Developmental Psychology

egg is penetrated by single sperm cell

days 0-14

Fertilized egg with 100 cells that become increasingly diverse

weeks 2-9

9 weeks to 9 months

Mom’s voice, Mom’s smell, human faces (the shape)

chemicals or viruses that can enter the placenta and harm the developing fetus

2-3 months

6 months

6-9 months

15 months

helps locate food; if touched on cheek, will search for nipple

if touched on palm, will close hand

when startled or feels like falling; throw arms out and head back

the development of the brain unfolds based on genetic instructions (standing before walking, babbling before talking

Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behaviors (and it’s relatively uninfluenced by experience)

decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation (when startled or feels like falling; throw arms out and head back)

Parents impose rules and expect obedience

Usually creates more independent, responsible parents

Parents submit to children’s demands

Parents are demanding but responsive to their children

If certain things don’t happened during the critical period, they might not happen at all

 the process of forming attachment early in life (occurs during a critical period)

humans have critical periods for learning language

• Wire monkey mother (nourishing)

• Cloth monkey mother (comfort)

• Baby monkey attached to the comforting monkey not the nourishment

• When taken away had anxiety

cloth monkey mother

Physical and emotional comfort is extremely important

• Young children put in a room full of toys with their mom

• Mom leaves

• How do kids react when she's gone and when she returns 

the fear of stranger’s that develops at around 8 months

They explore their environment happily in the presence of their mothers 

Mom returns, and the baby calms down quickly

Will avoid or ignore the caregiver, showing little emotion when the caregiver departs or returns

Showed distress even before separation, and were clingy and difficult to comfort on the caregivers return

• Bonds formed with caregivers will shape a child's bonds later in life

• Parents need to work at forming secure attachment so the child will have healthy relationships later in life

• How? By meeting the baby’s needs right away

1. Oral

2. Anal

3. Phallic (Oedipus complex)

4. Latency

5. Genital

• sensory sensitive, 

• emotional expressiveness, 

• activity energy level, 

• introversion/extraversion

• Babies take in the world by looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping

• Children younger than 6 months of age do not grasp object permanence

Out of sight out of mind

• From 2 yrs old to about 6-7 yrs old

• Too young to perform mental operations, like math or logic

• Preschoolers develop the ability to understand another’s mental state when they begin forming a theory of ind

• The ability to understand that others have their own beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one’s own

they cannot perceive things from another’s point of view

• 6 to 7 to 12

• Grasp conservation problems (can mentally pour liquids back and forth into glasses of different shapes conserving their quantities) 

• Children in this stage are able to transform mathematical functions. So, 4+8 =12, then a transformation, 12-4=8

• Age 12

• Our reasoning ability expands from concrete to thinking to abstract thinking

• Can now use symbols and imagined realities to systematically reason

  • Can judge good and evil, truth and justice, contemplate god, criticize society

  • Contemplate what others are thinking about them

how we know the world ; a concept or framework that organizes and interprets info

the process of adjusting a schema and modifying it

incorporating new experiences in to our current understanding (schema)

• Development is a continuous process

• Children can do more at earlier stages

sensorimotor

preoperational

concrete operational

formal operational

The distance between what a learner can do on their own and what they can do with support from a teacher/adult

preconventional

conventional

post conventional

before age 9; avoid punishment or gain reward

By early adolescence, social rules and laws are upheld for their own sake,,, the rules are the rules!

Affirms peoples agreed upon rights or follows personally perceived ethical principles

• Postconventional is more characteristic of men, not women, 

  • Women :morality is about caring and responsibility (feminine voice), not abstract justice (masculine voice)

• Feminist critique: psychology often treats men as the “norm” and then judges women as abnormal or deficient

main female sex hormone

main male sex hormone

first menstruation

the reproductive organs and external genitalia develop rapidly

traits such as breasts and hips in girls, facial hair and deepening of voice in boys, pubic hair and armpit hair in both sexes

Basic trust if needs are dependably met, infants develop a sense of basic trust

• Testing roles, integrating or being confused

• Frontal cortex(judgment) lags behind limbic system(emotion) development

When reflecting back on life, the older adult may feel a sense of satisfaction or failure

Things that tend to happen at a certain ages

• Denial

• Anger

• Bargaining

• Depression

• Acceptance

• Bullying

• Suicide rates

• Family acceptance