psych- emotional dev

• American psychologist Mary Ainsworth gave developmental psychology a new procedure for studying attachment in infants


  1969
• Strange situation classification


  A 20 minute participatory observation during which the researcher observes the infant's behavioral responses to a series of scenarios
• Stages of the strange situation

  • Mother, baby and researcher together in a room
  • Mother and baby alone for 3 minutes
  • Stranger joins mother and baby
  • Stranger left alone with baby when mother leaves
  • Mother returns and stranger leaves
  • Mother leaves and baby is alone
  • Stranger enters and then mother returns
• What researchers measured when mother was in the room

  • Proximity and contact seeking
  • Contact maintaining
  • Avoidance of proximity and contact
  • Resistance to contact and comforting
  • Exploratory behaviors
• Attachment types identified


  • Securely attached
  • resisting
  • avoidant
• Securely attached infants


  Showed distress when separated from mother, were avoidant of stranger when alone but friendly in mother's presence, and were happy when mother returned
• Resistant attachment

  Intense distress when mother left, significant fear of stranger when mother returned, approached mother but rejected contact
• Avoidant attachment


  No interest when mother left, played happily with stranger when mother returned, barely seemed to notice
• Ainsworth's caregiver sensitivity hypothesis


  Differences in infant attachment styles are dependent on the mother's behavior towards the baby during a critical period of development
• Emotional Development


  Continuous, lifelong development of skills that allow individuals to control, express, and recognise emotions in an appropriate way
• Elements of different emotions

  • Subjective feelings
  • Expressive behaviour
  • Physiological responses
• Subjective feelings


  The inner, personal experience of an emotion
• Expressive behaviour


  The many overt expressions of behaviour which communicate emotions. Outward signs of emotions (intentional or unintentional)
• Physiological responses


  Bodily changes, which also occur when we experience an emotion involve changes such as heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate and perspiration
• Attachment


  A long-lasting bond between two individuals. In attachment theory, attachment specifically refers to the bond between an infant and their primary caregiver
• Attachment theory

  • The attachment formed significantly impacts the infant's emotional development. It has the potential to enhance or reduce their ability to understand and express their own emotions, as well as recognise the emotions of others throughout their lifespan
• Emotional Development


  Continuous, lifelong development of skills that allow individuals to control, express, and recognise emotions in an appropriate way
• Emotional Development


  Continuous, lifelong development of skills that allow individuals to control, express, and recognise emotions in an appropriate way
• Elements of different emotions

  • Subjective feelings
  • Expressive behaviour
  • Physiological responses
• Subjective feelings


  The inner, personal experience of an emotion
• Expressive behaviour


  The many overt expressions of behaviour which communicate emotions. Outward signs of emotions (intentional or unintentional)
• Physiological responses

  Bodily changes, which also occur when we experience an emotion involve changes such as heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate and perspiration
• Attachment


  A long-lasting bond between two individuals. In attachment theory, attachment specifically refers to the bond between an infant and their primary caregiver
• Attachment theory

  • The attachment formed significantly impacts the infant's emotional development. It has the potential to enhance or reduce their ability to understand and express their own emotions, as well as recognise the emotions of others throughout their lifespan
• Theories on attachment

  • Mary Ainsworth - The Strange Situation (1978)
  • Harry Harlow - Rhesus Monkeys (1958)
• Cognitive Development

  Continuous, lifelong development of the ability to think, comprehend, and organise information from the internal and external environment
• In order to produce and understand speech, certain neural networks are required. These neural networks and connections grow and develop from infancy well into adulthood to facilitate different areas of cognitive development. This concept is known as synaptic plasticity and will be explored further in upcoming lessons
• Piaget's theory of cognitive development

  Piaget viewed cognitive development as a process of adaptation to the changing world around us
• Adaptation

  Involves taking in processing, organising and using new information in ways which enable us to adjust to changes in our environment
• Assimilation

  The process of taking in new information and fitting it into and making it part of a pre-existing mental idea about objects or experiences. Through assimilation, we explain or make sense of new information in terms of what we already know
• Examples of assimilation


  • A young child may see a truck and call it a car, simply because a car is the only type of vehicle for which the child has a preexisting mental idea
  • If the child is given a toy hammer for the first time while using a wooden spoon for stirring in a pot, the hammer may also be used to stir the pot because the child has assimilated the hammer into a pre-existing mental idea
• Accommodation

  Involves changing a pre-existing mental idea in order to fit new information. This is a more advanced process than assimilation. Whereas assimilation is used to fit new information without changing it, accommodation involves changing pre-existing information (or mental idea) so the new information may be included
• Example of accommodation

  • 18-month-old Alexandra who points to a full moon and says 'ball'. She has assimilated the object of the moon into her existing mental idea of circular-shaped objects which is built mainly around her experience with balls. When she is older, she will be able to understand that there are differences between a full moon and a ball, even though they are both circular. When she recognizes the moon as being different from a ball, she will have accommodated it
• Schema

  A mental idea of what something is and how to act on it. Piaget called these the basic building blocks of intelligent behaviour which we use both to understand and to respond to situations
• Social Development


  The continuous, lifelong development of certain skills, attitudes, relationships, and behaviours that enable an individual to interact with others and to function as a member of society
• Piaget's theory

  We have to conquer four stages of cognitive development
• Stages of cognitive development

  • Sensori-motor stage
  • Pre-operational stage
  • Concrete operational stage
  • Formal operational stage
• Sensori-motor stage

  Ages birth to two, we develop through experiences and movement our five senses
• Sensori-motor stage

  1. Start with simple reflexes

  2. Develop first habits

  3. Become aware of things beyond our own body

  4. Learn to do things intentionally

  5. Develop working memory/object permanence
• Pre-operational stage

  Ages 2 to 7, thinking is mainly categorized for symbolic functions and intuitive thoughts, we have lots of fantasies and believe objects are alive, we learn to speak and understand symbols, we love to play pretend