psyc211 SU 1-3

• Developmental stages


  • Prenatal stage (germinal, embryonic and fetal periods)
  • Neonatal stage (first 2 to 4 weeks of life and infancy (2 years))
  • Early childhood (approximately age 2 to 6)
  • Middle childhood (from age 6 to beginning of puberty about 12 years)
  • Adolescence (from puberty to adulthood)
• Development Areas


  • Physical development
  • Cognitive development
  • Personality development
  • Social development
  • Moral development
• Physical development


  Changes in the child's body (weight and height), development of the brain and the effect of heredity, hormones and nutrition. Motor movement is important, refers to the child's gradual development concerning body movements.
• Cognitive development


  How children come to know and understand their world and includes perception, learning, memory, thinking, decision-making, imagination, creativity, language and intelligence. Intelligence should be seen as a subdivision of cognition.
• Personality development


  Personality is unique to a specific individual, The Self can be regarded as the core of a person's personality. The self-concept refers to a person's of him or herself. Identity is a way a person identifies themselves in relation to other individuals.
• Social development


  Involves the development of the individuals interaction and relationships with others and refers to the influence of society and significant other persons on the individual. Includes development of attachment between caregiver and child; social development should not be confused socialisation which is an aspect of social development where an individual acquires socially acceptable behaviour.
• Moral development


  Involves the individual's views concerning what is right and wrong, as well as developments in the way in which moral judgments are made. Religion and spirituality are usually learned in social contexts (e.g. instruction by parents, community members and religious leaders).
• Nature


  Biological determinants such as genetic, neurological and hormonal factors
• Nurture


  Environmental factors such as the social (parenting styles) and the physical environment (poverty)
• If a child who was traumatised develops depression

  It is difficult to prove whether depression was caused by trauma or would have developed anyway; many children are traumatised but never develop depression, while many others in a positive environment develop depression
• Continuity or Discontinuity


  • Continuity (gradual and smooth like a tree)
  • Discontinuity (abrupt and occurring in distinct stages like caterpillar changing into butterflies)
• Continuity


  • The gradual way in which children learn to talk and express themselves as their vocabulary expands and the way they develop cognitively
• Discontinuity


  • Sudden hormonal changes that lead to sexual maturation during adolescence
• The influence of the environment cannot be denied, children also take an active part in their own development

  
• Active involvement of children in their own development

  • People's responses may differ towards an obnoxious versus a pleasant child
  • Children who, regardless of continuous efforts by their parents and the school, do not do their schoolwork, to a large extent shape their own future
  • Children who, often even without encouragement and role models, adhere to the expectations and norms of society and achieve success
• In every society, children are exposed to mostly cultural, not universal influences
• Cultural influences on development

  • Collectivist culture common in Africa where the needs of the group are regarded as much more important than the needs of the individual
  • Individualistic society where a child is largely exposed to an environment where people view themselves as separate entities and are mainly concerned with their own needs
  • In most African cultures young children are usually much more involved in domestic duties than in developed countries
• Theories of Development


  • Biological perspective
  • Psychodynamic perspective
  • Learning theory perspective
  • Cognitive developmental perspective
• Biological perspective


  Behaviour is primarily determined by biological factors. Emphasises the role of heredity (genes), the nervous system (the brain), the endocrine system (hormones) in behaviour.
• Maturational theory


  Child development reflects a specific and prearranged scheme or plan with the body. Development is simply a natural unfolding of a biological plan; experience matters little.

  
• Maturational theory was discarded because it had little to say about the impact of the environment on children's development

  
• Ethological theory


  Even though the underlying mechanism is biological, experience is essential for triggering programmed adaptive behaviour.
• Evolutionary theory


  It is the principle of natural selection to human behaviour. Evolution is the change in the inherited characteristics over successive generations. Evolutionary developmental psychology highlights the adaptive value of children's behaviour at different points.
• Neuropsychology


  Focuses on the nervous system and especially the brain. Studying the influence of certain damaged brain areas and using brain scanning techniques to understand the role of the brain in behaviour.
• Behavioural genetics


  Studies the role of genetic factors in behaviour.
• Psycho-endocrinology


  Focuses on the relationship between behaviour and the endocrine system, especially the hormones.
• Psychodynamic perspective


  Largely explores the incidence of unconscious psychological motives- drives or urges on behaviour.
• Freud's psychosexual perspective


  First psychodynamic theory called psychoanalysis which holds that development is lonely determined by how well people resolve the unconscious conflict that they face at different ages. Includes the id, ego and superego.
• Erikson's psychosocial theory


  Emphasised the psychological and social aspects of conflict, rather than the biological and sexual aspects. Development consists of a sequence of stages where the earlier stages provide foundation for the later stages.
• Learning theory perspective


  Behaviour is primarily learned from one's environment.
• Classical conditioning


  The phenomenon that the repeated pairing of stimuli may lead to new behaviour. An initially neutral stimulus comes to elicit a particular response after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
• Classical conditioning


  • Pavlov's experiment with dogs salivating to the sound of a bell after it was repeatedly paired with food
• Operant conditioning


  Children learn by means of the responses from the environment. If a child's behaviour is rewarded it is more likely to be repeated, but if the behaviour is met with a negative reaction (punishment), it is less likely to recur.
• Social cognitive theory


  Children learn much by simply watching those around them, which is known as imitation, modelling or observational learning. Children's self-efficacy (beliefs about their own abilities and potential) plays a role in their decision to imitate others.
• Cognitive developmental perspective


  Focuses on how children think and how their thinking changes over time.
• Piaget's theory of cognitive development

  Children naturally try make sense of their world. They act like scientists in creating theories about their physical and social worlds and revise these theories as they encounter new experiences.
• Piaget's theory of cognitive development


  • Infant's theory that objects that are dropped fall on the floor
  • Radical revisions in development occur three times: once in infancy, once in early childhood, and once in adolescence
• Infants want to know

  • What will happen when I push this toy off the table
• Adolescents want to know

  • Why should I obey these stupid rules?
• Children


  • Act like scientists in creating theories about their physical and social worlds
  • Try to weave all that they know about objects and people into a complete theory