CHAPTER 3- INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD

People grow and develop in stages throughout their lives People grow and develop in stages throughout their lives. Developmental Psychology is the study of changes that occur as a person matures. Developmental psychologists study the question of nature versus nurture. Nature refers to our genes and nurture refers to what we have experienced.

Usually both of these reflect or influence behavior. In what ways do you behave like your mother or your father? Most infants are born with certain inborn movements called reflexes.

The grasping reflex is an infant’s clinging response to touch, such as grabbing a finger. The rooting reflex is an infant’s response to a touch near the mouth. The infant turns towards the source of the touch. Within two years of life, infants turn into children who can walk, talk and feed themselves.

Maturation is the internally programmed growth of a child Maturation is the internally programmed growth of a child. A child will begin to lift their heads at about three months of age. They can grasp objects at about 5-6 months. On average infants start to walk at 12-13 months but not all infants develop at the same rate. Infants are born with perception skills and experiments conducted have shown that younger infants exhibit little fear in stopping themselves on visual cliffs.

Both language and thought use symbols. Infants begin to babble sounds in their first year. Late in the first year they begin to imitate the speech of their parents and siblings. In their second year children begin using sounds as signals. By the end of their second year, a child’s grammar is not like that of an adult. At this age they leave out words, known as telegraphic speech. By age 4-5 they may know several thousand words.

Psychologist Jean Piaget studied the development of children, often using his own child in some studies. As a child grows, the amount of information they know increases. A schema is a mental representation of the world. We try to understand new things by applying our schemas to them.

This process is called Assimilation. Accommodation means adjusting one’s schema to include newly observed events and experiences. This increases intelligence but if the schema does not work we have to develop new schemas.

Infants view of the world can be limited and the objects they view are quickly out of mind as are a taste or a touch. As a child develops in the first two years of life intellectual development begins to develop. When a child understands that an object exists even when he or she cannot see it, this is called Object Permanence.

Children achieve Representational Thought when they can actually picture or represent things in their mind. Between the ages of 5 and 7 children begin to recognize Conservation. This means that they understand that the amount of something does not change when its appearance changes.

The principle of conservation is closely related to the idea of Egocentrism. This means they cannot understand someone else’s viewpoint. Everyone goes through four stages of cognitive development: 1. sensorimotor stage- infants understand the world mostly through their body and senses 2. preoperational stage- children begin to use mental images or symbols to understand things

3. concrete operational stage- children begin to reason but have trouble with abstract ideas 4. formal operations stage- able to solve abstract problems Children use their bodies to think and to express themselves, but they are also developing emotionally.

They become attached to certain people and they care what people think and feel about them. Konrad Lorenz discovered that goslings become attached to their mothers in a sudden learning process called Imprinting. The goslings would follow the first thing they see move which would be the mother.

A Critical Period is a time in development when certain skills or abilities are most easily learned. Harry Harlow raised baby monkeys with two substitute mothers. One was made of cloth and the other of wire. He discovered that the monkeys became attached to the cloth monkey because of touch.

Human infants become attached to their mothers at about 6 months of age. This attachment is especially strong between 6 months and 3 years. A 1 year old child may display stranger anxiety when he is near a stranger, even when the mother is present. Separation anxiety occurs whenever the child is suddenly separated from the mother.

Researchers (Mary Ainsworth)have identified four patterns of attachment: 1. secure attachment- child would welcome the mother back when she leaves and would not be angry at her. 2. avoidance attachment- child would avoid or ignore the mother when she leaves and returns

3. resistance attachment- child is not upset when mother leaves but reject her or act angry when she returns. 4. disorganized attachment- child behaves inconsistently Children learn how to behave in their society from their parents, from other people around them and through their own experiences.

The process of learning the rules of behavior in a culture is called socialization. The parent-child relationship influences the child’s independence and their ability to resolve conflicts. There are 3 types of parenting styles: 1. authoritarian family- the parents are the bosses. They set guidelines and rules to follow.

2. democratic or authoritative family- children participate in the decision making. 3. permissive or laissez-faire family- the children have the final outcome. Children who grow up in democratic/authoritative families are more confident and independent.

Child abuse includes physical or mental injury, sexual abuse, neglect, or mistreatment of children by adult caregivers. Adults that were abused as children often repeat those actions with children within their care. Abuse can rob children of their childhood. It can cause them to lose trust and feel guilty. It can lead to depression, emotional problems and low self- esteem.

Socialization is about learning the rules of behavior Socialization is about learning the rules of behavior. One part of socialization is learning when to apply the rules and when to bend them. A second part is gaining an identity. A third part is learning to live with other people and yourself.

Sigmund Freud believed that all children are born with powerful sexual and aggressive urges. He identified five stages of development: 1. oral stage- infants associate erotic pleasure with the mouth, sucking at their mother’s breast. 2. anal stage- children associate erotic pleasure with the elimination process

3. phallic stage- occurs when children begin to associate sexual pleasure with their genitals. Children also adopt the values and principles of the same sex parent, this is called identification. 4. latency stage- occurs at age 5 or 6 when sexual desires are pushed to the background as children explore new skills. This redirecting into new skills is known as sublimation.

5. genital stage- in adolescence, the individual gets as much satisfaction from giving pleasure as receiving it. Erik Erikson believed that a child needs social approval as much as satisfying sexual urges. He saw development as lifelong. He stressed the emotional part of social development( refer to stages in textbook)

The Cognitive-Developmental Approach means thinking The Cognitive-Developmental Approach means thinking. These psychologists believe that social development is the result of the child trying to make sense out of his experiences with the world around him. Children make up their own worlds and games it often revolves around role taking.

Lawrence Kohlberg identified six stages of moral development: 1. children are egocentric and consider no other point of view 2. evaluate acts in terms of consequences 3. children want social approval so they apply other people’s rules rigidly

4. children see laws as moral rules to be obeyed 5. people are concerned with whether a law is fair and just 6. involves accepting ethical principles as more important than any written law