Recommended
More Related Content
What's hot
What's hot (20)
Viewers also liked
Viewers also liked (20)
Similar to Human Development
Similar to Human Development (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Human Development
- 2. What’s so Interesting about Human Development? 1. Studying development helps you better understand yourself. 2. It also helps you learn more about your children. 3. You'll better understand how to interact with kids. 4. And you'll gain a greater appreciation of development throughout life. 5. It allows us to understand what's normal, and what's not.
- 3. MILESTONES • What are some of the important milestones in your life and the lives of others?
- 4. How do we develop? Nature vs. Nurture Individual Differences Social Context Passive vs. Active Child Quantitatve Change vs. Qualitative Stages
- 5. Developmental Psychology • Who are we? • Why are we the way we are? Physical Socio- emotional Cognitive Moral • The three goals of developmental psychology are to describe, explain, and to optimize development (Baltes, Reese, & Lipsitt, 1980).
- 6. Types of Developmental Change • Qualitative: – Development is discontinuous, periods of little change alternate with periods of abrupt and rapid change – Piaget, Kohlberg, Erikson • Quantitative: – Development is continuous, new abilities, skills and knowledge developing gradually and relatively uniformly over time – Robbie Case
- 8. Teratogens & Prenatal Development • Agents that can cause birth defects. – May cause birth defects most during which period? • Maternal disease – Environmental hazards: radiation, pollution – Alcohol, meth, cocaine
- 9. Reflexes • Moro – Extending limbs, arching back • Rooting – Turning head, sucking movements • Babinski – Spreading toes, twisting foot • Grasp – Firm fist
- 10. Studying Perceptual Development Preference technique Study how long baby attends to a particular stimulus. Habituation/dishabituation Study loss of interest in particular stimulus after repeated exposures. Operant conditioning Vary the stimulus and study the learned responses.
- 11. Infant perception Hearing Adult voices heard well and some directional loud-sound location Smelling and tasting Newborns react differently to each basic taste as early as birth. Touch and motion Best developed of all senses
- 12. TASTE IN INFANTS • Responding to different tastes: Normal, Sweet, Sour and Bitter
- 13. Motor Development • Fairly equivalent boys and girls • Potty train at 2 years • Rapidly during preschool • 6-7 years smooth, athletic prowess
- 14. Depth Perception A Walk on the Wild Side—Almost Visual Cliff: Gibson and Walk (1960) Initial findings: 6-month- old babies would not cross the visual cliff. Recent findings: 3- month-olds have some depth perception.
- 15. Cognitive Development How does your mind grow over time?
- 16. What is the Goal of Education?
- 17. The Growth of Knowledge • Continuity or Discontinuity? – Stage theories…
- 18. We Become Ourselves Through Others gogotsky: Scaffolding & The Zone of Proximal Development
- 19. Piaget’s Constructivist Approach Assimilation and Accommodation: Horizontal Decalage • Progressive acquisition of related skills within same stage of development. Predictable order
- 20. How does knowledge grow? • 1. Organization: – Organize knowledge with schemata, mental representations/organized patterns of behavior • 2. Adaptation – Assimilation: Incorporate new into existing cognitive structure – Accommodation: Adjust reality demands by modfiying existing cognitive structure • 3. Equilibration – Need/striving toward equilibrium
- 21. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
- 22. Achieving Concrete Operational Thought Operational Thought • Reason • Follow Rules Conservation • Ability to recognize that even when form and shape change, objects conserve characteristics
- 23. Theory of Mind
- 24. Information Processing • Quantitative Changes: Smooth, continuous • Mnemonics – Improvement in memory results from gradual, more effective use of memory strategies • Transfer processing – Problem solvers can place new/unfamiliar in the context of what they know
- 26. Emotions: Early emotions BIRTH PrimaryEmotions Interest Sadness Disgust Distress HALFYEAR 6-8Months Anger Joy Surprise Fear 2YEARS 18-24Months:Self-ConsciousEmotions Use social standards Jealousy Empathy Embarassment 3YEARS: 30-36months Shame Guilt Pride At 3 months can imitate caregiver expressions,Emotional Contagion: Detect emotions first few weeks
- 27. Personality: Freud Shifts in sexual energy from one part of body to another. Failure to resolve conflict results from under or excessive gratification of id’s needs
- 28. Personality: Erikson Erikson’s Stages MISGRIS Stage Age Strength M: Many Mistrust/Trust Infancy Hope S: Steps Shame/Autonomy 1-3 Will G: Go Guilt/Initative 3-6 Purpose I: In Industry/Inferiority 7-12 Competence R: Really Role confusion/Identity Teens Fidelity I: Independent Isolation/Intimacy 18-35 Love S: Stages Stagnation/Generativity Midlife: 35-60 Care D: During Life Despair/Integrity End of life Wisdom
- 29. Attachment
- 30. How important is attachment?
- 31. Early Bonds are an Integral Part of Human Nature
- 32. Harlow’s Monkeys Important for development of attachment Infant monkeys attached to terrycloth mums over mother that produced food
- 33. Harlow and Contact Comfort • Important for development of attachment • Infant monkeys attached to terrycloth mums over mother that produced food
- 34. Internal Working Model (Bowlby) – Understanding of the availability of attachment figures and their likelihood of providing support during times of stress
- 35. What Creates Secure Attachment? The Strange Situation
- 37. Signs of Attachment Social Referencing • 6months Separation anxiety • 6-8months • Peaks at 14-18 months • Decline over next 2 to 3 years Stranger Anxiety • 8 to 10 months • Negative reaction to strangers • Peaks at 18mo • Declines over next year
- 39. Perfect Parents, Perfect Kids? Which of the following factors do you think would show a strong correlation (positive OR negative!) with academic test scores between kindergarten and fifth grade? •From Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, William Morrow, 2005) Which correlate with academic scores? •The child has highly educated parents. •The child’s family is intact. •The child’s parents have high socioeconomic status. •The child’s parents recently moved into a better neighborhood. •The child’s mother was thirty or older at the time of her first child’s birth. •The child’s mother didn’t work between birth and kindergarten. •The child had low birthweight. •The child attended Head Start. •The child’s parents speak English in the home. •The child’s parents regularly take him to museums. •The child is adopted. •The child is regularly spanked. •The child’s parents are involved in the PTA. •The child frequently watches television. •The child has many books in his home. •The child’s parents read to him nearly every day.
- 40. Social Dev: Development of Racial Awareness • Age 3 to 4 children become aware of differences based on racial or ethnic background • By age four, realize differences have social meaning • Age 10, social connotations of racial differences
- 42. Morality
- 45. Moral Reasoning Preconventional: Avoid punishments, get rewards 1. Punishment and Obedience 2. Instrumental Hedonism Conventional: Social approval 1. Good Boy/Good Girl 2. Law and Order Postconventional: What’s Right, Fair, & Just 1. Morality of Contract, Individual Rights, and Democratically Accepted Laws 2. Morality of Individual Principles of Conscience
- 46. Discuss • Does moral judgment match moral behavior? • Is justice the most fundamental moral principle?
- 47. Gilligan emphasizes compassion as a moral value • Gilligan criticized Kohlberg for giving higher moral place to male values • Justice Perspective (Kohlberg, men) • Women: Compassion, responsibility for others • Caring Perspective – Level 1: Orientation of Individual Survival – Level 2: Goodness as self- sacrifice – Level 3: Morality of nonviolence
- 48. FAMILY AND PEERS
- 49. Bullying Non-normative Aggression in child predicts future violent behavior Victim also more likely to be violent Victims are peer rejected
- 50. Teachers and Student Gender • Teachers tend to attribute poor performance of boys to low effort and poor performance of girls to low aptitude
- 51. THE END
Editor's Notes
- In a way, developmental psychology is the most comprehensive topic psychologists attempt to research. Developmental psychologists study how our behaviors and thoughts change over our entire lives, from birth to death (or conception to cremation). Consequently, developmental psychology involves many concepts traditionally included in other areas of psychology. For example, both personality researchers and developmental psychologists closely examine identical twins for personality similarities and differences. Some psychologists consider development psychology to be an applied, rather than pure, research topic. That is, developmental psychologists apply research from other areas of psychology to special topics involving maturation. One way to organize the information included in the developmental psychology section is to think about one of the basic controversies: nature versus nurture. This chapter discusses influences on development from nature (genetic factors) first andWeseley Ed.D., Allyson J; William McEntarffer (2014-02-01). AP Psychology (Barron's Ap Psychology) (Kindle Locations 4298-4305). Barron's Educational Series. Kindle Edition.
- Brainstorm on Board: What interests you about human development? 1. Studying development helps you better understand yourself. We were all kids once, so learning more about how children develop and grow can provide additional insight in the person you have become. Studying development can also help you learn more about your future. By understanding the aging process, you'll be better prepared when you face issues associated with growing older. Father with son - Tom Merton / Caiaimage / Getty Images Tom Merton / Caiaimage / Getty Images 2. It also helps you learn more about your children. Whether you are a parent now or planning to become one in the future, studying human development can teach you a great deal about your children. In addition to learning things that can help make you a better parent, you can gain greater insight into how your children behave, think, learn and feel. Kids Playing - Alistair Berg / Digital Vision / Getty Images Alistair Berg / Digital Vision / Getty Images 3. You'll better understand how to interact with kids. If you plan on having children or working with them at some point, studying human development can greatly improve your ability to interact with kids. Once you better understand the stages of development and what makes kids tick, you will feel more comfortable talking, playing and working with them. Young woman with grandmother - Westend61 / Getty Images Westend61 / Getty Images 4. And you'll gain a greater appreciation of development throughout life. When we think of human development, it's easy to think of it as a process that is largely complete once we hit early adulthood. It is important to realize, however, that development is an ongoing process that continues all throughout life. As you enter adulthood, navigate middle age and face the on-set of old age, having a greater understanding of how people continue to grow and change as they get older can help you appreciate and manage all the stages of your life. Children in class - Marc Romanelli / Blend Images / Getty Images Marc Romanelli / Blend Images / Getty Images 5. It allows us to understand what's normal, and what's not. Another important reason to study development is that you can gain a greater understanding of what is normal. While every person is a little bit different, human development tends to follow a remarkably predictable pattern. Once you have studied development, you'll know what's typical at certain ages and stages. Perhaps most importantly, studying human development makes it easier to spot possible signs of trouble. From problems with physical or cognitive development in early childhood to emotional struggles later in life, being able to identify potential problems is important. The earlier developmental problems are detected, the sooner intervention can begin. No matter what the situation, early detection and treatment can lead to better outcomes.
- First Day of Developmental Psychology Class What we do on the first day of class makes a first impression with students that can create expectations for the semester. If you are looking for a fun hands-on first day activity, I have had success breaking students into small groups to do the Piagetian pendulum task. But I normally do this on a day about Piaget's theory. Instead I do not use hands-on activities the first class. Instead I emphasize discussion and building a framework for the upcoming classes on developmental theories. I spend about half of my first day of developmental psychology with administrative issues. Then I jump right into the subject with big developmental questions while trying to set a tone for open class discussion (e.g., so they see that no matter what they say I never belittle students and always pull out the elements that make sense for class). Even with hesitant students, this kind of discussion works on the first day because student can respond with something as low-risk as a phrase. Throughout the class discussion, I make connections like how we're going to be discussing something in more depth in coming weeks. Here are the three questions and how I structure the discussion: Milestones "Though theories of development may be very different, all share in common having milestones. What are some of the important milestones in your life and the lives of others?" Fill up the chalkboard with examples of milestones. Some you get will be obvious developmental milestones like "first steps" but you'll also get things like "driver's license" and "voting." You might get some like "learning multiplication tables." Everything goes on the board. Then ask, "Of everything on the board, which milestones would you say are important steps in development and which aren't?" Some will clearly get crossed out (e.g., driver's license, voting) and others will clearly get kept (e.g., first steps). Yet others will be controversial (e.g., multiplication tables) but if they're not use your tone and rhetoric to create debate. Sure you have learned something when you master multiplication tables, but is that development? Is any change development? How about a car rusting, is that development? I also pull out the question of individual differences and different developmental trajectories through life. Close this segment by indicating how different theories of development consider different milestones important and have different takes on just what counts as development (e.g., Piagetian vs. Information Processing). Mechanisms "It's not enough for a theory to just list milestones, all theories share in common having mechanisms. Mechanisms are what takes us along the path from one milestone to another. What are some mechanisms in your life and the lives of others?" Fill up the chalkboard with examples of mechanisms. Afterward, pull out how some mechanism are "nature" and others are "nurture." Pull out how some mechanisms illustrate a special role for the social context. Pull out how some mechanisms are what the child brings to the situation (e.g., personality, motivation) and others are things they are passive recipients of (i.e., active vs. passive child). Close by indicating how different theories of development consider different mechanisms as central to moving us through milestones. Quantitative versus Qualitative Change I pull milestones and mechanisms together with a slide illustrating quantitative versus qualitative change using a metaphor of a tree getting bigger or a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. I note how the different milestones and mechanism lead to different metaphors for development. I ask students to think back to when they were 10 years old and I poll the class for if they see themselves now as more sophisticated and more experienced versions of the person they were at 10 (gesture to tree metaphor) or if they look back and see an almost different person (gesture to butterfly). Let them discuss why they see development in each of these ways. Close by indicating how different theories suggest each of these different metaphors. In my class, I continue with a skeleton of the history of developmental psychology. Class ends with a slide on why studying development matters: practical reasons (e.g., parenting, teaching), public policy (e.g., child labor laws imply a view of childhood as a special time), and for personal understanding. For personal understanding I indicate how I can't help but compare and contrast class to my own life and how studying development opens our eyes to how our lives could have been different from how they are. I use that to end class with my hopes for them to think deeply about everything we talk about over the semester.
- How do we develop? Nature vs. Nurture Is it nature or nurture? Or is the question, itself, misleading? Individual Differences How come we begin life as babies, who are so similar to one another, and yet we grow into such distinct adults? Social Context How do we come to understand ourselves and our relationships with others? Is our social learning experience different from the way we learn about the physical world? Passive vs. Active Child Are children passive recipients of experience, or do we actively construct the way we develop? Quantitatve Change vs. Qualitative Stages Are we almost different people at different phases of our lives, or are we always about the same with more experience to go by?
- Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why human beings change over the course of their life. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan. This field examines change across a broad range of topics including: motor skills, cognitive development, executive functions, moral understanding, language acquisition, social change, personality, emotional development, self-concept and identity formation. Developmental psychology examines the influences of nature and nurture on the process of human development, and processes of change in context and across time. Many researchers are interested in the interaction between personal characteristics, the individual's behavior and environmental factors, including social context and the built environment. Ongoing debates include biological essentialism vs. neuroplasticity and stages of development vs. dynamic systems of development.
- Robbie Case's Theory Robbie Case, a Canadian psychologist, was an influential neo-Piagetian who proposed a theory of executive control and central conceptual structures. Case proposed that Executive Control Structures are the building blocks of developmental stages. If we think back to our staircase example, executive control structures explain what is happening to the learner during each stage of development. Executive control structures do the following: They allow a person to represent a problem They articulate the objectives of problem solving They create a strategy needed to solve the problem
- Physical development Physical development concerns the physical maturation of an individual's body until it reaches the adult stature. Although physical growth is a highly regular process, all children differ tremendously in the timing of their growth spurts.[29] Studies are being done to analyze how the differences in these timings affect and are related to other variables of developmental psychology such as information processing speed. Traditional measures of physical maturity using x-rays are less in practice nowadays, compared to simple measurements of body parts such as height, weight, head circumference, and arm span.[29] A few other studies and practices with physical developmental psychology are the phonological abilities of mature 5- to 11-year-olds, and the controversial hypotheses of left-handers being maturationally delayed compared to right-handers. A study by Eaton, Chipperfield, Ritchot, and Kostiuk in 1996 found in three different samples that there was no difference between right- and left-handers.[29]
- Teratogens Most prenatal influences on our development are strictly genetic (nature) in origin. However, the environment can also have profound influences on us before we are born. Certain chemicals or agents (called teratogens) can cause harm if ingested or contracted by the mother. The placenta can filter out many potentially harmful substances, but teratogens pass through this barrier and can affect the fetus in profound ways. One of the most common teratogens is alcohol. Even small amounts of alcohol can change the way the fetal brain develops. Children of alcoholic mothers who drink heavily during pregnancy are at high risk for fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Children born with FAS have small, malformed skulls and mental retardation. Researchers are also investigating a less severe effect of moderate drinking during pregnancy, fetal alcohol effect. These children typically do not show all the symptoms of FAS but may have specific developmental problems later in life, such as learning disabilities or behavioral problems. Alcohol is certainly not the only teratogen. Unlike alcohol, other psychoactive drugs, like cocaine and heroin, can cause newborns to share their parent’s physical drug addiction. The serious withdrawal symptoms associated with these addictions can kill an infant. Some polluting chemicals in the environment can cause abnormal infant development. Certain bacteria and viruses are not screened by the placenta and may be contracted by the fetus.Weseley
- In the past, some philosophers and early psychologists believed that humans are born as blank slates—helpless and without any skills or reflexes. In fact, they believed this lack of reflexes or instinctual behavior was one of the factors that separated humans from animals. Researchers now know that humans are far from blank slates when we are born. All babies exhibit a set of specific reflexes, which are specific, inborn, automatic responses to certain specific stimuli. Some important reflexes humans are born with are listed below: Rooting reflex When touched on the cheek, a baby will turn his or her head to the side where he or she felt the touch and seek to put the object into his or her mouth. Sucking reflex When an object is placed into the baby’s mouth, the infant will suck on it. (The combination of the rooting and sucking reflexes obviously helps babies eat.) Grasping reflex If an object is placed into a baby’s palm or foot pad, the baby will try to grasp the object with his or her fingers or toes. Moro reflex When startled, a baby will fling his or her limbs out and then quickly retract them, making himself or herself as small as possible. Babinski reflex When a baby’s foot is stroked, he or she will spread the toes.
- How does a baby interpret or combine sensory experience? The process is called perception. Preference technique: baby is shown 2 pictures and researchers keep track of how long the baby looks at each one. Habituation: show a baby something over and over until the baby stops looking at it. Dishabituation: renewed interest in something that is slightly different than the original stimulus The Newborn’s Senses In addition to inborn reflexes, humans are also born equipped with our sensory apparatus. Some of the ways that babies sense the world are identical to the way you do, but some differ greatly. Researchers know that babies can hear even before birth. Minutes after birth, a baby will try to turn his or her head toward the mother’s voice. Babies have the same basic preferences in taste and smell as we do. Babies love the taste of sugar and respond to a higher concentration of sugar in foods. Preferences in tastes and smells will change as we develop (we might learn to like the smell of fish or hate it), but babies are born with the basic preferences in place. Babies’ vision is different than ours in important ways, however. Sight becomes our dominant sense as we age, but when we are born, hearing is the dominant sense due to babies’ poor vision. Babies are born almost legally blind. They can see well 8–12 inches in front of them, but everything beyond that range is a blur. Their vision improves quickly as they age, improving to normal vision (barring any vision problems) by the time they are about 12 months old. In addition, babies are born with certain visual preferences. Babies like to look at faces and facelike objects (symmetrical objects and shapes organized in an imitation of a face) more than any other objects. This preference and their ability to focus about 12 inches in front of them make babies well equipped to see their mother as soon as they are born.Weseley Ed.D., Allyson J; William McEntarffer (2014-02-01). AP Psychology (Barron's Ap Psychology) (Kindle Locations 4359-4368). Barron's Educational Series. Kindle Edition.
- Hearing Adult voices heard well High-pitched noises must be loud to be heard. Some directional sound location Smelling and tasting are intricately related. Four basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, and salty Sensitive to touches on the mouth, hands, soles of feet, and abdomen Infant perception is what a newborn can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. These five features are better known as one's "five senses".[40] Infants respond to stimuli differently in these different states.[39] Vision is significantly worse in infants than in older children. Infant sight tends to be blurry in early stages but improves over time. Color perception similar to that seen in adults has been demonstrated in infants as young as four months, using habituation methods.[38] Infants get to adult-like vision in about six months.[31]:191 Hearing is well-developed prior to birth, unlike vision. Newborns prefer complex sounds to pure tones, human speech to other sounds, mother's voice to other voices, and the native language to other languages. Scientist believe these features are probably learned in the womb.[31]:151 Infants are fairly good at detecting the direction a sound comes from, and by 18 months their hearing ability is approximately equal an adult's. Touch and feel is one of the better-developed senses at birth considering it's one of the first senses to develop inside the womb.[41] This is evidenced by the primitive reflexes described above, and the relatively advanced development of the somatosensory cortex.[42] Pain: Infants feel pain similarly, if not more strongly than older children but pain-relief in infants has not received so much attention as an area of research.[43] Smell and taste are present, with infants showing different expressions of disgust or pleasure when presented with pleasant odors (honey, milk, etc.) or unpleasant odors (rotten egg) and tastes (e.g. sour taste). Newborns are born with odor and taste preferences acquired in the womb from the smell and taste of amniotic fluid, in turn influenced by what the mother eats. Both breast- and bottle-fed babies around 3 days old prefer the smell of human milk to that of formula, indicating an innate preference.[31]:150 There is good evidence for older infants preferring the smell of their mother to that of others.[38]
- Ask: What responses do you see? Sour, sweet, bitter? Smell and taste are present, with infants showing different expressions of disgust or pleasure when presented with pleasant odors (honey, milk, etc.) or unpleasant odors (rotten egg) and tastes (e.g. sour taste). Newborns are born with odor and taste preferences acquired in the womb from the smell and taste of amniotic fluid, in turn influenced by what the mother eats. Both breast- and bottle-fed babies around 3 days old prefer the smell of human milk to that of formula, indicating an innate preference.[31]:150 There is good evidence for older infants preferring the smell of their mother to that of others.[38]
- Motor Development Barring developmental difficulties, all humans develop the same basic motor skills in the same sequence, although the age we develop them may differ from person to person. Our motor control develops as neurons in our brain connect with one another and become myelinated (see Chapter 3 for a review of neural anatomy). Research shows that most babies can roll over when they are about 5-1/2 months old, stand at about 8–9 months, and walk by themselves after about 15 months. These ages are very approximate and apply to babies all over the world. While environment and parental encouragement may have some effect on motor skills, the effect is slight.Weseley Ed.D., Allyson J; William McEntarffer (2014-02-01). AP Psychology (Barron's Ap Psychology) (Kindle Locations 4369-4374). Barron's Educational Series. Kindle Edition.
- The original visual cliff study Gibson and Walk (1960)[1] hypothesized that depth perception is inherent as opposed to a learned process. To test this, they placed 36 infants, 6 to 14 months of age, on the shallow side of the visual cliff apparatus. Once the infant was placed on the opaque end of the platform, the caregivers (typically a parent) stood on the other side of the transparent plexiglas, calling out for them to come or holding some sort of enticing stimulus such as a toy so that the infant would be motivated to crawl across towards them. It was assumed if the child was reluctant to crawl to their caregiver, he or she was able to perceive depth, believing that the transparent space was an actual cliff.[3] The researchers found that 27 of the infants crawled over to their mother on the "shallow" side without any problems.[4] A few of the infants crawled but were extremely hesitant. Some infants refused to crawl because they were confused about the perceived drop between them and their mothers. The infants knew the glass was solid by patting it, but still did not cross. In this experiment, all of the babies relied on their vision in order to navigate across the apparatus. This shows that when healthy infants are able to crawl, they can perceive depth.[1] However, results do not indicate that avoidance of cliffs and fear of heights is innate.[1] The visual cliff apparatus was created by psychologists Eleanor J. Gibson and R.D. Walk at Cornell University to investigate depth perception in human and animal species. This apparatus allowed them to experimentally adjust the optical and tactical stimuli associated with a simulated cliff while protecting the subjects from injury.[1] The visual cliff consists of a sheet of Plexiglas that covers a cloth with a high-contrast checkerboard pattern. On one side the cloth is placed immediately beneath the Plexiglas, and on the other, it is dropped about 4 feet below. Since the Plexiglas supports the weight of the infant this is a visual cliff rather than a drop off.[1] Using a visual cliff apparatus, Gibson and Walk examined possible perceptual differences at crawling age between human infants born preterm and human infants born at term without documented visual or motor impairments.[2] Recent findings: Babies use kinetic information as early as three months. Binocular cues are used at four months. Linear perspective cues are used last, at five to seven months. Social Referencing
- COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT Parents often focus intently on the intellectual development of their children. Intelligence is a notoriously difficult trait to assess (see Chapter 11 for more information). However, developmental researchers try to describe how children think about and evaluate the world. Jean Piaget’s cognitive-development theory is the most famous theory of this type. However, some researchers now criticize parts of his theory and offer alternative explanations for the same behaviors.Weseley Ed.D., Allyson J; William McEntarffer (2014-02-01). AP Psychology (Barron's Ap Psychology) (Kindle Locations 4513-4517). Barron's Educational Series. Kindle Edition.
- quote Jean Piaget > Quotes > Quotable Quote Jean Piaget “The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered.” Discuss. Piaget wanted to know how kids think He started off interested in the emergence of knowledge, genetic epistimology. He studying kids, because he was convinced it would tell him things generally. Development of the individual mimics the species, this is what he thought.
- STAGE THEORIES Besides nature versus nurture, one of the other major controversies in developmental psychology is the argument about continuity versus discontinuity. Do we develop continually, at a steady rate from birth to death, or is our development discontinuous, happening in fits and starts with some periods of rapid development and some of relatively little change? Biologically, we know our development is somewhat discontinuous. We grow more as an infant and during our adolescent growth spurt than at other times in our lives. However, what about psychologically? Do we develop in our thought and behavior continuously or discontinuously? Psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s concept of “zone of proximal development” is one answer to this question of continuity versus discontinuity: a child’s zone of proximal development is the range of tasks the child can perform independently and those tasks the child needs assistance with. Teachers/parents can provide “scaffolds” for students to help them accomplish tasks at the upper end of their zone of proximal development, encouraging further cognitive development. Several theorists concluded that we pass through certain stages in the development of certain psychological traits, and their theories attempt to explain these stages. Stage theories are, by definition, discontinuous theories of development. You may notice that the first two stage theorists, Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson, base theirWeseley Ed.D., Allyson J; William McEntarffer (2014-02-01). AP Psychology (Barron's Ap Psychology) (Kindle Locations 4431-4442). Barron's Educational Series. Kindle Edition.
- Teachers should play an instructive role, constantly guide and nurture students Shift from child-centered to curriculum-centered, and more collaborative learning (Vygotsky- Social constructivism) Cultural, interpersonal, and individual. He says our most formative experiences are social! The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is the best known Vygotskian concept. To successfully apply it in a classroom, it is important to know not only where a child is functioning now and where that child will be tomorrow, but also how best to assist that child in mastering more advanced skills and concepts. This is where scaffolding comes in. Although not used by Vygotsky himself, the concept of scaffolding helps us understand how aiming instruction within a child’s ZPD can promote the child’s learning and development. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) describes the area between a child’s level of independent performance (what he/she can do alone) and the child’s level of assisted performance (what he/she can do with support). Skills and understandings contained within a child’s ZPD are the ones that have not yet emerged but could emerge if the child engaged in interactions with knowledgeable others (peers and adults) or in other supportive contexts (such as make-believe play for preschool children). According to Vygotsky, the most effective instruction is the kind that is aimed not at the child’s level of independent performance but is instead aimed within the ZPD. This instruction does more than increase a child’s repertoire of skills and understandings; it actually produces gains in child development. To aim instruction at the child’s ZPD, the teacher needs to know not only what the child’s developmental level is at the time, but also what skills and concepts will develop next. To know these, the teacher needs to understand the developmental trajectories for these skills and concepts. Successful instruction within the child’s ZPD also involves making sure that the child will be eventually able to function independently at the same high level at which he or she was previously able to function with adult assistance. Once this is accomplished, the teacher can start aiming instruction at the new ZPD. Even when children have developed new skills and competencies sufficient to perform a task with adult assistance, it may not mean that tomorrow they will be ready to perform the task independently. For most children, the transition from assisted to independent learning is a gradual process that involves moving from using a great deal of assistance to slowly taking over until eventually no assistance is needed. To facilitate this transition, a teacher needs to scaffold student learning by first designing and then following a plan for providing and withdrawing appropriate amounts of assistance at appropriate times. In the Vygotskian approach, instructional strategies used to scaffold include (but are not limited to) hints, prompts, and cues given and later removed by the teacher. Scaffolding can also involve orchestrating social contexts known to support children’s learning, such as make-believe play or specifically designed group activities. Scaffolding may also involve introducing children to special tools (such as an alphabet chart) and behaviors (such as private speech or self-talk) that children can use to self-assist while mastering a new skill or concept.
- Despite its huge success, Piaget's theory has some limitations like any others, for example, continuous development (decalage) rather than sharp stages that Piaget recognized himself. Jean Piaget was working for Alfred Binet, creator of the first intelligence test, when he started to notice interesting behaviors in the children he was interviewing. Piaget noted that children of roughly the same age almost always gave similar answers to some of the questions on the intelligence test, even if the answers were wrong. He hypothesized that this was because they were all thinking in similar ways and these ways of thinking differed from the ways adults think. This hypothesis led to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. Piaget described how children viewed the world through schemata, cognitive rules we use to interpret the world. Normally, we incorporate our experiences into these existing schemata in a process called assimilation. Sometimes, information does not fit into or violates our schemata, so we must accommodate and change our schemata. For example, a four-year-old boy named Daniel gets a pair of cowboy boots from his parents for his birthday. He wears his cowboy boots constantly and does not see anyone else wearing them. Daniel develops a schema for cowboy boots: only little boys wear boots. Most of his experiences do not violate this schema. He sees other little boys wearing boots and assimilates this information into his schema. Then Daniel’s family takes a trip to Arizona. When he gets off the plane, he sees a huge (huge to a four-year-old, at least) man wearing cowboy boots. Daniel points at the man and starts to laugh hysterically. Why is Daniel causing this scene? His schema has been violated. To Daniel, the large man is dressing like a little boy! After he stops laughing, Daniel will have to accommodate this new information and change his schema to include the fact that adults can wear cowboy boots, too. By the way, this process may repeat itself the first time Daniel sees a woman in boots! Piaget thinks humans go through this process of schema creation, assimilation, and accommodation as we develop cognitively. His cognitive development theory describes how our thinking progresses through four stages
- Learning is active, arising from a natural desire to explore Piaget suggests our mind evolves, and is fundamentally different than that of an adult? Piaget’s work inspired the transformation of the education system bringing about a more child centered approach, teachers need to be aware of children’s different levels and capabilities. Schema: representation in the mind of a set of ideas, perceptions, and actions that provide the mental structure to help us organize our past experiences and prepare us for the future. Assimilation and accommodation Through his study of the field of education, Piaget focused on two processes, which he named assimilation and accommodation. To Piaget, assimilation meant integrating external elements into structures of lives or environments, or those we could have through experience. Assimilation is how humans perceive and adapt to new information. It is the process of fitting new information into pre-existing cognitive schemas.[15] Assimilation in which new experiences are reinterpreted to fit into, or assimilate with, old idea.[16] It occurs when humans are faced with new or unfamiliar information and refer to previously learned information in order to make sense of it. In contrast, accommodation is the process of taking new information in one's environment and altering pre-existing schemas in order to fit in the new information. This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.[17] Accommodation is imperative because it is how people will continue to interpret new concepts, schemas, frameworks, and more.[18] Piaget believed that the human brain has been programmed through evolution to bring equilibrium, which is what he believed ultimately influences structures by the internal and external processes through assimilation and accommodation.[15] Piaget's understanding was that assimilation and accommodation cannot exist without the other.[19] They are two sides of a coin. To assimilate an object into an existing mental schema, one first needs to take into account or accommodate to the particularities of this object to a certain extent. For instance, to recognize (assimilate) an apple as an apple, one must first focus (accommodate) on the contour of this object. To do this, one needs to roughly recognize the size of the object. Development increases the balance, or equilibration, between these two functions. When in balance with each other, assimilation and accommodation generate mental schemas of the operative intelligence. When one function dominates over the other, they generate representations which belong to figurative intelligence.[20] Schema: Mental representations Intelligent behavior is comprised of a growing collection of schemas with increasing complexity Assimilation & Accommodation
- 1. Sensorimotor Object Permanence Separation protest/stranger anxiety Symbolic Representation 2. Preoperational Intuitive Egocentrism Phenomenalistic causality Animism Irreversibility Centration 3. Concrete Operational Operational Thought Conservation 4. Formal Operational Metacognition Sensorimotor stage (birth to approximately two years old) Babies start experiencing and exploring the world strictly through their senses. At the beginning of life, Piaget noted that behavior is governed by the reflexes we are born with. Soon, we start to develop our first cognitive schemata that explain the world we experience through our senses. One of the major challenges of this stage is to develop object permanence. Babies at first do not realize that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sensory range. When babies start to look for or somehow acknowledge that objects do exist when they cannot see them, they have object permanence. Preoperational stage (two to approximately seven years old) Acquiring the scheme of object permanence prepares a child to start to use symbols to represent real-world objects. This ability is the beginning of language, the most important cognitive development of this stage. We start speaking our first words and gradually learn to represent the world more completely through language. While we can refer to the world through symbols during the preoperational stage, we are still limited in the ways we can think about the relationships between objects and the characteristics of objects. Children in this stage are also egocentric in their thinking, since they cannot look at the world from anyone’s perspective but their own. Concrete operations (eight to approximately 12 years old) During the concrete-operations stage, children learn to think more logically about complex relationships between different characteristics of objects. Piaget categorized children in the concrete-operations stage when they demonstrated knowledge of concepts of conservation, the realization that properties of objects remain the same even when their shapes change. These concepts demonstrate how the different aspects of objects are conserved even when their arrangement changes. Formal operations (12 through adulthood) This final stage of Piaget describes adult reasoning. Piaget theorized that not all of us reach formal operations in all areas of thought. Formal operational reasoning is abstract reasoning. We can manipulate objects and contrast ideas in our mind without physically seeing them or having real-world correlates. One example of abstract reasoning is hypothesis testing. A person in Piaget’s formal-operations stage can reason from a hypothesis. To test for formal-operational thought, you might ask a child, “How would you be different if you were born on a planet that had no light?” A child in the preoperational or concrete-operational stage would have trouble answering the question because no real-world model exists to fall back on. Someone in the formal-operations stage would be able to extrapolate from this hypothesis and reason that the beings on that planet might not have eyes, would have no words for color, and might exclusively rely on other senses. Also in the formal-operations stage, we gain the ability to think about the way we think; this is called metacognition. We can trace our thought processes. [4] Piaget's earlier work received the greatest attention. Many parents have been encouraged to provide a rich, supportive environment for their child's natural propensity to grow and learn. Child-centered classrooms and "open education" are direct applications of Piaget's views.[5] Despite its huge success, Piaget's theory has some limitations like any others, for example, continuous development (decalage) rather than sharp stages that Piaget recognized himself.[6] Below is a short description of Piaget's views about the nature of intelligence, followed by a description of the stages through which it develops until maturity.
- Concrete operations (eight to approximately 12 years old) During the concrete-operations stage, children learn to think more logically about complex relationships between different characteristics of objects. Piaget categorized children in the concrete-operations stage when they demonstrated knowledge of concepts of conservation, the realization that properties of objects remain the same even when their shapes change. These concepts demonstrate how the different aspects of objects are conserved even when their arrangement changes.
- Stop at 2.5 years Theory of mind (often abbreviated ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states — beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc. — to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own.[1] Deficits occur in people with autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,[2] as well as neurotoxicity due to alcohol abuse.[3] Although there are philosophical approaches to this, the theory of mind as such is distinct from the philosophy of mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hLubgpY2_w INNATE BRAIN CIRCUITS BUILT TO READ OTHER PEOPLE’S MINDS
- Criticisms of Piaget: Information-Processing Model Many developmental psychologists still value Piaget’s insights about the order in which our cognitive skills develop, but most agree that he underestimated children. Many children go through the stages faster and enter them earlier than Piaget predicted. Piaget’s error may be due to the way he tested children. Some psychologists wonder if some of his tests relied too heavily on language use, thus biasing the results in favor of older children with more language skills. Other theorists wonder if development does not occur more continuously than Piaget described. Perhaps our cognitive skills develop more continuously and not in discrete stages. The information-processing model is a more continuous alternative to Piaget’s stage theory. Information processing points out that our abilities to memorize, interpret, and perceive gradually develop as we age rather than developing in distinct stages. For example, research shows that our attention span gradually increases as we get older. This one continuous change could explain some apparent cognitive differences Piaget attributed to different cognitive stages. Maybe children’s inability to understand conservation of number has more to do with their ability to focus for long periods of time than any developing reasoning ability. Developmental researchers agree that no one has the perfect model to describe cognitive development. Future research will refine our current ideas and create models that more closely describe how our thinking changes as we mature.
- BIRTH Primary Emotions Interest Sadness Disgust Distress HALF YEAR 6-8 Months Anger Joy Surprise Fear 2 YEARS 18-24 Months: Self-Conscious Emotions Use social standards Jealousy Empathy Embarassment 3 YEARS: 30-36 months Shame Guilt Pride
- Historically, Freud was the first to theorize that we pass though different stages in childhood. Freud said we develop through four psychosexual stages. Sexual to Freud meant not the act of intercourse but how we get sensual pleasure from the world. If we fail to resolve a significant conflict in our lives during one of these stages, Freud said we could become fixated in the stage, meaning we might remain preoccupied with the behaviors associated with that stage. (See the chapter “Personality” for a further review of this theory.) Freud described five psychosexual stages: Oral stage In this stage, infants seek pleasure through their mouths. You might notice that babies tend to put everything they can grab into their mouths if they can get away with it. Freud thought that people fixated at this stage might overeat, smoke, and in general have a childlike dependence on things and people. Anal stage This stage develops during toilet training. If conflict around toilet training arises, a person might fixate in the stage and be overly controlling (retentive) or out of control (expulsive). Phallic stage During this stage, babies realize their gender and this causes conflict in the family. Freud described the process boys go through in this stage as the Oedipus complex, when boys resent their father’s relationship with their mother. The process for girls is called the Electra complex. Conflict in this stage could cause later problems in relationships. Latency stage After the phallic stage, Freud thought children go through a short latency stage, or period of calm, and between the ages of six and puberty of low psychosexual anxiety that most psychologists don’t regard as a separate stage. Genital stage They then enter the genital stage where they remain for the rest of their lives. The focus of sexual pleasure is the genitals, and fixation in this stage is what Freud considers normal.
- Identity versus role confusion In adolescence, Erikson felt our main social task is to discover what social identity we are most comfortable with. He thought that a person might naturally try out different roles before he or she found the one that best fit his or her internal sense of self. Adolescents try to fit into groups in order to feel confident in their identities. An adolescent should figure out a stable sense of self before moving on to the next stage or risk having an identity crisis later in life. Intimacy versus isolation Young adults who established stable identities then must figure out how to balance their ties and efforts between work (including careers, school, or self-improvement) and relationships with other people. How much time should we spend on ourselves and how much time with our families? What is the difference between a platonic and a romantic relationship? Again, the patterns established in this stage will influence the effort spent on self and others in the future. Generativity versus stagnation Erikson felt that by the time we reach this age, we are starting to look critically at our life path. We want to make sure that we are creating the type of life that we want for ourselves and family. We might try to seize control of our lives at this point to ensure that things go as we plan. In this stage, we try to ensure that our lives are going the way we want them to go. If they are not, we may try to change our identities or control those around us to change our lives. Integrity versus despair Toward the end of life, we look back at our accomplishments and decide if we are satisfied with them or not. Erikson thought that if we can see that our lives were meaningful, we can “step outside” the stress and pressures of society and offer wisdom and insight. If, however, we feel serious regret over how we lived our lives, we may fall into despair over lost opportunities.
- affectional tie that one person or animal forms between himself and another specific one – a tie that binds them together in space and endures over time. Attachment Theory The influences discussed so far in this chapter have mostly been genetic or prenatal in nature. After birth, uncountable environmental influences begin to affect how we develop. Some species respond in very predictable ways to environmental stimuli: Biologist Konrad Lorenz established that some infant animals (such as geese) become attached (“imprint”) on individuals or even objects they see during a critical period after birth. Certainly one of the most important aspects of babies’ early environment is the relationship between parent(s) and child. Some researchers focus on how attachment, or the reciprocal relationship between caregiver and child, affects development. Two significant researchers in this area demonstrate some of the basic findings regarding attachment.Weseley Ed.D.
- What is attachment? Attachment is the strong, enduring, emotional bond between a child and its caregivers; is said to be the basis for relationships later in life; different theories
- Controversy: Mothers only
- HARRY HARLOW In the 1950s, researcher Harry Harlow raised baby monkeys with two artificial wire frame figures made to resemble mother monkeys. One mother figure was fitted with a bottle the infant could eat from, and the other was wrapped in a soft material. Harlow found that infant monkeys when frightened preferred the soft mother figure even over the figure that they fed from. When the infants were surprised or stressed, they fled to the soft mother for comfort and protection. Harlow’s studies demonstrated the importance of physical comfort in the formation of attachment with parents. As Harlow’s infant monkeys developed, he noticed that the monkeys raised by the wire frame mothers became more stressed and frightened than monkeys raised with real mothers when put into new situations. The deprivation of an attachment with a real mother had long-term effects on these monkeys’ behavior.Weseley Ed.D., Allyson J; William McEntarffer (2014-02-01). AP Psychology (Barron's Ap Psychology) (Kindle Locations 4382-4389). Barron's Educational Series. Kindle Edition.
- MARY AINSWORTH Mary Ainsworth researched the idea of attachment by placing human infants into novel situations. Ainsworth observed infants’ reactions when placed into a strange situation: their parents left them alone for a short period of time and then returned. According to psychologist Mary Ainsworth, attachment "may be defined as an affectional tie that one person or animal forms between himself and another specific one – a tie that binds them together in space and endures over time." Attachment is not just a connection between two people; it is a bond that involves a desire for regular contact with that person and the experience of distress during separation from that person. Why Is Attachment Important? Attachment serves a number of important purposes. First, it helps keep infants and children close to their caregivers so that they can receive protection, which in turn helps boost their changes of survival. This important emotional bond also provides children with a secure base from which they can then safely explore their environment. What Is Ainsworth's "Strange Situation" Assessment? Researchers including Ainsworth, Bowlby, Main and Solomon also suggest that how a child is attached to his or her caregivers can have a major influence both during childhood and later in life. They have identified a number of different attachment styles to describe the affectional bond children have with their parents or caregivers.: The failure to form a secure attachment with a caregiver has been linked to a number of problems including conduct disorderd and oppositional-defiant disorderd. Researchers also suggest that the type of attachment displayed early in life can have a lasting effect on later adult relationships.
- MARY AINSWORTH Mary Ainsworth researched the idea of attachment by placing human infants into novel situations. Ainsworth observed infants’ reactions when placed into a strange situation: their parents left them alone for a short period of time and then returned. She divided the reactions into three broad categories: 1. Infants with secure attachments (about 66 percent of the participants) confidently explore the novel environment while the parents are present, are distressed when they leave, and come to the parents when they return. 2. Infants with avoidant attachments (about 21 percent of the participants) may resist being held by the parents and will explore the novel environment. They do not go to the parents for comfort when they return after an absence. 3. Infants with anxious/ambivalent attachments (also called resistant attachments, about 12 percent of the participants) have ambivalent reactions to the parents. They may show extreme stress when the parents leave but resist being comforted by them when they return.Weseley Ed.D., Allyson J; William McEntarffer (2014-02-01). AP Psychology (Barron's Ap Psychology) (Kindle Locations 4389-4399). Barron's Educational Series. Kindle Edition.
- So far, the developmental research and categories described focus on the behaviors of children. Parents’ interaction with their children definitely has an influence on the way we develop and can be categorized in similar ways. Developmental psychologist Diana Baumrind researched parent-child interactions and described three overall categories of parenting styles. Authoritarian parents set strict standards for their children’s behavior and apply punishments for violations of these rules. Obedient attitudes are valued more than discussions about the rationale behind the standards. Punishment for undesired behavior is more often used than reinforcement for desired behavior. If your parents were authoritarian and you came in 15 minutes after your curfew, you might be grounded from going out again the rest of the month without explanation or discussion. Permissive parents do not set clear guidelines for their children. The rules that do exist in the family are constantly changed or are not enforced consistently. Family members may perceive that they can get away with anything at home. If your parents were permissive and you came in 15 minutes after your curfew, your parents’ reaction would be unpredictable. They may not notice, not seem to mind, or threaten you with a punishment that they never follow through on. Authoritative parents have set, consistent standards for their children’s behavior, but the standards are reasonable and explained. The rationale for family rules are discussed with children old enough to understand them. Authoritative parents encourage their children’s independence but not past the point of violating rules. They praise as often as they punish. In general, explanations are encouraged in an authoritative house, and the rules are reasonable and consistent. If your parents were authoritative and you came in 15 minutes after your curfew, you would already know the consequences of your action. You would know what the family rule was for breaking curfew, why the rule existed, what the consequences were, and your parents would make sure you suffered the consequences! What kind of style and what kind of child? Authoritarian Parents: Low responsivity and high in demandingness Children: Timid, insecure, socially incompetent, lacking in motivation and curiosity. Most detrimental for white middle class boys Authoritative Parents: High in responsivity and demandingness Children: Popular, better in school Permissive Parents: high in responsivity, low in demandingness Children: Difficult controlling impulses, uninvolved in school Rejecting/Neglecting Parents: low in responsivity and low in demandingness Children: Juvenile delinquency, hostile/indifferent parent child relationship, attachment is broke, low self esteem, moody, impulsive, and aggressive Studies show that the authoritative style produces the most desirable and beneficial home environment. Children from authoritative homes are more socially capable and perform better academically, on average. The children of permissive parents are more likely to have emotional control problems and are more dependent. Authoritarian parents’ children are more likely to distrust others and be withdrawn from peers. These studies indicate another way in which our upbringing influences our development. Researchers agree that parenting style is certainly not the whole or final answer to why we develop the way we do (and the research is correlational, not causational). However, it is a key influence along with genetic makeup, peer relationships, and other environmental influences on thought and behavior.Weseley
- Do Perfect Parents make Perfect Children? – Answers From Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, William Morrow, 2005) (Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, nces.ed.gov/ecls/, conducted by the U.S. Dept of Education to measure the academic progress of more than 20,000 children.) Which of the following factors do you think would show a strong correlation (positive OR negative!) with academic test scores between kindergarten and fifth grade? From Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, William Morrow, 2005) (There are eight that are strongly correlated and eight that aren’t.) The eight that are correlated: The child has highly educated parents. The child’s parents have high socioeconomic status. The child’s mother was thirty or older at the time of her first child’s birth. The child had low birthweight. The child’s parents speak English in the home. The child is adopted. The child’s parents are involved in the PTA. The child has many books in his home. The eight that aren’t: The child’s family is intact. The child’s parents recently moved into a better neighborhood. The child’s mother didn’t work between birth and kindergarten. The child attended Head Start. The child’s parents regularly take him to museums. The child is regularly spanked. The child’s parents read to him nearly every day. The child frequently watches television. Explanations: The child has highly educated parents. The child’s family is intact. A child whose parents are highly educated typically does well in school. Not much surprise there. A family with a lot of schooling tends to value schooling. Perhaps more important, parents with higher IQs tend to get more education, and IQ is strongly hereditary. But whether a child’s family is intact doesn’t seem to matter. The child’s parents have high socioeconomic status. The child’s parents recently moved into a better neighborhood. A high socioeconomic status is strongly correlated to higher test scores, which seems sensible. Socioeconomic status is a strong indicator of success in general – it suggests a higher IQ and more education – and successful parents are more likely to have successful children. But moving to a better neighborhood doesn’t improve a child’s chances in school. It may be that moving itself is a disruptive force; more likely, it’s because a nicer house doesn’t improve math or reading scores any more than nicer sneakers make you jump higher. The child’s mother was thirty or older at the time of her first child’s birth. The child’s mother didn’t work between birth and kindergarten. A woman who doesn’t have her first child until she is at least thirty is likely to see that child do well in school. This mother tends to be a woman who wanted to get some advanced education or develop traction in her career. She is also likely to want a child more than a teenage mother wants a child. This doesn’t mean that an older first-time mother is necessarily a better mother, but she has put herself – and her children – in a more advantageous position. (It is worth noting that this advantage is nonexistent for a teenage mother who waits until she is thirty to have her second child. The ECLS data show that her second child will perform no better than her first.) At the same time, a mother who stays home from work until her child goes to kindergarten does not seem to provide any advantage. Obsessive parents might find this lack of correlation bothersome – what was the point of all those Mommy and Me classes? – but that is what the data tells us. The child had low birthweight. The child attended Head Start. A child who had a low birthweight tends to do poorly in school. It may be that being born prematurely is simply hurtful to a child’s overall well-being. It may also be that low birthweight is a strong forecaster of poor parenting, since a mother who smokes or drinks or otherwise mistreats her baby in utero isn’t likely to turn things around just because the baby is born. A low-birthweight child, in turn, is more likely to be a poor child – and therefore, more likely to attend Head Start, the federal preschool program. But according to the ECLS data, Head Start does nothing for a child’s future test scores. Despite a deep reservoir of appreciation for Head Start (one of [the] book’s authors was a charter student), we must acknowledge that is has repeatedly been proven ineffectual. Here’s a likely reason: instead of sending the day with his own undereducated, overworked mother, the typical Head Start child spends the day with someone else’s undereducated, overworked mother. (And a whole roomful of similarly needy children.) As it happens, fewer than 30% of Head Start teachers have even a bachelor’s degree. And the job pays poorly – about $21,000 for a Head Start teacher versus $40,000 for the average public-school kindergarten teacher – that is unlikely to attract better teachers any time soon. The child’s parents speak English in the home. The child’s parents regularly take him to museums. The child with English-speaking parents does better in school than one whose parents don’t speak English. Again, not much of a surprise. This correlation is further supported by the performance of Hispanic students in the ECLS study. As a group, Hispanic students test poorly; they are also disproportionately likely to have non-English-speaking parents. (They do, however, tend to catch up with their peers in later grades.) So how about the opposite case: what if a mother and father are not only proficient in English but spend their weekends broadening their child’s cultural horizons by taking him to museums? Sorry. Culture cramming may be a foundational belief of obsessive parents, but the ECLS data show no correlation between museum visits and test scores. The child is adopted. The child is regularly spanked. There is a strong correlation – a negative one – between adoption and school test scores. Why? Studies have shown that a child’s academic abilities are far more influenced by the IQs of his biological parents than the IQs of his adoptive parents, and mothers who give up their children for adoption tend to have significantly lower IQs than the people who are doing the adopting. There is another explanation for low-achieving adoptees which, though it may seem distasteful, jibes with the basic economic theory of self-interest: a woman who knows she will put her baby up for adoption may not take the same prenatal care as a woman who is keeping her baby. (Consider – at the risk of furthering the distasteful thinking – how you treat a car you own versus a car you are renting for the weekend.) But if an adopted child is prone to lower test scores, a spanked child is not. This may seem surprising – not because spanking itself is necessarily detrimental but because, conventionally speaking, spanking is considered an unenlightened practice. We might therefore assume that parents who spank are unenlightened in other ways. Perhaps that isn’t the case at all. Or perhaps there is a different spanking story to be told. Remember, the ECLS survey included direct interviews with the children’s parents. So a parent would have to sit knee to knee with a government researcher and admit to spanking his child. This would suggest that a parent who does so is either unenlightened or – more interestingly – congenitally honest. It may be that honesty is more important to good parenting than spanking is to bad parenting. The child’s parents are involved in the PTA. The child frequently watches television. A child whose parents are involved in the PTA tends to do well in school – which probably indicates that parents with a strong relationship to education get involved in the PTA, not that their PTA involvement somehow makes their children smarter. The ECLS data show no correlation, meanwhile, between a child’s test scores and the amount of television he watches. Despite the conventional wisdom, watching television apparently does not turn a child’s brain to mush. (In Finland, whose education system has been ranked the world’s best, most children do not begin school until age seven but have often learned to read on their own by watching American television with Finnish subtitles.) Nor, however, does using a computer at home turn a child into Einstein: the ECLS data show no correlation between computer use and school test scores. The child has many books in his home. The child’s parents read to him nearly every day. …A child with many books in his home has indeed been found to do well on school tests. But regularly reading to a child doesn’t affect test scores. This would seem to present a riddle. It bounces us back to our original question: just how much, and in what ways, do parents really matter? Let us start with the positive correlation: books in the home equal higher test scores. Most people would look at this correlation and infer an obvious cause-and-effect relationship. To wit: a little boy named Isaiah has a lot of books at home; Isaiah does beautifully on his reading test at school; this must be because his mother or father regularly reads to him. But Isaiah’s friend Emily, who also has a lot of books in her home, practically never touches them. She would rather dress up her Bratz or watch cartoons. And Emily tests just as well as Isaiah. Meanwhile, Isaiah and Emily’s friend Ricky doesn’t have any books at home. But Ricky goes to the library every day with his mother; Ricky is a reading fiend. And yet he does worse on his school tests than either Emily or Isaiah. What are we to make of this? If reading books doesn’t have an impact on early childhood test scores, could it be that the books’ mere physical presence in the house makes the children smarter? Do books perform some kind of magical osmosis on a child’s brain? If so, one might be tempted to simply deliver a truckload of books to every home that contains a preschooler. That, in fact, is what the governor of Illinois tried to do. In early 2004, Governor Rod Blagojevich announced a plan to mail one book a month to every child in Illinois from the time they were born until they entered kindergarten. The plan would cost $26 million a year. But, Blagojevich argued, this was a vital intervention in a state where 40% of third graders read below their grade level. “When you own [books], and they’re yours,” he said, “and they just come as part of your life, all of that will contribute to a sense…that books should be a part of your life.” So all children born in Illinois would end up with a sixty-volume library by the time they entered school. Does this mean they would all perform better on their reading tests? Probably not. (Although we may never know for sure; in the end, the Illinois legislature rejected the book plan.) After all, the ECLS data don’t say that books in the house cause high test scores; it says only that the two are correlated. How should this correlation be interpreted? Here’s a likely theory: most parents who buy a lot of children’s books tend to be smart and well educated to begin with. (And they pass on their smarts and work ethic to their kids.) Or perhaps they care a great deal about education and about their children in general. (Which means they create an environment that encourages and rewards learning.) Such parents may believe – as fervently as the governor of Illinois believed – that every children’s book is a talisman that leads to unfettered intelligence. But they are probably wrong. A book is in fact less a cause of intelligence than an indicator. Conclusions: To overgeneralize a bit, the first list describes things that parents are; the second list describes things that parents do. Parents who are well-educated, successful, and healthy tend to have children who test well in school; but it doesn’t seem to much matter whether a child is trotted off to museums or spanked or sent to Head Start or frequently read to or plopped in front of the television. For parents – and parenting experts – who are obsessed with child-rearing technique, this may be sobering news. Here is the conundrum: by the time most people pick up a parenting book, it is far too late. Most of the things that matter were decided long ago – who you are, whom you married, what kind of life you lead. If you are smart, hardworking, well educated, well paid, and married to someone equally fortunate, then your children are more likely to succeed. (Nor does it hurt, in all likelihood, to be honest, thoughtful, loving, and curious about the world.) But it isn’t so much a matter of what you do as a parent; it’s who you are. In this regard, an overbearing parent is a lot like a political candidate who believes that money wins elections, whereas in truth, all the money in the world can’t get a candidate elected if the voters don’t like him to start with. In a paper titled, “The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes,” the economist Bruce Sacerdote addressed the nature-nurture debate by taking a long-term quantitative look at the effects of parenting. He used three adoption studies, two American and one British, each of them containing in-depth data about the adopted children, their adoptive parents, and their biological parents. Sacerdote found that parents who adopt children are typically smarter, better educated, and more highly paid than the baby’s biological parents. But the adoptive parents’ advantages had little bearing on the child’s school performances. As also seen in the ECLS data, adopted children test relatively poorly in school; any influence the adoptive parents might exert is seemingly outweighed by the force of genetics. But, Sacerdote found, the parents were not powerless forever. By the time the adopted children became adults, they had veered sharply from the destiny that IQ alone might have predicted. Compared to similar children who were not put up for adoption, the adoptees were far more likely to attend college, to have a well-paid job, and to wait until they were out of their teens before getting married. It was the influence of the adoptive parents, Sacerdote concluded, that made the difference.
- Internalized racism. Clark concluded: Segregation and social influences and the media lead to children internalizing prejudice. “rejection of blackness” The Clarks' doll experiments grew out of Mamie Clark's master's degree thesis. They published three major papers between 1939 and 1940 on children's self-perception related to race. Their studies found contrasts among African-American children attending segregated schools in Washington, DC versus those in integrated schools in New York.[24] The doll experiment involved a child being presented with two dolls. Both of these dolls were completely identical except for the skin and hair color. One doll was white with yellow hair, while the other was brown with black hair.[25] The child was then asked questions inquiring as to which one is the doll they would play with, which one is the nice doll, which one looks bad, which one has the nicer color, etc. The experiment showed a clear preference for the white doll among all children in the study.[26] These findings exposed internalized racism in African-American children, self-hatred that was more acute among children attending segregated schools. This research also paved the way for an increase in psychological research into areas of self-esteem and self-concept.[9] This work suggests that by its very nature, segregation harms children and, by extension, society at large, a suggestion that was exploited in several legal battles. The Clarks testified as expert witnesses in several school desegregation cases, including Briggs v. Elliott, which was later combined into the famous Brown v. Board of Education (1954). In 1954, Clark and Isidor Chein wrote a brief whose purpose was to supply evidence in the Brown v. Board of Education case underlining the damaging effects racial segregation had on African-American children. The Supreme Court declared that separate but equal in education was unconstitutional because it resulted in African American children having “a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community" [8] This ended segregation in the public school systems. Regarding Brown, this question of psychological and psychic harm fit into a very particular historical window that allowed it to have formal traction in the first place. It wasn’t until a few decades prior (with the coming of Boas and other cultural anthropologists) that cultural and/ or social science research—and the questions that they invoked—would even be consulted by the courts and therefore able to influence decisions. In 2005 filmmaker Kiri Davis recreated the doll study and documented it in a film entitled A Girl Like Me. Despite the many changes in some parts of society, Davis found the same results as did the Drs. Clark in their study of the late 1930s and early 1940s. In the original experiment(s) the majority of the children choose the white dolls. When Davis repeated the experiment 15 out of 21 children also choose the white dolls over the black, giving similar reasons as the original subjects, associating white with being "pretty" or "good" and black with "ugly" or "bad". The dolls used in the documentary were identical except for skin color.[citation needed] In an alternative interpretation of the Clark doll experiments, Robin Bernstein has recently argued that the children's rejection of the black dolls could be understood not as victimization or an expression of internalized racism but instead as resistance against violent play involving black dolls, which was a common practice when the Clarks conducted their tests.[27] The coloring test The coloring test was another experiment that was involved in the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Mamie and Kenneth did this experiment in order to investigate the development of racial identity in African American children. The coloring test was administered to 160 African American children between the ages of five and seven years old. The children were given a piece of coloring paper with a leaf, an apple, an orange, a mouse, a boy and a girl on it. They were all given a box of crayons and asked to first color the mouse to make sure they had a basic understanding of what colors things should be. If they pass, they were then asked to color a boy if they were a boy and a girl if they were a girl. They were told to color the boy or girl the color that they are. They were then told to color the opposite sex the color that they want that sex to be.[28] The children tended to color the picture a noticeably lighter color than what they actually were, but 88% of the children did draw themselves brown or black. They oftentimes drew themselves a lighter shade than the mouse. Children that were older generally were more accurate at determining how dark they should be. When asked to color the picture of the child that was the opposite sex, 52% put either white or an irrelevant color.[28] Family The Clarks had two children: a son Hilton and daughter Kate. During the Columbia University protests of 1968, Hilton was a leader of the Society of Afro-American Students; his father negotiated between them and the university administration. Kate Clark Harris directed the Northside Center for Child Development for four years after her mother's death. A 60 Minutes report in the 1970s noted that Clark, who supported integration and desegregation busing, moved to Westchester County in 1950 because of his concern about failing public schools in the city.[29] Clark said: "My children have only one life and I could not risk that."[17][29]
- Lawrence Kohlberg (1958) agreed with Piaget's (1932) theory of moral development in principle but wanted to develop his ideas further. He used Piaget’s story-telling technique to tell people stories involving moral dilemmas. In each case he presented a choice to be considered, for example between the rights of some authority and the needs of some deserving individual who is being unfairly treated. Lawrence Kohlberg’s stage theory studied a completely different aspect of human development: morality. Kohlberg wanted to describe how our ability to reason about ethical situations changed over our lives. In order to do this, he asked a subject group of children to think about specific moral situations. One situation Kohlberg used is the Heinz dilemma, which describes a man named Heinz making a moral choice about whether to steal a drug he cannot afford in order to save his wife’s life.
- One of the best known of Kohlberg’s (1958) stories concerns a man called Heinz who lived somewhere in Europe: A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. 45 seconds, stop: Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not? Kohlberg asked a series of questions such as: 1. Should Heinz have stolen the drug? 2. Would it change anything if Heinz did not love his wife? 3. What if the person dying was a stranger, would it make any difference? 4. Should the police arrest the chemist for murder if the woman died? By studying the answers from children of different ages to these questions Kohlberg hoped to discover the ways in which moral reasoning changed as people grew older. The sample comprised 72 Chicago boys aged 10–16 years, 58 of whom were followed up at three-yearly intervals for 20 years (Kohlberg, 1984). Each boy was given a 2-hour interview based on the ten dilemmas. What Kohlberg was mainly interested in was not whether the boys judged the action right or wrong but the reasons given for the decision. He found that these reasons tended to change as the children got older. He identified three distinct levels of moral reasoning each with two sub stages. People can only pass through these levels in the order listed. Each new stage replaces the reasoning typical of the earlier stage. Not everyone achieves all the stages. Problems with Kohlberg's Theory 1. Are there distinct stages to moral development? Kohlberg claims that there are but the evidence does not always support this conclusion. For example a person who justified a decision on the basis of principled reasoning in one situation (post conventional morality stage 5 or 6) would frequently fall back on conventional reasoning (stage 3 or 4) in another story. In practice it seems that reasoning about right and wrong depends more upon the situation than upon general rules. What is more individuals do not always progress through the stages and Rest (1979) found that one in fourteen actually slipped backwards. The evidence for distinct stages to moral development looks very weak and some would argue that behind the theory is a culturally biased belief in the superiority of American values over those of other cultures and societies. 2. Does moral judgement match moral behavior? Kohlberg never claimed that there would be a one to one correspondence between thinking and acting (what we say and what we do) but he does suggest that the two are linked. However Bee (1994) suggest that we also need to take account of: a) habits that people have developed over time. b) whether people see situations as demanding their participation. c) the costs and benefits of behaving in a particular way. d) competing motive such as peer pressure self interest and so on. Overall Bee points out that moral behavior is only partly a question of moral reasoning. It is also to do with social factors. 3. Is justice the most fundamental moral principle? This is Kohlberg’s view. However Gilligan (1977) suggests that the principle of caring for others is equally important. Furthermore Kohlberg claims that the moral reasoning of males is often in advance of that of females. Girls are often found to be at stage 3 in Kohlberg’s system (good boy-nice girl orientation) whereas boys are more often found to be at stage 4 (Law and Order orientation). Gilligan replies: “the very traits that have traditionally defined the goodness of women, their care for and sensitivity to the needs of others, are those that mark them out as deficient in moral development.” In other words Gilligan is claiming that there is a sex bias in Kohlberg’s theory. He neglects the feminine voice of compassion, love and non-violence, which is associated with the socialization of girls. Gilligan reached the conclusion that Kohlberg’s theory did not account for the fact that women approach moral problems from an ‘ethics of care’, rather than an ‘ethics of justice’ perspective, which challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of Kohlberg’s theory.
- Kohlberg Stages of Moral Development Level 1 - Pre-conventional morality At the pre-conventional level (most nine-year-olds and younger, some over nine), we don’t have a personal code of morality. Instead, our moral code is shaped by the standards of adults and the consequences of following or breaking their rules. Authority is outside the individual and reasoning is based on the physical consequences of actions. • Stage 1. Obedience and Punishment Orientation. The child/individual is good in order to avoid being punished. If a person is punished they must have done wrong. • Stage 2. Individualism and Exchange. At this stage children recognize that there is not just one right view that is handed down by the authorities. Different individuals have different viewpoints. Level 2 - Conventional morality At the conventional level (most adolescents and adults), we begin to internalize the moral standards of valued adult role models. Authority is internalized but not questioned and reasoning is based on the norms of the group to which the person belongs. • Stage 3. Good Interpersonal Relationships. The child/individual is good in order to be seen as being a good person by others. Therefore, answers are related to the approval of others. • Stage 4. Maintaining the Social Order. The child/individual becomes aware of the wider rules of society so judgments concern obeying rules in order to uphold the law and to avoid guilt. Level 3 - Post-conventional morality Individual judgment is based on self-chosen principles, and moral reasoning is based on individual rights and justice. According to Kohlberg this level of moral reasoning is as far as most people get. Only 10-15% are capable of the kind of abstract thinking necessary for stage 5 or 6 (post-conventional morality). That is to say most people take their moral views from those around them and only a minority think through ethical principles for themselves. • Stage 5. Social Contract and Individual Rights. The child/individual becomes aware that while rules/laws might exist for the good of the greatest number, there are times when they will work against the interest of particular individuals. The issues are not always clear cut. For example, in Heinz’s dilemma the protection of life is more important than breaking the law against stealing. • Stage 6. Universal Principles. People at this stage have developed their own set of moral guidelines which may or may not fit the law. The principles apply to everyone. E.g. human rights, justice and equality. The person will be prepared to act to defend these principles even if it means going against the rest of society in the process and having to pay the consequences of disapproval and or imprisonment. Kohlberg doubted few people reached this stage.
- Critical Evaluation Problems with Kohlberg's Methods 1. The dilemmas are artificial (i.e. they lack ecological validity) Most of the dilemmas are unfamiliar to most people (Rosen, 1980). For example it is all very well in the Heinz dilemma asking subjects whether Heinz should steal the drug to save his wife. However Kohlberg’s subjects were aged between 7 and 16. They have never been married, and never been placed in a situation remotely like the one in the story. How should they know whether Heinz should steal the drug? 2. The sample is biased According to Gilligan (1977), because Kohlberg’s theory was based on an all-male sample, the stages reflect a male definition of morality (it’s androcentric). Mens' morality is based on abstract principles of law and justice, while womens' is based on principles of compassion and care. Further, the gender bias issue raised by Gilligan is a reminded of the significant gender debate still present in psychology, which when ignored, can have a large impact on results obtained through psychological research. 2. The dilemmas are hypothetical (i.e. they are not real) In a real situation what course of action a person takes will have real consequences – and sometimes very unpleasant ones for themselves. Would subjects reason in the same way if they were placed in a real situation? We just don’t know. The fact that Kohlberg’s theory is heavily dependent on an individual’s response to an artificial dilemma brings question to the validity of the results obtained through this research. People may respond very differently to real life situations that they find themselves in than they do to an artificial dilemma presented to them in the comfort of a research environment. 3. Poor research design The way in which Kohlberg carried out his research when constructing this theory may not have been the best way to test whether all children follow the same sequence of stage progression. His research was cross-sectional , meaning that he interviewed children of different ages to see what level of moral development they were at. A better way to see if all children follow the same order through the stages would have been to carry out longitudinal research on the same children. However, longitudinal research on Kohlberg’s theory has since been carried out by Colby et al. (1983) who tested 58 male participants of Kohlberg’s original study. She tested them 6 times in the span of 27 years and found support for Kohlberg’s original conclusion, that we all pass through the stages of moral development in the same order.
- 3. Is justice the most fundamental moral principle? This is Kohlberg’s view. However Gilligan (1977) suggests that the principle of caring for others is equally important. Furthermore Kohlberg claims that the moral reasoning of males is often in advance of that of females. Girls are often found to be at stage 3 in Kohlberg’s system (good boy-nice girl orientation) whereas boys are more often found to be at stage 4 (Law and Order orientation). Gilligan replies: “the very traits that have traditionally defined the goodness of women, their care for and sensitivity to the needs of others, are those that mark them out as deficient in moral development.” In other words Gilligan is claiming that there is a sex bias in Kohlberg’s theory. He neglects the feminine voice of compassion, love and non-violence, which is associated with the socialization of girls. Gilligan reached the conclusion that Kohlberg’s theory did not account for the fact that women approach moral problems from an ‘ethics of care’, rather than an ‘ethics of justice’ perspective, which challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of Kohlberg’s theory.
- Non-normative Aggression in child predicts future violent behavior Victim also more likely to be violent Victims are peer rejected