Psychology 132

1. Psychology 132 Natalie B. Phelps M.S.Ed. NCC Chapter Four

2. Life-Span Development • Developmental Milestones • These are notable events, markers, or turning points in personal development. • Some examples include: • graduating from school, voting for the first time, getting married, watching a child leave home (or move back!), the death of a parent, becoming a grandparent, retirement, and one's own death.

3. Erik Erikson (1903–1994) • Personality theorist Erik Erikson (1903–1994) suggests that we face a specific psychosocial dilemma, or "crisis," at each stage of life. • Table 4.1 lists Erikson's dilemmas (p.122) • What are the major developmental tasks and life crises? A brief description of each psychosocial dilemma follows.

4. ERIK ERIKSON 1902 - 1994 The ways in which our lives intermesh are terribly complex and very frustrating to the theorist. But ignoring them is to ignore something vitally important about our development and our personalities. Chart adapted from Erikson's 1959 Identity and the Life Cycle (Psychological Issues vol 1, #1)

5. Erik Erikson’s Life-Stage Theory (8 stages)(Psychosocial Dilemma) • Birth to 1 year Trust versus mistrust • Trust is established when babies are given warmth, touching, love, and physical care. • Mistrust is caused by inadequate or unpredictable care and by parents who are cold, indifferent, or rejecting. Basic mistrust may later cause insecurity, suspiciousness, or an inability to relate to others. • 1 to 3 years Autonomy versus shame and doubt • Parents can foster a sense of autonomy by encouraging children to try new skills. However, the child's first efforts can be crude. Often, they result in spilling, falling, wetting, and other "accidents." • Parents who ridicule or overprotect their children may cause them to doubt their abilities and feel shameful about their actions. • 3 to 5 years Initiative versus guilt • Parents reinforce initiative by giving children freedom to play, ask questions, use imagination, and choose activities. • Feelings of guilt about initiating activities are formed if parents criticize severely, prevent play, or discourage a child's questions.

6. Continued… • 6 to 12 years Industry versus inferiority • Children learn a sense of industry if they win praise for productive activities, such as building, painting, cooking, reading, and studying. • If a child's efforts are regarded as messy, childish, or inadequate, feelings of inferiorityresult. • For the first time, teachers, classmates, and adults outside the home can be as important as parents in shaping attitudes toward oneself. • Adolescence Identity versus role confusion • Adolescents must build a consistent identity out of their talents, values, life history, relationships, and their culture. Conflicting experiences as a student, friend, athlete, worker, son or daughter, lover, and so forth must be integrated into a unified sense of self (more on this later). • Persons who fail to develop a sense of identity suffer from role confusion. That is, they are uncertain about who they are and where they are going.

7. Continued… • Young adulthood Intimacy versus isolation • By intimacy, Erikson means an ability to care about others and to share experiences with them. • Failure to establish intimacy with others leads to a deep sense of isolation(feeling alone and uncared for in life). • Middle adulthood Generativity versus stagnation • Erikson called this quality generativity. It is expressed by caring about oneself, one's children, and future generations. Generativity may be achieved by guiding one's own children or by helping other children (as a teacher or coach, for example). • Failure to do this is marked by a stagnant concern with one's own needs and comforts. Life loses meaning, and the person feels bitter, dreary, and trapped (Peterson & Klohnen, 1995). • Late adulthood Integrity versus despair

8. Continued… • Late adulthood Integrity versus despair • According to Erikson, a person must be able to look back over life with acceptance and satisfaction. The person who has lived richly and responsibly develops a sense of integrity (self-respect). This allows the person to face aging and death with dignity. • If previous life events are viewed with regret, the elderly person experiences despair (heartache and remorse). In this case, life seems like a series of missed opportunities. The person feels like a failure and knows it's too late to reverse what has been done. • Aging and the threat of death then become sources of fear and depression.

9. Typical DifficultiesHow can you tell if a child is being subjected to too much stress? They are normal reactions to the unavoidable stresses of growing up • All children occasionally have sleep disturbances, including wakefulness, nightmares, or a desire to get into their parents' bed. 2. Specific fears of the dark, dogs, school, or a particular room or person are also common. 3. Most children will be overly timid at times, allowing themselves to be bullied by other children. 4. Temporary periods of general dissatisfaction may occur, when nothing pleases the child. 5. Children also normally display periods of general negativism. • Repeatedly saying "no" or refusing to do anything requested is typical of such times. 6. Another normal problem is clinging. Children who "cling" refuse to leave the sides of their mothers or do anything on their own. 7. Development does not always advance smoothly. Reversals or regressions to more infantile behavior occur with almost all children

10. Rivalry and Rebellion • An added problem in the elementary school years is sibling rivalry • It is normal for a certain amount of jealousy, rivalry, and even hostility to develop between siblings. In fact, some sibling conflict may be constructive. • A limited amount of aggressive give-and-take between siblings provides an opportunity to learn emotional control, self-assertion, and good sportsmanship. • Parents can help keep such conflicts within bounds by not "playing favorites" and by not comparing one child with another. • Supportive and affectionate fathering, in particular, seems to minimize conflicts and jealousy among siblings.

11. Serious Childhood Problems • Eating disorders • anorexia nervosa, etc. • Pica- • a craving for unnatural foods is a disorder in which children eat or chew on all sorts of inedible substances, such as plaster and chalk. • Toilet-Training Disturbances • The two most common toilet-training problems are enuresis (lack of bladder control) and encopresis (lack of bowel control). Both wetting and soiling can be an expression of frustration or hostility. • Speech Disturbances --Delayed speech (learning to talk after the normal age for language development) --Stuttering

12. Continued… • Learning Disability • dyslexic • 10 to 15 percent of school-age children have some dyslexia, or "word blindness." When dyslexic children try to read, they often reverse letters (such as seeing b for d) and words (was and saw) • Attention-Deficit/hyperactivity Disorder (ADD or ADHD) • Meds or behavior modification • Over described • Conduct Disorder -- Law & Order • Autism --only about 25 percent of all autistic children approach normalcy and only 2 percent are able to live alone.

13. Child Abuse • Child Abuse • Physical or emotional harm caused by violence, mistreatment, or neglect • Child abuse is widespread • more than 2 million children are physically battered each year in the United States and Canada. • Characteristics of Abusive Parents • Typically they have a high level of stress and frustration in their lives. Common problems include depression, loneliness, marital discord, unemployment, drug abuse, divorce, family violence, heavy drinking, and work anxieties.

14. Continued… The Abuse Cycle • Many parents continue to believe it is their "right" to slap or hit their children. In a USA Today poll, 67 percent of adults agreed that "a good, hard spanking" is sometimes necessary to discipline a child. For many parents, "sometimes" occurs quite often: On average, parents report spanking their children 2.5 times a week. • Thus, one parent in four has at least flirted with serious child abuse.

15. Adolescence • Adolescence is the culturally defined period between childhood and adulthood. • Socially, the adolescent is no longer a child, yet not quite an adult. • The length of adolescence varies greatly from culture to culture. • For example, most 14-year-old girls in North America live at home and go to school. In contrast, many 14-year-old females in rural villages of the Near East are married and have children. In our culture, 14-year-olds are adolescents. In others, they may be adults.

16. Puberty • Many people confuse adolescence with puberty. • Puberty is a biological event, not a social status. During puberty, hormonal changes promote rapid physical growth and sexual maturity. • Puberty occurs earlier for girls than for boys (Figure 4.3). • This difference explains the 1- to 2-year period when girls tend to be taller than boys. • For girls the onset of puberty typically occurs between 9 and 12 years of age. For most boys the age range is 11 to 14 years. • Biologically, most people reach reproductive maturity in the early teens. • Social and intellectual maturity, however, may lie years ahead! • Other major risks during adolescence include alcohol abuse, smoking, eating disorders, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse, suicide, risk-taking, violence, sexually transmitted diseases, and school failure.

17. Timing • For boys, maturing early is generally beneficial. • Enhances self-image, gives them an advantage socially, athletically, relaxed, dominant, self-assured, and popular. • However, early-maturing boys get into trouble with drugs, alcohol, truancy, fighting, and antisocial behavior. • For girls, the advantages of early maturation are less clear-cut. • In elementary school, physically advanced girls tend to have less prestige among peers. • Early- maturing girls date sooner and are more independent and more active in school. • However, early-maturing girls get into trouble at school more & are more likely to engage in sex. • Also have poorer self-images. • As you can see, there are costs and benefits associated with both early and late puberty.

18. Hurried into Adulthood? • Psychologist David Elkind (2001) believes that many parents are hurrying their children's development. Elkind is concerned about parents who try to raise their babies' IQs, force them to "read" flash cards, etc.

19. Peer Groups • Peer groups are very import for teens. • What are some other benefits of peer groups?

20. A Twixter?(p. 135) • Small towns & big cities • When to get married? • Still living at home, not yet married, no children, no settled career? Are twixters self-indulgent individuals trapped in a "maturity gap" or part of a cultural phenomenon of "emerging adulthood”. • According to American psychologist Jeffrey Arnett (2000, 2004), emerging adulthood is increasingly characteristic of affluent Westernized cultures that allow young people to take longer to settle into their adult roles. • In England they are called "Kippers" (Kids In Parents' Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings), in Italy they are "Mammone" (won't give up on mother's cooking), and in Germany they are "Nesthocker" (nest squatters).

21. Moral Development • A person with a terminal illness is in great pain. She is pleading for death. Should extraordinary medical efforts be made to keep her alive? • If a friend of yours desperately needed to pass a test and asked you to help him cheat, would you do it? • These are moral questions, or questions of conscience.

22. Lawrence Kohlberg • To study moral development, Kohlberg posed dilemmas to children of different ages. The following is one of the moral dilemmas he used (adapted from Kohlberg, 1969). • A woman was near death from cancer, and there was only one drug that might save her. It was discovered by a druggist who was charging 10 times what it cost to make the drug. The sick woman's husband could only pay $1,000, but the druggist wanted $2,000. He asked the druggist to sell it cheaper or to let him pay later. The druggist said no. So the husband became desperate and broke into the store to steal the drug for his wife. Should he have done that? Was it wrong or right? Why? • Then each child was asked what action the husband should take.

23. Continued… • Ta b l e 4 . 2 (p. 176) Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development • Preconventional Stage 1: Punishment orientation. Actions are evaluated in terms of possible punishment, not goodness or badness; obedience to power is emphasized. Stage 2: Pleasure-seeking orientation. Proper action is determined by one's own needs; concern for the needs of others is largely a matter of "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours," not of loyalty, gratitude, or justice. • Conventional Stage 3: Good boy/good girl orientation. Good behavior is that which pleases others in the immediate group or which brings approval; the emphasis is on being "nice." Stage 4: Authority orientation. In this stage the emphasis is on upholding law, order, and authority, doing one's duty, and following social rules. • Postconventional Stage 5: Social-contract orientation. Support of laws and rules is based on rational analysis and mutual agreement; rules are recognized as open to question but are upheld for the good of the community and in the name of democratic values. Stage 6: Morality of individual principles. Behavior is directed by self-chosen ethical principles that tend to be general, comprehensive, or universal; high value is placed on justice, dignity, and equality.

24. Justice or Caring?Gilligan The Porcupine and the Moles • Seeking refuge from the cold, a porcupine asked to share a cave for the winter with a family of moles. The moles agreed. But because the cave was small, they soon found they were being scratched each time the porcupine moved about. Finally, they asked the porcupine to leave. But the porcupine refused, saying, “If you moles are not satisfied, I suggest that you leave.” • Boys tended to…. & girls tended to…. • Boys- Justice (the porcupines need to leave!) • Girls- Solution focused (blanket)

25. Adult Development http://www.psy.pdx.edu/PsiCafe/Overheads/Stages.htm

26. Mental Abilities“How to stay active in the mind” • Natalie & Friz (Maine) • 1. You remain healthy. • 2. You live in a favorable environment (you are educated and have a stimulating occupation, above-average income, and an intact family). • 3. You are involved in intellectually stimulating activities (reading, travel, cultural events, continuing education, clubs, professional associations). • 4. You have a flexible personality. • 5. You are married to a smart spouse. • 6. You maintain your perceptual processing speed. • 7. You were satisfied with your accomplishments in midlife.

27. Death & DyingKübler-Ross“Stages of Acceptances” • Denial and isolation. 2. Anger. 3. Bargaining. 4. Depression. 5. Acceptance.

28. Death & Dying • Hospices • Bereavement and Grief • Coping with Grief • Acknowledge and accept that the person is gone. • Face the loss directly and do not isolate yourself. • Discuss your feelings with relatives and friends. • Do not block out your feelings with drugs or alcohol. • Allow grief to progress naturally; neither hurry nor suppress it. • Honor the memory of the deceased, but accept the need to rebuild your life. (Coni et al., 1984; Rando, 1995)

29. THE END!!!