Human Development Across the Lifespan

1. Human Development Across the Lifespan From womb to tomb! Chapter 11

2. Important concepts in developmental psych • Prenatal development: gestational (zygotic), embryonic, and fetal stages • Impact of drugs and alcohol on prenatal development • Attachment and Mary Ainsworth’s “strange situation” experiments • Erik Erikson and the psychosocial crisis • Jean Piaget and his sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages • Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan (feminist): stages of moral development

4. Babies In the womb:Prenatal development • Each group will specialize in one of the prenatal stages. Read about it and be prepared to explain details such as timeframe and critical developments to other students. • (Myers, pg. 170-172) • germinal (zygotic): conception week 2; fertilized egg (zygote) moves toward the uterus(takes up to a week); cell division begins approximately 24 to 36 hours after conception. • embryonic: weeks 3-8; a mass of cells becomes a distinct human being; major bodily systems begin to form • fetal stages: week 8-9-birth; bodily systems mature and infant progresses to the point where it can survive outside of the womb

5. Fetal alcohol syndrome, etc. • Myers, pg. 171-172 • Alcohol depresses activity in both mother’s and fetus’s central nervous systems. • Teens whose mothers drank when pregnant are at risk for heavy drinking and alcohol dependence (confirmed in rats, too) (Youngentob et al., 2007). • Mother’s drinking can effect the fetal brain. • Persistent heavy drinking will put the fetus at risk for birth defects and intellectual disability. • 1 in 800 infants impacted by fetal alcohol syndrome. • FAS marked by a small, disproportioned head and lifelong brain abnormalities (May & Gossage, 2001).

6. (Spiral) Who’s Who in Attachment Directions: Write a miniature biography on each of the following people highlighting their contribution to studies on attachment. • Mary Ainsworth (Myers, 187) • Konrad Lorenz (Myers, 187) • Harry Harlow (Myers, 186)

7. Important people in Human Development • EARLY CHILDHOOD • Mary Ainsworth– responsive parenting and strange situation paradigm (attachment); anxious/avoidant vs. securely attached vs. anxious/resistant • Konrad Lorenz – imprinting/geese (instinct theorist). He was the first thing the geese saw after they were born, so they followed him around everywhere (even when real goose mothers were available to follow).Promotes survival of newborns and defines future relationships. In child development, imprinting is used to refer to the process by which a baby learns who its mother and father are. The process is recognized as beginning in the womb, when the unborn baby starts to recognize its parents' voices. • Harry Harlow: studied attachment; motherless rhesus monkeys prefer cuddly fake moms to wire fake moms; rhesus monkeys without an attachment suffered worse health and had no social skills when full grown; when reunited with their monkey children, mothers did not recognize them and in many cases tried to harm them

8. Attachment (Ainsworth) • “A highly individualized relationship that forms between parents and their child. It is based on a biological bond between child and parent that is as basic a need as is food or warmth. It is affected by many factors, such as parental emotional and physical health, an infant’s temperament, and family’s social support network.” (Shafer, 2004)

9. Children aged 12 - 18 months and their mothers 1. Caregiver and infant enter the room. 2. Child plays with the toys while the mother is present. 3. A stranger enters the room and the caregiver leaves. 4. The stranger tries to comfort the child. 5. The caregiver returns and the stranger leaves. 6. The caregiver comforts the child and then leaves for a second time. 7. The child is left alone for 3 minutes. 8. The stranger enters and interacts with the child. 9. The caregiver enters, picks up the child and the stranger leaves. STRANGE SITUATION (Ainsworth)

10. SECURE ATTACHMENT (Ainsworth) • Infant explores the room with interest; • shows signs of missing parent during separation, crying. • Greets parent actively, settles, and returns to play. • Securely attached infants have caregivers who are attentive and interactive • These children know their parent or caregiver will provide comfort and reassurance, so they are comfortable seeking them out in times of need.

11. AMBIVALENT ATTACHMENT (Ainsworth) • Wary or distressed even prior to separation; little exploration; angry or passive; focuses on parent and cries; fails to settle • Ambivalently attached children usually become very distressed when a parent leaves. • This attachment style is considered relatively uncommon, affecting an estimated 7-15% of U.S. children. • Research suggests that ambivalent attachment is a result of poor maternal availability. • These children cannot depend on their mother (or caregiver) to be there when they are in need

12. INSECURE AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT (Ainsworth) • Doesn’t cry at separation; actively avoids and ignores parent on reunion. No distress, no anger. Unemotional response to parent; avid interest in toys or environment. • Children will show no preference between a caregiver and a complete stranger. • Research has suggested that this attachment style might be a result of abusive or neglectful caregivers. • Children who are punished for relying on a caregiver will learn to avoid seeking help in the future.

13. DISORGANIZED/DISORIENTED ATTACHMENT (Ainsworth) • Infant’s behavior is disorganized or disoriented, i.e., may freeze with a trance-like expression, may lay in fetal position, may cling and cry hard, or lean away with gaze averted. • Infants in this category have generally had trauma.

14. Carry-over to adulthood (Ainsworth) • Research suggests that negative attachment issues in childhood have effects in adulthood: anxiety, anger, hysterical, affectionless, psychopathology, depression, agoraphobia, hypochondria, substance abuse . . .

15. Konrad Lorenz • imprinting/geese (instinct theorist). • He was the first thing the geese saw after they were born, so they followed him around everywhere (even when real goose mothers were available to follow). • Promotes survival of newborns and defines future relationships. • Humans don’t imprint like birds do. However, a baby learns who its mother and father are and has a fondness for familiar things. The process is recognized as beginning in the womb, when the unborn baby starts to recognize its parents' voices.

16. Harry Harlow’s Monkeys • 1957 and 1963 • studied attachment; • motherless rhesus monkeys prefer cuddly fake moms to wire fake moms; • Chose wire mother only when it dispensed food • When a frightening stimulus entered the room, the monkeys would run to the cloth mothers, whether or not the dispensed food • rhesus monkeys without an attachment suffered worse health and had no social skills when full grown;

17. Harry Harlow's Monkeys • When reunited with their monkey children, mothers did not recognize them and in many cases tried to harm them • When reunited with monkey who had normal upbringings, Harlow’s monkeys had a hard time socializing and, for the most part, could never exhibit totally normal social behavior • It was once thought that feeding created the bond between mother and infant. Harlow’s experiments suggest that close physical contact provides the bond between mother and infant.

18. How does this apply to human babies? “We shiver through Harlow's results, but still we make use of them.  Babies who are deprived of physical touch and emotional attachment were much more likely to suffer physical, social, emotional, and intellectual difficulties “Orphanages, social service agencies, the birthing industry all had critical policies altered based in part on Harlow's findings…workers in orphanages know it's not enough to prop a bottle; they must be held and rocked, see and smile.”

19. Frued’s view of attachment • A baby’s love for his mother is based on being fed: he loves her because she has breasts. After the child is weaned, he becomes narcissistic and then Oedipal.

20. More on Attachment • Weiten, pgs. 432-435 • Attachment: the bond between an infant and its primary care giver • developmental norms: windows at which kids will gain certain skills and exhibit certain behaviors • cultural variations and their significance: If a certain culture either encourages or discourages a skill in infants (walking, independence, grabbing, etc.) the infant will develop either more quickly or more slowly in that area. • easy and difficult babies: babies are born with a “temperament,” which will then transform into their “personality.” Easy babies are likely to attach more securely and are easy going and manageable as infants. Difficult babies are anxious and sensitive, and they have a more difficult time attaching securely. • day care and attachment: • High-quality daycares do not disrupt attachment. Kids who attend high-quality daycare even have more advanced cognition than kids who stayed home with mom. • Children in many cultures have many care givers. For example, children in Eastern-hemispheric, polygamous households have multiple mothers. The idea is “It takes a village to raise a child.” Perhaps that’s why Western-hemispheric kids can do well in high-quality daycares.

21. Continued . . . • culture and attachment: children in cultures that foster independence and are reserved in nature have fewer securely attached infants than countries that encourage early dependence in children and very responsive parenting. EX. Germany has fewer securely attached infants than the U.S. and Japan • evolutionary perspectives on attachment • Why do the effects of our infant attachments stay stubbornly with us to influence our present and future relationships? Our ability to attach to humans is programmed into us by nature as it will impact our survival and reproductive fitness. In order to form a family of our own, we need to know how to attach. • Abuse and Later Attachment Issues: • Humans: Most abusers were abused, though only 30% of abused and neglected children become abusers themselves. • Abused people and animals develop a sluggish serotonin response, so they struggle to calm aggressive impulses. • Abuse victims at risk of depression. • Divorces: • Disruption of attachment causes upsetness, withdrawal, and despair, which is why courts are reluctant to move kids away from parents. • If moved to an improved environment, most infants recover. • Kids being “moved” after age 2 will most likely have attachment problems.

23. So, what changes and what stays the same over the course of our lives? Transition vs continuity

24. (Spiral) Cornell Notes: How do people develop in various areas throughout their lifespan? Modules 14-16 • Key Points • Critical Periods • Kinds of stage theories • Erikson’s cognitive/identity • Piaget’s cognitive • Sensorimotor period • Preoperational period • Concrete operational period • Formal operational period • James Marcia and Identity • Kohlberg vs Gilligan on moral • Diana Baumrind and parenting • Lev Vygotsky and social development • Notes Summary:

25. Critical Periods • It’s been proven through studies on feral children that there are windows of opportunity in connection to our development that expire. • Example: If you don’t learn a 1st language by puberty, you’re out of luck. • Example: Most kids say their first word by age 1. • Example: If you don’t attach to someone by age 2-2 ½, you will not be able to form secure attachments during your lifetime.

26. Stage Theories of Development: Personality • Stage theories, three components • progress through stages in order • progress through stages related to age • major discontinuities in development bring about next stage.

27. Most foundational theories are discontinuous, but recent researchers believe that people can be in partial and multiple stages at once Figure 11.10 Stage theories of development

28. Erik Erikson • Erik Erikson (1963) • Eight stages of personality development 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.

29. Gray Arrow=College Board seems to like these ones Figure 11.11 Erikson’s stage theory

30. Adolescence: Erikson Stage #5 • Is Adolescence really a “Time of Turmoil?” (Weiten pgs. 452-453) • Research shows that teenage years are not necessarily more turbulent than other times in life, though teens do tend to be impulsive, reckless, and understandably more confused regarding their identity. • Teen suicide completion is lower than that of most other age groups, though teen suicide “attempts” are high. • Violent crime is often committed by teens. It peaks at age 18. A fifteen year old is more likely to commit a violent crime than a 30 year old. • Less than 1% of violent crime committed by teens occur s at schools. People overestimate the violence rate a schools. • “The Search for Identity”: James Marcia (Weiten, 454)and identity development • Identity diffusion: adolescents don’t know who they are, but they don’t really care. They don’t want to confront the challenge of forming an identity. • Identity foreclosure: adolescents don’t really know who they want to be, so they go along with what they know (society, their parents, etc.) • Identity moratorium: adolescents delay commitment to an identity for awhile as they actively struggle to form one. They experiment, which leads to confusion but also toward finding an identity. • Identity achievement: arriving at a sense of self and direction after some consideration of alternatives. College aged people usually reach this stage.

31. Stage Theories: Cognitive Development • Jean Piaget’s (1920s-1980s) cognitive development • Interaction with the environment and maturation gradually alter the way children think. Happens through: • (1)Assimilation: interpreting new experiences in terms of existing mental structures without changing them • (2) Accommodation: changing existing mental structures to explain new experiences • EX. Four-legged pets are puppies. When a child encounters a cat, he may call it a puppy (assimilation). Eventually, he’ll realize they’re different animals and refer to the cat as a cat (accommodation).

32. Piaget Ctd.: Sensorimotor • Within each stage there are characteristic thinking and reasoning patterns, as well as milestones in development. • 4 stages and major milestones • Sensorimotor: (Birth-2 years) children try to coordinate sensory input and motor responses by watching, listening, touching etc. and learning to respond physically. Ex. “I see a button. I should press it.” • Evidence of the Sensorimotor Stage • 1. The gradual appearance of symbolic thought overtakes the child’s dependence on innate reflexes. • Ex. A toy has been put a way, but since the child has a mental image of the toy, she knows she can go and get it. • 2. Key: Object permanence: the recognition that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible. • Ex. A baby sees a stuffed animal. You put it behind your back. The baby realizes that, even though he can’t see the stuffed animal, it still exists.

33. Piaget Ctd.: Preoperational • Preoperational: (2-7 years) children improve their use of mental images to respond to the world by engaging in basic symbolic thought. However, they often error in their conclusions. • Ex. Children develop mental images of how liquid should look in two differently shaped containers. If one container is taller than the other, children, based on their mental images, will mistakenly say that the taller container must contain more liquid. • Evidence of the Preoperational Stage: • Errors in Conservation: awareness that physical quantities remain constant in spite of changes in their shape or appearance. • Centration: tendency to focus on just one feature of a problem • Egocentrism: the limited ability to share another’s viewpoint • Animism: the belief that all things are living, just like oneself.

34. Figure 11.13 Piaget’s conservation task: preoperational vs. concrete operational child

35. Figure 11.14 The gradual mastery of conservation

36. Concrete Operational: (7-11 years) children gain the ability to perform mental operations using symbolic thought without making so many errors. • Ex. Children develop mental images of how liquid should look in two differently shaped containers. If one container is taller than the other, children, based on their mental images, will realize that the amount of liquid in each container is the same, despite the different shapes. • Evidence of the Concrete Operational Stage: • Ex: Decentration: ability to focus on more than one feature of a problem simultaneously • Ex: Reversibility: ability to envision the reversing of actions • Ex: Conservation: recognizing that amount of a substance does not change just because appearance is changed.

37. Piaget Ctd.: Formal Operational • Formal Operational: (11 years-adulthood) mental operations applied to abstract ideas and logic. • Ex. Children will wonder why bad things happen to good people. They will begin to solidify their views of right and wrong, and they will begin to connect their own actions with right and wrong. • Evidence of the Formal Operational Stage: • Abstraction: the ability to apply operations to abstract concepts such as justice, love, and free will. • Ex. A freshman English essay prompt may read, “Discuss the topics of patience vs. rashness in Romeo and Juliet. What are some examples of consequences of patience and rashness in your own life?”

38. Figure 11.12 Piaget’s stage theory

39. James Marcia: identity development (Weiten, 454): • Identity Foreclosure – means that the adolescent blindly accepts the identity and values that were given in childhood by families and significant others. The adolescent's identity is foreclosed until they determine for themselves their true identity. The adolescent in this state is committed to an identity but not as a result of their own searching or crisis. • Identity Moratorium – adolescent has acquired vague or ill-formed ideological and occupational commitments; he/she is still undergoing the identity search (crisis). They are beginning to commit to an identity but are still developing it. • Diffusion – the state of having no clear idea of one's identity and making no attempt to find that identity. These adolescents may have struggled to find their identity, but they never resolved it, and they seem to have stopped trying. There is no commitment and no searching. • Identity Achievement – the state of having developed well-defined personal values and self-concepts. Their identities may be expanded and further defined in adulthood, but the basics are there. They are committed to an ideology and have a strong sense of ego identity. Usually happens in early 20’s.

40. Feral Children: Development Gone Bad • Children who are not raised, period, are called feral children. • They grow up in deprived environments and miss many of the critical developmental windows. • They never really catch up. • Examples of feral children: • Genie from California • Wolf girls of India (Kamala and Amala) • Victor of Aveyron

41. Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development The breakthrough: Defined moral development on empirical evidence. Punishment=bad, reward=good Consequences-driven Also known as “Self Interest” stage Socially-driven Who do I want to like me more? What will be the best for society? Rules and laws regarded. Greatest good for greatest # of people? Principles-driven Is the deciding principle correct (like justice)?

42. Carol Gilligan • Psychological and feministic critic of Kohlberg and Erikson; • believes females differ from males both in being less concerned with viewing themselves as separate individuals and in being more concerned with making connections; • women are more interdependent and men are more independent • BUT this social nature DOES NOT make women less “moral.” Kohlberg claimed that mostly me reached the highest stage of morality, which has nothing to do with what people around you are doing, and women therefore possessed the less mature forms of morality. • (Myers, 158)

43. Diana Baumrind and parenting • parenting styles • Authoritarian: dictatorial • Authoritative: caring with boundaries • Permissive: push-over • authoritative parenting leads to self-reliant, socially competent, and warm offspring (Myers, 193)

44. Lev Vygotsky and social development • language provides the building blocks for thinking; • children internalize their culture’s language and rely on inner speech (especially for self-control or self-regulation). • Zone of proximal development is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help. • Vygotsky stated that a child follows an adult's example and gradually develops the ability to do certain tasks without help. (Myers, 184-5)

45. Important people in Human Development • Erik Erikson – psychosocial stages via psychosocial crises (basic trust, identity, generativity, industry, integrity, etc.) (Myers, 201) • Jean Piaget:stages of cognitive development (sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operations, formal operations, assimilation vs. accommodation, etc.) (Myers, 178) • Lawrence Kohlberg – moral development (preconventional vs. conventional vs. postconventional) (Myers, 199-200) • Carol Gilligan: critic of Kohlberg and Erikson; believes females differ from males both in being less concerned with viewing themselves as separate individuals and in being more concerned with making connections; women are more interdependent and men are more independent (Myers, 158) • Lev Vygotsky – language provides the building blocks for thinking; children internalize their culture’s language and rely on inner speech (especially for self-control or self-regulation). Zone of proximal development is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help. Vygotsky stated that a child follows an adult's example and gradually develops the ability to do certain tasks without help. (Myers, 184-5) • Diana Baumrind– parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative, permissive); authoritative parenting leads to self-reliant, socially competent, and warm offspring (Myers, 193) • James Marcia – identity development (foreclosure, moratorium, diffusion, achievement) (Weiten, 454)