Developmental Psychology Lecture Notes PDF

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY KARTINI ILIAS (Ph.D) FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES, UiTM Lecture overview ◦ Studying Development ◦ Physical Development ◦ Cognitive Development ◦ Social, Moral, and Personality Development ◦ Living Psychology- Meeting the Challenges of Adulthood ◦Developmen...

DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY KARTINI ILIAS (Ph.D) FACULTY OF HEALTH SCIENCES, UiTM Lecture overview ◦ Studying Development ◦ Physical Development ◦ Cognitive Development ◦ Social, Moral, and Personality Development ◦ Living Psychology- Meeting the Challenges of Adulthood ◦Developmental Psychology studies age- related changes in behavior and mental processes throughout the life span, from conception to death; Studying Development: ◦ Theoretical debates include: ◦ 1. Nature vs. Nurture: heredity vs. environment; ◦ 2. Continuity vs. Stages: continuous and gradual vs. periods of change and then periods of little change; ◦ 3. Stability vs. Change: characteristics maintained vs. characteristics different; Studying Development: ◦ The Interactionist perspective has been preferred by most psychologists and this has evolved into the biopsychosocial model; Physical Development ◦ Prenatal and Early Childhood: ◦ Prenatal Physical Development: At the moment of conception prenatal development begins; Three periods of prenatal development ◦ 1. Germinal period: begins with conception and ends with implantation in the uterus; ◦ 2. Embryonic period: begins after uterine implantation and lasts through the eighth week; ◦ 3. Fetal period: begins from eight weeks to birth; Hazards to Prenatal Development ◦ Teratogens: environmental agents that cause damage during prenatal development by crossing the placenta barrier; Categories of teratogens include: – Legal and illegal drugs – Diseases and malnutrition – Exposure to X-rays and Stress exposure Early Childhood Physical Development: ◦ There are three key areas of change in early childhood: brain, motor and sensory/perceptual development; Brain development: Neurons grow in size and the number of dendrites and axons increase; Motor Development: The orderly emergence of active movement skills is seen; Sensory and perceptual development: The senses of smell, taste, touch and hearing are quite developed at birth; The sense of vision is poorly developed at birth; Adolescence and puberty ◦ A time of many physical changes; Adulthood ◦ Middle Age: For women menopause is an important life milestone. For men male climacteric occurs; ◦ Late Adulthood can bring about: primary aging (gradual changes); secondary aging (changes due to disease, disuse or neglect); Cognitive Development ◦ Jean Piaget proposed that an infant begins at a cognitively “primitive” level and progresses in distinct stages. ◦ Schemas are the most basic unit of intellect; they act as patterns that organize our interactions with the environment. ◦ Schemas grow and change because of two processes: Assimilation: the process of absorbing new information into existing schemas; Accommodation: the process of adjusting old schemas or developing new ones to better fit with new information; Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development ◦ Sensorimotor: birth to 2 years ◦ Preoperational: 2 to 7 years ◦ Concrete Operational: 7 to 11 years ◦ Formal Operational: 11 years and up Social, Moral, and Personality Development: ◦ Social Development ◦ Attachment: a strong affectional bond with special others that endures over time. ◦ Attachment and Harlow’s work with monkeys: feeding or contact comfort? Levels of Attachment ◦ Ainsworth used the Strange Situation procedure to find 3 types of attachment in children: Securely attached: child stays close to mother, shows moderate distress when separated and is happy when mother returns; Levels of Attachment Avoidant: child treats mother and stranger the same and rarely cries when mother leaves; Anxious/Ambivalent: child is upset as mother leaves and when mother returns, child seeks closeness but also squirms away; Moral Development ◦ Kohlberg developed a model of moral development based on responses to moral stories; Kohlberg’s moral development model PRECONVENTIONAL LEVEL Stage 1: punishment-obedience orientation Stage 2: instrumental-exchange orientation CONVENTIONAL LEVEL Stage 3: good child orientation Stage 4: law-and-order orientation POSTCONVENTIONAL LEVEL Stage 5: social-contract orientation Stage 6: universal ethics orientation Personality Development ◦ Erikson identified 8 psychosocial stages of development: Trust vs. mistrust (0-1 year) Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (1-3 years) Initiative vs. guilt (3-6 years) Industry vs. inferiority (6 to 12 years) Identity vs. role confusion (adolescence) Intimacy vs. isolation (young adulthood) Generativity vs. stagnation (middle adulthood) Ego integrity vs. despair (late adulthood) Death & Dying ◦ Coping with death and dying: Cultures interpret and respond to death differently; Different ages interpret and respond to death differently; Death & Dying ◦ Kübler-Ross developed her stage theory of the psychological processes surrounding death: Denial stage Anger stage Bargaining stage Depression stage Acceptance stage