1. Introduction to Health & Developmental Psychology copy.docx

CRITICAL READING: CORNELL NOTES Introduction to Health & Developmental Psychology Name: Date: 24 July 2023 Section: Lecture 1 Period: Questions/Main Ideas/Vocabulary Notes/Answers/Definitions/Examples/Sentences Nature vs. Nurture Extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product...

CRITICAL READING: CORNELL NOTES Introduction to Health & Developmental Psychology Name: Date: 24 July 2023 Section: Lecture 1 Period: Questions/Main Ideas/Vocabulary Notes/Answers/Definitions/Examples/Sentences Nature vs. Nurture Extent to which aspects of behaviour are a product of inherited or acquired characteristics. Outdated concept: Epigenetics Nature and nurture both contribute substantially to human development, in complex ways. Other Developmental Contexts WEIRD societies Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic Also known as global outliers. WEIRD societies account for ~12% world’s population but represent ~80% of developmental study participants. Development is Tricky Goal: Identify general processes of change. Generalities are elusive because out studies depend on particular behaviours in particular contexts. Individual Differences People are highly variable and so are their contexts. Research captures general trends. Helps us make sense of the world. But loses nuance and individuality. Stage-Like Progression Doesn’t Represent Individual Development Milestone can be ‘clinically useful’. But, can also be deceptive: Infants can acquire skills ‘out of order’. Infants may skip milestones. Cultural variation. Skill Onset Isn’t an On-Off Switch Skills take practice. Ability vs. expression. Skills stutter into repertoires and go between expression and non-expression over days/weeks/months. The Endpoints are Arbitrary How do we decide when a skill ‘starts’? For walking: When infants crawl? Try to make stepping motions? When they stand? How do we decide when a skill is fully acquired? Generally considered to be early adulthood. Childrearing Alters How & When Skills Are Acquired How children are raised influences both motor and social development. Cultural differences in baby carrying, exercise, and parental expectation can slightly speed up or slow down motor development. In Norway, kids nap outside even in subzero temperatures. Vietnamese parents potty-train their babies by 9 months. Kisii people in Kenya avoid looking their babies in the eye. In the Polynesian Islands, children take care of children. Standard Tests Aren’t Natural Activity Test setting/context are odd (also very WEIRD). Performance/motivation can vary – the infant’s goal is not to “learn how to walk”. Infants sometimes walk around just because it’s fun (not just to reach a goal). New Skills – Cascade of Developmental Events Mobile infants gain independence. Both physical and social. Caregivers of mobile infants are more likely to: Express anger. Make requests. Walking predicts language development (controlling for age). Jean Jacques Rousseau (1762) We are born capable of learning. William James (1890) The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion. Laurent – Jean Piaget’s Son At 21 days of age, Laurent found his thumb after three attempts: prolonged sucking begins each time. But, once he has been placed on his back, he doesn’t know how to coordinate the movement of the arms with that of the mouth and his hands draw back even when his lips are seeking them. During the third month, thumb sucking becomes less important to Laurent because of new visual and auditory interests. But when he cries, his thumb goes to the rescue. Jaqueline – Jean Piaget’s Daughter At 1 year and 8 months, Jacqueline arrives at a closed door with a blade of grass in each hand. She stretches out her rights hand toward the doorknob but sees that she cannot turn it without letting go out of the grass. She puts the grass on the floor, opens the door, picks up the grass again and enters. But when he wants to leave the room, things become complicated. She puts the grass on the floor and grasps the doorknob. But then she perceives that in pulling the door towards her she will simultaneously chase away the grass which she placed between the door and the threshold. She therefore picks up in order to put it outside the door’s zone of movement. Why Are These Children So Important? Piaget viewed these observations as indicative of important changes in an infant’s cognitive development. In the first 2 years, he believed that infants go through six substages, progressing from Laurent’s thumb sucking to Jacqueline’s problem solving. What Processes Do Children Use As They Construct Their Knowledge of the World? Piaget developed several concepts to answer this question; especially important are schemas, assimilation, accommodation, organisation, equilibrium and equilibration. Schemas As the infant or child seeks to construct an understanding of the world, the developing brain creates schemas. These are actions or mental representations that organise knowledge. Behavioural schemas (physical activities) characterise infancy and mental schemas (cognitive activities) develop in childhood. A baby’s schemas include simple actions – sucking, looking and grasping. Older children’s schemas include strategies and plans for solving problems. Assimilation & Accommodation These explain how children use and adapt their schemas. Assimilation occurs when children use their existing schemas to deal with new information or experiences. Accommodation occurs when children adjust their schemas to take new information and experiences into account. Organisation To make sense out of their world, children cognitively organise their experiences. Organisation in Piaget’s theory is the grouping of isolated behaviours and thoughts into a higher-order system. Continual refinement of this organisation is an inherent part of development. Equilibration & Stages of Development In trying to understand the world, the child inevitably experiences cognitive conflict or disequilibrium. The child is constantly faced with counterexamples to their existing schemas and with inconsistencies. Assimilation and accommodation always take the child to a higher ground, according to Piaget. Inconsistencies create disequilibrium. For Piaget, an internal search for equilibrium creates motivation for change. The child assimilates and accommodates, adjusting old schemas, developing new schemas and organising and reorganising the old and new schemas. Eventually, the new organisation is fundamentally different from the old one. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development Stage 1 (Sensorimotor period): Coordination of sensory input and motor responses; development of object permanence. The Sensorimotor Stage Neonatal Imitation What skills do you need to imitate others? Observation, control of muscles, need to be able to link what you see with what your body does. In Piaget’s stages, infants younger than 8 – 12 months of age lack the requisite perceptual – cognitive ability to engage in selective imitation. Facial imitation is particularly challenging. Meltzoff & Moore (1977) Modelled tongue protrusion, mouth opening, lip protrusion and sequential finger movement to 18 newborns aged 12 – 21 days in two separate experiments. The results of the study indicated that when infants viewed a modelled gesture, they produced significantly more matching responses to the modelled gesture than when viewing a different modelled gesture. Oostenbroek et. al (2016) More than 30 years of research on neonatal imitation has still not resolved questions about whether the phenomenon exists, how prevalent it is and what it means. Piaget started this discussion 80 years ago and we are still debating.