Developmental Psychology: Nature, Nurture, and Maturation

1. Development Chapter 8, 9 & 10

2. Objectives • Discuss the interaction of nature and nurture in the determination of behavior • Explain the process of conception and gestation, including factors that influence successful fetal development: Nutrition, Illness, Substance Abuse • Discuss maturation of motor skills. • Describe the influence of temperament and other social factors on attachment and appropriate socialization

3. Unit Objectives • Explain the maturation of cognitive abilities including Piaget’s stages and information processing. • Compare and contrast models of moral development. • Discuss maturational challenges in adolescence including related family conflicts. • Characterize the development of decisions related to intimacy as people mature. • Predict the physical and cognitive changes that emerge as people age, including steps that can be taken to maximize function. • Describe how sex and gender influence socialization and other aspects of development. • Identify key contributors in developmental psychology

4. Developmental Psych • Questions developmental psychologists seek to answer about child development • What does the newborn know? • How does the infant respond in the early years of life? • How do we learn to walk and talk, to think and feel? • How do we develop our unique personalities?

5. Developmental Psychology • Developmental psychology: the study of the changes that occur as people grow up and grow older. • Covers the entire life cycle from conception to death

6. Key Issues in Development • Let’s read AP review book together and define, pg164: • Nature vs. Nurture Controversy • Continuity vs. Discontinuity • Stability vs. Change

7. Methods of Studying Development • Let’s read and define, pg 164-165 • Longitudinal Study • Cross-sectional study • cohort • cohort effect • Cohort-sequential study • Retrospective studies

8. The Beginning of Life • Development begins long before an infant is born. Expectant mothers can feel strong movement and kicking -even hiccupping- inside them during the later stages of pregnancy. • Birth puts new demands on a baby’s capacity to adapt and survive. • Baby goes from environment of extreme protection (inside the womb) to one in which they are incredibly unfamiliar with (lights, sounds, extreme temp. changes).

9. Your first baby picture…cute!

10. Physical Development • Prenatal development- begins with fertilization, or conception, and ends with birth • ADD all the following definitions to your notes: • Zygote - fertilized egg, 46 chromosomes • Embryo – 2 weeks to 2 months, organs to develop • Fetus – 9 weeks to birth • Teratogens –chemicals or poisons ingested by mom passed to fetus • Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)- low intelligence, small head, flat face, misshapen eyes, flat nose, thin upper lip, low birth weight

12. F.A.S.

13. What to avoid while pregnant - Teratogens • Don’t handle Lunch Meat and Hot Dogs, bacteria that can affect fetus, listeria • Don’t change the cat’s litter box…again a bacteria (Toxoplasmosis) that can cause grave implications on the unborn fetus, including death • Food to avoid when pregnant • See the following link provided by the Mayo Clinic • http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/pregnancy-nutrition/PR00109

14. Developmental Psychology • Newborn is capable of certain inherited, automatic, coordinated movement patterns called reflexes • Grasping reflex: a response to a touch on the palm of the hand • Infants can grasp an object, such as a finger, so strongly that they can be lifted into the air • Rooting reflex: when touched near the mouth, babies automatically turn to the source of the contact • Helps ensure successful breast feeding

15. Grasping Reflex

16. More Reflexes • Moro Reflex –a loud noise or sudden drop of the babies head causes the baby to automatically arch his/her back, fling their limbs out and then quickly retract them

17. Primitive Reflexes • Babinski Reflex - occurs after the sole of the foot has been firmly stroked. The big toe then moves upward, the other toes fan out. • This reflex is normal in children up to 2 years old. It disappears as the child gets older. Disappear at 12 months to 24 months FYI: You currently have a plantar reflex

18. What reflex is this?

19. MORO REFLEX • “startle reflex”

20. What reflex is this?

21. Babinski

22. What reflex is this?

23. GRASPING REFLEX

24. Guess what Psychologist is torturing this baby?

25. J.B. Watson , the “Little Albert” Psychologist

26. What reflex is this?

27. Rooting Reflex

28. More reflexes • Sucking & Swallowing are both the an automatic responses found in normally developed “neonates” – newborn babies • The lack of some of these reflexes can indicate brain or spinal cord damage • As the infant matures- they develop voluntary control over behaviors and grasping and moro disappear

29. Neonates • Babies demonstrate extremely adaptive behavior that facilitate social interaction the world • They respond to a human face, voice or touch • They can track objects with their eyes when they are just a few days old • They show a preference to primary caregiver’s voice • Hearing is well developed at birth and is their dominant sense during first few months • Vision becomes more dominant sense during 6 -12 months, as structures in the eye and brain develop

30. First 2 Years • Infants physical development is rapid and amazing • 20 billion brain cells are produced • Dendrites grow in the neural networks in the cerebellum (balance & motor control), occipital lobe, temporal lobe (hearing, visual memories)

31. The Maturation Process • Maturation: Internally programmed growth • Is as important as learning or experience, especially in the first years • Unless child is underfed, severely restricted in movements, or deprived of human contact and thing to look at, child will develop more or less according to schedule.

32. The Maturation Process = Nature • Unless something is wrong with an infant . . . • 3 months – lift head • 4 months – smile • 5-6 months – grasp objects • 8-10 months – crawling (can pull themselves up) • 13+ months - begin to walk • Parents shouldn’t try to push their children to master new skills. Child hasn’t reached maturation readiness.

33. The Maturation Process • Maturation readiness was tested in an experiment with identical twins (Gesel and Thompson, 1929). • One baby got special training in effort to speed up maturation • Other child caught up and had same skills in a short amount of time w/ much less practice – why?

34. The Maturation Process • By studying thousands of infants: • approximate schedule for infant maturation (Fig 8.4 in Ch. 8 – pg. 187). • Important to remember that each child is unique – maturation schedule is approximate, but it gives us a pretty good idea of where infants should naturally be.

35. Learning/Intellectual Development • Learning is an important part of the process of growing up. • Maturation and learning work together • Intellectual development involves: • quantitative changes-growth in the amount of information • qualitative changes - differences in the manner of thinking

36. Cognitive Changes & Development • Gerontologist Warner Shaie identified and researched 2 types of learning: • Fluid Intelligence- cognitive abilities that require speed or rapid learning, problem solving • Crystalized Intelligence- improves with age (at least up through 60s) consist of learned or acquired knowledge such as vocabulary, skills, wisdom from life experiences

37. Fluid and Crystalized Intelligence • Both types increase throughout childhood and adolescence • Fluid intelligence peaks in late adolescence • Fluid intelligence begins to decline around age 30 to 40 • Crystalized intelligence continues to grow throughout adulthood

38. Check for Understanding • What do you have more of, fluid or crystalized intelligence? • What does Mrs. Bird have more of?

39. Cognition & Development • Decline in mental ability can be slowed if we stay active, healthy and maintain stimulating activities • Alzheimer’s Disease – a fatal degenerative disease in which brain neurons progressively die, causing loss of memory, reasoning, emotion, control of bodily functions, then death • Strikes 3% of world’s population by age 75 • Early onset alzheimer’s disease, can stike as early as 30-40 • Strokes, tumors, and alcoholism can result in dementia, the loss of mental abilites as we age

40. Jean Piaget: How Knowing Changes Understanding the world involves the construction of schemas= building blocks of knowing, mental representations that organize and catagorize information processed by our brain In the process ofassimilation, we try to fit new information into our existing schemas In the process of accommodation, we modify our schema to fit new information

41. Object Permanence • A baby’s understanding of things lies totally in the here and now. • If they have a toy, the sight of it and the way it feels in their hands are all they know. • Object permanence– the reality that things exist even though we cannot see or touch them (occurs around 12 months) • HUGE step in intellectual development – go from a stage where children believe their own actions create the world, to a stage where they realize that people and objects are independent of their actions

42. Representational Thought • The achievement of object permanence suggests that a child has begun to engage in what Piaget calls representational thought. • Representational thought – children can picture or represent things in their mind (symbols) • Representational thought is the gateway to language.

43. The Principle of Conservation • More complex intellectual abilities emerge as the infant grows in to childhood. • Conservation – the principle that a given quantity does not change when it’s appearance is changed • Happens between the ages 5-7

44. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Stage 1: Sensorimotor Stage (birth – 2 years) • Baby explores he world using their senses and motor interactions with objects. • Child gradually learns to discover the location of hidden objects, when the concept of object permanence is understood in stage 1 (8-10months). • Stranger anxiety is another sign of cognitive development in this stage, they can discern the difference b/t stranger and people the know

45. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Stage 2: Preoperational Stage (2-6 years) • Beginning of symbolic representational thought. Language first appears; child begins to draw pictures that represent things. Child cannot represent a series of actions in his or her head in order to solve problems. • Egocentrism – preoccupation with one’s internal world, inability to see other’s viewpoints • Animism - all things are living • Artificialism – all objects are made by people • Ex: lack of interest in sharing, language very “me” centered

46. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Stage 3: Concrete Operational Stage (6-12 years) • Ability to understand conservation problems. Ability to think of several dimensions or features at the same time. Child can now do elementary math problems, such as judging the quantity of liquid containers and checking addition of numbers by subtraction (reversibility).

47. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development • Stage 4: Formal Operational Stage (12 years – adulthood) • Thinking becomes more abstract and hypothetical. The individual can consider many alternative solutions to a problem, make deductions, contemplate the future, and formulate personal ideals and values.

48. Piaget Videos • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSGWh2CWJnA

49. Summarize Piaget’s Theory • Is he suggesting nature or nurture? • Is he suggesting continuity or discontinuity?

50. Piaget in Review • Nature = maturation • Discontinuity = stage theory