Lecture 2: Developmental Psychology 355Why study child development? Gain insight into human nature Help raise children help choose social policies to gain insight into the origins of individual differences o adult behavior, sex/gender differences, effects of culture on development to gain insight into developmental problems o origins, treatment, prevention Historical Foundations and Themes Early philosophers – Plato and Aristotle o Believed long-term welfare of society depended on children being raised properlyo They differed in their opinions and approaches Origins of knowledge - Plato – innate knowledge - Aristotle – learn from experience Child raising o Plato – self control/disciplineo Aristotle – raising a child should be tailored to the individual Later philosophers – John Locke and Jean-Jaques Rousseau o Focused on how parents and society could promote child development o Differed in beliefs about Inherent nature of children Approaches to instruction - Rousseau – children are innately good and don’t need much discipline o Children don’t need formal instruction until laterin life - Locke – the mind is a blank slate and we learn from experiences Research Based approach The result of 2 converging forceso Social reform movementso Charles Darwins theory of evolution Wanted people to understand the nature of human development “ontogeny recapulates phylogeny” - embryos are similar through time and developing into adults with the development of their ancestors - wrote a baby biography about his own child describing the development of his son – one of the first methods used to study in a more systematic fashion (baby biographies)Formal Field of inquiry late 19th/early 20th century – child development emerged as a formal field of inquiry o early assessment G Stanley Hall (father of child psychology) - Presented questionnaires to large numbers of parents, teachers, and children in order to detail numerous aspects of development (social relationships, physical and psychological changes) Alfred Binet (first intelligence test) o First to investigate differences among children of the same ageo Invented first practical intelligence test Early evidence based theories o Sigmund freud: psychoanalytic theory and how biological drives are important on development John Watson – idea that everything can be learned through behavioral conditioning (like Aristotle and locke) o We start with nothing and everything is learned and shaped by our environment 9 Fundamental Questions: 1. How do nature and nurture together shape development? Nature: biological endowment; genes we receive from our parents) Nurture: environments that shape our development; both social and physical o Ex: autism/schizophrenia Most children with parents with schizophrenia don’t usually develop the disease, but are more likely to o Phenylketonuria (PKU) Developmental psychologists now recognize that every characteristic we possess through the join workings of nature and nurture Need to figure out the relative role of each and their interaction 2. how do children shape their own development? All childrens actions contribute to their own development o These contributions increase with ageo Ex: infancy adolescence 3. in what ways is development continuous and in what ways is it discontinuous? Continuous – process of small changes Discontinuous – sudden changes Stage theories – propose that development occurs in a progression of age-related, qualitative shifts that affect a childs thinking or behavior in a broadly unified ways and move the child from one way of experiencing the world to another way Ex: piagets theory of cognitive development (development of thinking and reasoning) o Conservative tasks – children can learn to focus on more than one task as they get older Depending on how it is viewed, changes in height can be viewed as either continuous or discontinuous o Continuous – examining height at yearly intervals from birth to 18 years o Discontinuous – examining changes in height from one year to the next 4. how does change occur? Interactions between genes, brain structures, processes, and experiences/environment o How together, these affect development Darwinian influence: o Variation – differences in thought and behavior within and among individualso Selection – survival and reproduction of well adapted variationso Ex: strategies for solving single-digit addition problems 5. how does the sociocultural context influence development? Sociocultural context: physical, social, cultural, economic, and historical circumstances that make up any childs environment o Contexts differ within and between cultures o Ex: infants sleeping arrangements in the US vs Mayan culture US is more of an independent culture where infants slept on their own earlier in lifeo Language development o Culture affects how you acquire certain aspects of language 6. how do children become so different from each other? Individual differences arise from many sourceso Genetic makeupo Their treatment by other peopleo their subjective reactions to other peoples treatment of them o how children choose their environments bowlbys model of developmental pathwayso for development to be successive, an early base of good upbringing (pathways) is necessary 7. how can research promote childrens well-being? Child development research yields practical benefits in diagnosing childrens problems and in helping children overcome them o Carol dweck: individuals who think intelligence is fixed and those who think its malleable (predicts how you respond to failure) o Methods to determine early vision problems 8. how vulnerabilities and resilience contribute to development cumulative effects and interaction between risk factors and protective factors developmental plasticity o differential suceptability – more “plastic” or malleable individuals are more susceptible than others to environmental influences in a for-better-and-for-worse manner o environment could be negative or positive o dandelions are less malleable based on the environmento orchids are more susceptible to the environment and will do badlyin a bad environment and great in a good environment 9. importance of timing timing of experiences influences their effects visiono hubel and weasel ocular dominance columns
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