Developmental Psychology Part 1 PDF

Today Finish Memory Start Development Announcements   Midterm review:  Thanks to those who came  I will contact those who have asked for individual meetings tomorrow (Thursday) to s...

Today Finish Memory Start Development Announcements   Midterm review:  Thanks to those who came  I will contact those who have asked for individual meetings tomorrow (Thursday) to set up meetings for Friday & Monday  Quiz 4 (on Sensation & Perception) due before midnight Sun. Oct. 27  Midterm 2: Official study guide posted! Announcements 2. Developmental Psychology Part 1 Developmental Psychology Developmental psychology: The scientific study of how people change physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally from infancy through old age. Nature vs Nurture  What are the effects of nature and nurture on development? People develop similarly or differently depending on how many genes they have in common. Human minds are shaped by their experiences. Nature and nurture require each other.  Maturation: A series of biological growth processes that enable orderly growth, relatively independent of experience.  Getting a Glimpse into the Infant Mind  How can researchers get insight into what infants think, feel, and know? Unlike adults, we can’t ask infants to simply tell us. What methods could researchers use to study infant development?  Even after children are old enough to talk, how might research methods differ when they are used with younger children (e.g., ages 6–8, 9–11, etc.) than when they are used with adults? Tools for Studying Development  There are two challenges when studying development. Measures that work well for assessing one age group may not work for another age group. Choosing the right research design o Which method is the “best” depends on several factors.  Tools for Studying Development Cross-sectional design: A methodological approach to studying development that compares participants of different age groups to one another.  Tools for Studying Development  Longitudinal design: A methodological approach to studying development that tracks participants across time and compares each participant at different time points. 10 © 2022 Cengage Learning Canada Inc.  Tools for Studying Development  Sequential design: Combines cross=sectional and longitudinal approaches Tracks multiple age groups across multiple time points E.g., you might compare the reading comprehension of 40 yr olds and 50 year olds Then test these same groups again in 10 years  Cross-sectional Longitudinal Sequential Advantages Tools Can help for Studying understand Development which Allows us to be (3) High confidence that abilities are developing at extremely confident observed changes are certain points in the lifespan that people are due to development indeed changing over Good for comparing groups time Observations can close together in age generalize across cohorts Disadvantages Cohort effect Time and resources Costly Not as good when Patients withdrawing Takes time comparing groups that differ from study more dramatically in age Examines one generation or cohort  The Start of the Journey  Human development begins with two cells: A mature egg released from a woman’s ovary Millions of sperm that compete to fertilize the egg  The Start of the Journey  From conception to two weeks—germinal stage Zygote: A fertilized egg, formed by union of sperm and egg.  Conception, implantation, formation of placenta  2 to 8 weeks—embryonic stage Embryo: An unborn, developing offspring, identified in humans between the 2nd and 8th week of pregnancy.  Formation of vital organs and systems  9th week and until birth—fetal stage Fetus: An unborn, developing offspring, identified in humans between the 9th week of pregnancy and birth.  Bodily growth continues, movement capability begins, brain cells multiply 15 © 2022 Cengage Learning Canada Inc. Early Capabilities in the Newborn  Human newborns are equipped with a small number of responses that help them survive, connect with other people, and learn  Reflexes: Automatic patterns of motor responses that are triggered by specific types of sensory stimulation Grumpy baby Apparently, this image went viral recently ☺  Early Capabilities in the Newborn Infants have a number of important reflexes, including rooting sucking, and grasping.  Early Capabilities in the Newborn Infants have a number of important reflexes, including rooting sucking, and grasping.  Early Capabilities in the Newborn Infants have a number of important reflexes, including rooting sucking, and grasping. Why would these reflexes be considered adaptive?  Early Capabilities in the Newborn  Newborns are born with some limited control over their eye, head, and facial movements.  Newborns prefer to look at objects about 8 to 12 inches away.  Newborns just a few minutes old will turn their heads in the direction of human voices and gaze longer at drawings of face-like images. Newborn preference for faces When shown stimuli like these, newborn infants prefer to look at the one on the right, which has the same basic features as the one on the left but looks more face- like.  Early Capabilities in the Newborn  Infants are interested in novel things. Habituation: A form of nonassociative learning by which an organism becomes less responsive to a repeated stimulus. Dishabituation: The recovery of a response that has undergone habituation, typically as a result of the presentation of a novel stimulus.  Infant Imitation of Facial Expressions  Why do you think babies are oriented toward faces so early in life?  Why would it be evolutionarily adaptive for babies to be able to mimic parents’ movements so early on in development?  Watch this video to see a 1-month-old baby mimic her father’s dad’s facial expressions! 25 The Wondrous Years of Childhood Exploring the World: Motor Development e.g., walking around 1 year Sudden growth spurts Maturation—gradual unfolding of genetic blueprint Infants active agents, exploring physical environment Developmental norms—median age for abilities Cultural variations © 2022 Cengage Learning Canada Inc. 26 © 2022 Cengage Learning Canada Inc. Childhood: Cognitive Development Cognitive development: transitions in patterns of thinking (e.g., reasoning, problem-solving) How Thinking Changes: Piaget’s Theory Jean Piaget The developmental psychologist Jean Piaget investigated how children’s thinking changes as they develop. 29 The Growth of Thought: Cognitive Development Jean Piaget: children are not mini-adults Interactions with environment and maturation alter children’s thinking patterns Complementary processes of accommodation and assimilation Patterns of thought go through series of stages Each stage associated with specific age range © 2022 Cengage Learning Canada Inc.  Piaget’s theory of cognitive development Cognitive development: Changes in all of the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. Piaget proposed that we change how we think as we form new schemas: concepts or mental models that represent our experiences.  How Thinking Changes: Piaget’s Theory  Two processes for aligning new experience with understanding of the world Assimilation: In Piaget’s theory, the process of using an existing schema to interpret a new experience. The Easter Gog The man in uniform: “Daddy” Accommodation: Revising schemas to incorporate information from the new experiences.  Definition recap:  Schema: a mental structure that represents our experiences  Assimilation: using an existing schema to interpret a new experience  Accommodation: revising schemas to incorporate information from new experiences Assimilation and Accommodation Q: How might assimilation and accommodation play out for infants in the real world? Assimilation and Accommodation  Q: Do adults go through processes of assimilation and accommodation, for example when learning language, or learning other new things?  How might these processes differ for adults than when they take place in infancy? Piaget’s  Stages of Cognitive  Development   36 © 2022 Cengage Learning Canada Inc.  Piaget’s stages of cognitive development  Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years): Children develop knowledge through senses and actions but cannot yet think using symbols, namely language. o Object permanence Object Permanence Piaget’s stages of cognitive development  Preoperational stage (2 to 7 years): The child masters the use of symbols but struggles to see situations from multiple perspectives or to imagine how situations can change. o Children classify objects, but only according to a single feature, such as color or shape. Preoperational stage (2 to 7 years):  In the preoperational stage, children engage in symbolic thought, with characteristic flaws in their reasoning such as; Centration:the tendency to focus on just one feature of a problem Eocentrism, the limited ability to share another’s viewpoint. This results in animism, the belief that all things are living, just like oneself. Piaget’s stages of cognitive development  Concrete operational stage (7 to 12 years): The child becomes capable of using multiple perspectives and his imagination to solve complex problems, but is able to apply this thinking only to concrete objects or events. Concrete operational stage (7 to 12 years):  The concrete operational stage is characterized by the ability to perform operations with symbolic thought Decentration: Children in the concrete operational stage are able to focus on more than one feature of a problem simultaneously, a process called decentration. These new cognitive skills lead to conservation, or recognizing that the amount of a substance does not change just because appearance is changed. 43 © 2022 Cengage Learning Canada Inc.  Piaget’s stages of cognitive development Formal operational stage (12 years and up): Adolescents become able to reason about abstract problems and hypothetical propositions. justice Love free will  Critiques of Piaget’s Theory Piaget’s stages underestimate children’s abilities and oversimplify the process of cognitive development. o Unfolds more continuously and less stage- like Review Question  A child points to an older woman and shouts, “A grandma!” Her mother then explains to her that not all older women have grandchildren and that this woman might not be a grandmother. The child then understands that to be a grandmother, a person needs to have grandchildren. This best illustrates a) schema inflexibility. b) assimilation c) accommodation. d) conservation. Review Question (1) Answer  A child points to an older woman and shouts, “A grandma!” Her mother then explains to her that not all older women have grandchildren and that this woman might not be a grandmother. The child then understands that to be a grandmother, a person needs to have grandchildren. This best illustrates a) schema inflexibility. b) assimilation c) accommodation. (correct answer) d) conservation.