Developmental Psychology

• Nature versus nurture debate:

  • Nature refers to genes and hereditary factors influencing physical appearance and personality
  • Nurture refers to environmental variables impacting development, including early childhood experiences, upbringing, social relationships, and culture
• Scientists consider four interactive forces when explaining development:

  • Biological forces: genetic and health-related factors
  • Psychological forces: internal perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors
  • Sociocultural forces: interpersonal, societal, cultural, and ethnic factors
  • Life-cycle forces: differences in how events affect people of different ages
• Example of a mother breastfeeding her child:

  • Decision influenced by biological variables, attitudes, influences of others, cultural traditions, age, and stage of life
• Biological forces:

  • Determined by genetic code
  • Include effects of lifestyle factors like diet and exercise
• Psychological forces:

  • Describe characteristics of a person
  • Include internal cognitive, emotional, personality, and perceptual factors
• Sociocultural forces:

  • Involve interactions between people and their environments
  • Include family, friends, teachers, societal institutions, and cultural influences
• Life-cycle forces:

  • Reflect how the same event affects people of different ages
  • Example: pregnancy affecting individuals differently based on age, financial situation, and social support
• Interaction between all forces:

  • Example of diet changes influenced by biological, social, and psychological forces
  • Age influences ability to make dietary choices
• Neuroscience in human development:

  • Study of brain and nervous system in brain-behavior relationships
  • Applied to issues like memory, reasoning, and emotion
• Theories of development:

  • Continuous development: gradual changes throughout lifespan
  • Discontinuous development: growth in distinct stages
• Continuous development:

  • Behaviorists suggest gradual changes throughout life, building on previous skills
• Discontinuous development:

  • Theorists like Freud, Piaget, Erikson believe in distinct and separate stages of development
• Examples of stage theories:

  • Piaget's cognitive development theory focuses on how children construct knowledge
  • Erikson's psychosocial development theory proposes distinct stages based on psychosocial strengths
• Examples of continuum theories:

  • Social learning theory
  • Vygotsky's psychosocial theory
• Infant perception:

  • Perception is the process of receiving, selecting, modifying, and organizing impulses
• Infant perception of smell, taste, touch, hearing, and seeing:

  • Newborns have keen senses of smell and taste
  • Sensitivity to touch and pain
  • Hearing development in recognizing speech sounds and melodies
  • Vision development in responding to light and tracking moving objects
  • Colors: almost immediate, neurons gradually beginning to function months after birth
• In utero, baby’s eyes begin growing at around week 4 of pregnancy and can perceive light at around week 16
• A fetus’s eyelids remain closed until 26 weeks gestation
• When a baby enters the world, the farthest they can see is the distance from your arms to your face (about 8 to 10 inches)
• At a young age, some babies may start to recognize faces and their sight is still fairly blurry
• Newborns and young babies can perceive few colors, but by 3 months, they are able to see the full range of colors
• Depth perception tells us whether objects are near or far
• Infants infer depth using cues like kinetic cues and motion parallax
• Newborns prefer faces with normal features over scrambled faces, upright faces over inverted faces, and attractive faces over unattractive faces
• Infants fine-tune their prototype of a face over the first year to reflect faces familiar in their environments
• According to intersensory redundancy theory, infants pay attention to information presented in multiple senses
• Intelligence includes abilities like acquiring knowledge, reasoning logically, inferences, grasp concepts, making sound judgments, and coping with novel situations
• Psychometricians specialize in measuring psychological characteristics like intelligence
• Intelligence can consist of distinct abilities or be viewed as a broad and general capacity, it is multifaceted
• Hierarchical theories of intelligence include both general and specific components

  • general on top
  • fluid and crystalized intelligence
  • memory, visual and auditory perception, retrieval, cognitive speediness, processing speed
• Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences includes linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential intelligences
• Sternberg's theory of successful intelligence defines intelligence as using abilities skillfully to achieve personal goals
• Successful intelligence involves analytic ability, creative ability, and practical ability according to Sternberg
• Binet and Simon developed intelligence testing based on tasks children of different ages should be able to do
• Intelligence scores predict school and occupational success
• Factors influencing intelligence include hereditary factors and intellectually stimulating environments
• Theory of mind develops between 2 and 5 years of age, leading to an understanding of people's thoughts, beliefs, and intentions

  Example of TOM development: sally-anne experiment
• Wellman - Children's theory of mind moves through phases including understanding different desires > beliefs > knowledge > emotions
• Theory of Mind in Children:

  • Children learn about different mental states through conversations with parents and older siblings
  • This helps children understand that others often have different perspectives than they do
• Theory of Mind in Children with Autism:

  • Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) acquire language later than usual
  • They may echo speech and show intense interest in objects
  • Often seem uninterested in people and have awkward social interactions
  • Some scientists suggest that mindblindness in ASD is a by-product of other deficits