2. Developmental Psychology
From Childhood to Adolescence to Adulthood

3. Key Terms
Reflex- A physical response that happens automatically, without thinking
Motor development- Growing ability to use and control muscles
Perceptual development-Growing ability to understand information from the senses
Attachment- A feeling of connection with a parent or care-giver
Empathy- Being able to understand and feel what others are feeling
Self esteem- The value or worth that people attach to themselves
Animism- The belief that everything is alive; giving human attributes to objects
Perspective- How a specific person in a specific place sees things
Concrete- Empirical, physically real
Abstract- Rational, requiring imagination
Hypothetical- assumed or imagined
Schema- a structure in your mind that helps you organize information

4. What is developmental psychology?
Study of how people change throughout their lives, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood.
Domains
Physical Development
Social Development
Cognitive Development
Major Debates in Developmental Psychology:
Heredity vs. Environment
Stage theory vs. Continuous Development

5. Physical Development Infancy Childhood
Rapid physical growth: Birthweight is usually tripled in the first year
Most early physical activity is based on reflexes
Motor Development: transition from reflex to purposeful activity.
Why would babies start with reflexes, and only develop purposeful activity later?
What might that imply about early cognitive development?
Perceptual Development: Making sense of sights and sounds
After about weeks, babies seem to recognize faces
Depth perception seems to correlate with crawling (visual cliff experiment)
Childhood
Growth slows after age two
2 to 3 inches, 4 to 6 pounds each year

6. Think-Pair-Share
How might physical development during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood affect someone psychologically?

7. Social Development Infancy/Early Childhood Childhood
Attachment: Babies don’t like to be alone
By 4-6 months of age, babies specifically prefer their primary caregiver
Stranger Anxiety, Separation Anxiety develop around 8 months
Contact Comfort: Physical touch plays a major role in forming attachments
Harlow’s Monkey Experiment
Secure vs. Insecure attachment- Depends on parenting style
Childhood
Perspective taking and Empathy
Empathy begins as early as infancy, but is limited by cognitive development
Ages 2-6: Generally children assume others think and feel the same as they do; empathy is more egocentric (self-focused) in this period
Ages 7-12: Children start to be able to “step into another’s shoes,” recognizing others feel differently from them and have different needs
Self-Esteem Theory
Secure Attachment
Unconditional Positive Regard
Competence
The “Self Esteem Trap” and bullying: While children with high self-esteem are happier and more confident there is no connection with self-discipline, or with pro-social behavior. Bullies, for example, tend to have a high opinion of themselves.

8. Think-Pair-Share
How might the development of self-esteem influence the development of empathy, or vise versa?

9. Cognitive Development (Piaget’s theory)
Infancy/Early Childhood
Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)- children begin to understand the connection between physical cause and effect, especially with their own movements
Object permanence- around 8 months, children understand that objects still exist even when they don’t see them (this is when playing peek-a-boo is entertaining)
Pre-Operational stage (2-7 years)- Beginning use of language and symbolic thinking
One-dimensional thinking
Egocentric thinking
Animism and fantasy-beliefs
Childhood
Concrete-Operational Stage (7-12 years)
Multi-dimensional thinking and perspective-taking
Use of logic with concrete objects, but not abstract ideas
E.g., the Law of Conservation, Transitive Property
Formal Operational Stage (12 years +): The beginning of abstract thought and hypothetical reasoning
E.g., “if-then” statements,

10. Cognitive Development (Piaget’s theory)
Schema Theory
Schema- A mental structure for organizing and making sense of experiences; a mental category
As children develop more complex mental representations of the world, they adapt their schemas in two ways:
Assimilation: using current schemas to interpret the world
E.g., Addie and the ducks
Accommodation: creating new schema (or adjusting old ones) after realizing that old schemas don’t match up with our experience
This is more common during periods of cognitive change (Piaget called it “cognitive disequilibrium”)
Occurs more easily in the later cognitive stages. Why might that be?

11. Cognitive Development (Vygotsky’s theory)
Vygotsky’s theory of development was based on sociocultural psychology
Language drives cognitive development
Higher cognitive processes don’t develop in automatic stages, but through continuous social interaction
Zone of proximal development- The range of activities children cannot complete on their own, but can with some coaching, or scaffolding, from adults or more skilled peers
Make-believe play-Vygotsky believed this was an essential way for children to propel their own development forward
Imaginary situations all children to act on internal ideas, not external stimuli
Acting within a structured role (pretending to be a father, a mother, a doctor, a cowboy, etc) helps them practice thinking before acting, and practice social norms

12. Nature vs. Nurture Nature Nurture
Development is determined by DNA (or some other innate characteristic)
Little can be done to change the rate of development
Most compatible with stage theory
“fixed mindset”
Nurture
We are shaped by our environment, society, and culture
Development is continuous, and dependent on surroundings
“growth mindset”
Some have argued that this debate is fundamentally flawed because it ignores the possibility of choice

13. Stage Theory vs. Continuous Growth