PSYU2235 Notes
Week 1 – Introduction to Developmental Psychology Defining Development
• Systematic changes and continuities in the individual that occur between conception and death
• How we become the adults we are- and how we continue to change Goals of Developmental Psychology
1. To describe
a. Normal development b. Individual differences 2. To explain – individual differences
3. To optimise- to make a difference to people’s live trajactories 1. To Describe
Normative- descriptive approach
• Careful systematic observations of children (Gesell/ Brazelton)
• Maturational theory- genetic determinants
• Largely invariant (universal) sequences
• Cycles (better/ worse phases)
• Provides descriptive age norms Example: Walking
Nature
• Universal?
• Innate?
• Not learned?
• No environmental trigger?
But walking varies so environment does play a part
• Shoes?
• Fitness?
• Cultural norms?
• How baby is carried
• Walking aids/ childrearing practices 2. To explain change
• Positive change- growth in competence or capacity
• Negative change- loss of competence or capacity
• Change can be:
• Quantitative – more / less (height, speed, vocab, visual acuity)
• Qualitative – doing things differently (motor, language, thinking) o Sitting à crawling à walking
o Thinking- reorganisation of thought and action eg mentally representing objects and words
• Normative change – universals
o General changes in behaviour across ages that virtually all children share o Developmental milestones: walking, first words
• Idiosyncratic- Individual differences
o Variability in when/ how universal developmental milestones are achieved
§ Rate of development
§ Sequence of development
§ Style of responding/ learning Developmental Processes
• Maturation - the biological unfolding of the individual according to a plan contained in the genes – nature
• Learning—the process through which experience brings about relatively permanent changes in thoughts, feelings, or behaviour – nurture
• Epigenetics – the process through which experience and environment can influence gene expression
3. To Optimise
• Developmental theory can influence policy oriented action eg. carer/ child ratios in childcare
• Evidence based theoretically grounded interventions can make a difference
• Problems that confront our society are intergenerational
Chapter 1
What is developmental psychology?
• Developmental psychology- the discipline that seeks to identify and explain the changes that individuals undergo from the moment of conception until death
• Piaget and Freud viewed the change in adulthood as limited to the refinement and extended application of existing capacities
Historical Foundations
• Children appear to be naturally inquisitive and show spontaneous interest in the world around them
• Locke argued that a child’s mind at birth is a ‘tablula rosa’, a blank slate that is written on by life’s experiences, and that people are largely shaped by their environments
• Rosseau was a predeterminist who believed that development unfolds according to nature’s plan, which leads children to develop different capacities at different ages Nature/ Nurture
• The controversy over the extent to which development is influenced by nature (inheritance) and by nurture (environmental experiences)
Example: child having problems at school
• Nature- child centred, guided by child readiness eg Piaget
• Nurture- directive approach- adult led eg Vygotsky o Eclectic position- interactions between the two
o Social/ context focus- how does the culture of the school match the culture of the family? What demands does the culture make? What do people need to know to flourish in a particular culture?
Continuity- discontinuity controversy
• The controversy over whether development is a continuous, gradual process that proceeds by incremental quantitative change or a process involving distinct steps in which qualitative differences in behaviour can be observed
Approaches to developmental psychology The normative- descriptive approach
• Describes the normal or average status of people on specified characteristics at different age levels
• Gesell’s approach emphasised genetic determinants Frued’s Psychoanalytic Theory
• Psychosexual theory of personality development in which the id, ego and superego determine personality development
Erickson’s neo-Freudian theory
• A psychosocial theory of personality development built on Freudian psychoanalytic theory but focusing on the role of the outside world rather than on the instinctual urges of the id.
• His aim was to point our the developmental opportunities in individual that help them cope with the psylogical hazards of living.
Piaget’s cognitive theory
• The most influential theory of cognitive development, stressing the child as an active participant in the developmental process
• His theory of cognitive development suggested that maturational processes govern the emergence of new ways of thinking as this adaption proceeds
Learning Theory
• Pavlovian classical conditioning
• He considered environmental factors all important and genetic influences minimal in determining genetic outcome
• Watson and skinner were bot behaviourists who emphasised a focus on observable stimuli and the responses to those stimuli
Bandura’s social cognitive theory
• Observational learning, learning from models
• Factors that determine whether we will learn from a model:
o Characteristics of model: high status individuals, competent individuals, powerful people
o Characteristics of observer
o Consequences of the behaviour – greater the value what observer places on behaviour à more likely it will be learned
• Must attend, remember, reproduce and reinforce.
Ethological Theory
• The study of behaviour with evolutionary significance for a species in its natural surroundings
Contextual theories
• Theories of developmental psychology based on the view that behaviour is a function of the interaction between the person and the environment
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory
• An environmental theory recognising multiple players of contextual influence on development. Bronfenbenner articulated four major systems that represent the context for child development:
o Microsystem o Mesosystem o Exosystem o Macrosystem
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development
• Focuses on how the culture of a social group- its shared beliefs, values, knowledge, skills and ways of doing things is transmitted to the next generation
• Zone of proximal development- the distance between children’s developmental level as determined by their ability to solve problems alone and what they are capable of when solving problems with assistance
Dynamic systems theory of development
• An approach that views the child as part of a changing (dynamic), integrated system consisting of mind, body, physical world and social environment. A change in any part of this system leads to changes in the system as a whole.
Lifespan developmental psychology
• Development is not complete at adulthood but continues as a lifelong, adaptive process
• Baltes et al proposed three age related reciprocal functions that regulate development:
o Biological plasticity decreases with age
o There is an increasing need for culture with increasing age o There is an age related decrease in efficiency of culture
Research in developmental psychology Hypotheses serve several purposes:
1. They allow developmental researchers to test a theory by suggesting how to falsify it 2. They give direction to research
3. They suggest new areas for research Popular developmental research designs
1. Cross sectional designs
• Research design that tests different age groups or cohorts on a particular psychological variable
2. Longitudinal designs
• Studies that follow the same participants over an appreciable period of time
• Longitudinal studies overcome the problem of selection bias as all participants are being compared with themselves over several time periods, and this reveals actual or direct age change or consistency in the individual
3. Sequential designs
• Combination of longitudinal and cross sectional designs 4. Microgenetic designs
• In depth examinations of changes in specific behaviours as they are occurring Issues to consider when conducting developmental research:
1. Design 2. Method 3. Time 4. Sample 5. Replication 6. Ethics
How do developmental psychologists make a difference?
Evidence and Theory Base to influence
• Educational practices- bullying in schools, early childhood, childcare
• Children in the legal system
• Social policies- children in detention, aged care and positive ageing
• Social initiatives in underprivileged communities- headstart
• Interventions for parents, children and older adults- parenting interventions, “cool kids”, “ageing wisely”
Seven assumptions about development 1. Lifelong process
2. Multidirectional
3. Involves both gains and losses at every age
4. Lifelong plasticity – changes in response to positive and negative experiences 5. Historically embedded (cohort effects)
6. Contextualism as a paradigm (cultural effects)
7. Understanding development requires multiple disciplines Development in context (Baltes and colleagues)
Individuals respond to and act on contexts:
• Physical environment/ context
• Historical context
• Social context
• Cultural context
Contextual influences (Baltes and colleagues) Normative age- graded influences
• Biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group (in a particular context, at a particular time)
o Puberty o Menopause o Entry into school o Retirement
Normative history – graded influences
• Common to people of a particular generation because of the historical circumstances they experience
o Economic boom or bust? GFC o World war 1
o Babyboomers o 9/11
o millenials
• Major source of influence during adolescence and early adulthood Non- normative life events
• Unusual occurrences that affect an individual but do not have a broader influence o major accident
o death of a parent o winning the lottery
• Source of such influences increases across the lifespan
o developmental pathways more varied after childhood Age as an explanatory variable?
• Lifespan definitions are culturally and historically constrained
• Different age grades in different cultures o Physical/ biological age
o Psychological age o Social age
• Neugarten- The Social Clock
o The age graded expectations for major life events eg first job, first child, buying a home and retiring.
Conceptualisations of Age
• Chronological age – number of years since birth
• Biological age- age in terms of biological health
• Psychological age- An individual’s adaptive capacities compared to others of the same chronological age
• Social age- social roles and expectations related to a person’s age.
Examples: child behaviour Microsystem – the home
• Eg marital conflict and discord parents à positive and negative interaction with children à negative child behaviour à marital discord
Mesosystem – neighbourhood
• Eg quality of local playgroup, childcare centre will influence parenting capacity (indirect effect) and child behaviour (direct effect)
Examples: Exosystem – the workplace
• Higher unemployment, lack of job security
• Families isolated from formal and informal social support systems à marital discord
• Examples: political and cultural values – paid parental leave
Macrosystem - Society’s attitudes toward violence, corporal punishment, gay marriage, children
Chapter 2- Genes, Environmental and Prenatal Development Intellectual History
• Ancient Greeks – “likeness” transmitted parents to children – Pythagoras - via male semen? Aristotle – women also involved
• Mendel – peas (1822-1844) – bred hybrids - discovered “ a basic unit of heredity forgotten until
• Darwin - Genetic variation in species was adaptive – theory of natural selection (1859)
• Watson & Crick - DNA double helix (1951-1953), more recent recognition of contributions of Wilkins & Franklin
• Behavioural Genetics – (Turkheimer & Gottesman, 1991) contributions of nature and nurture to human and animal behaviour and behavioural diversity
• Epigenetics- Gottlieb- changes in gene expression due to base pairs in DNA being turned off or turned on in response to environment
• Post-genomics – gene therapies; gene editing*
What are Genes?
• Units of hereditary information— “blueprint” for a structure or the “recipe” for encoding a process
• Genome is an algorithm or code
• Genes are comprised of short segments of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)
• DNA is in genes and genes are on chromosomes
• Chromosomes are structures within cells that contain a person’s genes o 46 chromosomes ((23 pairs = 22 pairs of autosomes + 1 pair of sex
chromosomes XX or XY)
o Genes (in pairs, one from each parent) are carried on the 46 chromosomes Principles of genetic inheritance
Mendel introduced a number of ideas that formed the basis of modern genetic theory:
• Inheritance via ‘factors’ (genes)
• That genes come in pairs (one from each parent)
• The notion of dominant and recessive genes
• The law of segregations (meiosis)
Genes- units of hereditary information that act as a blueprint for cells to synthetise the enzymes and proteins that build and regulate the body. Genes are carried on chromosomes.
Chromosomes- strings of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in which is coded the genetic
information in sequences of three of the four chemical bases adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, one member of each pair coming from each parent.
Genotype – the genetic makeup (types of genes carried on the pairs of chromosomes) of the individual
Phenotype- the way the genotype expresses itself as a characteristic of the individual (eg hair colour, blood type)
Gene locus- a particular position on the chromosome
At each gene locus there may be two or more alternative forms of the gene (alleles)
• If the alleles from both parents are the same, the child is homozygous at that locus
• If the alleles from the two parents are different, the child is heterozygous at that locus
Individual Heredity
Mitosis- the process involved in normal body cell replication – the process that ensures that a duplicate cell is identical in genetic makeup to the original. Normal cell replication for somatic reproduction (skin, blood, muscles)
• Single cell divides and replicates resulting in 2 identical cells
• Each cell contains two sets of chromosomes
• Growth, repair of aging tissues, skin
Meiosis- the process involved in germ cell (ova/ sperm) production- a process of reduction/
division which ensures that at fertilisation, the fertilised ovum contains the normal 23 pairs of chromosomes. special process of cell division for sexual reproduction
• Chromosome pairs come together - crossing over occurs – mixing genetic information from chromosomes of the 2 parents
• A 2nd division sequence occurs producing 4 cells each with ½ number of chromosomes of the original cell
• This occurs prior to formation of sperm (males) ova (females)