Human Development From Infancy to Old Age

Infancy and Childhood

Physical, Perceptual, and Language Development Fetal and Newborn Development • Developmental psychology is the study of how humans develop and why they develop as they do. • Environmental and biological factors can affect fetal development. • Newborns can see, hear, smell, and respond to the environment. • Maturational readiness shapes newborn development, though each child is unique. • Brain development and external experiences influence perceptual development. Physical, Perceptual, and Language Development

Physical, Perceptual, and Language Development Language Acquisition • Using symbols, or representations, is key to language development. • Scientists debate the existence of a critical period for language learning. • Steps to learning language include learning to make signs, learning the meaning of signs, and learning grammar. • Animal studies have revealed much about the acquisition of language. Physical, Perceptual, and Language Development

Cognitive and Emotional Development

Cognitive and Emotional Development • Research in emotional development focuses on the importance of attachments. • Experiments with animals reveal the effects of imprinting and contact comfort on developing attachments. • Some psychologists believe the ages of 6 months to 3 years are a critical period for human children to form attachments. • Research suggests four patterns of attachment in children: secure attachment, avoidant attachment, resistant attachment, and disorganized attachment.

Cognitive and Emotional Development • Research in emotional development focuses on the importance of attachments. • Experiments with animals reveal the effects of imprinting and contact comfort on developing attachments. • Some psychologists believe the ages of 6 months to 3 years are a critical period for human children to form attachments. • Research suggests four patterns of attachment in children: secure attachment, avoidant attachment, resistant attachment, and disorganized attachment.

Parenting Styles and Social Development • Three distinct parenting styles include authoritarian families, democratic or authoritative families, and permissive or laissez-faire families. • Studies suggest that adolescents who have grown up in democratic or authoritative families are more confident of their values and goals. • Child abuse can have serious developmental effects on its victims. • Parent education for abusive parents shows promise in reducing child abuse.

Social Development Social Development • Socialization involves learning the rules of behavior of a culture, acquiring identities within society, and learning to live with other people and with oneself. • Sigmund Freud believed children acquire a sense of right and wrong by learning to control powerful sexual and aggressive urges.

Social Development Continued • Freud’s theory of psychosexual development includes fives stages: oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency stage, and genital stage. • Erik Erikson focused on the importance of the need for social approval to human development. • Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development includes eight stages in which people confront issues and, if successful, move to the next stage.

Social Development The Cognitive-Developmental Approach • Cognitive theorists argue that social development is the result of the child’s acting on the environment and trying to make sense of experiences. • Children’s games, especially those involving role taking, allow children to try on adult roles. • Lawrence Kohlberg studied the importance of being able to see other people’s points of view, linking this ability to social and moral development. • Kohlberg’s stages of moral development include the pre-conventional, conventional, and postconventional stages

Adolescence

Adolescence: Physical and Sexual Development Theories of Adolescence • Adolescence is the transition period between childhood and adulthood. • Psychologists have developed contradictory theories of adolescent development: G. Stanley Hall focuses on “storm and stress,” while Margaret Mead addresses cultural influences. • Every adolescent faces developmental tasks that must be mastered. • Adolescence is highly individualized, but marked by major physical, social, emotional, and intellectual changes.

Adolescence: Physical and Sexual Development Physical Development • The physical structure of the brain and the way it works change during adolescence: frontal lobes are late in maturing, and quantities of neurotransmitters change. • Sexual maturation, or puberty, marks the end of childhood and features a growth spurt as well as menarche in girls, spermarche in boys. • The rate of sexual maturation varies and has powerful psychological effects on adolescents. • Attitudes about sex have changed from those of previous generations.

Adolescence: Personal Development Cognitive Development • During adolescence formal operations thinking begins to emerge. • Higher level thinking allows adolescents to deal with powerful emotional feelings through rationalization. • Cognitive changes in adolescents lead to changes in personality and social interactions, often marked by idealized thinking.

Adolescence: Personal Development Moral Development • Lawrence Kohlberg identified three levels of moral development, subdivided into six stages. • Level I: Preconventional morality • Level II: Conventional morality • Level III: Postconventional morality • Moral development tends to occur in adolescence, when individuals gain the capacity for formal operations thinking.

Moral Development

Adolescence: Personal Development Identity Development • Developmental psychologists continue to disagree on issues of continuity versus discontinuity and stability versus change. • Some psychologists argue that adolescents must go through an identity crisis to achieve a sense of self. Examples: Erik Erikson and the crisis of identity formation versus identity confusion, James Marcia’s four categories of crisis and commitment.

Identity Development Continued • Other psychologists believe that adolescence is a smooth transition to adulthood, rather than a time of crisis and stress. Examples: A.C. Petersen and the role of external events, Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, Margaret Mead and the influence of culture.

Adolescence: Social Development The Roles of Families and Peers • A principal developmental task for adolescents is to become independent of their families. • Peer groups and cliques fulfill the need for closeness with others and help adolescents establish an identity. • Most adolescents tend to choose friends with values close to those of their parents, which reinforces parental values.

Adolescence: Social Development Difficulties During Adolescence • Many adolescents experience temporary psychological difficulties, though most adjust fairly quickly. • The illusion of invulnerability can lead to acts of juvenile delinquency.

Adolescence: Personal Development • Teenage depression can be triggered by events involving the loss of a loved one or the breakdown of the family. Depressed teens may appear angry, hyperactive, and be in danger of suicide. • The pressures of adolescence can lead to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa, especially among females.

Adolescence: Gender Roles and Differences

Adolescence: Gender Roles • Gender identity is one’s sense of oneself as male, female, or transgender. • Gender roles are standards of behavior society expects from people of a given gender identity. Gender stereotypes are oversimplified or prejudiced ideas about gender roles. • Sexual orientation can be homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or asexual. • Androgynous gender roles are becoming more accepted in society Adolescence: Gender Roles

Adolescence: Gender Roles Gender Differences • Psychologists have identified certain gender differences in personality, such as self-confidence, aggression, verbal communication styles, and nonverbal communication styles. • Psychologists have found very few gender differences in cognitive abilities.

Adolescence: Gender Roles Perspectives on Gender Differences • Most psychologists agree that nature and nurture interact to influence gender differences. • Psychologists disagree on the emphasis that should be given to biological and environmental factors. Theories include: biological, psychoanalytical, social learning, and cognitive-developmental. • The gender roles of men and women in society are changing, especially in the workforce.