1. Understanding Psychology 6th Edition Charles G. Morris and Albert A
Understanding Psychology 6th Edition Charles G. Morris and Albert A. Maisto
PowerPoint Presentation by
H. Lynn Bradman
Metropolitan Community College
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2. Life-Span Development
Chapter 9
Life-Span Development
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3. Enduring Issues and Methods in Developmental Psychology
What are some of the limitations of the methods used to study development?
Cross-sectional studies involve studying different age groups of people
Longitudinal studies test the same group of individuals at different times in their lives.
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4. Research Methodologies
Cross-sectional:
Examining groups of subjects who are of different ages.
Longitudinal:
Examining the same group of subjects two or more times as they age.
Biographical:
Studying developmental changes by reconstructing subjects’ past through interviews and investigating the effects of past events on current behaviors.
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5. Cross-Sectional Studies
Advantages
Inexpensive
Relatively quick to complete
No high attrition rate
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6. Cross-Sectional Studies
Disadvantages
Different age groups may be dissimilar
Age and maturity may not be equivalent
Confounds cohort and age differences
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7. Longitudinal Studies Advantages Detailed information about subjects
Provides great detail of developmental changes
Follows same cohort groups
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8. Longitudinal Studies Disadvantages Expensive and time consuming
Potential for high attrition rates
May confound age differences & differences in assessment tools
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9. Biographical Studies Advantages:
Rich detail about one individual’s life
Allows for in-depth study of one individual
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10. Biographical Studies Disadvantages
Individual’s recall is often untrustworthy
Can be very time consuming and expensive
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11. Prenatal Development
The period of development from conception to birth.
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12. Prenatal Development Prenatal development: Embryo: Fetus:
Development from conception to birth.
Embryo:
2 weeks after conception to 3 months.
Fetus:
3 months after conception to birth.
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13. Importance of the Placenta
During prenatal development teratogens can pass through the placenta and cause irreparable harm to the embryo or fetus.
This harm is greatest if the drug or other substance is introduced just at the time when some major developmental process is taking place.
If the same substance is introduced outside this critical period, little or even no harm may result.
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14. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
Alcohol is a drug most commonly abused by pregnant women.
Heavy alcohol consumption by the mother during pregnancy is characterized by facial deformities, heart defects, stunted growth, and cognitive impairments.
Smaller amounts of alcohol may also cause impairments.
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15. The Newborn
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16. Reflexes Rooting reflex: Sucking reflex: Swallowing reflex:
A baby turns its head toward something touching its cheek and gropes around with its mouth.
Sucking reflex:
Sucking on any object placed in a baby’s mouth.
Swallowing reflex:
Enables the baby to swallow liquids without choking.
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17. Reflexes Grasping reflex: Stepping reflex:
Closing their fists on anything placed in their hands.
Stepping reflex:
The light stepping motions made by babies if they are held upright with their feet just touching a surface.
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18. Temperament
The physical and emotional characteristics of the newborn child and young infant.
Babies are born with individual differences in personality called temperament differences.
Often a baby's temperament remains quite stable over time due to a combination of genetic and environmental influences.
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19. Temperament
Stability in temperament is not inevitable; changes in temperament can also take place.
Your own temperament may be both similar to and different from the temperament you displayed as a newborn.
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20. Three Types of Temperaments
Easy:
Good-natured and adaptable, easy to care for and please
Difficult:
Moody and intense, reacting to new people and new situations negatively and strongly
Slow-to-warm-up:
Relatively inactive and slow to respond to new things, and when they do react, their reactions are mild
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21. Perceptual Abilities All of a baby's senses are functioning at birth:
Sight
Hearing
Taste
Smell
Touch
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22. Vision
A baby’s least developed sense is probably vision, which takes 6 to 8 months to become as good as the average college student's.
Infants prefer: a novel picture or pattern with clear contrasts and their own mother rather than a stranger.
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23. Depth Perception
Crawling babies will not cross over onto the deep side during the visual cliff experiments.
Babies too young to crawl:
No anxiety, but do demonstrate depth perception
2-4 months old:
Begin to perceive patterns, objects, and depth
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24. Other Senses
Although it is hard to tell exactly what a baby's sensory world is like, newborns seem particularly adept at discriminating speech sounds;
This suggests that their hearing is quite good.
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25. Other Senses Infants have likes and dislikes with regard to smells.
Infants like sweet flavors, a preference which persists through childhood.
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26. Infancy and Childhood
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27. Physical Growth
During the first dozen years of life a helpless infant becomes a competent older child.
This transformation encompasses many important kinds of changes, including physical, motor, cognitive, and social developments.
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28. Physical Growth
Growth of the body is most rapid during the first year, with the average baby growing approximately 10 inches and gaining about 15 pounds.
It then slows down considerably until early adolescence.
When growth does occur, it happens suddenly, almost overnight, rather than through small, steady changes.
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29. Motor Development
Babies tend to reach the major milestones in early motor development at broadly similar ages, give or take a few months.
The average ages are called developmental norms.
Maturation, the biological process that lead to developmental changes, also is shaped by experiences with the environment.
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30. Developmental Trends Cephalocaudal: Proximodistal:
Development occurs in areas near the head (cephalo) first and areas farther from the head develop later (caudal means tail).
Proximodistal:
Development occurs near the center of the body (proximal) first and near the extremities (distal) later.
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31. Developmental Trends Gross to specific development:
Children tend to gain control of gross (large muscle) movement before they gain control of specific (or fine motor control) movement.
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33. Cognitive Development
According to the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, children undergo qualitative changes in thinking as they grow older.
Piaget depicted these changes as a series of stages.
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34. Cognitive Development (Piaget)
Sensory-motor stage (birth-2)
Preoperational stage (2-7)
Concrete operational (7-11)
Formal operational (11-15)
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35. Sensory-Motor Stage Object permanence: Mental representations:
The concept that things continue to exist even when they are out of sight.
Mental representations:
Mental images or symbols (such as words) used to think about or remember an object, a person, or an event.
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36. Preoperational Stage
A child becomes able to use mental representations and language to describe, remember, and reason about the world.
Egocentric:
Unable to see things from another person’s point of view.
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37. Concrete-Operational Stage
A child can attend to more than one thing at a time and understand someone else’s point of view, though thinking is limited to concrete matters.
A child can understand conservation.
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38. Principles of Conservation
The concept that basic amounts remain constant despite superficial changes in appearances.
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39. Formal-Operational Stage
Teenagers acquire the ability to think abstractly and test ideas mentally using logic.
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40. Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory
Piaget underestimated the cognitive ability of infants.
Cognitive milestones are reached sooner than Piaget believed.
Piaget did not take the role of social interaction into account.
The stage theory does not address human diversity.
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41. Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development
Preconventional:
Interpreting behavior in terms of its concrete consequences.
Conventional:
Interpreting behavior in terms of social and societal approval.
Postconventional:
Emphasis on abstract principles, for example justice, liberty, and equality.
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42. Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Theory
Many people never progress beyond the conventional level.
The theory does not take into account cultural differences in morals.
Carol Gilligan has pointed out that there may be a gender bias in the theory.
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43. Language Development
Some psychologists believe that childhood is a critical period for acquiring language.
If so, this would explain why learning a second language is also easier for children than for adults.
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44. Language Development Cooing (around 2 months): Babbling (3-4 months):
Vowel-like utterances
Babbling (3-4 months):
Meaningless sounds that are the building blocks for later language development.
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45. Language Development Intonation (4-6 months):
The changing of pitch that adults use to distinguish questions from statements.
Holophrases (12-20 months):
One word sentences.
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46. Theories of Language Development
B. F. Skinner:
Language develops as a result of reinforcement by the environment.
Language is a learned behavior like any other human behavior.
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47. Theories of Language Development
Noam Chomsky:
Humans have an innate ability to acquire language.
We are born with a language acquisition device, an innate, internal mechanism for processing speech.
This device allows children to understand the basic rules of grammar.
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48. Social Development
Developing a sense of independence is just one of the tasks that children face in their social development.
During the toddler period, a growing awareness of being a separate person makes developing some autonomy from parents an important issue.
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49. Imprinting
A form of primitive bonding seen in some species of animals.
The newborn animal has a tendency to follow the first moving thing it sees after it is born or hatched.
Human infants do not imprint on the first moving objects they see, but they do form attachment.
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50. Social Development Attachment:
The emotional bond that develops in the first year of life that makes human babies cling to their caregivers for safety and comfort.
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51. Parent-Child Relationships
Parents can encourage independence in their children by allowing them to make choices and do things on their own within a framework of reasonable and consistently enforced limits.
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52. Parent-Child Relationships
Other major social issues during the childhood years include:
Forming a secure attachment toward and trust in other people (infancy)
Learning to take initiative in tackling new tasks (the preschool years)
Mastering some of the many skills that will be needed in adulthood (middle and later childhood).
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53. Parent-Child Relationships
Socialization:
Socialization, the process by which children learn their cultures' behaviors and attitudes is an important task of childhood.
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54. Play As Social Development
Solitary play:
A child engaged in some activity alone; The earliest form of play.
Parallel play:
Two children playing side by side at the same activities, paying little or no attention to each other; The earliest form of social interaction between toddlers.
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55. Play As Social Development
Cooperative play:
Two or more children engaged in play that requires interaction.
Peer group:
A network of same-aged friends and acquaintances who give one another emotional and social support.
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56. Sex Role Development Gender identity (age 3):
The knowledge that one is male or female.
Gender constancy (age 4 or 5):
The realization that gender cannot be changed.
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57. Sex Role Development Gender-role awareness: Gender stereotypes:
Knowledge of what behavior is appropriate for each gender.
Gender stereotypes:
General beliefs about characteristics that men and women possess.
Sex-typed behavior:
Socially prescribed ways of behaving that differ for boys and girls.
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58. What Do You Think?
Does television viewing have a harmful effect on children?
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59. Adolescence
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60. Physical Changes in Adolescence
Rapid growth and sexual maturation are just part of the transformation that occurs during this period.
The child turns into an adult, not only physically but also cognitively, socially, and personally.
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61. Growth Spurt
A rapid increase in height and weight that occurs during adolescence.
The growth spurt for girls typically occurs around age 10.5.
The growth spurt for boys typically occurs around age 12.5.
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62. Sexual Development of Females
The first sign of puberty is the growth spurt.
The breasts begin to develop and pubic hair begins to appear.
Menarche (the first menstrual period) occurs a year after the development of the breasts (between 12.5 and 13 years old).
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63. Sexual Development of Males
The initial sign of puberty is the growth of the testes (around 11.5 years old).
During the growth spurt (around age 12.5) enlargement of the penis occurs.
Development of pubic hair.
Development of facial hair.
The first ejaculation (around age 13.5).
The deepening of the voice is one of the last changes.
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64. Early Versus Late Development
Early development for boys has positive impact:
They are better in sports and receive greater respect from their peers.
Early development has both positive and negative effects for girls:
Early developing girls may be admired by other girls, but may be treated as a sex object by boys.
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65. Cognitive Changes
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66. Cognitive Distortions in Adolescence
Imaginary audience:
The deluded belief of adolescents that they are constantly being observed by others.
Personal fable:
The deluded belief of adolescents that they are unique, very important, and invulnerable.
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67. Forming an Identity Identity formation: Identity crisis:
The development of a stable sense of self, necessary to make the transition from dependence on others to dependence on oneself.
Identity crisis:
A period of intense self-examination and decision making; Part of the process of identity formation.
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68. Possible Outcomes of an Identity Crisis
Identity achievement:
Successful resolution of identity crisis
Identity foreclosure:
Chosen an identity that pleases others
Moratorium:
Still exploring various roles, but have not chosen one yet
Identity diffusion:
Avoid considering role options in any conscious manner
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69. Some Problems of Adolescence
Declines in self-esteem may result from the physical, social, or emotional changes
In addition, teenagers have to cope with the demands of their new sexuality, the potential for early pregnancy, and the threat of violence in their peer groups.
Depression and suicide rates for teens are up from past decades.
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70. Risk Factors of Teen Suicide
Being female
Thinking about suicide
Having a mental disorder, for example depression
Having a poorly educated father who is absent from the home
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71. Adulthood
Reaching developmental milestones in adulthood is much less predictable than in earlier years.
There are certain experiences and changes that take place sooner or later in nearly everyone's life and certain needs that nearly every adult tries to fulfill.
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72. Lifestyle Options in Adulthood
Marriage (more than 90% of Americans eventually marry)
Cohabitation
Gay or lesbian relationship
Remaining single
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73. Adjustments to Parenthood
Parents may have little time or energy for each other.
Parents may experience conflict between their careers and home responsibilities.
Marital satisfaction tends to decline after the arrival of the first child.
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74. Possible Effects of Divorce on Children
Poorer school performance
Self-esteem problems
Problems with gender-role development
Emotional adjustments
Difficulty maintaining relationships
Negative attitude toward marriage
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76. Work
The vast majority of adults are moderately or highly satisfied with their jobs and would continue to work even if they didn't need to for financial reasons.
Balancing the demands of job and family is often difficult, however, especially for women, because they tend to have most of the responsibility for housework and childcare.
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77. Work
Yet despite this stress of a 'double shift,' a job outside the home is a positive, self-esteem-boosting factor in most women's lives.
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79. Cognitive Changes
An adult's thinking is more flexible and practical than an adolescent's.
Whereas adolescents search for the one "correct" solution to a problem, adults realize that there may be several "right" solutions or none at all.
Adults also place less faith in authorities than adolescents do.
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80. Personality Changes
Certain broad patterns of personality change occur in adulthood.
As people grow older, they tend to become less self-centered and more comfortable in interpersonal relationships.
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81. Personality Changes
They also develop better coping skills and new ways of adapting.
By middle age many adults feel an increasing commitment to, and responsibility for, others.
This suggests that many adults are successfully meeting what Erik Erikson saw as the major challenge of middle adulthood.
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82. Middle Adulthood Midlife crisis: Midlife transition: Menopause:
A time when adults discover they no longer feel fulfilled in their jobs or personal lives and attempt to make a decisive shift
Most people do not experience a midlife crisis.
Midlife transition:
A process whereby adults assess the past and formulate new goals for the future.
Menopause:
The time in a woman’s life when menstruation ceases.
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83. Late Adulthood
Over the past century life expectancy in America has increased mainly because of improved health care and nutrition.
There is, however, a sizable gender gap, with women living an average of 7 years longer than men.
There is also a sizable racial gap, with white Americans living an average of 5 years longer than blacks.
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85. Factors that Affect Physical Well-Being
Diet
Amount of exercise
Quality of health care
Smoking or drug use
Overexposure to the sun
Attitude and interest
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86. Adjustments to Retirement
Psychological adjustments
Financial adjustments
Marital (or relationship) adjustments
Social adjustments
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87. Sexual and Social Behavior
Although their sexual responses may be slowed, most continue to enjoy sex in their sixties and seventies.
Still, gradual social changes occur in late adulthood.
Older adults start to interact with fewer people and perform fewer social roles.
They may also become less influenced by social rules and expectations.
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88. The Aging Process
The aging mind works a little more slowly, and certain kinds of memories are more difficult to store and retrieve, but these changes are generally not extensive enough to interfere with most everyday tasks.
Healthy older adults who engage in intellectually stimulating activities usually maintain a high level of mental functioning.
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89. Alzheimer’s Disease
A disorder characterized by progressive losses in memory and cognition and changes in personality that is believed to be caused by a deterioration of the brain’s structure and function.
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90. Risk Factors for Developing Alzheimer’s Disease
Family history of dementia
Having Down syndrome or Parkinson’s disease
Being born to a woman over the age of 40
Suffering a head trauma
Being heterozygous for a certain gene located on chromosome 19
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91. Facing Death
Most elderly people fear death less than younger people do.
What they do fear are the pain, indignity, depersonalization, and loneliness associated with a terminal illness.
They also worry about becoming a financial burden to their families.
The death of a spouse may be the most severe challenge the elderly face.
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92. Kübler-Ross’s Stages of Dying
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
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