3132020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.15 - Social-Cognitive Theor.docx

3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.15 - Social-Cognitive
Theories
https://www.webtexts.com/courses/34215-
poirier/traditional_book/chapters/3616983-personality-and-
human-development/pages/2701256-socialcognit… 1/4
Psychology
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.15 Social-
Cognitive Theories
On this page: 1 of 1 attempted (100%) | 1 of 1 correct (100%)
Social-Cognitive Theories
How do social-cognitive theorists view personality
development, and how do they
explore behavior?
The social-cognitive perspective on personality, proposed by
Albert Bandura (1986,
2006, 2008), emphasizes the interaction of our traits with our
situations. Much as
nature and nurture always work together, so do individuals and
their situations.
The point to remember Behavior emerges from the interplay of
external and internal
influences.
Social-cognitive theorists believe we learn many of our
behaviors either through

conditioning or by observing and imitating others. (That’s the
“social” part.) They also
emphasize the importance of mental processes: What we think
about a situation affects
our behavior in that situation. (That’s the “cognitive” part.)
Instead of focusing solely on
how our environment controls us (behaviorism), social-
cognitive theorists focus on how
we and our environment interact: How do we interpret and
respond to external events?
How do our schemas, our memories, and our expectations
influence our behavior
patterns?
Reciprocal Influences
Bandura (1986, 2006) views the person-environment interaction
as reciprocal
determinism. “Behavior, internal personal factors, and
environmental influences,” he
said, “all operate as interlocking determinants of each other”
(Figure 8). We can see this
interaction in people’s relationships. For example, Rosa’s
romantic history (past
behavior) influences her attitudes toward new relationships
(internal factor), which
affects how she now responds to Ryan (environmental factor).
Figure 8
poirier/traditional_book
Theories

Reciprocal Determinism
Circular illustration of how internal personal factors, behavior,
and environmental factors
interact. Illustration contains three text boxes forming a
triangle, with two-sided arrows
pointing between each text box. The first box contains internal
personal factors, like
thoughts and feelings about risky activities. The second box
contains behavior, like
learning to rock climb, and the third box contains environmental
factors, like rock-
climbing friends.
Courtesy of Joslyn Brugh
Multiple-Choice Question
How does the social-cognitive approach differ from the other
perspectives
on personality discussed in this chapter?
The social-cognitive view emphasizes the role of internal
dispositions to a
greater extent than do the other perspectives.
The social-cognitive view emphasizes the role of inner conflicts
to a greater
extent than do the other perspectives.
The social-cognitive view emphasizes the role of the
environment to a greater

The social-cognitive view emphasizes the role of the
unconscious to a greater
Correct. More so than other personality perspectives, the social-
cognitive view focuses
on how our environment interacts with our traits. It suggests
that our behaviors are
influenced by social factors (like conditioning) and by cognitive
factors (like what we
think about a situation).
Theories
Last saved 2 months ago.
Consider three specific ways in which individuals and
environments interact:
1. Different people choose different environments. The schools
we attend,
the reading we do, the movies we watch, the music we listen to,
the friends we
associate with—all are part of an environment we have chosen,
based partly on our
dispositions (Funder, 2009; Ickes et al., 1997). We choose our
environment and it
then shapes us.

2. Our personalities shape how we interpret and react to events.
Anxious
people tend to attend and react strongly to relationship threats
(Campbell &
Marshall, 2011). If we perceive the world as threatening, we
will watch for threats
and be prepared to defend ourselves.
3. Our personalities help create situations to which we react.
How we view
and treat people influences how they then treat us. If we expect
that others will not
like us, our desperate attempts to seek their approval might
cause them to reject
us. Depressed people often engage in this excessive reassurance
seeking, which
may confirm their negative self-views (Coyne, 1976a,b).
In addition to the interaction of internal personal factors, the
environment, and our
behaviors, we also experience gene-environment interaction.
Our genetically
influenced traits evoke certain responses from others, which
may nudge us in one
direction or another. In one classic study, those with the
interacting factors of (1) having
a specific gene associated with aggression and (2) being raised
in a difficult
environment were most likely to demonstrate adult antisocial
behavior (Caspi et al.,
2002).
In such ways, we are both the products and the architects of our
environments:
Behavior emerges from the interplay of external and internal
influences. Boiling water

turns an egg hard and a potato soft. A threatening environment
turns one person into a
hero, another into a scoundrel. Extraverts enjoy greater well-
being in an extraverted
culture than in an introverted one (Fulmer et al., 2010). At
every moment, our behavior
is influenced by our biology, our social and cultural
experiences, and our cognition and
dispositions (Figure 9).
Figure 9
Theories
The Biopsychosocial Approach to the Study of Personality
Illustration depicting the biological, psychological, and social-
cultural influences on
personality. Biological influences include genetically
determined temperament, autonomic
nervous system reactivity, and brain activity. Psychological
influences include learned
responses, unconscious thought processes, and expectations and
interpretations. Social-
cultural influences include childhood experiences, influence of
the situation, cultural
expectations, and social support.
As with other psychological phenomena, personality is

fruitfully studied at multiple levels.
close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.11 - Personality
human-development/pages/3353162-personality 1/3
Psychology
Course Notes
Personality
On this page, you’ll read about some additional concepts that
you should note to
succeed in this course.
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.11 Course
Notes: Personality
We recognize that biological factors and experience, together,
shape our personality.
Earlier in this chapter, we learned how we all follow a similar
path as we physically and
psychologically develop from infancy through adulthood. But
how does our personality
interact with our development? Now we turn to descriptions of
our differences and the
individual personalities that arise from our unique biological
and situational

experiences. On this Course Notes page, we’ll learn about the
historical and biological
foundations of the personality traits that will be discussed later
in this chapter. In
addition, we’ll consider whether personality can change.
Assessing Personality Traits
Look around your personal spaces, such as your home, car, or
social media profile. How
do these spaces reflect your personality? If a few strangers
spent 10 minutes examining
one of these spaces, would they be able to develop a good sense
of who you are? How
well would they be able to predict your behavior? What can we
know about someone’s
personality through such a brief snapshot?
Psychologists describe personality in terms of fundamental
traits—people’s
characteristic behaviors and conscious motives—rather than in
terms of broad “types.”
Traits allow us to describe the multiple dimensions of our
personalities. In the 1960s,
British psychologists Hans Eysenck and Sybil Eysenck [EYE-
zink] administered one of
the first large-scale personality tests. They used a statistical
technique called factor
analysis to identify clusters (or factors) of test questions that
essentially asked about
the same dimensions. For example, if the same people who say
they enjoy reading for
pleasure also describe themselves as quiet and reserved, then
these responses represent
a factor—introversion. Ultimately, the Eysencks’ factor analysis
led them to propose

that our personality can be distilled down to two or three
dimensions, including
extraversion–introversion and emotional stability–instability
(Figure 6).
Figure 6
Two Personality Dimensions
Circle divided into four sections along north-south and east-
west axes, each section
containing personality traits that represent a combination of
stability or instability and
extraversion or introversion. In the upper left quadrant, which
represents instability and
introversion, the traits listed are: moody, anxious, rigid, sober,
pessimistic, reserved,
unsociable, and quiet. The upper right quadrant, instability and
extraversion, contains
these traits: touchy, restless, aggressive, excitable, changeable,
impulsive, optimistic, and
active. The lower left quadrant, introversion and stability,
contains these traits: passive,
careful, thoughtful, peaceful, controlled, reliable, even-
tempered, and calm. The lower
right quadrant, extraversion and stability, contains these traits:

sociable, outgoing,
talkative, responsive, easygoing, lively, carefree, and
leadership. To the left of this circle is
a photograph of Jane Goodall kissing a monkey on the head, and
to the right of it is a
photograph of Bill Clinton laughing with two athletes.
Mapmakers can tell us a lot by using two axes (north–south and
east–west). Two primary
personality factors (extraversion–introversion and stability–
instability) are similarly
useful as axes for describing personality variation. Varying
combinations define other,
more specific traits (from Eysenck & Eysenck, 1963). Those
who are naturally introverted,
such as primatologist Jane Goodall, may be particularly gifted
in field studies. Successful
politicians, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton, are
often natural extraverts.
Jean-Marc Bouju/AP Photo; Andrew Innerarity/Reuters/Landov
Biological Influences on Personality Traits
Biology and physiology influence our personality traits. Infant
temperament sets the
stage for the development of personality. Calm and social
babies are more likely to grow
up to be emotionally stable; sensitive and intense babies who
are difficult to soothe are
likely to grow up to experience greater anxiety. Studies have
shown that differences in
children’s autonomic nervous systems’ response to stress can
influence the amount of

shyness and fear that a child typically displays (Kagan, 2010).
Brain scans, too, show
that compared with introverts, extraverts have low brain
arousal—which may cause
them to seek out more stimulation—and that their dopamine
levels and dopamine-
related activity tend to be higher (Kim et al., 2008; Wacker et
al., 2006).
Can Your Personality Change?
Psychologists define personality as our characteristic pattern of
thinking, feeling, and
acting. These patterns can be observed across multiple
situations, but it is important to
note that situations can create changes in behavior that are not
indicative of personality
trait change. We may be quite talkative when eating lunch with
our close friends but
quiet and reserved when first meeting the parents of someone
we just started dating.
This distinction does not mean that our personality has changed;
it just means that we
have adjusted our behavior based on the setting or people.
Similarly, personality is distinct from moods. A mood is a
temporary physiological and
emotional response. When we’re in a “bad mood,” we might not

act like our
characteristic self, but our personality traits haven’t changed.
When the bad mood ends,
our normal patterns of thinking and acting return. For these
reasons, psychologists
would discourage you from trying to predict a classmate’s
future behavior based on
what you observe in just one situation.
Although personality is a relatively stable pattern of thinking,
feeling, and behavior,
major life changes—such as becoming a parent or experiencing
a religious conversion—
can change or create new behaviors. These events do not simply
change our mood; they
change our habits and often our identities. A personality change
happens over time, as
new patterns of behavior are established and our traits are
revised.
Which of the following BEST describes an individual’s
characteristic
pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting?
mood
schema
self-esteem
personality
Correct. Psychologists define personality as our characteristic
pattern of thinking,
feeling, and acting.

close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.10 - Cognitive
Development in Adulthood
human-development/pages/2705296-cognitive-d… 1/5
Psychology
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.10 Cognitive
Development in
Adulthood
Cognitive Development in Adulthood
Aging and Memory
How does memory change with age?
Among the most intriguing developmental psychology questions
is whether adult
cognitive abilities, such as memory, intelligence, and creativity,
parallel the gradually
accelerating decline of physical abilities.
As we age, we remember some things well. Looking back in
later life, adults asked to
recall the one or two most important events over the last half-
century tend to name
events from their teens or twenties (Conway et al., 2005; Rubin

et al., 1998). They also
display this “reminiscence bump” when asked to name their all-
time favorite music,
movies, and athletes (Janssen et al., 2011). Whatever people
experience around this
time of life—the Vietnam War, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the
election of the first Black
U.S. president—becomes pivotal (Pillemer, 1998; Schuman &
Scott, 1989). Our teens
and twenties hold so many memorable “firsts”—first kiss, first
job, first day at college or
university, first meeting in-laws.
The point to remember If the information is meaningful, older
people’s rich web of
existing knowledge will help them to hold it.
Early adulthood is indeed a peak time for some types of
learning and remembering. In
one test of recall, people watched video clips as 14 strangers
said their names, using a
common format: “Hi, I’m Larry” (Crook & West, 1990). Then
those strangers
reappeared and gave additional details. For example, they said,
“I’m from
Philadelphia,” providing more visual and voice cues for
remembering the person’s
name. As Figure 4 shows, after a second and third replay of the
introductions, everyone
remembered more names, but younger adults consistently
surpassed older adults. How
well older people remember depends in part on the task. In
another experiment, when
asked to recognize 24 words they had earlier tried to memorize,
people showed only a
minimal decline in memory. When asked to recall that

information without clues,
however, the decline was greater (Figure 5).
Figure 4
Tests of Recall
Chart showing the percentage of names recalled after one, two,
and three introductions at
various ages. People who received three introductions recalled
the most names, but all
three groups steadily declined as they grew older.
Recalling new names introduced once, twice, or three times is
easier for younger adults
than for older ones. (Data from Crook & West, 1990.)
Figure 5

Recall and Recognition in Adulthood
This chart shows that the number of words recognized is stable
with age, but the number
of words recalled declines with age.
In this experiment, the ability to recall new information
declined during early and middle
adulthood, but the ability to recognize new information did not.
(Data from Schonfield &
Robertson, 1966.)
In our capacity to learn and remember, as in other areas of
development, we show
individual differences. Younger adults vary in their abilities to
learn and remember, but
70-year-olds vary much more. “Differences between the most
and least able 70-year-
olds become much greater than between the most and least able
50-year-olds,” reports
Oxford researcher Patrick Rabbitt (2006). Some 70-year-olds
perform below nearly all
20-year-olds; other 70-year-olds match or outdo the average 20-
year-old.
No matter how quick or slow we are, remembering seems also to
depend on the type of
information we are trying to retrieve. If the information is
meaningless—nonsense
syllables or unimportant events—then the older we are, the
more errors we are likely to
make. If the information is meaningful, older people’s rich web

of existing knowledge
will help them to hold it. But they may take longer than younger
adults to produce the
words and things they know. Older adults also more often
experience tip-of-the-tongue
memories (Ossher et al., 2012). Quick-thinking game show
winners are usually young
or middle-aged adults (Burke & Shafto, 2004).
A 20-year-old is MOST likely to outperform a 70-year-old on
which of the
following tasks?
recognizing previously presented names of fruits and vegetables
recalling memorable personal experiences
recalling previously presented nonsense syllables
recognizing previously presented foreign-language words
Correct. The ability to recall nonsense syllables declines with
age.
Sustaining Mental Abilities

Psychologists who study the aging mind debate whether “brain
fitness” computer
training programs can build mental muscles and stave off
cognitive decline. Our brains
remain plastic throughout life (Gutchess, 2014). So, can
exercising our brains on a
“cognitive treadmill”—with memory, visual tracking, and
problem-solving exercises—
avert losing our minds? “At every point in life, the brain’s
natural plasticity gives us the
ability to improve...function,” said one neuroscientist-
entrepreneur (Merzenich, 2007).
One 5-year study of nearly 3000 people found that 10 one-hour
cognitive training
sessions, with follow-up booster sessions, led to improved
cognitive scores on tests
related to their training (Boron et al., 2007; Willis et al., 2006).
Other studies with
children and adults also found that brain-training exercises can
sharpen the mind
(Anguera et al., 2013; Jonides et al., 2012; Karr et al., 2014).
Based on such findings, some computer game makers are
marketing daily brain-
exercise programs for older adults. But other researchers, after
reviewing all the
available studies, advise caution (Melby-Lervåg & Hulme,
2013; Redick et al., 2013;
Salthouse, 2010; Shipstead et al., 2012a,b). The available
evidence, they argue, suggests
that brain training can produce short-term gains, but mostly on
the trained tasks and
not for cognitive ability in general (Berkman et al., 2014;
Harrison et al., 2013; Karbach
& Verhaeghen, 2014). A British study of 11,430 people, who for
6 weeks either

completed brain training activities or a control task, confirmed
the limited benefits.
Although the training improved the practiced skills, it did not
boost overall cognitive
fitness (Owen et al., 2010). “Play a video game and you’ll get
better at that video game,
and maybe at very similar video games,” observes researcher
David Hambrick (2014),
but not at driving a car or filling out your tax return.
close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.9 - The Aging Brain
human-development/pages/2701238-the-aging-b… 1/3
Psychology
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.9 The Aging
Brain

The Aging Brain
Up to the teen years, we process information with greater and
greater speed (Fry &
Hale, 1996; Kail, 1991). But compared with teens and young
adults, older people take a
bit more time to react, to solve perceptual puzzles, even to
remember names (Bashore et
al., 1997; Verhaeghen & Salthouse, 1997). The neural
processing lag is greatest on
complex tasks (Cerella, 1985; Poon, 1987). At video games,
most 70-year-olds are no
match for a 20-year-old.
Slower neural processing combined with diminished sensory
abilities can increase
accident risks. As Figure 3 indicates, fatal accident rates per
mile driven increase
sharply after age 75. By age 85, they exceed the 16-year-old
level. Older drivers appear
to focus well on the road ahead, but attend less to vehicles
approaching from the side
(Pollatsek et al., 2012). Nevertheless, because older people
drive less, they account for
fewer than 10 percent of crashes (Coughlin et al., 2004).
The point to remember The aging brain is plastic, and partly
compensates for what it
loses by recruiting and reorganizing neural networks.
Brain regions important to memory begin to atrophy during
aging (Fraser et al., 2015;
Schacter, 1996). The blood-brain barrier also breaks down
beginning in the
hippocampus, which furthers cognitive decline (Montagne et al.,
2015). No wonder

adults, after taking a memory test, feel older. “[It’s like] aging
5 years in 5 minutes,”
jested one research report (Hughes et al., 2013). In early
adulthood, a small, gradual net
loss of brain cells begins, contributing by age 80 to a brain-
weight reduction of 5
percent or so. Earlier, we noted that late-maturing frontal lobes
help account for teen
impulsivity. Late in life, some of that impulsiveness seems to
return as inhibition-
controlling frontal lobes begin to atrophy (von Hippel, 2007).
This helps explain older
people’s occasional blunt questions and comments (“Have you
put on weight?”). But
good news: The aging brain is plastic, and partly compensates
for what it loses by
recruiting and reorganizing neural networks (Park &
McDonough, 2013). During
memory tasks, for example, the left frontal lobes are especially
active in young adult
brains, while older adult brains use both left and right frontal
lobes.
Figure 3
Age and Driver Fatalities

Chart showing the rate of fatal accidents per 10,000 drivers and
per 100 million miles.
Fatal accidents per 10,000 drivers start at about 6 at age 16 to
19, level off at about 2 from
roughly age 30 to 60, and increase to almost 4 from age 75 on.
Fatal accidents per 100
million miles start at about 9 at age 16 to 19, drop to about 2
from roughly age 30 to 60,
and rise to about 5 for age 70 to 74 and then spike to almost 12
from age 75 on.
Slowing reactions contribute to increased accident risks among
those 75 and older, and
their greater fragility increases their risk of death when
accidents happen (NHTSA, 2000).
Would you favor driver exams based on performance, not age,
to screen out those whose
slow reactions or sensory impairments indicate accident risk?
Exercise and Aging
Exercise helps counteract some effects of aging. Physical
exercise not only enhances
muscles, bones, and energy and helps to prevent obesity and
heart disease, it also
stimulates brain cell development and neural connections,
thanks perhaps to increased
oxygen and nutrient flow (Erickson et al., 2013; Fleischman et
al., 2015; Pereira et al.,
2007). Exercise aids memory by stimulating the development of
neural connections and
by promoting neurogenesis, the birth of new hippocampus nerve
cells. And it increases
the cellular mitochondria that help power both muscles and

brain cells (Steiner et al.,
2011).
Sedentary older adults randomly assigned to aerobic exercise
programs exhibit
enhanced memory, sharpened judgment, and reduced risk of
significant cognitive
decline (DeFina et al., 2013; Liang et al., 2010; Nagamatsu et
al., 2013). Exercise also
helps maintain the telomeres (Leslie, 2011). These tips of
chromosomes wear down with
age, much as the end of a shoelace frays. Telomere wear and
tear is accelerated by
smoking, obesity, and stress. Children who suffer frequent
abuse or bullying exhibit
shortened telomeres as biological scars (Shalev et al., 2013). As
telomeres shorten,
aging cells may die without being replaced by perfect genetic
replicas (Epel, 2009).
The message is clear: We are more likely to rust from disuse
than to wear out from
overuse. Fit bodies support fit minds.
The aging brain partly compensates for a loss of brain cells by

recruiting
and reorganizing existing neural networks. Which of the
following BEST
illustrates this ability?
neurogenesis
plasticity
atrophy
telomere shortening
Correct. Plasticity refers to the ability of the brain to continue
to grow new neural
networks or reorganize existing networks; it is one way that the
aging brain
compensates for the loss of brain cells.
close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.4 - Adolescence
human-development/pages/2701225-adolescence 1/4
Psychology
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.4 Adolescence
Adolescence
How is adolescence defined, and how do physical changes affect

developing teens?
Many psychologists once believed that childhood sets our traits.
Today’s developmental
psychologists see development as lifelong. As this life-span
perspective emerged,
psychologists began to look at how maturation and experience
shape us not only in
infancy and childhood, but also in adolescence and beyond.
Adolescence—the years
spent morphing from child to adult—starts with the physical
beginnings of sexual
maturity and ends with the social achievement of independent
adult status. In some
cultures, where teens are self-supporting, this means that
adolescence hardly exists.
G. Stanley Hall (1904), one of the first psychologists to
describe adolescence, believed
that the tension between biological maturity and social
dependence creates a period of
“storm and stress.” Indeed, after age 30, many who grow up in
independence-fostering
Western cultures look back on their teenage years as a time they
would not want to
relive, a time when their peers’ social approval was imperative,
their sense of direction
in life was in flux, and their feeling of alienation from their
parents was deepest (Arnett,
1999; Macfarlane, 1964).
But for many, adolescence is a time of vitality without the cares
of adulthood, a time of
rewarding friendships, heightened idealism, and a growing
sense of life’s exciting
possibilities.

Physical Development
Adolescence begins with puberty, the time when we mature
sexually. Puberty follows a
surge of hormones, which may intensify moods and which
trigger a series of bodily
changes.
Early Versus Late Maturing
Just as in the earlier life stages, the sequence of physical
changes in puberty (for
example, breast buds and visible pubic hair before menarche—
the first menstrual
period) is far more predictable than their timing. Some girls
start their growth spurt at
9, some boys as late as age 16. Though such variations have
little effect on height at
maturity, they may have psychological consequences: It is not
only when we mature
that counts, but how people react to our physical development.
For boys, early maturation has mixed effects. Boys who are
stronger and more athletic

during their early teen years tend to be more popular, self-
assured, and independent,
though also more at risk for alcohol use, delinquency, and
premature sexual activity
(Conley & Rudolph, 2009; Copeland et al., 2010; Lynne et al.,
2007). For girls, early
maturation can be a challenge (Mendle et al., 2007). If a young
girl’s body and
hormone-fed feelings are out of sync with her emotional
maturity and her friends’
physical development and experiences, she may begin
associating with older
adolescents or may suffer teasing or sexual harassment (Ge &
Natsuaki, 2009). She may
also be somewhat more vulnerable to an anxiety disorder
(Weingarden & Renshaw,
2012).
The Teenage Brain
An adolescent’s brain is also a work in progress. Until puberty,
brain cells increase their
connections, like trees growing more roots and branches. Then,
during adolescence,
comes a selective pruning of unused neurons and connections
(Blakemore, 2008).
What we don’t use, we lose.
The point to remember Teens find rewards more exciting than
adults do. So they seek
thrills and rewards, without a fully developed brake pedal
controlling their impulses.
As teens mature, their frontal lobes also continue to develop.
The growth of myelin, the
fatty tissue that forms around axons and speeds

neurotransmission, enables better
communication with other brain regions (Kuhn, 2006; Silveri et
al., 2006). These
developments bring improved judgment, impulse control, and
long-term planning.
Maturation of the frontal lobes nevertheless lags behind that of
the emotional limbic
system. Puberty’s hormonal surge and limbic system
development help explain teens’
occasional impulsiveness, risky behaviors, and emotional
storms—slamming doors and
turning up the music (Casey et al., 2008, 2013). No wonder
younger teens (whose
unfinished frontal lobes aren’t yet fully equipped for making
long-term plans and
curbing impulses) may succumb to the tobacco corporations,
which most adult smokers
could tell them they will later regret. Teens actually don’t
underestimate the risks of
smoking—or fast driving or unprotected sex. They just, when
reasoning from their gut,
weigh the immediate benefits more heavily (Reyna & Farley,
2006; Steinberg, 2007,
2010). Teens find rewards more exciting than adults do. So they
seek thrills and
rewards, without a fully developed brake pedal controlling their
impulses (Figure 2).
Figure 2

Impulse Control Lags Reward Seeking
National surveys of more than 7000 American 12- to 24-year-
olds reveal that sensation
seeking peaks in the mid-teens, with impulse control developing
more slowly as frontal
lobes mature. (National Longitudinal Study of Youth and
Children and Young Adults
survey data presented by Steinberg, 2013.)
So, when Junior drives recklessly and struggles academically,
should his parents
reassure themselves that “he can’t help it; his frontal cortex
isn’t yet fully grown”? They
can take hope: Brain changes underlie teens’ new self-
consciousness about what others
are thinking and their valuing of risky rewards (Barkley-
Levenson & Galván, 2014;
Somerville et al., 2013). And the brain with which Junior begins
his teens differs from
the brain with which he will end his teens. Unless he slows his
brain development with
heavy drinking—leaving him prone to impulsivity and
addiction—his frontal lobes will
continue maturing until about age 25 (Crews et al., 2007; Giedd,
2015). They will also
become better connected with the limbic system, enabling better
emotion regulation
(Steinberg, 2012).
In 2004, the American Psychological Association (APA) joined
seven other medical and

mental health associations in filing U.S. Supreme Court briefs
arguing against the death
penalty for 16- and 17-year-olds. The briefs documented the
teen brain’s immaturity “in
areas that bear upon adolescent decision making.” Brain scans
of young teens reveal
that frontal lobe immaturity is most evident among juvenile
offenders and drug users
(Shannon et al., 2011; Whelan et al., 2012). Thus, teens are
“less guilty by reason of
adolescence,” suggested psychologist Laurence Steinberg and
law professor Elizabeth
Scott (2003; Steinberg et al., 2009). In 2005, by a 5-to-4
margin, the Court concurred,
declaring juvenile death penalties unconstitutional. In 2012, the
APA offered similar
arguments against sentencing juveniles to life without parole
(Banville, 2012; Steinberg,
2013). Once again, the Court, by a narrow 5-to-4 vote,
concurred.
People develop improved judgment, impulse control, and the
ability to plan
for the future during their teens and early twenties, largely as a
result of

which of the following?
development of the parietal lobes of the brain
growth in the number of neurons and their connections
development of the frontal lobes of the brain
a surge of hormones beginning in puberty
Correct. Along with the myelin growth that speeds up our
brain’s communications, the
development of our frontal lobes leads to a marked
improvement in things like
judgment and long-term foresight.
close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.13 - Evaluating Trait
Theories
human-development/pages/2701251-evaluating-t… 1/3
Psychology
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.13 Evaluating
Trait Theories
Evaluating Trait Theories
Does research support the consistency of personality traits over
time and across

situations?
Are our personality traits stable and enduring? Or does our
behavior depend on where
and with whom we find ourselves? In some ways, our
personality seems stable.
Cheerful, friendly children tend to become cheerful, friendly
adults. At a recent college
reunion, I [DM] was amazed to find that my jovial former
classmates were still jovial,
the shy ones still shy, the happy-seeming people still smiling
and laughing—50 years
later. But it’s also true that a fun-loving jokester can suddenly
turn serious and
respectful at a job interview. And the personality traits we
express can change from one
situation to another. Major life events, such as becoming
unemployed, can shift our
personality from agreeable to slightly rude (Boyce et al., 2015).
The Person-Situation Controversy
Our behavior is influenced by the interaction of our inner
disposition with our
environment. Still, the question lingers: Which is more
important? When we explore
this person-situation controversy, we look for genuine
personality traits that persist
over time and across situations. Are some people dependably
conscientious and others
unreliable? Some cheerful and others dour? Some friendly and
outgoing and others
shy? If we are to consider friendliness a trait, friendly people
must act friendly at
different times and places. Do they?

The point to remember As people grow older their personality
stabilizes.
In considering research that has followed lives through time,
some scholars (especially
those who study infants) are impressed with personality change;
others are struck by
personality stability during adulthood. As Figure 7 illustrates,
data from 152 long-term
studies reveal that personality trait scores are positively
correlated with scores obtained
seven years later, and that as people grow older their
personality stabilizes. Interests
may change—the avid tropical-fish collector may become an
avid gardener. Careers may
change—the determined salesperson may become a determined
social worker.
Relationships may change—the hostile spouse may start over
with a new partner. But
Theories
most people recognize their traits as their own, as Robert
McCrae and Paul Costa noted
(1994), “and it is well that they do. A person’s recognition of
the inevitability of his or
her one and only personality is...the culminating wisdom of a

lifetime.”
Figure 7
Personality stability
Chart depicting trait score correlations over seven years for
children, collegians, 30-year-
olds, and 50- to 70-year-olds. Trait score correlation between
children was about 0.3. For
collegians it was a little over 0.5; for 30-year-olds, it was a
little over 0.6; and for 50- to
70-year-olds, it was a little over 0.7.
With age, personality traits become more stable, as reflected in
the stronger correlation of
trait scores with follow-up scores 7 years later. (Data from
Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000.)
So most people—including most psychologists—would probably
presume the stability of
personality traits. Moreover, our traits are socially significant.
They influence our
health, our thinking, and our job choices and performance
(Deary & Matthews, 1993;
Hogan, 1998; Jackson et al., 2012; Sutin et al., 2011). Studies
that follow lives through
time show that personality traits rival socioeconomic status and
cognitive ability as
predictors of mortality, divorce, and occupational attainment
(Roberts et al., 2007).
Any of these tendencies, taken to an extreme, become
maladaptive. Agreeableness
ranges from cynical combativeness at its low extreme to gullible
subservience at its high

extreme. Conscientiousness ranges from irresponsible
negligence to workaholic
perfectionism (Widiger & Costa, 2012).
Theories
Which person’s personality traits would be MOST stable and
predictable
over the next 7 years?
a 3-year-old
a 20-year-old
a 10-year-old
a 40-year-old
Correct. As we get older, our personality traits become more
stable and predictable.
close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.2 - Developmental
Psychology’s Major Issues

human-development/pages/2701219-developme… 1/5
Psychology
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.2
Developmental Psychology’s Major
Issues
Developmental Psychology’s Major Issues
What three issues have engaged developmental psychologists?
Researchers find human development interesting for the same
reasons most of the rest
of us do—they are eager to understand more about how we’ve
become our current
selves, and how we may change in the years ahead.
Developmental psychology
examines our physical, cognitive, and social development across
the life span, with a
focus on three major issues:
1. Nature and nurture: How does our genetic inheritance (our
nature) interact
with our experiences (our nurture) to influence our
development? How have your
nature and your nurture influenced your life story?
2. Continuity and stages: What parts of development are gradual
and
continuous, like riding an escalator? What parts change abruptly
in separate
stages, like climbing rungs on a ladder?

3. Stability and change: Which of our traits persist through life?
How do we
change as we age?
Nature and Nurture
The unique gene combination created when our mother’s egg
engulfed our father’s
sperm helped form us, as individuals. Genes predispose both our
shared humanity and
our individual differences.
But our experiences also shape us. Our families and peer
relationships teach us how to
think and act. Even differences initiated by our nature may be
amplified by our nurture.
We are not formed by either nature or nurture, but by the
interaction between them.
Biological, psychological, and social-cultural forces interact.
Mindful of how others differ from us, however, we often fail to
notice the similarities
stemming from our shared biology. Regardless of our culture,
we humans share the
same life cycle. We speak to our infants in similar ways and
respond similarly to their
coos and cries (Bornstein et al., 1992a,b). All over the world,
the children of warm and
supportive parents feel better about themselves and are less
hostile than are the

children of punishing and rejecting parents (Rohner, 1986; Scott
et al., 1991). Although
ethnic groups have differed in some ways, including average
school achievement, the
differences are “no more than skin deep.” To the extent that
family structure, peer
influences, and parental education predict behavior in one of
these ethnic groups, they
do so for the others as well. Compared with the person-to-
person differences within
groups, between-group differences are small.
Continuity and Stages
Do adults differ from infants as a giant redwood differs from its
seedling—a difference
created by gradual, cumulative growth? Or do they differ as a
butterfly differs from a
caterpillar—a difference of distinct stages?
Researchers who emphasize experience and learning typically
see development as a
slow, continuous shaping process. Those who emphasize
biological maturation tend to
see development as a sequence of genetically predisposed stages
or steps: Although
progress through the various stages may be quick or slow,
everyone passes through the
stages in the same order.

Are there clear-cut stages of psychological development, as
there are physical stages
such as walking before running? The stage theories we will
consider—of Jean Piaget on
cognitive development, Lawrence Kohlberg on moral
development, and Erik Erikson on
psychosocial development—propose developmental stages
(summarized in Figure 1).
But as we will also see, some research casts doubt on the idea
that life proceeds through
neatly defined age-linked stages. Young children have some
abilities Piaget attributed to
later stages. Kohlberg’s work reflected an individualist
worldview and emphasized
thinking over acting. And adult life does not progress through a
fixed, predictable series
of steps. Chance events can influence us in ways we would
never have predicted.
Figure 1
Comparing the Stage Theories
Illustration of the stage theories of Lawrence Kohlberg, Erik
Erikson, and Jean Piaget.
Kohlberg’s theory contains three stages: preconventional

morality, conventional morality,
and postconventional morality. Erikson’s theory contains eight
stages: Basic trust,
autonomy, initiative, competence, identity, intimacy,
generativity, and integrity. Piaget’s
theory contains four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational,
concrete operational, and
formal operational. In the illustration, the stages of these
theories are presented
sequentially on a timeline that starts at birth and ends at death.
(With thanks to Dr. Sandra Gibbs, Muskegon Community
College, for inspiring this
illustration.)
Although many modern developmental psychologists do not
identify as stage theorists,
the stage concept remains useful. The human brain does
experience growth spurts
during childhood and puberty that correspond roughly to
Piaget’s stages (Thatcher et
al., 1987). And stage theories contribute a developmental
perspective on the whole life
span, by suggesting how people of one age think and act
differently when they arrive at
a later age.
Stability and Change
As we follow lives through time, do we find more evidence for
stability or change? If
reunited with a long-lost grade-school friend, do we instantly
realize that “it’s the same
old Andy”? Or do people we befriend during one period of life
seem like strangers at a
later period? (At least one acquaintance of mine [DM’s] would

choose the second
option. He failed to recognize a former classmate at his 40-year
college reunion. The
aghast classmate was his long-ago first wife.)
Research reveals that we experience both stability and change.
Some of our
characteristics, such as temperament, are very stable:
One research team that studied 1000 people from ages 3 to 38
was struck by the
consistency of temperament and emotionality across time
(Moffitt et al., 2013;
Slutske et al., 2012). Out-of-control 3-year-olds were the most
likely to become
teen smokers or adult criminals or out-of-control gamblers.
Other studies have found that hyperactive, inattentive 5-year-
olds required more
teacher effort at age 12 (Houts et al., 2010); that 6-year-old
Canadian boys with
conduct problems were four times more likely than other boys
to be convicted of a
violent crime by age 24 (Hodgins et al., 2013); and that
extraversion among British
16-year-olds predicted their future happiness as 60-year-olds
(Gale et al., 2013).

Another research team interviewed adults who, 40 years earlier,
had their
talkativeness, impulsiveness, and humility rated by their
elementary school
teachers (Nave et al., 2010). To a striking extent, their traits
persisted.
“As at 7, so at 70,” says a Jewish proverb. People predict that
they will not change much
in the future (Quoidbach et al., 2013). In some ways they are
correct. The widest smilers
in childhood and college photos are, years later, the ones most
likely to enjoy enduring
marriages (Hertenstein et al., 2009).
We cannot, however, predict all aspects of our future selves
based on our early life. Our
social attitudes, for example, are much less stable than our
temperament (Moss &
Susman, 1980). Older children and adolescents learn new ways
of coping. Although
delinquent children have elevated rates of later problems, many
confused and troubled
children blossom into mature, successful adults (Moffitt et al.,
2002; Roberts et al.,
2013; Thomas & Chess, 1986). The struggles of the present may
be laying a foundation
for a happier tomorrow. Life is a process of becoming.
In some ways, we all change with age. Most shy, fearful
toddlers begin opening up by
age 4, and most people become more conscientious, stable,
agreeable, and self-
confident in the years after adolescence (Lucas & Donnellan,
2009; Roberts & Mroczek,
2008; Shaw et al., 2010). Many irresponsible 18-year-olds have

matured into 40-year-
old business or cultural leaders. (If you are the former, you
aren’t done yet.) Openness,
self-esteem, and agreeableness often peak in midlife (Lucas &
Donnellan, 2011; Orth et
al., 2012, 2015; Specht et al., 2011). Such changes can occur
without changing a person’s
position relative to others of the same age. The hard-driving
young adult may mellow
by later life, yet still be a relatively driven senior citizen.
Life requires both stability and change. Stability provides our
identity. It enables us to
depend on others and be concerned about children’s healthy
development. Our
potential for change gives us our hope for a brighter future. It
motivates our concerns
about present influences and lets us adapt and grow with
experience.
A research team is interviewing a man who, 40 years ago, was
chatty,
proud, and spontaneous. What will they likely discover about
the man’s
current temperament?

His temperament will be very similar to what it was 40 years
ago.
His youthful pride will have increased with age and
accomplishment.
His temperament will be very different from what it was 40
years ago.
Some of his youthful spontaneity will have diminished with age.
Correct. Temperament seems to be one of our most tenacious
characteristics, changing
very little over time, so it’s highly likely that this man’s
temperament will be the same or
similar after 40 years.
close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.1 - Introduction
human-development/pages/3571630-introduction 1/2
Psychology
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.1 Introduction
Introduction
How do personality and development influence decision making
and problem
solving?

This week, Dr. Greenberg focused on how digital devices and
platforms influence and
place pressures on teenagers’ social and emotional development.
Clark and Company/Getty Images
We’ll talk a lot about teenagers this week. Like many people,
psychologists tend to
think teenagers are fascinating, if also a bit frustrating.
Research in the field of
developmental psychology sheds some light on why teenagers
are often impulsive and
moody—in part, it’s because they are still developing their self
and social awareness.
In this week’s Talk, Dr. Barbara Greenberg focused on how cell
phones and social
media influence and place pressures on teenagers’ social and
emotional development.
How exactly are these digital experiences shaping teenagers’
development and
brains?
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.1 - Introduction
human-development/pages/3571630-introduction 2/2
This chapter will build on the biological foundation of
psychology established in
Chapter 2. You’ll examine how a person develops from

childhood through adulthood
—not only how the brain changes but also how thinking and
personality develop.
Reflecting on these concepts will give you a better
understanding of your self and
social awareness skill. You’ll also explore the personality traits
that describe each
person’s individuality and the development of the ability to
make decisions, which is a
component of your problem solving skill. Specifically, you’ll
learn about the following
topics:
Big issues in developmental psychology. You will consider the
three major
issues in this branch of psychology: nature versus nurture, the
continuity and
stages of development, and the stability of traits.
Cognitive development. Every decision you make is influenced
by the
schemas, or mental categories, you use to understand the world.
You will learn
about how these schemas develop starting in infancy.
The developing teen brain. In this chapter, and especially in the
investigation, you will examine how the brain is still developing
in adolescence
and explore how that affects teenagers’ ability to make
decisions and solve
problems.
Adulthood. You’ll also read about how development continues
throughout
adulthood and how physical and mental abilities change with
age. For example,
you can develop and use your self and social awareness
throughout all stages of
your life.

Personality traits. You will examine the five basic personality
traits that
influence who people are and what decisions they make in life.
Social-cognitive theories. In addition to focusing on traits,
you’ll explore how
experience and context affect the way people choose to respond
to their
environment.
Weekly Tip!
Near the end of this chapter, you’ll work on your first
investigation! This is a three-
page assignment that reviews what you’ve learned over the past
three weeks and gives
you a chance to apply your problem solving skill to a real-life
situation. To do well on
this assignment, you’ll want to set aside additional time to
preview the Investigation
pages and review the content from Chapters 1–3. Unlike the
questions you’ve
completed in the webtext so far, the questions on Investigation
pages can be reset
only once, so take your time and answer thoughtfully.
close
Development in Adolescence

Psychology
Development in
Adolescence
Cognitive Development in Adolescence
How did Piaget, Kohlberg, and later researchers describe
adolescent cognitive and
moral development?
During the early teen years, reasoning is often self-focused.
Adolescents may think their
private experiences are unique, something parents just could not
understand: “But,
Mom, you don’t really know how it feels to be in love” (Elkind,
1978). Capable of
thinking about their own thinking, and about other people’s
thinking, they also begin
imagining what others are thinking about them. (They might
worry less if they
understood their peers’ similar self-absorption.) Gradually,
though, most begin to
reason more abstractly.
Developing Reasoning Power
When adolescents achieve the intellectual summit that Jean
Piaget called formal
operations, they apply their new abstract reasoning tools to the
world around them.
They may think about what is ideally possible and compare that
with the imperfect

reality of their society, their parents, and themselves. They may
debate human nature,
good and evil, truth and justice. Their sense of what’s fair
changes from simple equality
to equity—to what’s proportional to merit (Almås et al., 2010).
Having left behind the
concrete images of early childhood, they may now seek a deeper
conception of God and
existence (Boyatzis, 2012; Elkind, 1970). Reasoning
hypothetically and deducing
consequences also enables adolescents to detect inconsistencies
and spot hypocrisy in
others’ reasoning, sometimes leading to heated debates with
parents and silent vows
never to lose sight of their own ideals (Peterson et al., 1986).
Developing Morality
Two crucial tasks of childhood and adolescence are discerning
right from wrong and
developing character—the psychological muscles for controlling
impulses. To be a
moral person is to think morally and act accordingly. Jean
Piaget and Lawrence
Kohlberg proposed that moral reasoning guides moral actions. A
more recent view
builds on psychology’s game-changing new recognition that
much of our functioning

occurs not on the “high road” of deliberate, conscious thinking
but on the “low road,”
unconscious and automatic. Our morality provides another
demonstration of our two-
track mind.
Moral Reasoning
The point to remember A big part of moral development is the
self-discipline needed to
restrain one’s own impulses.
Piaget (1932) believed that children’s moral judgments build on
their cognitive
development. Agreeing with Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg (1981,
1984) sought to describe
the development of moral reasoning, the thinking that occurs as
we consider right and
wrong. Kohlberg posed moral dilemmas (for example, whether a
person should steal
medicine to save a loved one’s life) and asked children,
adolescents, and adults whether
the action was right or wrong. His analysis of their answers led
him to propose three
basic levels of moral thinking: preconventional, conventional,
and postconventional
(Table 2). Kohlberg claimed these levels form a moral ladder.
As with all stage theories,
the sequence is unvarying. We begin on the bottom rung and
later ascend to varying
heights, where we may place others’ comfort above our own
(Crockett et al., 2014).

Preschoolers, typically identifying with their cultural group,
conform to and enforce its
moral norms (Haun et al., 2014; Schmidt & Tomasello, 2012).
When those norms
reward kind actions, preschoolers help others (Carragan &
Dweck, 2014). Kohlberg’s
critics have noted that his postconventional stage is culturally
limited, appearing mostly
among people who prize individualism (Eckensberger, 1994;
Miller & Bersoff, 1995).
Table 2
Kohlberg’s Levels of Moral Thinking
Level (Approximate
Age) Focus Example
Preconventional
morality (before age 9)
Self-interest; obey rules to avoid
punishment or gain concrete
rewards.
“If you save your dying wife,
you’ll be a hero.”
Conventional morality
(early adolescence)
Uphold laws and rules to gain
social approval or maintain
social order.
“If you steal the drug for her,

everyone will think you’re a
criminal.”
Postconventional
morality (adolescence
and beyond)
Actions reflect belief in basic
rights and self-defined ethical
principles.
“People have a right to live.”
Moral Action
Our moral thinking and feeling surely affect our moral talk. But
sometimes talk is cheap
and emotions are fleeting. Morality involves doing the right
thing, and what we do also
depends on social influences. As political theorist Hannah
Arendt (1963) observed,
many Nazi concentration camp guards during World War II
were ordinary “moral”
people who were corrupted by a powerfully evil situation.
Today’s character education programs tend to focus on the
whole moral package—

thinking, feeling, and doing the right thing. In service-learning
programs, where teens
have tutored, cleaned up their neighborhoods, and assisted older
adults, their sense of
competence and desire to serve has increased, and their school
absenteeism and drop-
out rates have diminished (Andersen, 1998; Piliavin, 2003).
Moral action feeds moral
attitudes.
A big part of moral development is the self-discipline needed to
restrain one’s own
impulses—to delay small gratifications now to enable bigger
rewards later. One of
psychology’s best-known experiments was inspired by Walter
Mischel (1988, 1989,
2014) observing his three preschool daughters’ “remarkable
progression” in self-
control. To explore this phenomenon, Mischel gave Stanford
nursery school 4-year-olds
a choice between one marshmallow now, or two marshmallows
when he returned a few
minutes later. The children who had the willpower to delay
gratification went on to have
higher college completion rates and incomes, and less often
suffered addiction
problems. Moreover, when a sample of Mischel’s marshmallow
alums were retested on
a new willpower test 40 years later, their differences persisted
(Casey et al., 2011).
Our capacity to delay gratification—to decline small rewards
now for bigger rewards
later—is basic to our future academic, vocational, and social
success. Teachers and
parents rate children who delay gratification on a marshmallow-

like test as more self-
controlled (Duckworth et al., 2013). A preference for large-later
rather than small-now
rewards minimizes one’s risk of problem gambling, smoking,
and delinquency (Callan
et al., 2011; Ert et al., 2013; van Gelder et al., 2013). The moral
of the story: Delaying
gratification—living with one eye on the future—fosters
flourishing.
How is Mischel’s marshmallow test related to moral
development?
The marshmallow test measures whether children can think
logically about
moral situations and act according to that logic.
The marshmallow test measures whether a child can hold
another person’s
perspective in mind when deciding how to act.
The marshmallow test seems to measure impulse control and the
ability to
delay gratification, both of which are important in moral action.
The marshmallow test measures whether a child is acting based
on self-

defined ethical principles.
Correct. The children who were able to resist the temptation of
the marshmallow went
on to have greater willpower and impulse control as adults and
have fewer issues with
addiction or school attendance.
close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.17 - Helping Teens
Make Decisions (Part 1 of 3)
human-development/pages/3616982-helping-tee… 1/8
Psychology
Investigation
Helping Teens Make Decisions (Part 1 of 3)
For this three-part investigation, you’ll apply concepts of brain
function and
development to the issue of teen decision making.
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.17
Investigation: Helping Teens Make
Decisions (Part 1 of 3)
On this page: 10 of 10 attempted (100%) | 10 of 10 correct
(100%)
You can no longer reset the questions on this page.

Objective: Determine how adolescent brain development affects
decision making.
Teenagers are capable of much more higher-order thinking than
children, but their brains
still lag behind adults’ in their ability to make good decisions,
like what media to watch.
Stocksy
How Can We Help Teens Make Good Decisions?
If your teenage daughter attends a party, will you know how to
help her navigate the
decisions she’ll need to make? How do a complex social
environment and the
development of the teenage brain influence her ability to
consider risks? In this three-
part investigation, we’ll bring together the concepts from the
last three chapters and
determine how to use them to help teens make good decisions.
You’ll also have an
opportunity to practice your decision making by examining a
problem and determining

evidence-based solutions—important parts of your problem
solving skill.
In addition, you’ll learn why it’s often difficult for developing
teenagers to make good
decisions. This knowledge will improve your self and social
awareness, especially when
you’re interacting with teenagers.
Part 1: We’ll begin by reviewing psychological concepts from
the last three
chapters and then gather more information about adolescent
brain development
and how it affects decision making.
Part 2: On the next page, we’ll take a closer look at how teens’
social environment
and desire to take risks influence their decisions.
Part 3: On the last page, we’ll use all of this information to
determine how to help
the teens in our lives make good decisions.
Take a Look Back
In this section, you will check your understanding of the
psychological concepts
referenced in this investigation.
You’ve learned quite a lot in the first three chapters of this
webtext. In Chapter 1, you
read about how psychologists think and how they study the
mind and behavior. In
Chapter 2, you learned about the structure and function of the
brain and neurons. And
in this chapter, you read about personality and development
over the life span. You’ve
also come to understand how these concepts affect your problem

solving skill and your
self and social awareness.
Over the next two pages, we will investigate how the concepts
from these three chapters
can be applied to understand how teenagers make decisions.
Before we do so, let’s
check your understanding of a few of these key concepts. If
you’re unsure of the answer
to any of the following five questions, go back and review the
page noted in the
question.
What substance forms around the axons of neurons and results
in faster
communication among brain regions? (Review page 2.2.)
lobes
testosterone
myelin
dopamine
Correct. The development of myelin, a fatty tissue that
surrounds and insulates axons,

allows for faster communication among brain cells and regions
and is an integral part of
“brain development.”
Which area of the brain is linked to emotions such as fear or
pleasure?
(Review pages 2.5–2.10.)
brainstem
parietal lobes
limbic system
cerebral cortex
Correct. The limbic system includes the hippocampus,
hypothalamus, and amygdala
and is associated with the processing of emotions.
Someone who studies how social media use affects teenagers’
brain activity
is working from which perspective? (Review page 1.3.)
the psychodynamic perspective
the neuroscience perspective
the evolutionary perspective
the behavioral perspective
Correct. Because the neuroscience perspective studies how
different parts of the brain
process information and produce reactions or behaviors, it
would help someone

understand the brain activity of teenagers who use social media.
The social-cognitive perspective emphasizes how our behaviors
result from
interactions between our personality traits and which of the
following?
(Review page 3.15.)
biology
cerebral cortex
situations
limbic system
Correct. According to the social-cognitive theory of personality,
our personality traits
and situations have reciprocal influences on our behavior and on
each other.
Sixteen-year-old Brenda questions her parents’ values but does
not fully

accept her friends’ standards either. According to Erikson’s
stages of
development, Brenda’s confusion about what she really wants
and values in
life suggests that she is struggling with which of the following
issues?
(Review pages 3.4–3.6.)
integrity
autonomy
initiative
identity
Correct. Identity development is the main issue of adolescent
emotional development,
according to Erikson. Adolescents must consider their different
roles and eventually
determine their own identity.
The Teenage Brain
In this section, you will learn about the biology of adolescent
brain development.
Preview the questions and then use the information in the video
clips to answer them.

The following video clips, taken from a longer TED Talk, offer
insight into the biology of
the teenage brain. Thanks to powerful brain imaging technology
that developed in the
last two decades, neuroscientists can now see the brain as it
develops throughout
adolescence and can compare teen brain activity to adult brain
activity. The speaker, Dr.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, will use terms you learned in Chapters
2 and 3 as she discusses
specific areas of the brain that are still developing well into
adolescence.
The Mysterious Workings of the Adolescent Brain (Clip 1 of 2)
YouTube video clip (1:39–4:17).
https://youtu.be/6zVS8HIPUng. Uploaded September
17, 2012, by TED. To activate captions, first click the play
button and then click the CC
button in the embedded player. For a text transcript, follow the
link below.
Read Text Transcript
What kind of processing primarily occurs in the prefrontal
cortex of the
brain?
planning and decision making
sensory touch
movement control
vision

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the
adolescent brSarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings
of the adolescent br……
https://youtu.be/6zVS8HIPUng
https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.soomopublishing.com/courses/
Psych/Sarah_Jayne_Blakemore_Mysterious_Adolescent_Brain_
Transcript_Part1.docx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zVS8HIPUng
Correct. The prefrontal cortex is considered the CEO of the
brain and is responsible for
executive functions such as organization, planning, and decision
making.
What happens to the prefrontal cortex in early adolescence?
Neural communication slows.
Gray matter peaks in volume.
“Pruning” becomes impaired.
Gray matter is reduced.
Correct. Just before puberty, the volume of gray matter in the
prefrontal cortex peaks.

Which term describes the process by which unused or unwanted
neurons
and synapses are eliminated?
synaptic pruning
neural reduction
limbic maturation
synaptic termination
Correct. Synaptic pruning is the process by which unused
neurons and synapses are
eliminated.
Now watch another clip from the same speaker. In this clip, she
describes an
experiment designed to study how adolescents and adults make
decisions that involve
another person. This insight into social decision making, along
with information
presented in Part 2 of this investigation, will help us understand
why teens often make
poor decisions when they’re with their friends. Remember to
preview the questions and
rewatch the clip as many times as you need to ensure you
understand the experiment
described by the speaker.

The Mysterious Workings of the Adolescent Brain (Clip 2 of 2)
YouTube video clip (6:52–10:12).
https://youtu.be/6zVS8HIPUng. Uploaded September
17, 2012, by TED. To activate captions, first click the play
button and then click the CC
button in the embedded player. For a text transcript, follow the
link below.
Read Text Transcript
Which of the following conclusions BEST interprets the data in
the bar
graph titled “Percentage Errors in Director and No-Director
Tasks”?
Adolescents make significantly fewer errors than adults when
they have to
keep the “director’s” perspective in mind.
Adolescents do not differ at all from adults in the ability to take
someone else’s
perspective.
Adolescents make significantly more errors than adults when
they have to
keep the “director’s” perspective in mind.
Adolescents make errors approximately 50 percent of the time,
regardless of

the “director” or “no-direction” condition.
Correct. Although adolescents do better than 7- to 9-year-olds
on this task, they still
make far more errors than adults do when required to take
someone else’s perspective.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the
adolescent brSarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings
of the adolescent br……
https://youtu.be/6zVS8HIPUng
https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.soomopublishing.com/courses/
Psych/Sarah_Jayne_Blakemore_Mysterious_Adolescent_Brain_
Transcript_Part2.docx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zVS8HIPUng
In the “no-director” condition of the experiment, adolescents
can
remember the rule to not move objects with a dark gray
background just as
well as adults can. What does Dr. Blakemore conclude about
this fact?
Adolescents choose to ignore the rule when it is imposed by an

authority
figure, such as in the “director” condition.
Adolescents’ ability to take other people’s perspectives into
account does not
improve after age 13.
Adolescents are capable of knowing a rule, but they still
struggle to make
decisions that require considering someone else’s perspective.
Adolescents are too distracted by the rule when they try to make
decisions that
require considering someone else’s perspective.
Correct. While a 16-year-old will be better at considering
another perspective than a 9-
year-old will be, teenagers make more errors than adults do
when they view a problem
from someone else’s perspective.
close
Development in Childhood
Psychology

Cognitive Development in Childhood
From the perspectives of Piaget and today’s researchers, how
does a child’s mind
develop?
Somewhere on your life journey, you became conscious. When
was that? Jean Piaget
[pee-ah-ZHAY] was a pioneering developmental psychologist
who spent his life
searching for the answers to such questions. He studied
children’s cognitive
development—all the mental activities associated with thinking,
knowing,
remembering, and communicating. His interest began in 1920,
when he was in Paris
developing questions for children’s intelligence tests. While
administering the tests,
Piaget became intrigued by children’s wrong answers, which
were often strikingly
similar among same-age children. Where others saw childish
mistakes, Piaget saw
intelligence at work. Such accidental discoveries are among the
fruits of psychological
science.
The point to remember Piaget’s core idea was that our
intellectual progression reflects
an unceasing struggle to make sense of our experiences.
A half-century spent with children convinced Piaget that a
child’s mind is not a
miniature model of an adult’s. Thanks partly to his careful
observations, we now
understand that children reason differently than adults, in

“wildly illogical ways about
problems whose solutions are self-evident to adults” (Brainerd,
1996).
Piaget’s studies led him to believe that a child’s mind develops
through a series of stages
(Table 1), in an upward march from the newborn’s simple
reflexes to the adult’s abstract
reasoning power. Thus, an 8-year-old can comprehend things a
toddler cannot, such as
the analogy that “getting an idea is like having a light turn on in
your head,” or that a
miniature slide is too small for sliding, and a miniature car is
much too small to get
into.
Table 1
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Typical Age
Range
Description of Stage
Developmental

Phenomena
Birth to nearly 2
years
Sensorimotor: Experiencing the world
through senses and actions (looking,
hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping)
-Object permanence
-Stranger anxiety
About 2 to about
6 or 7 years
Preoperational: Representing things with
words and images; using intuitive rather
than logical reasoning
-Pretend play
-Egocentrism
About 7 to 11
years
Concrete operational: Thinking logically
about concrete events; grasping concrete
analogies and performing arithmetical
operations
-Conservation
-Mathematical
transformations
About 12 through
adulthood

Formal operational: Abstract reasoning
-Abstract logic
-Potential for mature
moral reasoning
Piaget’s core idea was that our intellectual progression reflects
an unceasing struggle to
make sense of our experiences. To this end, the maturing brain
builds schemas,
concepts or mental molds into which we pour our experiences.
By adulthood we have
built countless schemas, ranging from cats and dogs to our
concept of love.
To explain how we use and adjust our schemas, Piaget proposed
two more concepts.
First, we assimilate new experiences—we interpret them in
terms of our current
understandings (schemas). Having a simple schema for dog, for
example, a toddler may
call all four-legged animals dogs. But as we interact with the
world, we also adjust, or
accommodate, our schemas to incorporate information provided
by new experiences.
Thus, the child soon learns that the original dog schema is too
broad and
accommodates by refining the category. Many people whose
schema of marriage was a
union between a man and a woman have now accommodated
same-sex marriage, with a
broadened marriage concept.
The first time that 4-year-old Sarah saw her older brother play a

flute, she
thought it was simply a large whistle. Sarah’s initial
understanding of the
flute best illustrates which of the following processes?
conservation
maturation
assimilation
accommodation
Correct. When children see something totally new and try to
account for it by using a
current understanding (or schema), they are engaged in
assimilation. This is why Sarah
thought the flute was a large whistle.
Reflecting on Piaget’s Theory
What remains of Piaget’s ideas about the child’s mind? Plenty—
enough to merit his
being singled out by Time magazine as one of the twentieth
century’s 20 most
influential scientists and thinkers and his being rated in a
survey of British

psychologists as the last century’s greatest psychologist
(Psychologist, 2003). Piaget
identified significant cognitive milestones and stimulated
worldwide interest in how the
mind develops. His emphasis was less on the ages at which
children typically reach
specific milestones than on their sequence. Studies around the
globe, from aboriginal
Australia to Algeria to North America, have confirmed that
human cognition unfolds
basically in the sequence Piaget described (Lourenco &
Machado, 1996; Segall et al.,
1990).
However, today’s researchers see development as more
continuous than did Piaget. By
detecting the beginnings of each type of thinking at earlier ages,
they have revealed
conceptual abilities Piaget missed. Moreover, they see formal
logic as a smaller part of
cognition than he did. Piaget would not be surprised that today,
as part of our own
cognitive development, we are adapting his ideas to
accommodate new findings.
Implications for Parents and Teachers
Future parents and teachers, remember this: Young children are
incapable of adult
logic. Preschoolers who block one’s view of the TV simply have
not learned to take
another’s viewpoint. What seems simple and obvious to us—
getting off a teeter-totter
will cause a friend on the other end to crash—may be
incomprehensible to a 3-year-old.
Also remember that children are not passive receptacles waiting

to be filled with
knowledge. Better to build on what they already know, engaging
them in concrete
demonstrations and stimulating them to think for themselves.
Finally, accept children’s
cognitive immaturity as adaptive. It is nature’s strategy for
keeping children close to
protective adults and providing time for learning and
socialization (Bjorklund & Green,
1992).
close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.6 - Social Development
in Adolescence
human-development/pages/2701230-social-devel… 1/4
Psychology
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.6 Social
Social Development in Adolescence
What are the social tasks and challenges of adolescence?
Theorist Erik Erikson (1963) contended that each stage of life
has its own psychosocial
task, a crisis that needs resolution. Young children wrestle with

issues of trust, then
autonomy (independence), then initiative. School-age children
strive for competence,
feeling able and productive. The adolescent’s task is to
synthesize past, present, and
future possibilities into a clearer sense of self (Table 3).
Adolescents wonder, “Who am I
as an individual? What do I want to do with my life? What
values should I live by? What
do I believe in?” Erikson called this quest the adolescent’s
search for identity.
Table 3
in Adolescence
Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
Stage
(Approximate
Age)
Issue Description of Task
Infancy (to 1
year)

Trust vs.
mistrust
If needs are dependably met, infants develop a sense of
basic trust.
Toddlerhood (1
to 3 years)
Autonomy
vs. shame
and doubt
Toddlers learn to exercise their will and do things for
themselves, or they doubt their abilities.
Preschool (3 to
6 years)
Initiative vs.
guilt
Preschoolers learn to initiate tasks and carry out plans, or
they feel guilty about their efforts to be independent.
Elementary
school (6 years
to puberty)
Competence
vs.
inferiority
Children learn the pleasure of applying themselves to tasks,
or they feel inferior.

Adolescence
(teen years into
20s)
Identity vs.
role
confusion
Teenagers work at refining a sense of self by testing roles
and then integrating them to form a single identity, or they
become confused about who they are.
Young
adulthood (20s
to early 40s)
Intimacy vs.
isolation
Young adults struggle to form close relationships and to
gain the capacity for intimate love, or they feel socially
isolated.
Middle
adulthood (40s
to 60s)
Generativity
vs.
stagnation
In middle age, people discover a sense of contributing to
the world, usually through family and work, or they may
feel a lack of purpose.
Late adulthood

(late 60s and
up)
Integrity vs.
despair
Reflecting on their lives, older adults may feel a sense of
satisfaction or failure.
Jeremy is 16 years old and is trying different clothes and
hairstyles. His
father is confused and sometimes shocked by the earrings,
chains, hair
colors, and fashion choices. His mother, on the other hand, just
laughs
because she knows that Jeremy is in which stage of
development?
identity vs. role confusion
intimacy vs. isolation
initiative vs. guilt
generativity vs. stagnation
in Adolescence
Correct. In this stage, teenagers try to define and hone their
identity by “trying on”

many different roles or styles. Sometimes they are confused
about who they are, but this
is a totally normal stage of development.
Forming an Identity
To refine their sense of identity, adolescents in individualist
cultures usually try out
different “selves” in different situations. They may act out one
self at home, another
with friends, and still another at school or online. If two
situations overlap—as when a
teenager brings new friends home—the discomfort can be
considerable (Klimstra et al.,
2015). The teen asks, “Which self should I be? Which is the real
me?” The resolution is a
self-definition that unifies the various selves into a consistent
and comfortable sense of
who one is—an identity.
For both adolescents and adults, group identities are often
formed by how we differ
from those around us. When living in Britain, I [DM] become
conscious of my
Americanness. When spending time with collaborators in Hong
Kong, I [ND] become
conscious of my minority White race. When surrounded by
women, we are both
mindful of our male gender identity. For international students,
for those of a minority
ethnic group, for gay and transgender people, or for people with
a disability, a social
identity often forms around their distinctiveness.

Erikson noticed that some adolescents forge their identity early,
simply by adopting
their parents’ values and expectations. (Traditional, less
individualist cultures teach
adolescents who they are, rather than encouraging them to
decide on their own.) Other
adolescents may adopt the identity of a particular peer group—
jocks, preps, geeks, band
kids, debaters.
Most young people do develop a sense of contentment with their
lives. A question:
Which statement best describes you? “I would choose my life
the way it is right now” or,
“I wish I were somebody else”? When American teens
answered, 81 percent picked the
first, and 19 percent the second (Lyons, 2004). Reflecting on
their existence, 75 percent
of American collegians say they “discuss religion/spirituality”
with friends, “pray,” and
agree that “we are all spiritual beings” and “search for
meaning/purpose in life” (Astin
et al., 2004; Bryant & Astin, 2008). This would not surprise
Stanford psychologist
William Damon and his colleagues (2003), who have contended
that a key task of
adolescence is to achieve a purpose—a desire to accomplish
something personally
meaningful that makes a difference to the world beyond oneself.
in Adolescence

Several nationwide studies indicate that young Americans’ self-
esteem falls during the
early to mid-teen years, and, for girls, depression scores often
increase. But then self-
image rebounds during the late teens and twenties (Chung et al.,
2014; Orth et al., 2015;
Wagner et al., 2013). Late adolescence is also a time when
agreeableness and emotional
stability scores increase (Klimstra et al., 2009).
These are the years when many people in industrialized
countries begin exploring new
opportunities by attending college or working full time. Many
college seniors have
achieved a clearer identity and a more positive self-concept than
they had as first-year
students (Waterman, 1988). Collegians who have achieved a
clear sense of identity are
less prone to alcohol misuse (Bishop et al., 2005).
Erikson contended that adolescent identity formation (which
continues into adulthood)
is followed in young adulthood by a developing capacity for
intimacy, the ability to form
emotionally close relationships. When Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
[chick-SENT-me-hi]
and Jeremy Hunter (2003) used a beeper to sample the daily
experiences of American
teens, they found them unhappiest when alone and happiest
when with friends.
Romantic relationships, which tend to be emotionally intense,
are reported by some two
in three North American 17-year-olds, but fewer among those in

collectivist countries
such as China (Collins et al., 2009; Li et al., 2010). Those who
enjoy high-quality
(intimate, supportive) relationships with family and friends tend
also to enjoy similarly
high-quality romantic relationships in adolescence, which set
the stage for healthy adult
relationships. Such relationships are, for most of us, a source of
great pleasure.
close
3/13/2020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.7 - Parent and Peer
Relationships
human-development/pages/2701232-parent-and-… 1/3
Psychology
3 Personality and Human Development / Page 3.7 Parent and
Peer Relationships
Parent and Peer Relationships
How do parents and peers influence adolescents?
As adolescents in Western cultures seek to form their own
identities, they begin to pull
away from their parents (Shanahan et al., 2007). The
preschooler who can’t be close

enough to her mother, who loves to touch and cling to her,
becomes the 14-year-old
who wouldn’t be caught dead holding hands with Mom. The
transition occurs gradually,
but this period is typically a time of diminishing parental
influence and growing peer
influence.
The point to remember Adolescence is typically a time of
diminishing parental influence
and growing peer influence.
As Aristotle long ago recognized, we humans are “the social
animal.” At all ages, but
especially during childhood and adolescence, we seek to fit in
with our groups (Harris,
1998, 2002). Teens who start smoking typically have friends
who model smoking,
suggest its pleasures, and offer cigarettes (J. S. Rose et al.,
1999; R. J. Rose et al., 2003).
Part of this peer similarity may result from a selection effect, as
kids seek out peers with
similar attitudes and interests. Those who smoke (or don’t) may
select as friends those
who also smoke (or don’t). Put two teens together and their
brains become
hypersensitive to reward (Albert et al., 2013). This increased
activation helps explain
why teens take more driving risks when with friends than they
do alone (Chein et al.,
2011).
By adolescence, parent-child arguments occur more often,
usually over mundane things
—household chores, bedtime, homework (Tesser et al., 1989).
Conflict during the

transition to adolescence tends to be greater with first-born than
with second-born
children, and greater with mothers than with fathers (Burk et
al., 2009; Shanahan et al.,
2007).
For a minority of parents and their adolescents, differences lead
to real splits and great
stress (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). But most disagreements are
at the level of harmless
bickering. With sons, the issues often are behavior problems,
such as acting out or
hygiene; for daughters, the issues commonly involve
relationships, such as dating and
friendships (Schlomer et al., 2011). Most adolescents—6000 of
them in 10 countries,
Relationships
from Australia to Bangladesh to Turkey—have said they like
their parents (Offer et al.,
1988). “We usually get along but...,” adolescents often reported
(Galambos, 1992;
Steinberg, 1987).
Positive parent-teen relations and positive peer relations often
go hand in hand. High

school girls who had the most affectionate relationships with
their mothers tended also
to enjoy the most intimate friendships with girlfriends (Gold &
Yanof, 1985). And teens
who felt close to their parents have tended to be healthy and
happy and to do well in
school (Resnick et al., 1997). Of course, we can state this
correlation the other way:
Misbehaving teens are more likely to have tense relationships
with parents and other
adults.
Although heredity does much of the heavy lifting in forming
individual temperament
and personality differences, parents and peers influence teens’
behaviors and attitudes.
When with peers, teens discount the future and focus more on
immediate rewards
(O’Brien et al., 2011). Most teens are herd animals, talking,
dressing, and acting more
like their peers than their parents. What their friends are, they
often become, and what
“everybody’s doing,” they often do.
Part of what everybody’s doing is networking—a lot. Teens
rapidly adopt social media.
U.S. teens typically send 30 text messages daily and average
145 Facebook friends
(Lenhart, 2015). They tweet, post videos to Snapchat, and share
pictures on Instagram.
Online communication stimulates intimate self-disclosure—both
for better (support
groups) and for worse (online predators and extremist groups)
(Subrahmanyam &
Greenfield, 2008; Valkenburg & Peter, 2009). Facebook, from a

study of all its English-
language users, reports this: Among parents and children, 371
days elapse, on average,
before they include each other in their circle of self-disclosure
(Burke et al., 2013).
For those who feel excluded by their peers, whether online or
face-to-face, the pain is
acute. “The social atmosphere in most high schools is
poisonously clique-driven and
exclusionary,” observed social psychologist Elliot Aronson
(2001). Most excluded
“students suffer in silence. . . . A small number act out in
violent ways against their
classmates.” Those who withdraw are vulnerable to loneliness,
low self-esteem, and
depression (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). Peer approval matters.
Parent approval may matter in other ways. Teens have seen their
parents as influential
in shaping their religious faith and in thinking about college and
career choices
(Emerging Trends, 1997). A Gallup Youth Survey revealed that
most shared their
parents’ political views (Lyons, 2005).
Howard Gardner (1998) has concluded that parents and peers
are complementary:
Relationships

Parents are more important when it comes to education,
discipline,
responsibility, orderliness, charitableness, and ways of
interacting with
authority figures. Peers are more important for learning
cooperation, for
finding the road to popularity, for inventing styles of interaction
among
people of the same age. Youngsters may find their peers more
interesting,
but they will look to their parents when contemplating their own
futures.
Moreover, parents [often] choose the neighborhoods and schools
that supply
the peers.
This power to select a child’s neighborhood and schools gives
parents an ability to
influence the culture that shapes the child’s peer group. And
because neighborhood
influences matter, parents may want to become involved in
intervention programs that
aim at a whole school or neighborhood. If the vapors of a toxic
climate are seeping into
a child’s life, that climate—not just the child—needs reforming.
How can self-disclosure on social media affect adolescents’
peer
relationships?
It makes adolescents think more about the future than about the
present.

3132020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.15 - Social-Cognitive Theor.docx

3132020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.15 - Social-Cognitive Theor.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to 3132020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.15 - Social-Cognitive Theor.docx

Similar to 3132020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.15 - Social-Cognitive Theor.docx (6)

More from lorainedeserre

More from lorainedeserre (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

3132020 PSY105 & PSY101 - Page 3.15 - Social-Cognitive Theor.docx