Myers PSYCHOLOGY

Seventh Edition in Modules

Module 8

Infancy and Childhood

James A. McCubbin, Ph.D.Clemson University

Worth Publishers

Infancy and Childhood: Physical Development

Maturation biological growth

processes that enable orderly changes in behavior

relatively uninfluenced by experience At birth 3 months 15 months

Cortical Neurons

Infancy and Childhood: Physical Development

Babies only 3 months old can learn that kicking moves a mobile--and can retain that learning for a month (Rovee-Collier, 1989, 1997).

Cognitive Development

Developmental psychologists try to describe how children think and evaluate the world.

The work of Piaget had a great impact in this area.

He developed a theory of cognitive development.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Cognitionall the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Schemas are the frameworks that we use to organize and interpret information.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Assimilation interpreting one’s new experience in terms of one’s existing schemas

Accommodationadapting one’s current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information

Schema: Dogs are four legged animalsScenario: child sees a cat

Assimilation The child thinks that

the cat is a dog.

Accommodation The child changes

their schema to include both dogs and cats as having four legs.

Schema – Everything with wheels is a truck.Scenario – Child is presented with a bicycle.

Assimilation He thinks the bicycle

is a type of truck.

Accommodation He changes his

concept of things with wheels to include trucks and bikes.

Typical Age Range

Description of Stage

Developmental Phenomena

Birth to nearly 2 years SensorimotorExperiencing the world through senses and actions (looking, touching, mouthing)

•Object permanence•Stranger anxiety

About 2 to 6 years

About 7 to 11 years

About 12 through adulthood

PreoperationalRepresenting things with words and images but lacking logical reasoning

•Pretend play•Egocentrism•Language development

Concrete operationalThinking logically about concrete events; grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations

•Conservation •Mathematical transformations

Formal operationalAbstract reasoning

•Abstract logic•Potential for moral reasoning

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Object Permanence the awareness that things continue to

exist even when not perceived

Characteristics of the sensorimotor stageThe child acts on the environment by

knocking down blocks, making sounds, finding toes.

The child sees an object and reaches.The child realizes that objects still exist

although the objects is no longer seen.The child cries when the parent is no

longer present. This is called stranger anxiety.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Baby Mathematics Shown a numerically impossible outcome,

infants stare longer (Wynn, 1992)

1. Objects placedin case.

2. Screen comesup.

3. Object is removed.

4. Impossible outcome:Screen drops, revealing two objects.

4. Possible outcome:Screen drops, revealingone object.

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Conservation the principle that properties such as

mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects

Conservation Experiments

Conservation of liquid quantity

Conservation of mass

Conservation of area

Conservation of number

Infancy and Childhood: Cognitive Development

Egocentrism the inability of the preoperational child to take

another’s point of view

Theory of Mind people’s ideas about their own and others’

mental states- about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict

Autism a disorder that appears in childhood Marked by deficient communication, social

interaction and understanding of others’ states of mind

Characteristics of the preoperational stage The child starts to represent the world internally

through language. The child cannot take another point of view. The child thinks all objects have life. The child thinks human beings created everything. The child uses inaccurate logic by assuming that

the characteristics of a specific idea can be applied to a similar idea – birds fly – airplanes fly – birds must be airplanes.

The child classifies objects by only one trait – typically color.

Concrete Operational Stage

The child can now understand simple operations performed on concrete reality.

They have a mental schema for quantity, mass, volume and number.

Change in shape does not affect quantity.

They can comprehend math transformations.

Characteristics of the concrete operational stage

The child begins to understand that objects can change shape without other changes in the characteristics.

The child understands and performs operations that go in the other direction.

The child draws conclusions from a number of specific facts.

The child classifies objects into larger classes of objects.

The child classifies by a number of characteristics.

Formal Operational Stage

Occurs around adolescenceManipulate complex mental

representationThink in terms of abstractionsMetacognition

Characteristics of the Formal Operational stage

The child thinks abstractly.

The child hypothesizes.

The child can get specific facts from a generalization.

Assessing Piaget

Pros We learn best when

we build on what we already know.

New reasoning abilities require previous abilities.

Children don’t reason with adult logic.

Cons He underestimated

children. Development is

continuous not in stages.

Children go through the stages more rapidly than was estimated.

Examples

1. Jake looks at a string of plastic beads; six are white and ten are blue. Jake is asked how many white beads there are and answers correctly – six. He is then asked how many plastic beads there are and he answers ten.

• Stage• Age• Concept

Social Development

Stranger Anxiety fear of strangers that infants commonly

display beginning by about 8 months of age

Attachment an emotional tie with another person shown in young children by their seeking

closeness to the caregiver and displaying distress on separation

2. Carrie can solve an algebraic equation.Stage – age - concept

3. Pierre loves to play peek-a-boo. He laughs when someone puts a blanket over his face and then pulls it away. Stage – age – concept.

4. Paul sees a piece of ribbon tied in a bow. He unties the bow and stretches it to its full length. Which is longer – they are the same. Stage –age - concept

Social Development

Harlow’s Surrogate Mother Experiments Monkeys preferred

contact with the comfortable cloth mother, even while feeding from the nourishing wire mother

Social Development

Critical Period an optimal period shortly after birth

when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development

Imprinting the process by which certain

animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life

Social Development

Monkeys raised by artificial mothers were terror-stricken when placed in strange situations without their surrogate mothers.

Attachment

Work of Mary AinsworthStudied attachment between infants

and mothers3 types of attachment

Secure attachment Avoidant attachment Anxious attachmentIn all studies she observed infants’ reactions when placed

into a strange, novel situation when their parent left them alone for short period of time and then returned.

Secure attachment

These infants usually appear active and happy.

They are willing to explore a new room if the mother is present. They warm up quickly to a stranger who talks with the mother.

They are not greatly disturbed if the mother is absent for a brief period of time.

When the mother returns to the room the infant becomes anxious and runs to the mother’s side.

Avoidant attachment

These infants are not even upset by separation from the mother. They do not cry when she leaves.

When she returns, the infant may ignore her or react casually to her presence. The infant may even avoid her.

If the infant is distressed they will not seek contact.

Anxious attachmentThese infants do not explore a strange

room full of toys.They cry and cling to the mother even

before being separated from her.They act suspicious of strangers and get

very upset if the mother leaves the room.When she returns they pout or even cry.They show extreme stress when she leaves

but resist being comforted when she returns.

Social Development

Groups of infants left by their mothers in a unfamiliar room (from Kagan, 1976).0

20

40

60

80

100

3.5 5.5 7.5 9.5 11.5 13.5 20 29

Percentage of infantswho criedwhen theirmothers left

Age in months

Day care

Home

Social Development

Basic Trust (Erik Erikson) a sense that the world is

predictable and trustworthy said to be formed during infancy by

appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers

Self-Concept a sense of one’s identity and

personal worth

Social Development: Child-Rearing Practices

Authoritarian parents impose rules and expect

obedience “Don’t interrupt.” “Why? Because I said

so.” Permissive

submit to children’s desires, make few demands, use little punishment

Authoritative both demanding and responsive set rules, but explain reasons and

encourage open discussion

Parenting examples

For each scenario determine an authoritarian response, a permissive response, and an authoritative response.

1. Your 7 year old daughter wants to sleep over at her friend’s house with three other girls. You have met the friend but not her parents.

2. You decide to run away from home. You are caught just as you are heading out the door.

3. Your 4 year old has coloured on the wall for the first time.

4. You have missed your curfew by 30 minutes.

Developmental Issues

There are three major issues in the study of developmental psychology.

1. Continuity and stages How is our development continuous, and how do we

develop in stages?

2. Stability and change What remains stable across our development, and how

do we change?

3. Nature and nurture How does the interaction of nature and nurture affect

development?