Nature vs. Nurture - Way you were born / Way you were raised
Physical Development (Or the Way You Grow)
Prenatal - Begins with egg and sperm fertilized = zygote
- Zygote - Lasts two weeks with rapid cell division.
- Less than half of all zygotes survive first two weeks
- Attaches to uterine wall after ten days
- Placenta - Outer part of zygote; Filters oxygen and nutrient
2. Embryo - After two weeks, lasts for six weeks.
- Heart beats and organs develop
3. Fetus - After nine weeks; Organs formed enough for independent survival.
Teratogens - Chemicals that can harm prenatal environment. EX: Alcohol (FAS), STDs, HIV, Herpes, Drugs.
Reflexes
Inborn automatic responses
- Rooting - When a newborn infant is touched on the cheek, infant turns its head toward the source of stimulation.
- Grasping - If an object is placed into a baby's palm, baby will try to grasp object with fingers.
- Moro - When startled, baby will fling limbs out and quickly retract them.
- Babinski - When a baby's foot is stroked, it will spread its toes.
Maturation - Physical growth processes enable orderly changes in behavior, regardless of environment.
Cognition - Mental activities w/thinking, knowing, and remembering.
Cognitive Development
Researched by Jean Piaget
- Schemas - Way to interpret world
- Assimilation - Incorporating new experiences into existing schemas
- High School - Meet someone -> assimilate into schema.
- Accomadation - Changing an existing schema to adapt to new information.
Piaget
- Sensorimotor - Experience world through senses
- Object Permanence - 6-8 months of age
- Preoperational - 2- 6 or 7 - Use language to represent objects and ideas; "Magical Thinking"
- Conservation - Quantity is the same despite changes in appearance; part of logical thinking.
- Concrete Operational - Demonstrate conservation, logic think, understanding of reversibility.
- Formal Operational - Abstract reasoning, hypothesis testing, reasoning with metaphors and analogies.
- Criticisms
- Information-Processing Model - Children learn in continuous growth pattern
- Underestimates children's ability; Attention span grows over time.
Social Development
- > 1 year - infants indifferent to stranger
- Stranger anxiety - After one year, common in infants.
Attachment
- Most important social construct (bond with caregiver)
- Animals form attachment through imprinting (Konrad Lorenz)
- Origins - Harry Harlow used monkeys; needed touch or body contact to form attachment. (Cloth vs. Wire)
Critical Period - After birth organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produce proper development.
Types of Attachment
- Secure - Some distress when parent leaves, seek contact at the reunion, explore when parent gone, play and greet when parent present.
- Separation Anxiety - Anxiety when infant loses object of attachment. 14 to 18 months
Parenting Styles
- Authoritarian - Strict standards for behavior
- Permissive - Allows freedom, lax parenting, don't enforce rules consistently
- Authoritative - Reasonable standards of expectation, encourage independence.
Stage Theorists
Believe we travel from stage to stage throughout lives.
Freud - Libido, travels though body in development.
- Oral (0-1) - Pleasure by mouth
- Anal Stage (1-3) - Controlling & Expelling waste
- Phallic Stage - Recognize gender, Oedipus/Electra complex
- Latency (6-11) - Cooties
- Genital Stage - Libido in genitals, feelings toward others.
Adolescence
Transition from childhood to adulthood
- Puberty - Sexual maturation -> becomes capable of reproducing
- Primary Char. - Body structures that make production possible
- Secondary Char. - Non-reproductive sexual char.
- Landmarks - Menarche, Spermarche
Adulthood
Physical abilities peak by mid-twenties
- Milestones
- Menopause - Ending of woman's ability to reproduce
Intelligence
- Crystallized - Accumulated, increases with age
- Fluid - Ability to solve problems quickly and think abstractly; Peaks in 20s and then decreases.
Alzheimer's - Progressive and irreversible deterioration of memory, language, and physical functioning. Caused by less ACH.
Life Expectancy
Around 75; Women outlive men by 4 years; Men conceived 126 to 100; 105 to 100 by birth.
Death
Stages of Death/Grief
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
