General Psychology
Human Development
(1) Infant and Child Development
(A) Human reproduction
- Why sex?
- Meiosis, ovulation, conception
- Sex linked chromosomes (XX/XY)
(B) Prenatal development
- Ovulation
- Conception (zygote)
- Blastocyst
- Embryo (Implantation in uterus 7-10 days)
- Early fetus (8-20 wks)
- 6-8 wks testes determination (h-y antigen) factor
- fetal movement
- Middle fetus (20-30 wks)
- Late fetus (30-40 wks)
(C) Prenatal hazards (teratogens)
- Maternal disease (german measles)
- Smoking/alcohol (FAS)/cocaine
(D) Physical development
- Reflexes
- Growth patterns: brain, body, reproductive system (overhead)
- Brain: migration, proliferation, neural death (growth cone and neurotropin)
- Milestones: sitting, reaching, walking
(E) Cognitive development
- Piaget:
- Schema: mental structure about reality
- Assimilation: reality is made to fit schema
- Accommodation: schema is changed to fit reality
- Equilibration: balance of assimilation and accommodation
- Stages of development
- Sensorimotor
- Preoperational (object permanence)
- Concrete operational (conservation)
- Formal operational
*Note trend: Concrete to abstract and egocentric to perspective taking
- Theory of mind:
- Perspective taking
- Candy example with kids
- Moral Development (Kohlberg)
- Preconventional: Reward or punishment
- Conventional: External (social approval) and internal source
- Post conventional: Internal source and universal principles
(F) Social Development
- Family:
- parental solicitude: parents do not invest equally in each child.
Children's ages and phenotypes (e.g., sex) are used by parents.
Infanticide not uncommon (non paternity, poor health, maternal
overburdening)
- parent-child conflict: in terms of inclusive fitness, two or more
offspring are equally valuable to parents, however for any given child
one's self is twice as valuable as one's sibling. Therefore, parents are
selected to be fair whereas children are selected to be self-centered.
- Child-child conflict: birth order differences with firstborns more
antagonistic (lose resources to subsequent children), respect for
authority (because of favored status in family), neurotic/tempermental
(tactics to safeguard privileged status) and laterborns mo open to
experiences.
- Attachment (Bowlby and Ainsworth)
- Relationship characterized by trust and demonstrated by proximity, reunion, exploration with anchoring, stranger anxiety.
- Strange situation
- Determined by caretaker’s body contact and responsiveness and child’s temperament.
-
Childrearing Practices (Overhead)
- Warmth/responsiveness and control/demandingness
- Authoratitive, authoritarian, permissive, neglecting
-
Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development (Overhead)
- Trust versus mistrust
- Autonomy versus shame
- Initiative versus guilt
- Industry versus inferiority
(2) Adolescence
(A) Physical
Development
(B) Cognitive and Social Development
- Social cognition: adolescent egocentrism (personal fable, imaginary
audience)
- Identity: (crisis and commitment) foreclosure, moratorium, achievement,
diffusion
- Erikson:
- Identity versus role confusion
- Intimacy versus isolation
- Problems:
(3) Adulthood
(A) Physical Development
- Lose 1% efficiency of organs per year.
- Physical decline: skin dries, lose hair, gray, poor vision and hearing
- Greater likelihood for illness and disease
- Death: wear and tear, dna replication errors, compromised immune system, programmed senescence.
(B) Cognitive and Social Development
- Intelligence
- Fluid intelligence (speed of processing slows, memory of nonsense words)
- Chrystallized intelligence (remains stable)
- Dementia (alzheimers) video
- Erikson's stages
- Generativity versus stagnation
- Integrity versus despair