Infancy and Childhood

1. Infancy and Childhood Chapter 8

2. Beginning of Life • When infants are born, they are extremely vulnerable • Born with certain reflexes: • Grasping Reflex: an infant’s clinging response to a touch on the palm. Probably stems from when humans had to cling to their mothers • Rooting Reflex: an infant’s response in turning toward the source of touching that occurs anywhere around his or her mouth. Assists in feeding • If an infant is not feeding or sleeping, it is staring at the world around them

3. How do Babies Grow? Maturation: • Unless there is something wrong with an infant, they will follow a specific pattern in development: • Lift head at 3 months • Smile at 4 months • Crawling at 8-10 months Maturation: the internally programmed growth of a child • Parents should wait until the right stage of development to challenge infants with new skills

4. How do Babies Grow? Learning: • Infants learn at a fast rate. They can: • Make associations • Avoid things that make punishments • Do things that get rewards • Imitate • Infants are capable of learning from the day they are born

5. Intellectual Development • Many times, we think of those younger than us as having “less” information in their brains • Jean Piaget discovered that it’s not about the information, but how we learn that makes age groups different

6. Piaget’s 4 Stages of Development Schemes: plans for knowing • Ex: All things with fur are dogs Assimilation: the process of fitting objects and experiences into one’s scheme for understanding an environment • Ex: See a new animal with fur, add it to our scheme. It’s a dog Accommodation: the adjustment of one’s scheme for understanding the world to fit newly observed events and experiences • Ex: Mother tells you that the new animal is actually a cat. You change your scheme

7. Sensorimotor (ages 0-2) Characteristics: • Cognitive development comes through use of body and senses • No object permanence: objects just don’t disappear from existence • Language absent until end of period • Egocentrism: its all about me! Stage 1

8. Preoperational (ages 2-7) Characteristics: • Begins using symbols but cannot manipulate them* • Can think of things that aren’t immediately present • Others see things through his viewpoint (no empathy) • No concrete sense of time Representational Thought: can use pictures to represent something in their minds Stage 2

9. Concrete Operations (ages 7-11) Characteristics: • Can perform mental operations with the use of concrete objects • Can make rational judgments • Can begin to think abstractly Conservation: a given quantity does not change when its appearance is changed Stage 3

10. Formal Operations (ages 11 and up) Characteristics: • Can think of things that are not concrete/tangible • Seperates real from possible • Language is no longer restricted to concrete • Hypothetical reasoning Deductive Reasoning

11. 4 Stages Video Piaget's Developmental Theory

12. A Final Note • Piaget believed intellectual development involves quantitative (amount) changes as well as qualitative (type) changes • The rate at which certain children develop varies • While this theory describes what is going on mentally, other things are not mentioned: • Moral development • Social development • Physical development

13. Development of Language • Children can make all the sounds of any human language by the end of their first year • By the age of 2, children have over 50 words • Learn by imitating • Between ages 2-5, children add around 5 to 10 words a day • Many young children add grammar rules inconsistently • EX: The past tense of add is added, therefore, the past tense of go is goed.

14. Socialization Socialization: learning the rules of behavior or the culture in which you are born • Some social rules are clear and inflexible and vice versa • We have different rules based on our gender, age, job, status and many other criteria • A few different theories exist: • Freud’s Theory of Psychosexual Development • Erikson’s theory of Psychosocial Development

15. Socialization Males Females

16. Freud’s Theory • All children are born with strong sexual and aggressive urges that must be tamed • The process of taming these feelings is what causes people to become socialized/civilized • Very controversial

17. Freud’s Theory Oral Stage: • Children get pleasure from oral fixation • EX: Breast Feeding/Pacifier • Stage goes away after child is weaned from breast feeding Anal Stage: • Pleasure comes from becoming trained to use bowels • EX: Toilet training • Toilet training gives children social control

18. Freud’s Theory Phallic Stage: • Strong sexual feelings for members of the opposite sex • Major conflict comes from fighting for the parent of the opposite sex Oedipal Conflict: a boy’s wish to possess his mother, coupled with hostility toward his father • Conflict is reduced when he starts identifying with the parents of the same sex Electra Conflict: a girl’s wish to possess her father, coupled with hostility toward her mother • Conflict is reduced when she starts identifying with the parents of the same sex

19. Freud’s Theory Latency Stage: • Sexual desires are pushed into the background • Exploring and acquiring new skills becomes key Genital Stage: • Adolescence

20. Erikson’s Theory • Socialization is not sudden or emotionally violent (like Freud) • Socialization is a lifelong process • There are 8 stages, each of which have a crisis • How we deal with these crisis will determine how we are in later life • We will only talk about the first 3 stages in this chapter • Stages build on each other

21. Erikson’s Theory Trust vs. Mistrust: Age 0-1 • If infant is well cared for, it will be trusting • If the infant has too much uncertainty, it will look at the world with fear and suspicion Autonomy vs. Doubt: Age 1-2 • Learns self-control and assertiveness • Too much criticism leads to being ashamed and have doubts about independence

22. Erikson’s Theory Initiative vs. Guilt: Age 2-5 • Lots of encouragement and support leads to someone who takes charge of their life • Too much discouragement leads to someone who feels guilty about their actions

23. Other Ideas on Socialization Many psychologists believe that we learn social norms through a series of normal tasks: • Conditioning: when we do something right, we are rewarded. When we do something wrong, we are embarrassed/ashamed • Imitation: when learning a new social norm, we normally start by imitating someone • Play: children sometimes role play being someone older and more established. They are actually practicing social rules

24. Moral Development- Kohlberg • We all make moral decisions every day • How do we develop these morals? • Kohlberg provided a stage theory that he replicated in many different cultures • There are 3 levels, each with 2 stages. We will only review the first level in this chapter

25. Moral Development- Kohlberg Level I: Preconventional Morality (ages 4-10) • Punishment Avoidance: obediance is based only on the individual’s desire to not get in trouble. Individuals WILL disobey if they can avoid being caught • Exchange of Favors: right and wrong are defined in terms of consequences to the individual. Children recognize others have needs too