Developmental Pyschology

Study of you from womb to tomb.
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

1. 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.

1. Oral (0-1) - Pleasure by mouth
2. Anal Stage (1-3) - Controlling & Expelling waste
3. Phallic Stage - Recognize gender, Oedipus/Electra complex
4. Latency (6-11) - Cooties
5. 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

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance