CHAPTER 10 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Study of how behavior changes over the lifespan 3 adjectives children adolescents adults and elderly Children small cute energetic Adolescents uncomfortable self conscious dramatic Adults stressed Elderly slow old achy CHALLENGES TO THE DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH Post hoc fallacy false assumption that if one event happens before another it will cause the later o Does A really cause B Bidirectional influences o Development Experiences ex teen girls that mature physically quicker tend to associate themselves w older boys may become self conscious etc Ultimately might become sexually active start drinking quicker etc Cohort effects people who live during one period of time differ greatly from people of other periods of time o it may look like people become more conservative over time w gender roles but it s really b c they grew up in a time period that was more conservative RESEARCH DESIGNS Crosse sectional design examines people of different ages at a single point in time o Where cohort effects might play a role Longitudinal examines development in the same group of people on multiple occasions over time o Remember LONG period of time SAME group tricky to keep track of same group THE NATURE NURTHURE DEBATE Both play large roles in shaping development It s not an either or issue Gene environment interaction o Impact of genes on behavior depends on the environment where behavior develops Someone with schizophrenia may have had a genetic predisposition that was triggered by traumatic event NATURE NURTURE CONT Nature via nurture o Children with certain genetic predispositions often seek out and create their own environments Gene expression o Activation or deactivation of genes by environmental experiences throughout development PHYSICAL AND MOTOR DEVELOPMENT CONCEPTION AND PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT Most dramatic changes occur during early prenatal development A zygote is formed when sperm cell fertilizes an egg After this three stages of development occur STAGES OF PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT 1 Germinal Period From conception to implantation in uterine wall 0 2 weeks Zygote divides and doubles forming blastocyst 2 Embryonic period From implantation 2 8 weeks Sexual differentiation begins XX or XY Limbs facial features major organs begin development 3 Fetal period 9 weeks to birth Heart begins to beat BRAIN DEVELOPMENT Between day 18 and the 6th month neurons grow at an incredible rate Up to 250 000 neurons per minute at times OBSTACLES TO DEVELOPMENT Teratogens are environmental factors that can exert a negative impact on prenatal development o ex smoking drugs chicken pox Alcohol consumption can lead to fetal alcohol syndrome Genetic disruptions can be from disorders or random errors in cell division Prematurity being born prior to 36 weeks can result in numerous problems The less time in utero the greater chance of serious complications MOTOR DEVELOPMENT Infants are born with a large set of automatic motor behaviors reflexes o Sucking and rooting reflexes Motor behaviors are bodily motions that occur as result of self initiated force that moves the bones and muscles wide range in the rate and manner in which children achieve motor milestones Influenced by physical maturity a well as cultural and parenting practices But they are always achieved in the same developmental sequence PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDHOOD the relative size of our body parts change dramatically during the first 20 years ADOLESCENCE Transitional period between childhood and adulthood commonly associated with the teenage years This is when our bodies reach full maturity in part due to hormonal release o estrogens and androgens Attainment of puberty is largely due to that hormonal release Causes in primary and secondary sex characteristics o Menarche and spermarche Genetic and environmental influence timing of puberty PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT IN ADULTS Most of us reach our physical peaks in early 20s o Strength coordination speed of cognitive processing and physical flexibility Declines begin shortly after including muscle sensory processes and fertility Menopause signals the end of female s reproductive ability COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT THEORIES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT Numerous explanations of how we acquire the ability to learn think communicate and remember over time Differ in three ways o Stage like vs gradual changes in understanding o Domain general vs domain specific o Principal source of learning ex experience social interaction biological maturation JEAN PIAGET KNOW Swiss psychologist who presented 1st complete account of cognitive development Stage theorist Children not little adults End point of cognitive development logical reasoning Believed children have schemas about how the world works Schema mental model of the world we have stored in memory organizes experiences Ex horse vs cow confusion readjust schema knows difference PIAGET S THEORY Children use assimilation to acquire new knowledge within a stage When one can no longer assimilate new information accommodation forces change between stages Another example o What shape is the Earth PIAGET S STAGES 4 stages 1 Sensorimotor birth 2years o Knowledge comes from sense and physical experiences o Focus on the here and now o Lack object permanence and deferred imitation o Major milestone is mental representation 2 Preoperational stage 2 7 years o Marked by an ability to construct mental representations of experience Box can represent a house Autistic children cannot do this o Hampered by egocentrism and inability to perform mental operations Volcano example o Also characterized by lack of conservation Even though a material undergoes a physical change changing volumes in deferent sized containers 3 Concrete operations 7 11 years o Can perform mental operations but only for actual physical events 4 Formal operations 11 adulthood o Can understand hypothetical reasoning beyond the here and now ex if I get an F I will be grounded o Also logical concepts and abstract questions ex the meaning of life PROS AND CONS OF PIAGET Inaccurate in a number of ways o Development is more continuous o Probably underestimated children s competence o Culturally biased methods Still highly influential and helped change how we think about cognitive development o Children think differently than adults o Children are active not passive learners LEV VYGOTSKY Theory focused on social and cultural influences on cognitive development Parents structure