1. Developmental Psychology
Unit 9
Developmental
Psychology

2. Major Issues Nature vs. Nurture Stability vs. Change
Continuity vs. Stages

3. Conception / Fetal Development
Sperm production starts at puberty; girls born will all immature eggs
200+ million sperm attempt to locate egg 85,000 times larger than it
Zygote – fertilized egg – 1st 10 days
Embryo – 2nd – 9th week – after zygote attachs to uterine wall – forms placenta to keep out teratogens (FAS)
Fetus – 9 – 36 weeks

4. Until 1960, William James and most people thought babies experienced very little – now realize, they know a lot – just have to ask in ways they understand (gazing, sucking, turning heads) – experiments on pgs
Neural connections increasing throughout puberty, with pruning process that shuts down excess connections and strengthens others
Maturation – biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience

5. Maturation sets the basic course of development; experience adjusts it
Motor development is mostly universal (sitting before walking).
Not imitation – even blind children crawl before they walk
Genes play a major role in motor development
Average age of earliest concsious memor is 3.5 years
Babies ARE capable of learning – mobile experiment – pg. 417

6. Cognitive Development
Jean Piaget
Schemas – mental representations of world
Assimilation – interpret in terms of current understandings
Accommodation – adjustment to incorporate new understandings
Socks Please Cold Feet (order of stages)
Sensorimotor – 0 – Descriptions and
Preoperational – 2 – 6 or 7 Developmental
Concrete Operational – 7 to Phenomena
Formal Operational – 12 – adulthood (chart)
Piaget had order correct, but underestimated children’s ability – overestimated how much time was needed

7. Social Development
Attachment – Body contact, familiarity, and responsiveness
Attachments formed during critical period – optimal period when certain events must take place to facilitate proper development
Imprinting – the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life (rigid in animal kingdom)

8. Temperament and Parenting
Temperament – a person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity
Heredity plays a role – bottom 428
Insecure (anxious) vs. Secure (trusting) attachment – how babies will react differently
Erik Erikson – securely attached children approach life with basic trust – sense that world is predictable and reliable – said depended on early parenting

9. Which do you think is better?
3 Parenting Styles
Authoritarian – impose rules and expect obedience
Permissive – submit to children’s desires; few demands – little punishment
Authoritative – both demanding and responsive
Which do you think is better?