Myers PSYCHOLOGY Seventh Edition in Modules Infancy and Childhood James A. McCubbin, Ph.D. Clemson University Worth Publishers Infancy is the first year of a child’s life. From 1 to 3 years of age, a child is a toddler, and childhood includes the time between toddler and teenager.

Infancy and Childhood: Physical Development Maturation biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior relatively uninfluenced by experience At birth 3 months 15 months Cortical Neurons During prenatal development your body was making nerve cells but your nervous system was still very immature. You couldn’t walk, talk, or remember. The brain had not developed any neural networks yet. These develop as a result of maturation. No amount of experience will change the predetermined sequence – roll over, then crawl, then walk, then run.

Infancy and Childhood: Physical Development Babies only 3 months old can learn that kicking moves a mobile--and can retain that learning for a month (Rovee-Collier, 1989, 1997). Research has shown that experience can play a part in affecting development. Parents who talk and read to their children foster neural connections that help reading skills develop. The child’s brain creates the readiness for crawling and walking. The same occurs for all physical skills including bladder and bowel control. All humans develop the same basic motor skills in the same sequence, although the age that they develop may differ from person to person.

Cognitive Development Developmental psychologists try to describe how children think and evaluate the world. The work of Piaget had a great impact in this area. He developed a theory of cognitive development. Piaget was working on intelligence tests and determining the age at which children were likely to answer questions correctly. What fascinated Piaget were the incorrect answers. He found that children at a given age were making similar mistakes. He used a clinical method where he had conversations with children in an attempt to understand their mental world.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development Cognition all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating Schemas are the frameworks that we use to organize and interpret information. Piaget believed that the way children think and solve problems depends on their state of cognitive development. Cognition is defined as all the mental activities that are associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering. Children think differently. He believed that humans adapt to a changing environment by creating schemas. Schemas are scripts – helpful mental plans. Piaget believed that we develop these plans by using two different experiences: assimilation and accommodation.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development Assimilation interpreting one’s new experience in terms of one’s existing schemas Accommodation adapting one’s current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

Schema: Dogs are four legged animals Scenario: child sees a cat Assimilation Accommodation The child thinks that the cat is a dog. The child changes their schema to include both dogs and cats as having four legs.

Schema – Everything with wheels is a truck Schema – Everything with wheels is a truck. Scenario – Child is presented with a bicycle. Assimilation Accommodation He thinks the bicycle is a type of truck. He changes his concept of things with wheels to include trucks and bikes.

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development Typical Age Range Description of Stage Developmental Phenomena Birth to nearly 2 years Sensorimotor Experiencing the world through senses and actions (looking, touching, mouthing) Object permanence Stranger anxiety About 2 to 6 years About 7 to 11 years About 12 through adulthood Preoperational Representing things with words and images but lacking logical reasoning Pretend play Egocentrism Language development Concrete operational Thinking logically about concrete events; grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations Conservation Mathematical transformations Formal operational Abstract reasoning Abstract logic Potential for moral reasoning According to Piaget we all pass through four separate stages of cognitive development.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development Object Permanence the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived Piaget found that at this stage infants act as though a hidden object ceases to exist. For them, out of sight is not only out of mind but also out of existence. If you put a toy under a blanket, the toy doesn’t exist anymore. This is a sensorimotor milestone because it is evidence of a working memory. The baby now has a mental representation of the object – a mental schema. They now have object permanence and are ready to move to the next stage – the preoperational stage.

Characteristics of the sensorimotor stage The child acts on the environment by knocking down blocks, making sounds, finding toes. The child sees an object and reaches. The child realizes that objects still exist although the objects is no longer seen. The child cries when the parent is no longer present. This is called stranger anxiety.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development Baby Mathematics Shown a numerically impossible outcome, infants stare longer (Wynn, 1992) 1. Objects placed in case. 2. Screen comes up. 3. Object is removed. 4. Impossible outcome: Screen drops, revealing two objects. 4. Possible outcome: one object.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development Conservation the principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects The preoperational stage – age 2 to 7 is the time when children use language but are not able to think logically. They start to use symbols. They speak their first words and gradually learn to represent the world more completely through the use of language. Because children at this stage can’t think logically they lack conservation.

Conservation Experiments Conservation of liquid quantity Conservation of mass Conservation of area Conservation of number Liquid quantity – child is shown 2 short fat beakers. They are then filled with colored water. Say when they have the same amount. Take a tall thin beaker and pour the contents of one of the short fat ones into this container. Which has more? Mass – clay is rolled into a ball. A second ball of clay is shown to the child. One ball is then formed into a sausage shape. ?which is more? Area – blocks are together on the table and then spread out. Which is more? Number – 2 rows of 8 coins and then spread one row out. Which has more?

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development Egocentrism the inability of the preoperational child to take another’s point of view Theory of Mind people’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states- about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict Autism a disorder that appears in childhood Marked by deficient communication, social interaction and understanding of others’ states of mind Preop children develop language skills but their communication is often egocentric. They say what is on their mind without taking into account what others have said.

Characteristics of the preoperational stage The child starts to represent the world internally through language. The child cannot take another point of view. The child thinks all objects have life. The child thinks human beings created everything. The child uses inaccurate logic by assuming that the characteristics of a specific idea can be applied to a similar idea – birds fly – airplanes fly – birds must be airplanes. The child classifies objects by only one trait – typically color.

Concrete Operational Stage The child can now understand simple operations performed on concrete reality. They have a mental schema for quantity, mass, volume and number. Change in shape does not affect quantity. They can comprehend math transformations. A child was labelled a conserver when the child could explain the conservation experiment by either using reversibility (you can put it back like it was), compensation ( it’s taller but it’s skinnier) or identity (you didn’t change it, it’s still the same).

Characteristics of the concrete operational stage The child begins to understand that objects can change shape without other changes in the characteristics. The child understands and performs operations that go in the other direction. The child draws conclusions from a number of specific facts. The child classifies objects into larger classes of objects. The child classifies by a number of characteristics.

Formal Operational Stage Occurs around adolescence Manipulate complex mental representation Think in terms of abstractions Metacognition They begin to think in terms of abstractions by using ideas instead of just concrete objects. They are able to reason hypothetically. They can play Monopoly and Chess and do geometry and algebra. They have the ability to think about the way that they think. They can trace their thought processes and evaluate the effectiveness of how they solved a problem.

Characteristics of the Formal Operational stage The child thinks abstractly. The child hypothesizes. The child can get specific facts from a generalization.

Assessing Piaget Pros Cons We learn best when we build on what we already know. New reasoning abilities require previous abilities. Children don’t reason with adult logic. He underestimated children. Development is continuous not in stages. Children go through the stages more rapidly than was estimated.

Examples 1. Jake looks at a string of plastic beads; six are white and ten are blue. Jake is asked how many white beads there are and answers correctly – six. He is then asked how many plastic beads there are and he answers ten. Stage Age Concept Stage – preoperational Age – 2-6 Concept – cannot classify by more than one category

Social Development Stranger Anxiety Attachment fear of strangers that infants commonly display beginning by about 8 months of age Attachment an emotional tie with another person shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and displaying distress on separation

2. Carrie can solve an algebraic equation. Stage – age - concept 3. Pierre loves to play peek-a-boo. He laughs when someone puts a blanket over his face and then pulls it away. Stage – age – concept. 4. Paul sees a piece of ribbon tied in a bow. He unties the bow and stretches it to its full length. Which is longer – they are the same. Stage –age - concept Stage – formal operational age – 12 and over concept – hypothetical reasoning Stage – sensorimotor – age – birth to 2 years; concept – beginning of object permanence Stage – concrete operational; age – 6-11; concept - conservation

Social Development Harlow’s Surrogate Mother Experiments Monkeys preferred contact with the comfortable cloth mother, even while feeding from the nourishing wire mother By the age of one an infant is an active explorer of the world. Attachment is the intense relationship to one person, typically the mother. The security of the attachment to the primary caretaker helps the infant gain confidence and the willingness to explore the environment. There are three elements and contribute to the infant-parent bond that forms during attachment. They are body contact, familiarity and responsiveness.

Social Development Critical Period Imprinting an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development Imprinting the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life Another element if familiarity. The attachment bond forms during a critical period. Lorenz found that newborn ducklings will follow the first moving object that it sees. This is known as imprinting. Human infants do not have a similar period for attachment.

Social Development Monkeys raised by artificial mothers were terror-stricken when placed in strange situations without their surrogate mothers. The third element is responsiveness. Responsive parents are very aware of what their children are doing, and they respond appropriately. Unresponsive parents often ignore their babies, helping then only when they feel like it. An infant, who seems to be secure and confident, not overly shy or anxious, is called securely attached.

Attachment Work of Mary Ainsworth Studied attachment between infants and mothers 3 types of attachment Secure attachment Avoidant attachment Anxious attachment In all studies she observed infants’ reactions when placed into a strange, novel situation when their parent left them alone for short period of time and then returned.

Secure attachment These infants usually appear active and happy. They are willing to explore a new room if the mother is present. They warm up quickly to a stranger who talks with the mother. They are not greatly disturbed if the mother is absent for a brief period of time. When the mother returns to the room the infant becomes anxious and runs to the mother’s side. These infants have a good relationship with the mother. This makes them feel confident and able to explore new environments without anxiety. They value the mother as a source of security and miss her when she is gone.

Avoidant attachment These infants are not even upset by separation from the mother. They do not cry when she leaves. When she returns, the infant may ignore her or react casually to her presence. The infant may even avoid her. If the infant is distressed they will not seek contact. Avoidant infants gain no feeling of security from the mother and would rather avoid her.

Anxious attachment These infants do not explore a strange room full of toys. They cry and cling to the mother even before being separated from her. They act suspicious of strangers and get very upset if the mother leaves the room. When she returns they pout or even cry. They show extreme stress when she leaves but resist being comforted when she returns. These infants seem fearful and anxious. They feel more secure with the mother present, but when she leaves, they feel resenful, and although they run to her when she returns, they continue to show their distress instead of showing happiness about seeing her again.

Social Development 20 40 60 80 100 3.5 5.5 7.5 9.5 11.5 13.5 29 Percentage of infants who cried when their mothers left Age in months Day care Home Groups of infants left by their mothers in a unfamiliar room (from Kagan, 1976).

Social Development Basic Trust (Erik Erikson) Self-Concept a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers Self-Concept a sense of one’s identity and personal worth A big name in social development is Erik Erikson. He developed a stage theory of psychosocial development.

Social Development: Child-Rearing Practices Authoritarian parents impose rules and expect obedience “Don’t interrupt.” “Why? Because I said so.” Permissive submit to children’s desires, make few demands, use little punishment Authoritative both demanding and responsive set rules, but explain reasons and encourage open discussion Diana Baumrind did research on parenting styles. She found three distinct strategies of discipline.

Parenting examples For each scenario determine an authoritarian response, a permissive response, and an authoritative response. 1. Your 7 year old daughter wants to sleep over at her friend’s house with three other girls. You have met the friend but not her parents. 2. You decide to run away from home. You are caught just as you are heading out the door. 3. Your 4 year old has coloured on the wall for the first time. 4. You have missed your curfew by 30 minutes.

Developmental Issues There are three major issues in the study of developmental psychology. 1. Continuity and stages How is our development continuous, and how do we develop in stages? 2. Stability and change What remains stable across our development, and how do we change? 3. Nature and nurture How does the interaction of nature and nurture affect development? In some areas, such as attachment, development is a continuous process. Cognitive development is more continuous than stagelike. In motor development, we clearly pass through stages. Our temperament is relatively stable throughout the life span. The interaction of both heredity and environment shapes a child’s development. In the area of physical development, environmental factors combine with a child’s genetic tendencies to shape the fetus until the moment of birth. These factors include the use of nicotine and alcohol. In the area of cognitive development, children learn new behaviours based on readiness, but also on whether they are raised in a stimulating or nonstimulating environment. In the area of social development, children’s interactions are influenced by both their inborn temperament and the supportive or neglectful environments in which they are raised.