Chapter 8

Chapter 8
Human Development

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Copyright © 2008 Allyn & Bacon

Chapter 8 Overview
 Theories of development
 Prenatal development
 Infancy
 Early and middle childhood
 Adolescence
 Early and middle adulthood
 Later adulthood
 Death and dying

Theories of Development

 Developmental psychology
– The study of how humans grow, develop,
and change throughout the life span


What did Piaget find regarding
stages of cognitive development?

 Piaget proposed that cognitive ability develops
in four stages, each involving a qualitatively
different way of reasoning and understanding
the world
 Four stages of development
– Sensori-motor stage
– Preoperational stage
– Concrete operational stage
– Formal operational stage


 During the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2
years), infants gain an understanding of the
world through their senses and motor
activities
– Infants act on objects and events that are
directly perceived
 Major achievement of this stage is object
permanence
– The realization that objects continue to exist
when they can no longer be perceived


 During the preoperational stage (age
2-7), children acquire symbolic function
– Understanding that one thing can stand for
another
 During this stage, children exhibit
egocentrism
– Belief that everyone sees what they see, thinks
what they think, etc.



 In the concrete operational stage (7 to
11 or 12 years), children acquire the
concept of conservation
– Understanding that a given quantity of matter
stays the same despite rearrangement or change
in its appearance, as long as nothing is added or
taken away
– Conservation develops because children begin to
understand reversibility
 Realizing that any change in the shape, position, or
order of matter can be reversed mentally


Piaget’s conservation of
volume task



 In the formal operational stage (age 11
or 12 years and beyond) preadolescents and
adolescents acquire the capacity for
hypothetico-deductive thinking
– The ability to apply logical thought to abstract
and hypothetical situations in the past, present,
and future


What are some alternative
approaches to Piaget’s theory?

 Information processing theorists argue
that stage-like advances in cognition are
due to improvements in processes such as
working memory
 Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach
emphasizes that cognitive development
occurs within a sociocultural context in
which parents and teachers provide age-
appropriate guidance

What did Kohlberg claim about the
development of moral reasoning?

 Lawrence Kohlberg proposed a stage theory
of moral development
 He presented moral dilemmas to research
participants and analyzed the moral
reasoning that they described
 He classified moral reasoning into three
levels, with each level having two stages
– People progress through the levels and stages in
a fixed order
– Each level has a prerequisite stage of cognitive
development

What did Kohlberg claim about the
development of moral reasoning?

 Preconventional level
– Lowest level of moral development
– “Right” is whatever gains a reward or avoids
punishment
 Conventional level
– Right and wrong are based on the internalized
standards of others
– “Right” is whatever is approved by others or is
consistent with the laws of society
 Postconventional level
– Highest level of moral reasoning
– “Right” is whatever furthers basic human rights

Colby & Kohlberg’s longitudinal
study of moral development

 Studied moral reasoning
at different ages
 Conventional thinking
(stages 3 and 4) is not
predominant until after
age 12
 Postconventional thinking
(stage 5) first appears in
adulthood, but is still rare
in 30’s


How does Erickson’s theory
describe the process of
psychosocial development?
 Erik Erikson proposed eight psychosocial
stages that encompass the entire lifespan
 Each stage is defined by a conflict that must
be resolved for healthy personality
development to occur


 Basic trust vs. basic mistrust
– Birth to 1 year
 Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
– 1 to 3 years
 Initiative vs. guilt
– 3 to 6 years
 Industry vs. inferiority
– 6 years to puberty


 Identity vs. role confusion
– Adolescence
 Intimacy vs. isolation
– Young adulthood
 Generativity vs. stagnation
– Middle adulthood
 Ego integrity vs. despair
– Late adulthood


Prenatal Development

 The development from conception to
birth


What happens during each of the
three stages of prenatal
development?
 Period of the zygote
– Zygote attaches to the uterine lining
– Ends 1 to 2 weeks after conception
 Period of the embryo
– Major systems, organs, and structures of the
body develop
– Ends when bone cells appear, 3 to 8 weeks after
conception
 Period of the fetus
– Rapid growth and development of body
structures, organs, and systems
– 9 weeks after conception until birth

Infancy

 A neonate, a newborn infant up to
one month old, comes equipped with
an impressive range of reflexes,
built-in responses to certain stimuli
that they need to ensure survival in
their new world


How do infants’ perceptual and
motor abilities change over the
first 18 months of life?
 Robert Fantz found that
infants prefer to fixate on
some objects over others
 Newborn infants can
discriminate between
objects
 Newborns’ visual acuity is
about 20/600, but improves
rapidly during infancy


How do infants’ perceptual and
motor abilities change over the
first 18 months of life?
 Most infants develop
motor skills in the
sequence shown in the
figure
 Ages listed are averages
– normal infants may reach
any milestone months earlier
or later than average
 Motor development is
largely determined by
maturation

Temperament

 A person’s behavioral style or
characteristic way of responding to the
environment


How does temperament shape
infants’ behavior?
 Thomas, Chess, and Birch (1970) identified
three general types of temperament
– Easy
 Have pleasant moods, approach new people and
situations positively
– Difficult
 Have generally unpleasant moods, react negatively to
new people and situations
– Slow-to-warm-up
 Tend to withdraw, are slow to adapt, somewhat
negative in mood
 Infant temperament is strongly influenced by heredity and is
somewhat predictive of personality later in life

How do the four attachment
patterns identified in infants differ?

 Attachment is the strong affectionate bond
a child forms with the mother or primary
caregiver
 Harry Harlow found that contact comfort
forms the basis of attachment in rhesus
monkeys
 Human infants exhibit separation anxiety
and stranger anxiety once attachment
has formed, at about 6 to 8 months of age



 Secure attachment
– About 65% of infants
– Use mother as a secure base for exploring
– Distressed by separation from caregivers, greet
caregivers when they return
– More cooperative and content than other infants
– Display better social skills as preschool children
 Avoidant attachment
– About 20% of infants
– Not responsive to mother, not troubled when
she leaves
– May actively avoid contact with mother after
separation Copyright © 2008 Allyn & Bacon


 Resistant attachment
– 10 to 15% of infants
– Seek close contact with mother, and tend not to
branch out and explore
– After separation, may display anger toward
mother; not easily comforted
 Disorganized/disoriented attachment
– 5 to 10% of infants
– Protest separation, but exhibit contradictory and
disoriented behavior when reunited

Early and Middle
Childhood
 Mastery of language, both spoken and
written, is just one of several
important developmental processes
that happen in early and middle
childhood.


What are the milestones of
language development, and how do
various theorists explain them?
 Babbling
– Vocalization of basic speech sounds, which
begins between 4 and 6 months
 One-word stage
– First words spoken at about 1 year
– First words usually represent objects that move
or that infants can act on
 Two-word stage
– Usually begins about 18-20 months


 Telegraphic speech
– Between 2 and 3 years, children start using
short sentences that contain only essential
content words
 Children follow grammatical rules in their
speech, as indicated by
overregularization
– Misapplying a grammatical rule, such as adding
“ed” to form a past tense
 Children say “goed”, comed”, “doed”, etc.


 Learning theories
– Language is acquired in the same way as other
behaviors– through imitation and reinforcement
 Noam Chomsky’s nativist position
– Language ability is largely innate
– The brain contains a language acquisition
device
 Most researchers endorse an
interactionist approach
– Acknowledging that infants have innate capacity
for acquiring language, but also recognizing
environmental influences on language learning

What outcomes are often
associated with the three parenting
styles identified by Baumrind?
 Authoritarian parents
– Make arbitrary rules, expect unquestioning
obedience, punish transgressions
 Authoritative parents
– Set high but realistic standards, reason with the
child, enforce limits, and encourage open
communication and independence
 Permissive parents
– Make few rules or demands, allow children to
make their own decisions and control their own
behavior

What outcomes are often
associated with the three parenting
styles identified by Baumrind?
 Children with authoritative parents
– tend to be happier and have higher self-esteem,
and be more self-reliant, socially competent, and
responsible than their peers
 Children with authoritarian parents
– tend to be withdrawn, anxious, and unhappy
 Children with permissive parents
– tend to be the most immature, impulsive, and
dependent, and the least self-reliant and self-
controlled


How do social learning, cognitive
developmental, and gender-schema
theorists explain gender role
development?
 Social learning theory
– Gender role development results from
modeling and reinforcement
 Cognitive developmental theory
– Development occurs in stages marked by
increasingly sophisticated reasoning about the
permanence of gender
 Gender-schema theory
– Children acquire schemas for maleness and
femaleness from their culture and use them to
process information about gender

Adolescence

 The developmental stage that begins
at puberty and encompasses the
period from the end of childhood to
the beginning of adulthood


How does puberty influence
adolescents’ self-concepts and
behavior?
 A period of rapid physical growth and
change that culminates in sexual maturity
 Puberty and self-concept
– Early maturation in boys is associated with
higher self-esteem
 But may also be associated with greater aggression
and hostility
– Early maturation in girls is associated with
higher risk of eating disorders, earlier sexual
experiences, more unwanted pregnancies, and
earlier exposure to alcohol and drug use

How does puberty influence
adolescents’ self-concepts and
behavior?
 Incidence of sexual activity
increases dramatically
through teen years
 Factors associated with
later onset of sexual
activity include
 Living with both biological
parents
 Higher academic
achievement
 Involvement in sports
 Frequent attendance of
religious services

In what ways do parents and peers
contribute to teens’ development?

 Most adolescents have good relationships
with their parents
 Parenting style affects adolescent behavior
– Permissive parenting is associated with higher
incidence of drug and alcohol use and lower
motivation for academic success in adolescents
– Authoritative parenting is associated with more
psychological distress and lower self-confidence
in adolescents
 Peer groups provide adolescents with
standards of comparison and a vehicle for
developing social skills

What are the neurological and
psychosocial characteristics of
emerging adulthood?
 Neuroimaging studies indicate that parts of
the brain involved in decision making and
self control mature between the late teens
and early twenties
 Jeffrey Arnett has proposed that this age-
range is a unique developmental period,
which he calls emerging adulthood
– A period when individuals explore options and
develop new skills in work and romantic domains
before committing to adult roles

Early and Middle
Adulthood
 Early adulthood
– Ages 20 to 45 or 45
 Middle adulthood
– Ages 40 or 45 to 65
 Late adulthood
– After age 65 or 70


How does the body change in the
early and middle adult years?

 Presbyopia
– Lens of the eye can longer accommodate
adequately for near vision
– Occurs almost universally in mid to late 40s
 Menopause
– Cessation of menstruation, signifying end of
reproductive capacity in women
– Usually occurs between 45 and 55
 Gradual decline in testosterone in men
– From age 20 until about 60

In what ways does intellectual
capacity improve and decline in
adulthood?
 Young adults outperform older adults on
tasks requiring speed or rote memory
 But older adults outperform younger ones
on tests measuring general information,
vocabulary, reasoning ability, and social
judgment


What are two themes of social
development in early and middle
adulthood?
 Establishment of an intimate partnership
– Majority of adults marry and have children
– But they do so at later ages today than in past
generations
 Career development
– Job satisfaction is strongly related to satisfaction
with other aspects of life, such as romantic
relationships


Later Adulthood

 The life expectancy in the United
States has increased from 49 to 76
years from the beginning to the end of
the 20th century
 People older than age 65 constitute
about 15% of the U.S. population


How does the body change in the
later adult years?

 General slowing, the reduction in the
speed of neural transmission leading to a
slowing of physical and mental functions
 Decline in sensory capacity
 Development of chronic conditions such as
arthritis, heart disease, high blood pressure
 But, physical exercise can improve strength
and mobility in older adults


What happens to cognitive ability
in later adulthood?

 Crystallized intelligence tends to
increase over the lifespan
– Verbal ability and accumulated knowledge
 Fluid intelligence peaks in early 20s and
declines slowly as people age
– Reasoning and mental flexibility


What are some of the adjustment
challenges in the social lives of
older adults?
 Retirement
 Loss of a spouse
 Altered living arrangements
 Most older adults cope with these
adjustments and maintain a sense of life
satisfaction


What are the components of
successful aging?

 Maintaining one’s physical health, mental
abilities, social competence, and overall
satisfaction with life
– An optimistic outlook
– Eating a healthy diet
– Staying active cognitively and socially


Death and Dying

 A developmental task for every elderly
person is to accept the inevitability of
death and to prepare for it


How do individuals with terminal
illnesses respond to their
circumstances?
 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified 5 stages
people go through in coming to terms with
death
– Denial
– Anger
– Bargaining
– Depression
– Acceptance
 But, critics doubt the universality of these
stages, and argue that reactions to
impending death vary widely between
individuals and across cultures

Chapter 8

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Chapter 8