Prenatal development: nature and nurture from the start

Prenatal development: nature and nurture from the start� Each of us, life began with the meeting of

two cells, a sperm and an egg.� Even at this earliest stage of development,

genes (nature) and the environment (nurture) are intimately interwined/ interacted

Getting a Start in Life� Gametes��

� Sperm� Egg

� 23 pairs Chromosomes � � �� XX = female� XY = male

� Maturation: the process that produces genetically programmed changes with increasing age.

Stages o f D ev el o p m ent in th e W o m b� Trimesters � � � Zygote �

� A fertilized egg

� Embryo � � 2 weeks to 8 weeks after conception

� Fetus � � � � � � � 8 weeks until birth�all major body structures are

present. After 20-25 weeks of gestation� � , the fetus is sensitive to both sound and light.

Learning and Behavior in the Womb

� Prenatal development: nature and nurture from the start� In fact, researchers have found that fetuses older than 33 weeks

even pay attention to music.

� DeCasper & Fifer, 1980� The Cat in the Hat�During the 6 weeks before birth pregnant

women read the story aloud 2/d.� Preferred the story their mother had read aloud before they were

born.� Characteristics of the fetus predict those of the child after birth.

T eratogens �negative environment events

� Maternal illness� Chicken pox, rubella, HIV (p.536)

� Alcohol and drugs� Alcohol, heroin, cocaine

� Caffeine and smoking� Diet and pollution

� Malnutrition� Too much methymercury��-contain fish (such as

tuna)� Maternal stressors

The newborn: a work in progress

� Much human brain development continues after birth, and thus the newborn’s abilities to think , feel, and behave differ from those of older children and adults.

� Babies come equipped with a surprising range of abilities and capacities.(p.537)

The newborn: a work in progress� They are born sensitive to the range of

frequencies of women’s voices (Hauser, 1996) and have a relatively sensitive sense of smell.

� Newborns also prefer to look at normal faces.� Even 2-day-old infants can put visual and

auditory together.(p.538)


� A reflex� � is an automatic response to an event, an action that does not require thought.

� Some of the reflexes shown by infants, such as sucking, have obvious survival value.

� Curiously, many of the reflexes that babies have at birth disappear after a while.(p.538)

R efl ex es P res ent at B irth ( p . 5 3 9 )� Withdrawal (10 days)� Stepping (2 months)� Sucking (3 months)� Rooting (3-4 months)� Palmar grasp (4 months)� Startle (5 months)� Swimming (6 months)� Tonic neck (7 months)

� Plantar (1 year)� Babinski (1 year)� Eye blink (life)

T emp erament � � � innate inc l inations to engage in a c ertain s ty l e of behavior � Approach style� Withdrawal style

� Some babies are considered “easy” � � � in that they do not cry often and are not demanding, whereas others are “difficult” � � in that they are fussy and demanding.

� Biological factors� Nurturing experiences


� The operation of biological factors.� In fact, only children who are extremely

inhibited or uninhibited are likely to stay that way; the majority of children, who fall in the middle ranges, can change dramatically.

Nurturing experiences

� From early nurturing experiences.� Touching infants not only can enhance

growth and development, but also can reduce the EEG activation in the right frontal lobe�� that is associated with depression and can boost immune function.

� Moreover, parents who perceive their infants as having a particular sort of temperament appear to influence the development of such a temperament. � �

I nfanc y and C h il d h o o d� Physical and motor development

� Milestones� � �

� Perceptual and cognitive development: extended horizons

� The younger child not only has a shorter attention span and understands fewer concepts about relations between objects and events.� Visual perception� Young infants view the world

blurrily, with age, their visual acuity increases.� Visual cliff experiment��

� Habituation technique � �

� Auditory perception�

Infant visual perception (p.543)

� In this visual cliff experiment, researchers have found that even 6-month-old infants don’t want to crawl out on the glass over the “deep end”- even before they can talk.

� Which babies prefer a new stimulus after habituating to a previous one, it is possible to discover what differences they can detect.

� Newborn aren’t very attentive companions, but they will notice if you make direct eye contact with them.

Infant auditory perception (p.545)

� Compared with visual perception, auditory perception appears to be more fully developed at an earlier age.

� Perceptual development continues beyond the first year of life.

� Some aspects of perceptual processing (used in organizing complex patterns) probably continue to develop until late adolescence.

J ean P iaget�� (p.547-548 )� Periods of cognitive development: The gradual

transition from infant to adult mental capacity is known as cognitive development.� Sensorimotor � � �� Preoperational � � � �� Concrete operations � � � � �� Formal operations� � � � �

� Schema � �� Assimilation � �� Accommodation � �

Stages of cognitive development: Piaget’s theory

� Piaget believed that babies begin with very simple, innate schemas, mental structures that organize perceptual input and connect it to the appropriate responses.

� The process of assimilation allows the allows the infants to use existing schemas to take in new stimuli and respond accordingly. Accommodation results in schemas’ changing as necessary to cope with a broader range of situation.

� These two processes-assimilation and accommodation-together are the engine that powers cognitive development.

Sensorimotor period

� Infants lack the ability to form mental representations that can be used to think about an object in its absence.

� In the early stages of the sensorimotor period, the infant does not yet have object permanence � � � � , the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be immediately perceived.

� Out of sight means not just out of mind but out of existence.

Sens o rim o to r P erio d� Age

� 0–2 years

� Major achievements� Object permanence� Imitation

Preoperational period

� Preoperational period, from roughly age 2 until age 7.

� Armed with the ability to form mental representations, children in the preoperational period are able to think about objects and events that are not immediately present

� They often reason on the basis of appearances.

Preoperational period� These children do not understand conservation, the principle that

properties such as amount or mass remain the same even when the appearance of the material or object changes, provided that nothing is added or removed.

� Both sensorimotor and preoperational children show egocentrism��, the inability to take another’s point of view.

Concept of Conservation:“Which is the larger?”

Concrete operations period

� At about age 7, children develop the ability to take another person’s perspective.

� This ability is linked to the fact that they can now perform concrete operations, manipulating mental representations in much the same way as they can manipulate the corresponding objects.

Concrete operations period

� Children are able to begin to classify objects and their properties, to grasp concepts such as length, width, volume, and time, and to understand various mental operations.

� Concrete operations allow the child to reason logically, this mode of conceptualizing is reversible; that is, it can be used to make or undo a transformation.

C o nc rete O p eratio ns P erio d� Age

� 7–11 years

� Major achievements� Can take another person’s perspective� Classifying objects� Conservation and other reversible mental

operations

Formal operations period

� Formal operations allow children to engage in abstract thinking� � � � , to think about “what-would-happen-if” situations, to formulate and test theories ! " # $ % & ' , and to think systematically( ) * � � about the possible outcomes of an act by being able to list alternatives in advance + , - ./ 0 1 2 and consider each in turn.

F o rm al O p eratio ns P erio d� Age

� 11 years (at the earliest)

� Major achievements� Abstract concepts� � � �� Logic � �� Reversibility� � �� Hypothetical thinking � � � �

Beyond Piaget� Competencies at earlier ages

� The capacities of infants often far exceed those claimed by Piaget. More recent research findings have suggested that in many ways the young child relates to the world as a young scientist

� Theory of mind: a theory of other people’s mental states-their beliefs, desires, and feelings.� This theory allows them to predict � what other people can

understand and how they will react � � in a given situation

� Piaget underestimated! " the sophistication # $ of young children’s conceptions of the world.

V y go ts k y ’ s So c io c u l tu ral T h eo ry� Private speech� Role of social interaction� Culture and the brain

A ttac h m ent � � an em o tio nal b o nd � The tendency to form such an emotional bond 3 4 5 6 begins during infancy, when normal infants become attached to their primary caregivers 7 8 9 : ; .

� Harlow’s monkeys� Importance of comfort contact % &an innate rather than a learned characteristic of mammals

� Separation anxiety< = > ? 6 mths and 2 ys

Ainsworth: Strange Situation experimentsTypes of attachment

� Secure��attachment (60-70%)

� Avoidant � � �attachment (15-20%)

� Resistant � � attachment (10-15%)

� Disorganized/disoriented � attachment (5-10%)

� Various factors influence the kind of attachment an infant will show.

Types of attachment

� For example, if the mother was a heavy user of cocaine or other illicit drugs while pregnant, her infant is more likely at age 18 months to have disorganized/disoriented attachment.

� In addition, mothers who are more sensitive to their babies’ moods and behaviors had more securely attached infants.

Types of attachment

� The adverse effects of poverty on a mother’s ability to remain highly sensitive to her child.

� The type of early attachment can have long-lasting effects.

� Infants with secure attachment who were later studied at age 11 were found to have closer friendships and better social skills than children who had not been securely attached as infants.

Types of attachment

� Secure attachment can lead a child be more comfortable with exploring @ A , which lead to better learning and can lead to more intimate love relationships later in life.

So c ial and E m o tio nal D ev el o p m ent� Is daycare bad for children?� Self-concept and identity� Gender identity� Gender roles� Role of culture

Is daycare bad for children?

� To begin, it’s worth noting that high-quality daycare (with small adult-child ratiosB C and appropriately trained staff) enriches a child’s learning experiences and improves his or her cognitive abilities.

Self-concept and identity��

� � : the growing self� Psychologists use the term self-concept to refer

to the belief, desires, values, and attributes that define a person to himself or herself.

� Self-concept is necessarily grounded in the level of cognitive development.

Gender identity: not just being raised with pink or blue

� Gender identity is the belief that you are male or female.

� Part of your gender identity arises from how you are raised, and part of it comes from the social context D E F G in which you grow up.

� Gender identity was essentially neutral at birth and was formed by culture and upbringing H I / J I .

The development of gender roles

� Gender roles are the culturally determined appropriate behaviors of males versus females.

� Gender roles vary in different cultures, social classes, and time periods.

M o ral D ev el o p m ent� the right stuff

� Lawrence Kohlberg ' ( )� �Piaget was a pioneer in the study of moral as well

as cognitive development. L.K. extended Piaget’s approach and developed an influential theory of moral development.

� Moral dilemmas* + , -� Three levels of moral development

� Preconventional� � � � �

� Conventional� � � �

� Postconventional� � � � �

K o h l b erg’ s D il em m as� Example: To save his dying wife, Heinz

steals an expensive drug from a pharmacist who refuses to sell it at a lower price

� Boys were asked to reason about morality� Ranged in age from 10 to 16

Moral development: the right stuff

� Kohlberg presented boys and men with moral dilemmas, situations in which there are moral pros and cons for each of a set of possible actions.

� What kinds factors did they consider?� Which conflicts did they identify, and how did

they try to resolve these conflicts?


� The preconventional level rests on the idea that good behaviors are rewarded and bad ones are punished. K L M N

� The conventional level rests on the role of rules that maintain social order and allow people to get along. D E O P

� The postconventional level (also called the principled level) rests on the development of abstract principles� � Q R that govern the decision to accept or reject specific rules.

K o h l b erg’ s D il em m as� Preconventional Response

� “If you let your wife die, you will get in trouble.”� Conventional Response

� “If he lets his wife die, people will think he is heartless.”

� Postconventional Response� “Human life is the highest principle; everything

else is secondary. People have a duty to save the lives of others.”

C ritiq u e o f K o h l b erg’ s Lev el s� Culture-specific� Gender-specific� Reasoning vs. behavior� Conscience� Empathy


� The levels don’t apply well to people in non-western cultures.

� Although the responses clearly relied on moral reasoning, the reasoning sometimes involved factors such as family interdependence and the supreme authority of a diving being.


� Gilligan, who argued that because the theory was based on studied of boys and men, it applied only to males

� She believed that females tend to focus on an ethic of care, a concern and responsibility for the well-being of others.


� Furthermore, it is not clear that Kohlberg’s level are like traits, which characterize a person in all situations.

� Rather, people may use different types of moral reasoning, developing on the details of the dilemma.


� In additional, we must distinguish between moral reasoning and moral behavior.

� The fact that someone reasons in a particular way doesn’t guarantee that he or she will act on this reasoning.


� Conscience is not the only aspect of character that can direct moral behavior.

� Another is the capacity to feel empathy, the ability to put yourself in another person’s situation and feel what they feel.

� Many factors affect how people behave in moral situation, and some of these factors develop much earlier than does the ability to reason logically about morality.

A d o l es c enc e

� Physical development� Puberty

� Cognitive development� Abstract reasoning

� Adolescent egocentrism� Imaginary audience� Personal fable� Peer pressure

Adolescent egocentrism: it’s all in your point of view

� First, the imaginary audience is a belief sometimes held by adolescents, in which they view themselves as actors and everyone else as an audience.

� This view can lead teenagers to be extremely self-conscious and easily embarrassed.

Adolescent egocentrism: it’s all in your point of view� Some teenagers have a personal fable,

which is a story in which they are the star and, as the star, have extraordinary abilities and privileges S T .

� These tendencies, and other social behaviors, are clearly influenced by peers � U .

� However, adolescents are influenced primarily by their families with regard to basic values and goals.

So c ial and E m o tio nal D ev el o p m ent in A d o l es c enc e� Conflicts with parents

� Most frequent in early adolescence� Most intense in mid-adolescence

� Mood swings� Depression� Loneliness

� Risk taking� Peer relationships� Teenage pregnancy� In sum , adolescents are more likely than people of

other ages to experience “storm and stress”.

Becoming an adult

� The transition from adolescent to adultneed not be this patterned or direct.

� People in this age range who think of themselves as adults tend to have a firmer grip on their self-identity, to have a clearer idea of the characteristics of their desired romantic partners, to be less depressed, and to engage in fewer risky behaviors than do people who do not view themselves as adult.

Adulthood and Aging �what’s inevitable, what’s not

� The changing body� Genes� Environment� Menopause (for women)

Learning to live with aging� A major challenge of aging is to

accommodate to those changes that are inevitable and to forestall undesirable changes when you can.

Why do we age?� But because of the cumulative effects of all the

blows.� Some researchers believe that aging and death

are programmed into the genes.� Instead of accepting that the genes have been

programmed for death, we might assume that errors accumulate over time, and finally, there are so many errors that genes no longer function properly.

Perception and cognition in adulthood: taking the good with the bad� Indeed, by age 60. people perform most

cognitive tasks more slowly than do younger people.

� Terminal decline.� Thus, terminal decline is probably not an

inevitable final chapter of the book of life.� More common is a gradual degradation in

cognitive performance in the years leading up to death.

Perception: through a glass darkly?

� More than half of the 65 and older population has cataracts.

� Surgery can remove cataracts and result in greatly improved vision.

� Hearing is also affected by age.� Unlike vision and hearing, the sense of taste

does not decline with age.

A d u l th o o d and A ging� Intelligence and specific abilities

� Fluid intelligence. / 0� Crystallized intelligence1 2 / 0

� Research methods� Longitudinal studies 3 4 � 56 7 � 89 :� Cross-sectional studies

Changes in fluid and crystallized intelligence� Fluid intelligence, which involves flexibility in

reasoning and the ability to figure out novel solutions, and crystallized intelligence, which involves using knowledge as a basis of reasoning.

� It might seem that crystallized intelligence, which, by definition, relied on experience, would be less influenced by age than would fluid intelligence.

Changes in fluid and crystallized intelligence� These findings suggest that both types of

intelligence are stable until somewhere between the mid-50s and the early 70s, when both decline.

� Such studies have led most researchers to believe that fluid intelligence begins to decline as early as the late 20s, whereas crystallized intelligence may actually grow with age and decline only late in life.

Changes in specific abilities

� Researchers found that older adults were rated as telling more interesting, higher-quality, and more informative stories than younger adults.

� Old people actually reason better than young people.

So c ial and E m o tio nal D ev el o p m ent in A d u l th o o d

� Erikson’s psychosocial stages in adulthood� Intimacy vs. isolation� Generativity vs. self-absorption� Integrity vs. despair

� Stable personality through adulthood� Mature emotions� Socioemotional selectivity theory

Theories of psychosocial stages in adulthood

� Erik Erikson proposed three stages of adult psychosocial development, due to effects of maturation and learning on personality and relationships, in addition to five stages of psychosocial development through childhood and adolescence.

.

Theories of psychosocial stages in adulthood� Intimacy versus isolation, occurs in young adulthood.� The second adult, characterized by generativity

versus self-absorption.� The third adult stage, characterized by integrity

versus despair.� Levinson’s theory is the midlife transition� Occurs somewhere between the ages of 40 and 45.� According to Levinson, many men have midlife

crises, lead them to end marriages and begin others, change jobs, or make other major life changes.

Theories of psychosocial stages in adulthood

� These researchers find that as people age, they come increasingly to value emotionally fulfilling relationships.

� This leads older people to prefer the company of those with whom they are emotionally close.

� Relationships earlier in life tend to include more friends than relatives, but with age the mix reverses, with more time spent with relatives than with friends.

D eath and D y ing� Three stages of the grieving process

� Stage 1: State of shock for about 3 weeks after the death

� Stage 2: Emotional upheavals, from anger to loneliness and guilt from about 3 weeks to 1 year after the death

� Stage 3: Grief typically lessens during the beginning of the second year after the death

� Bereavement� Cultural differences

Death and dying

� The effects of the death of a friend or loved one depend on many factors.

� Concern about our own deaths apparently does not increase with age.

� Women report fearing death more often than men do.

Death and dying

� However, this finding could simply mean that women are more honest on self-aware, or that men-consciously or unconsciously-avoid confronting the topic.

� In addition, because women tend to live longer than men, they may have had more opportunity to witness and to become concerned about death.

Documents

Prenatal development: nature and nurture from the start