Transcript Introductory Psychology

Developing Through
the Life Span
Enduring Issues

Diversity – Universality

Stability – Change

Nature – Nurture
Research Methodologies

Cross-sectional
 Examining
groups of subjects who are of
different ages

Longitudinal
 Examining
the same group of subjects two or
more times as they age
Research Methodologies

Sequential
Design
2000
1998
The Newborn

Reflexes
 Rooting
reflex
 Sucking reflex
 Swallowing reflex
 Grasping reflex
 Stepping reflex

Are responsive to human faces, voices,
and touch
Newborn – Temperament

Babies are born with individual differences
in personality called temperament
differences

Types
 Easy
 Difficult
 Slow-to-warm-up
Newborn – Temperament

Babies are born with individual differences
in personality called temperament
differences

Types
 Easy
 “Spirited”
 Slow-to-warm-up
 Shy
Developmental Principles

Cephalocaudal

Proximodistal
Give your best estimate of the age at
which about 50% of children begin to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Laugh
Pedal a tricycle
Sit without support
Feel ashamed
Walk unassisted
Stand on one foot for 10 seconds
Recognize and smile at mother/father
8. Kick ball forward
9. Think about things that cannot be seen
10. Make two-word utterances
7.
Brain Development
Neurons present at birth
 Neural networks form after birth

 Stimulation

Preschool-age
 Growth

is key
most rapid in frontal lobes
Last areas to develop include those linked
to thinking, memory, and language

Maturation
 The
biological growth processes that enable
orderly changes in behavior
 Sets the basic course of development
 Experience adjusts course

Critical period
Physical Development
Physical Development in
Adolescence

Growth spurt occurs at different ages for
each sex

Sexual development
 Females

Menarche
 Males

Spermarche
Physical Development in
Adulthood
Rate increases with time
 Climacteric

 menopause
 Men  changes in prostate
 Women

“Use it or lose it”
Physical Development in
Adulthood

Primary aging

Secondary aging
Cognitive Development

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget
 Children
undergo qualitative changes in
thinking as they grow older

Stage theory
 Invariant
 universal
Cognitive Development – Piaget

Sensorimotor stage
 Move
from reflexive to voluntary, goaldirected actions
 Object permanence
 Two major accomplishments
Goal-directed actions
 Mental representation

Cognitive Development – Piaget

Preoperational Stage
 Child
becomes able to use mental
representations and language to describe,
remember, and reason about the world

Egocentrism
 Inability
to see things from another person’s
point of view

Animism
Cognitive Development – Piaget

Preoperational Stage (con’t)
 Conservation

knowledge that certain physical attributes of an
object remain unchanged even though the outward
appearance of the object is altered
Cognitive Development – Piaget

Preoperational Stage (con’t)
 Centered
 Irreversibility
Cognitive Development – Piaget

Concrete Operational Stage
A
child can attend to more than one thing at a
time and understand someone else’s point of
view. (decentration)
 Thinking
A
is limited to concrete matters.
child can understand conservation.
Cognitive Development – Piaget

Formal Operational Stage
 Acquire
the ability to think abstractly
 Can formulate hypotheses
 Can think in terms of cause-and-effect
 Develop general rules, principles

Formal Operational Stage
 Adolescent
egocentrism
Imaginary audience
 Personal fable

Criticisms of Piaget

Underestimated abilities

Not enough focus on social influences

Still contributed!!
Cognitive Changes

An adult's thinking is more flexible and
practical than an adolescent's
 Adults
realize that there may be several right
solutions or none at all

Some skills increase through the sixties
 Vocabulary,

verbal memory
Others fall off slightly after age 40
 Reasoning,
spatial memory
Cognitive Changes

Fluid intelligence ↓
 reasoning,

memory, information processing
Crystallized intelligence = or ↑
 information,
skills, problem-solving strategies

A man’s wife is ill with a rare kind of
cancer. There is a drug that may save
her, but it is very expensive. The
pharmacist who discovered this medicine
will sell it for $2,000, but the man has only
$1,000. He asks the pharmacist to let him
pay part of the cost now and the rest later,
but the pharmacist refuses. Being
desperate, the man steals the drug.
Should he have done so? Why or why
not?

preconventional level
 judge

morality largely in terms of consequences
conventional level
 whether
behavior supports and preserves the laws
and rules of society

postconventional level
 judge
morality in terms of abstract principles and
values
 a single rule system is only one of many possibilities
 some laws are inconsistent with the rights on
individuals
Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Theory

Gilligan  studied only males
 Feminine
morality emphasizes an ethic of
care
 Kohlberg’s system focuses on rights and
justice; male ideals

May be culturally biased
Attachment
Strong emotional bond to a specific person
 Other species imprinting
 Humans  attachment
 Seen in desire to obtain and maintain
contact

Theories of Attachment

Freud
 Psychoanalytic/secondary

Bowlby
 Ethological

drive theory
theory
Harry Harlow
 Research
with rhesus monkeys
Individual Differences in
Attachment

Secure

Insecure

May have long term consequences
Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory
Attachment
Fathers
 Daycare
 Parenting

Parenting Styles – Baumrind

Authoritarian
 Rigid

Permissive
 Very

control; insist on unquestioning obedience
supportive; few if any limits
Authoritative
 Firm
structure and guidance; not overly controlling;
engage in give-and-take

Neglectful
 Little
control; no limits; neglectful and inattentive; little
emotional support
Parenting + Temperament

Easy

“Spirited”

Slow-to-warm-up
Return to Attachment…

Adolescence
 Storm
and strife?
 Identity
Identity diffusion
 Identity foreclosure
 Moratorium
 Identity achievement

Parental Influences in Adolescence
Better relationships with parents  better
relationships with peers
 Closeness with parents  healthy, happy,
do well in school
 Teens in trouble  tense relationships
with parents
 Correlation ≠ causation!

Peer Influences in Adolescence
Preschoolers will eat food peers eat even
if refused prior
 Teens talk, dress, and act more like peers
than parents

Choose which of the following best describes your
relationship with your mother when you were a child
growing up. Do the same for your father.
1.
2.
3.
Warm/Responsive: S/he was generally warm and responsive; s/he
was good at knowing when to be supportive and when to let me
operate on my own: our relationship was almost always comfortable,
and I have no major reservations or complaints about it.
Cold/Rejecting: S/he was fairly cold and distant, or rejecting, not
very responsive: I wasn’t her/his highest priority, her/his concerns
were often elsewhere; it’s possible that s/he would just as soon not
have had me.
Ambivalence/Inconsistent: S/he was noticeably inconsistent in
her/his reactions to me, sometimes warm and sometimes not; s/he
had her/his own agendas which sometimes got in the way of her/his
receptiveness and responsiveness to my needs; s/he definitely
loved me but didn’t always show it in the best way.
Which of the following best describes your current feelings? (Read the
descriptions below and choose the one that best summarizes your
feelings an behavior in romantic love relationships.)
1.
2.
3.
Secure: I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am
comfortable depending on them. I don’t often worry about
being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.
Avoidant: I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to
others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to
allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone
gets too close, and often, love partners want me to be more
intimate than I feel comfortable being.
Anxious/Ambivalent: I find that others are reluctant to get as
close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t
really love me or won’t want to stay with me. I want to get
very close to my partner, and this sometimes scares people
away.
Attachment in Adulthood
Model of Self
Positive
Positive
Model of
Other
Negative
Secure
Secure attachment
history
Negative
Preoccupied
Resistant
attachment history
Fearful/Unresolved
Dismissing
/Disorganized
Avoidant attachment
Disorganized/
history
disoriented
attachment history
Passing thoughts…
Life is not predictable
 Love and work dominate adulthood
 Most people retain a sense of well-being
 Huge range of reactions to death

Grief…letting go of myths…
Immediately expressed strong grief ≠
earlier recovery
 Grief therapy/self-help groups < time +
social support
 Terminally ill do not go through stages of
grief

Williams & Best (2004)
Males

Active, adventurous,
aggressive, arrogant,
autocratic, bossy, coarse,
conceited, enterprising,
hardheaded, loud,
obnoxious, opinionated,
opportunistic, pleasureseeking, precise, quick,
reckless, show-off, and
tough
Females

Affected, affectionate,
appreciative, cautious,
changeable, charming,
dependent, emotional,
fearful, forgiving, modest,
nervous, patient,
pleasant, prudish,
sensitive, sentimental,
softhearted, timid, and
warm
Gender Differences

Men  more aggressive, dominant,
forceful, independent
 Physical
vs. relational aggression
 More likely to hold positions of
power/leadership
Women  social connections
 Differences in interactional styles

Gender Roles

The behaviors a culture expects of its men
and women
Gender Identity

One’s sense of being male or female
How do we learn to be male/female?

Social Learning Theory

Gender typing
 Taking
role
on a traditional masculine or feminine
Sexual Orientation

An enduring sexual attraction toward
members of either our own sex
(homosexual orientation) or the other sex
(heterosexual orientation)
about 3-4% of men and 1-2% of women
are exclusively homosexual, much smaller
number (< 1%) are bisexual
 1973: change in DSM (APA)
 1993: change from World Health
Organization
 1995/2001: change in Japan’s/China’s
psychiatric associations

Biology and Sexual Orientation
Same-Sex Attraction in Other Species
 Gay-Straight Brain Differences

 Hypothalamus

– emotions and sexual arousal
Genetic Influences
 Gay
men have more homosexual relatives on
their mother’s side than on their fathers
 Identical twins more likely than fraternal
 Fruit flies
Prenatal Influences
Exposure to hormones during critical
period prenatally
 Maternal immune system

 More
older brothers = increased likelihood