Developmental Psychology Notes PDF

Psych Notes for Final Exam: Developmental Psychology Overview: Developmental Psychology is the study of changes and continuities in human behavior over time. This includes areas like social, emotional, cognitive development, personality, and susceptibility to mental illness. Many of these traits o...

Psych Notes for Final Exam: Developmental Psychology Overview: Developmental Psychology is the study of changes and continuities in human behavior over time. This includes areas like social, emotional, cognitive development, personality, and susceptibility to mental illness. Many of these traits originate early in development. Traditionally, developmental psychology focused mainly on infants and children, but more recently, it has expanded to lifespan development (from "womb to tomb"). Freud’s Influence on Development: ​ Sigmund Freud proposed that early childhood development is crucial in shaping our psyche, emphasizing that caregiver-child interactions are fundamental. ​ He believed that the first 5 years of life are pivotal in “fixing” a person's future personality and behavior. Key Questions Developmental Psychologists Ask: ​ How do prenatal experiences affect brain development and later behavior? ​ What innate knowledge do we have when born, and how does it develop? ​ How do postnatal experiences influence emotional, social, cognitive, and moral behavior? ​ How do we continue to develop into adulthood? Prenatal Development Stages: ​ Conception to ~40 weeks: ○​ Zygote (1-2 weeks): The initial fertilized egg. ○​ Embryo (3-8 weeks): Early development phase. ○​ Fetus (9-40 weeks): Major development of organs and body systems. ​ The nervous system begins developing around the 3rd week of pregnancy. Maternal Factors Influencing Prenatal Development: ​ Chemicals (e.g., mercury, BPA) ​ Drugs (prescription & recreational) ​ Malnutrition (e.g., vitamin deficiencies) ​ Infections (e.g., viruses) ​ Stress (physical, emotional) 1 Teratogens: ​ Teratogens are substances that can harm a developing fetus. ○​ Thalidomide Tragedy: A drug from the 1960s used for nausea during pregnancy. It caused birth defects, affecting limb development. ○​ BPA (Bisphenol-A): Found in plastics and resins, BPA can disrupt hormone balances, affecting reproductive and brain development. Postnatal Brain Development: ​ At birth, humans have reflexes critical for survival, like the suckling reflex. ​ Brain development accelerates in the first year. ○​ Synaptogenesis: Formation of new synapses. ○​ Synaptic Pruning: Elimination of unused synapses between 2-10 years, refining brain connections. Critical Periods: ​ These are sensitive windows during which the brain is most responsive to certain experiences. ○​ Visual perception, motor learning, and language development are key areas that must develop during these periods. ○​ Infant-caregiver bonding is another critical experience, influencing attachment. Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory: ​ Jean Piaget’s Constructivist Theory suggests children actively construct knowledge by interacting with their environment. ​ Children use schemas to understand the world, which expand and adapt over time: ○​ Assimilation: Integrating new information into existing schemas. ○​ Accommodation: Modifying schemas to include new information. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development: 1.​ Sensorimotor (0-2 years): Knowledge is based on sensory and motor experiences. Object permanence develops here. 2.​ Preoperational (2-7 years): Use of symbols, but thinking is egocentric and lacks logical operations. 3.​ Concrete Operational (7-12 years): Logical thinking about concrete objects and events; understands conservation. 4.​ Formal Operational (12+ years): Abstract, hypothetical reasoning develops. Object Permanence: ​ Babies start with no concept of object permanence (the understanding that objects continue to exist even if they cannot be seen). 2  ​ This concept develops during the sensorimotor stage. Challenges to Piaget’s Theory: ​ Research shows that cognitive abilities like object permanence develop earlier than Piaget thought. ​ Infants have an understanding of basic physical properties, such as that objects are solid and move through contact. Social & Emotional Development: Attachment Theory: ​ Harry Harlow’s Attachment Studies (1950s) with monkeys showed the importance of contact comfort for emotional security. Monkeys preferred cloth mothers over wire ones, even when the wire mothers provided food. Bowlby & Ainsworth’s Attachment Theory: ​ Bowlby suggested that children form an internal working model of social relationships based on early attachment experiences. ​ Ainsworth identified different attachment styles through the Strange Situation experiment: ○​ Secure Attachment: Child is upset when caregiver leaves but happy upon return. ○​ Ambivalent Attachment: Child is distressed and difficult to console upon caregiver’s return. ○​ Avoidant Attachment: Child shows no distress when caregiver leaves. Moral Development: Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development: ​ Preconventional: Morality based on reward and punishment (early childhood). ​ Conventional: Morality based on social norms and rules (adolescence). ​ Postconventional: Morality based on abstract principles like fairness and justice (adulthood). Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory: ​ Haidt criticized Kohlberg for focusing too much on reasoning. According to Haidt, moral judgments are more intuitive and emotional than Kohlberg suggested. Infants’ Sense of Morality: ​ Research by Paul Bloom and Karen Wynn suggests infants may have an innate sense of right and wrong. Babies prefer “nice” behaviors over “mean” ones. 3 Nature vs. Nurture: ​ Both nature (innate capacities) and nurture (experiences) are crucial in shaping cognitive, social, and moral development. This is an ongoing interaction between biology and life experiences. 4 Social Psychology Overview: ​ Social Psychology focuses on how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. ​ This branch of psychology explores various aspects such as: conformity, attraction, group dynamics, prejudice, stereotypes, social cognition, and obedience. Questions Social Psychologists Ask: ​ How do we define ourselves in relation to others? ​ How does the presence of others influence our thinking and behavior? ​ What causes people to be attracted or repulsed by others? ​ How does group membership affect behavior? ​ What are the conditions that promote conflict or harmony between groups? The Self: Who Are We? ​ The self is the bridge between an individual’s inner world and the social world. ​ People often reflect on their strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, desires, and the groups they belong to. The Self & Impression Management: ​ We constantly manage how others perceive us, often without realizing it, to ensure we appear to be the selves we want to project. Social Media and the Self: ​ Questions arise about whether the online profiles represent our true selves or are simply curated versions of our identity. Self-Evaluation and Defense: ​ To maintain self-esteem, we engage in cognitive biases to defend against negative judgments, often using mechanisms like the self-serving bias. Social Cognition (Thinking About Others): Self-Serving Bias: ​ We tend to attribute our successes to internal traits and our failures to external circumstances or other people. ​ Example: "I’m a great driver!" versus "I had bad luck in traffic." Positive Illusions: 5  ​ These are optimistic but inaccurate beliefs, such as overestimating our abilities, which can correlate with better mental well-being. Attribution Theory: ​ Attribution refers to how we explain the causes of behaviors, either our own or others'. ○​ Situational Attribution: Explaining behavior by external factors. ○​ Dispositional Attribution: Explaining behavior by internal factors like personality or traits. Fundamental Attribution Error: ​ People often attribute others' behaviors to internal dispositions rather than situational factors. ​ This is easier and quicker than considering external influences. Actor-Observer Bias: ​ As actors, we attribute our positive behaviors to ourselves and negative behaviors to external factors. As observers, we do the opposite for others. Group Dynamics: Conformity: ​ People adjust their behavior to align with group norms. ​ The Asch Experiment (1951) showed that people often conform to the wrong answers in group settings, demonstrating the power of social influence. Conditions of Conformity: ​ Increased conformity occurs when: ○​ The task is ambiguous. ○​ At least one other person agrees with you. ○​ Private opinion expression is allowed. Types of Conformity: 1.​ Informational Conformity: We conform because we believe the group is right. 2.​ Normative Conformity: We conform to avoid social disapproval. Groupthink: ​ A phenomenon where a desire for consensus leads to poor decision-making, as group members suppress dissent to maintain harmony. 6 The Bystander Effect: ​ As group size increases, individual responsibility to help decreases. This phenomenon is known as diffusion of responsibility. ​ Kitty Genovese: The famous case where a woman was attacked and no one intervened due to bystanders assuming someone else would help. Stages of Helping (5-Stage Model): 1.​ Notice the event. 2.​ Interpret it as an emergency. 3.​ Assume responsibility. 4.​ Know how to assist. 5.​ Implement decisions and intervene. Obedience to Authority: ​ Milgram’s Experiment (1963): This controversial study demonstrated that 65% of participants obeyed orders to administer shocks to an innocent person, illustrating the power of authority. ​ Conditions of Obedience: Factors like the proximity of the authority figure and the learner influenced obedience rates. Autonomy vs. Agency: ​ Autonomy: Making decisions independently and taking responsibility. ​ Agency: Following orders and transferring responsibility to the authority figure. Prejudice and Discrimination: ​ Prejudice involves biased beliefs about a group, while discrimination refers to biased behaviors toward members of a group. ​ Prejudice can be reinforced by cognitive biases like confirmation bias, where we ignore evidence that contradicts our stereotypes. Implicit Prejudice: ​ Implicit prejudice refers to unconscious biases that influence behavior, even in individuals who consciously reject prejudice. ​ This bias can be measured using the Implicit Association Test (IAT), which assesses automatic associations between groups and traits. Reducing Prejudice Through Intergroup Contact: ​ To reduce prejudice, conditions such as equal status, common goals, and intergroup cooperation must be present. 7 Group Conflict and Cognitive Biases: ​ Stereotyping: Overgeneralized beliefs about a group of people. ​ In-group Bias: Favoring one’s own group over others. ​ The Availability Heuristic: Focusing on vivid examples that support stereotypes. ​ The Just-World Fallacy: Believing that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. 8 Emotion What Are Emotions? ​ Emotions are psychological states consisting of: 1.​ Physiological Arousal (sympathetic nervous system activity). 2.​ Behavioral Reactions (facial expressions, body posture, fight or flight responses). 3.​ Subjective Experiences (feelings of surprise, joy, sadness, anger, or fear). The Role of Facial Expressions ​ Facial expressions play a critical role in social communication and emotional recognition. Basic Emotions (Paul Ekman) ​ Basic Emotions: Universal and hard-wired into the human nervous system. ○​ Emotions: Anger, Fear, Disgust, Surprise, Happiness, Sadness. ​ Example: People from different cultures, such as the Fore people in Papua New Guinea, universally recognize these emotions. Facial Perception and Emotion Recognition ​ Our brains focus on specific features of faces, like the eyes, to determine emotional states. ​ Emotional Targets for Faces: Different emotions have distinct perceptual features that our eyes are trained to recognize. The Amygdala & Fear Amygdala’s Role in Fear ​ The Amygdala processes fear by activating the body's fight or flight responses through the sympathetic nervous system. ○​ Symptoms: Increased heart rate, sweating, higher blood pressure, rapid breathing, and release of adrenaline and cortisol. Fear Response Pathway: ​ Low Road (Unconscious, Fast): Directly from sensory inputs to the amygdala. ​ High Road (Conscious, Slow): Involves processing through the sensory cortex and then to the amygdala. Fear Processing Example (Patient S.M.) ​ Patient S.M. has damage to her amygdala, preventing her from feeling fear, even in high-stress situations like holding a snake or visiting a haunted house. 9 Stress: Stressors and Their Impact Types of Stressors 1.​ Catastrophic Events: Natural disasters, wars, etc. ○​ Short-term effects: Increased heart attacks on the day of the event. ○​ Long-term effects: Can lead to depression, anxiety, and PTSD. 2.​ Chronic Daily Difficulties: Ongoing stress from daily tasks and limited control. ○​ Common examples: Bullying, poverty, oppressive conditions. The Stress Response ​ Sympathetic Nervous System Activation: Prepares the body for quick action. ○​ Physiological Effects: Increased glucose, heart rate, lung capacity, and focused attention. ​ Cortisol Release: Cortisol, a stress hormone, is released through the HPA axis. ○​ Chronic exposure to cortisol has harmful effects, including high blood pressure, ulcers, and immune system suppression. Chronic Stress & the Hippocampus ​ Chronic stress leads to neuron loss in the hippocampus, which affects memory and learning. ○​ Example: Studies in baboons showed that those under chronic stress had damaged hippocampal neurons, especially those with lower social status. Chronic Stress & Health Psychophysiological Illnesses ​ Psychophysiological Illness: A real illness triggered by stress (e.g., heart disease, ulcers, and immune system dysfunction). Chronic Stress & Heart Disease ​ Example: In high-stress environments (e.g., air traffic controllers), individuals show higher incidences of hypertension. Stress & Cellular Aging ​ Telomeres, which protect chromosomes from damage, shorten with stress. Shortened telomeres are linked to accelerated aging and reduced cell division. Chronic Stress and Mental Illness ​ Chronic stress is linked to depression and dopamine dysfunction. 10  ○​ Example: Subordinate monkeys with high social stress show reduced dopamine receptor binding, leading to depression-like behaviors. Managing Stress: Coping Mechanisms Problem-Focused vs. Emotion-Focused Coping ​ Problem-Focused Coping: Actively working to reduce stressors (e.g., resolving a conflict). ​ Emotion-Focused Coping: Reducing emotional distress through support, relaxation, and rethinking the stressor. Appraisal of Stress ​ Stress can be seen as a challenge (manageable) or a threat (overwhelming). ○​ Positive appraisal leads to better stress management by enhancing the prefrontal cortex and reducing amygdala activity. Managing Stress Through Social Support ​ Close relationships and social support (including pets) can reduce stress and promote better health. ○​ Social Support & Telomeres: Social support can promote telomerase activity, which helps repair telomeres and slow aging. Managing Stress with Aerobic Exercise ​ Aerobic Exercise improves cardiovascular health, reduces stress, and enhances overall well-being. ○​ It helps prevent diseases such as heart disease and dementia. Managing Stress with Meditation ​ Mindfulness Meditation increases awareness of negative thoughts and emotions and promotes relaxation. ○​ It can reduce stress, enhance well-being, and foster compassion. 11