AP Psychology Notes

Chapter Outlines

Chapter 9: Developmental Psychology

Research Methods
1. Cross-Sectional Research
  1. Uses participants of different ages to compare how certain variables may change over the life span
  2. Produces quick results
  3. May be affected by historical events or cultural trends
2. Longitudinal Research
  1. Examines one group of participants over time
  2. Time consuming
  3. Precisely measures the effects of development on a specific group
Prenatal Influences on Development
1. Genetics
  1. Determine which abilities we are born with
    1. ex: process of developing motor skills
2. Teratogens
  1. Can cause harm if ingested by the mother
    1. they can pass through the placenta barrier
  2. Alcohol
    1. FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome)
      1. mental retardation
      2. malformed skull
      3. caused by heavy drinking during pregnancy
    2. fetal alcohol effect
      1. caused by moderate drinking
      2. learning disabilities
      3. behavioral problems
      4. not all symptoms of FAS
  3. Psychoactive drugs
    1. newborns can share their mother’s drug addiction
      1. withdrawal symptoms can lead to death
  4. Polluting chemicals in the environment
Motor/Sensory Development
1. Reflexes
  1. Reflexes
    1. inborn, automatic responses to specific stimuli
  2. Reflexes humans are born with
    1. rooting reflex
      1. when touched on cheek, baby turns head and seeks to put the object in his mouth
    2. sucking reflex
      1. when object is placed in baby’s mouth, he will suck it
    3. grasping reflex
      1. a baby will try to grasp an object that is placed on his hand or foot
    4. moro reflex
      1. when startled, baby will fling out and then retract his limbs
      2. makes self as small as possible
    5. babinski reflex
      1. when a baby’s foot is stroked, he will spread out the toes
    6. we lose these reflexes later in life
2. The Newborn’s Senses
  1. Hearing
    1. babies can hear before birth
    2. minutes after birth, baby will try to turn head toward mother’s voice
  2. Taste and smell
    1. same basic preferences as we do
    2. love sugar
  3. Vision
    1. not the dominant sense
      1. hearing is
    2. can see well 8-12 inches in front of them
      1. everything else is a blur
      2. normal vision by 12 months old
    3. prefer face like objects
3. Motor Development
  1. Roll over
    1. five and a half months old
  2. Stand
    1. eight- nine months
  3. Walk alone
    1. fifteen months
  4. The effect of environment is slight
Parenting
1. Attachment Theory
  1. Attachment
    1. the reciprocal relationship between caregiver and child
  2. Harry Harlow
    1. raised baby monkeys with two artificial wire frame figure “monkeys”
      1. one figure was fitted with a bottle the infant could feed from
      2. the other wrapped in soft material
    2. when frightened, infants preferred soft mom
      1. demonstrated the importance of physical comfort in formation of attachment
    3. monkeys raised by real mothers were less frightened in new situations
  3. Mary Ainsworth
    1. observed infants’ reactions when placed into strange situations
      1. parents left for a short time and returned
    2. three reaction categories
      1. secure, avoidant, anxious/ambivalent attachments
    3. secure attachment
      1. 66% of babies in experiment
      2. explored novel environment while parents were present
      3. distressed when parents were absent
      4. came to parents when they returned
    4. avoidant attachment
      1. 21% of participants
      2. resist being held by parents
      3. explore novel environment
      4. don’t go to parents for comfort when they return
    5. anxious/ambivalent attachment
      1. 12% of participants
      2. may show extreme stress when parents leave but resist their comfort when they return
2. Parenting Styles
  1. Authoritorian
    1. set strict standards for their children’s behavior
      1. no discussion about the rationale behind them
    2. punishment is used more than reinforcement
  2. Permissive
    1. don’t set clear guidelines for their children
    2. rules are constantly changed
    3. rules are usually not enforced
    4. easy to get away with almost anything
  3. Authoritative
    1. set consistent standards for their children
      1. reasonable and explained
    2. encourage their children’s independence
    3. praise as often as they punish
  4. Children produced
    1. authoritative parents
      1. more socially capable
      2. perform better academically
    2. permissive parents
      1. emotional control problems
      2. more dependent
    3. authoritorian parents
      1. less trusting
      2. more withdrawn from peers
Stage Theories
1. Continuity vs. Discontinuity
  1. Continuity
    1. develop at a steady rate from birth to death
  2. Discontinuity
    1. development happens in fits and the rate is variable
    2. stage theories
      1. discontinuous theories of development
2. Sigmund Freud
  1. We develop through four psychosexual stages
    1. sexual (to Freud)
      1. how we get sensual pleasure from the world
    2. if we fail to resolve a significant problem in our lives in one of these stages, we become fixated in the stage
      1. remain preoccupied with behaviors associated with that stage
  2. Oral stage
    1. infants seek pleasure through their mouths
      1. put many objects into mouth
    2. fixation
      1. overeating, smoking, childlike dependence on things and people
  3. Anal stage
    1. develops during toilet training
    2. fixation
      1. retentive- overly controlling
      2. expulsive- out of control
  4. Phallic stage
    1. babies realize their gender
    2. Oedipus complex and Electra complex
    3. fixation
      1. problems in relationships
  5. Latency stage
    1. period of calm
    2. low psychosexual energy
    3. most psychologists don’t regard it as a separate stage
    4. age 6- puberty
  6. Genital stage
    1. focus of sexual pleasure is genitals
    2. remain for rest of life
    3. fixation
      1. normal
3. Erik Erikson
  1. A neo-Freudian
    1. a theorist who believed in the basics of Freud’s theory but adapted it to fit his own observations
  2. Psychosexual stage theory
    1. eight stages
    2. he thought our personality was profoundly influenced by experiences with others
  3. Trust vs. Mistrust
    1. babies need to learn that they can trust their caregivers to fulfill their needs and that their requests are effective
    2. sense of trust or mistrust carries for life
  4. Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
    1. toddlers begin to exert their will over their bodies (autonomy)
      1. potty training is an early effort at this
    2. learn to control temper tantrums
    3. if we learn how to control ourselves and our environment in reasonable ways:
      1. we develop a healthy will
      2. we can control our body and emotional reactions through following social challenges
  5. Initiative vs. guilt
    1. if trust and autonomy achieved:
      1. natural curiosity about our surroundings
      2. ask many questions
    2. if our curiosity is encouraged, we will feel comfortable expressing it always
      1. if not, we feel guilty and will not express it
  6. Industry vs. inferiority
    1. in first grade, we are asked to produce work that is evaluated
    2. if we perform as well as our peers, we feel competent
      1. if not, inferiority complex!
      2. → anxiety about our performance in that area
  7. Identity vs. role confusion
    1. in adolescence, our main social task is to discover what social identity we are most comfortable with
      1. maybe try out different roles
    2. identity crisis
      1. if an adolescent doesn’t figure out a sense of self, they might have one later in life
  8. Intimacy vs. isolation
    1. a. young adults figure out how to balance time and effort between work, relationships, and self
      1. the patterns we choose become relatively permanent
  9. Generativity vs stagnation
    1. we look critically at our life path
    2. we try to ensure that our lives are going the way we want
      1. if not, we try to change it by controlling others or changing our identity
  10. Integrity vs. despair
    1. toward the end of life
    2. we look back at our accomplishments and decide if we’re satisfied
      1. if so, we can step outside society and offer wisdom
      2. if not, we may fall into despair over lost opportunities
Cognitive Development
1. Jean Piaget
  1. Worked for Albert Binet, creator of the first intelligence test
    1. noticed that children of the same age gave similar answers
      1. hypothesis: they think in similar ways which differ from the ways of adults
      2. led to theory of cognitive development
  2. Theory of cognitive development
    1. children view the world through schemata
      1. cognitive rules we use to interpret the world
    2. assimilation
      1. we incorporate our experiences into this existing schemata
    3. when info violates our schemata, we accommodate and change our schemata
  3. Four stages of thinking
    1. sensorimotor stage
      1. birth- 2 years
      2. we explore the world through our senses
      3. behavior is governed by reflexes until we develop our first cognitive schemata
      4. major challenge- develop object permanence (objects continue to exist even when out of our sensory range)
    2. preoperational stage
      1. 2 years- 7 years
      2. object permanence prepares us to use symbols to represent real world objects
      3. → the beginning of language
      4. we speak our first words
      5. we are limited in the ways we can think about the relationships between and characteristics of objects
      6. egocentric in thinking- can only see world from their perspective
    3. concrete operations
      1. 8 years- 12 years
      2. we learn to think more logically about complex relationships between different characteristics of objects
      3. concepts of conservation
      4. → the realization that properties of objects remain the same even when their shapes change
      5. → ex. volume, area, number
    4. formal operations
      1. 12 years- adulthood
      2. we gain metacognition (the ability to think about the way we think)
      3. abstract reasoning
      4. → hypothesis testing. someone in this stage can reason from a hypothesis
      5. we can manipulate objects in our minds without physically seeing them
      6. we can contrast ideas in our minds without real world correlates
2. Criticisms of Piaget: Information Processing Model
  1. He underestimated children
    1. many go through the stages faster and enter them earlier than he thought
    2. his tests relied too heavily on language use
      1. results biased in favor of older kids
  2. Information- processing model
    1. a more continuous alternative to Piaget’s stage theory
    2. our abilities to memorize, interpret, and perceive gradually develop as we age, not in stages
      1. ex: attention span
      2. → could explain some apparent cognitive differences Piaget attributed to different cognitive stages
Moral Development
1. Lawrence Kohlberg
  1. Described how our ability to reason about ethical situations changes over our lives
  2. Asked children to think about specific moral situations
  3. Heinz dilemma
    1. Heinz must make a moral choice about whether to steal a drug he can’t afford to save his wife’s life
  4. Responses to Heinz dilemma
    1. preconventional
      1. youngest children
      2. focus on making the decision most likely to avoid punishment
      3. moral reasoning limited to how the choice affects themselves
    2. conventional
      1. look at the moral choice through the eyes of others
      2. make the choice based on how others will view them
      3. try to follow conventional standards of right and wrong
    3. postconventional
      1. moral reasoning
      2. examines the rights and values involved in the choice
      3. self-defined ethical principles involved
      4. the morality of societal rules are examined, not blindly accepted
2. Criticisms of Kohlberg
  1. Carol Gilligan
    1. Kohlberg developed the model based on responses of boys
      1. gender differences in development of morals and ethics?
    2. according to her research:
      1. boys have a more absolute view of what is moral
      2. girls pay more attention to the situational factors
    3. recent research doesn’t support her theory of gender differences in moral development
Gender and Development
1. Biopsychological (Neuropsychological) Theory
  1. Concentrates on the nature element in the nature/nurture combo that produces our gender role
    1. behaviors that a culture associates with a gender
  2. Look for more subtle gender differences
  3. Women have larger corpus callosums
    1. may affect how the brain hemispheres communicate
2. Psychodynamic Theory (Freud)
  1. Oedipus and Electra complex
  2. Proper gender development:
    1. child realizes that they can’t beat their same sex parents for the attention of the other parent
    2. child identifies with the same sex parent instead
3. Social-Cognitive Theory
  1. Concentrate on the effects of society and our own thoughts about gender on role development
  2. Social psychologists
    1. look at how we react to boys and girls differently
  3. Cognitive psychologists
    1. focus on the internal interpretations we make about the gender messages we get from the environment
  4. Gender-schema theory
    1. we internalize messages about gender into cognitive rules about how each gender should behave

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Aboukhadijeh, Feross. "Chapter 9: Developmental Psychology" StudyNotes.org. Study Notes, LLC., 12 Oct. 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.apstudynotes.org/psychology/outlines/chapter-9-developmental-psychology/>.

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Chapter 9: Developmental Psychology

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