack concept of conservation
● Conservation → principle (which Piaget believed to be part of concrete operational
reasoning) that properties such as mass and number do not change even when their form
does
● EGOCENTRISM
○ Egocentrism → in Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty in taking
another’s point of view
○ According to Piaget, preschool children are egocentric
○ Knowledge - egocentrism (something that makes sense to one person might not to
another)
● THEORY OF MIND
○ Preschoolers begin forming a theory of mind
○ Theory of mind → people’s ideas about their own and other’s mental states -
about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might
predict
Concrete Operational Stage
● Concrete operational stage → in Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development
(from about 7 to 11) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to
think logically about concrete events
Formal Operational Stage
● Formal operational stage → in Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development
(normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about
abstract concepts
An Alternative Viewpoint: Lev Vygotsky and the Social Child
● Vygotsky emphasized how social interaction helps a child grow mentally
Reflecting on Piaget’s Theory
● Cognitive development more continuous than Piaget thought
Implications for Parents and Teachers
Autism Spectrum Disorder
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Developmental psychology examines physical, cognitive, social development across life, with a focus on: Set stages of development vs. unfixed experiences in adult life. Growth spurts correspond roughly to piaget"s stages. Some things change but others, like temperament tend to be stable. Females born with all egg cells, males produce sperm cells. Zygotes fertilized egg, enters 2 week period of development to become embryo - fewer than half make it past 2 weeks. Embryo developing human organism from 2 weeks to 2nd month - formed from zygote"s inner cells. Placenta transfers nutrients and oxygen to embryo - from zygote"s outer cells. Fetus developing human from 9 weeks to birth - can survive if born prematurely. Babies cry and babble with the intonations and sounds of their mother"s language(s) React to outside stimuli 2 weeks before birth. Teratogens agents that can reach the fetus during pregnancy and cause harm.
