Notetaker: Victor Law
Advanced Placement Psychology
Chapter 3: The Developing Child
(
http://www.ApPsychology.net )
Prenatal Development and the Newborn
• At 8 weeks after conception, babies are anatomically indistinguishable; 4/5t h month different
• Sex determined by 23r d pair of chromosome
• X chromosome: comes from either mother or father; females have two, males have one
• Y chromosome: comes from father, paired with x to form male
• Y chromosome stimulates development of male sex organ by producing testosterone: most important male sex
hormone, but females have it too
• Gender: biologically or socially influenced characteristics which people define as male/female
• zygotes: fertilized eggs; less than half survive pass 2 weeks
• after 10 days, zygote attach to mother’s uterine wall and forms placenta for nourishment, zygote becomes embryo:
developing human from 2 weeks to second month
• after two months, looks human, called fetus: developing human from 2 months to birth
• fetus hears muffled version of mother’s voice and prefers it after birth
• harm can come when placenta gets teratogens: agents that can harm embryo/fetus during prenatal stage; a mother
who is a heroin addict will have a heroin addicted baby
• newborns are equipped with reflexes ideal to survival
• rooting reflex: reflex, when touched on cheek, to open mouth and find nipple
• perceptual abilities continue to develop during first month, can distinguish mother’s odour
Infancy and Childhood
• maturation: biological growth processes that enable orderly change in behaviour, could be influenced by experiences
• maturation sets the basic course of development and experience adjust it
• lack of neuron connections reason why earliest memories rarely earlier than third birthday (experiences help develop
neural connections)
• Rosenzweig and Krech reared some young rats in solitary confinement and others in playground; found those in
playground develop thicker and heavier brain cortex
• For optimum development, early years critical –use it or lose it; but development exists through life as neural tissues
changes –experiences nurture nature
• plasticity: brain ability to reoganize pathways to compensate damage; if laser damaged spot in cat’s eye, brain area
receiving input from spot will start responding to stimulation from nearby areas in eye; brain hardware changes with
time –can rewired with new synapses
• children brains most “plastic” –surplus of neurons
• when neurons are destroyed, nearby ones may partly compensate by making new connections
• experience influences motor behaviour
• experience(nurture) before biological development(nature) has limited effect
Cognitive Development
• Cognition: mental activities associated with knowing, thinking, & remembering
• Piaget believed child’s mind develops through series of stages
• Piaget believed children built schemas: concept or framework that organises and interprets info; mental molds into
which we pour our experience
• assimilate: interpreting new experience in terms of existing schemas; given schema for dog, child may call 4-legged
animals doggies
• to fit new experiences, we accommodate: adapting one’s schemas to incorporate new info; child realises doggies
schemas too broad and refines category
Piaget’s 4 stages of Cognitive Development
1. Sensorimotor Stage (Birth – 2 years old)
• Infants know world in terms of sensory impressions and motor activities
• Lack objective permanence: awareness that things continue to exist when not perceived; Baby believes
toy only exists when it is starring at it
2. Preoperational Stage (preschool – 6/7 years old)
• Child learns to use language, but aren’t able to comprehend mental operations of concrete logic; lacks
conservation: principle that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape; water from tall, thin
glass poured into wide, flat glass would be the same
• Children are egocentric: inability to see another’s point of view
3. Concrete Operational Stage (6/7 – 11 years old)
• Children gain mental operations that enable logical thinking about concrete events; understands
conservation and mathematical transformation (reversing arithmetic operations)
4. Formal Operational Stage (12 years -life)
• Reasoning expands from concrete (involving actual experiences) to abstract thinking (involving imagined
realities and symbols)
• Children able to solve hypothetical situations and its consequences
• researchers believe development more continuous than did Piaget
Social Development
• infants develop intense bond with those who care for them; prefers familiar faces and voices
• after object permanence, develop stranger anxiety: fear of strangers commonly displayed after 8 months of age
• attachment: emotional tie with another person; shown by child seeking closeness to caregiver (those who are
comfortable, familiar, and responsive to needs) and distress when seperated
• psychologists use to believe attachment through need for nourishment, but now consider wrong
• Harlow’s Monkey Studies: Harry Harlow bred monkeys of which he separates from mothers shortly after birth; in
cages were a cheesecloth baby blanket; baby monkeys formed intense attachment to blanket –distressed when taken
away; later, Harlow created 2 artificial mothers (“Harlow’s Mothers”), one bare wire cylinder with wooden head,
other a cylinder wrapped with terry cloth; when reared with nourishing wire mother and nonnourishing cloth mother,
monkeys preferred cloth mother; concluded body contact more important than nourishment
• Critical period: an optimal period shortly after birth when organism’s exposure to certain stimuli/experience
produces proper development; first moving object a duckling sees is mother, then follows only it
• Developmental psychologists believe humans don’t have precise critical period
• Imprinting: process by which certain animals form attachment during critical period; humans don’t imprint, but
becomes attached to “known”
• Temperament: person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity; temperaments endure; ex. easy-goi ng, quiet,
placid
• Heredity predispose human differences; anxious infants have high heart rates and reactive nervous system; identical
twins more likely to have similar temperaments than nonidentical
• Sensitive, responsive mothers have infants who are securely attached while the opposite (attend only when felt like
doing and ignores at other times) have infants who are insecurely attached
• Anxiety over separation from parents peak at 13 months and gradually declines after
• Erik Erikson claims securely attached children approach life with sense of basic trust: sense that the world is
predictable and trustworthy
• Deprivation of attachment causes withdraw, fear, and other negative consequences; most abusive parents have been
neglected/battered as children
• Many developmentalists believe quality infant day care doesn’t hinder secure attachement
• Divorces place children at increased risk for developing social, psychological, behavioral, and academic problems
• By age 12, most children develop self concept: sense of one’s identity and personal worth
• Children’s views of themselves affect actions; positive self-concept produces confidence, independence, optimism
