SOSC 1960

Development
Development
 The patterns of growth and change that
occur throughout life

 Nature vs. nurture:

 Studying the development of human beings
allows us to distinguish between the
environmental causes and hereditary causes of
our behavior and thoughts
 Developmental psychologists agree that both
nature and nurture impact developmental
patterns and outcomes
Outline
1. Cognitive development
 From physical reality-based to abstract,
symbol-based thinking
2. Psychosocial development
 Developing healthy, adaptive personal identity
and social relationships
3. Moral development
 From concern about self-interest to application
of broader moral principles
Cognitive development
 The process by which a child’s
understanding of the world changes as a
function of age and experience

 Jean Piaget
 Proposed that children proceed through a
series of four stages in fixed order
 Stages vary in quantity of information acquired
at each stage and in the quality of knowledge
and understanding
Cognitive development:
Piaget’s sensorimotor stage
 Birth to 2 years
 Little competence in representing the world using
images, languages, and other symbols
 Lack object permanence – the awareness that
objects (and people) continue to exist even if
they are out of sight
 Infants learn by touching, sucking, and
manipulating objects in the environment

Renee Baillargeon: infants grasp object permanence

at 3 ½ months of age – or even earlier
2.5-month-old infants looked reliably longer at these impossible
events than at a similar, expected event. (Baillargeon, 2004)
Cognitive development:
Piaget’s preoperational stage
 2 to 7 years

 Characterized by language development

and development of symbol-based thinking
 e.g., pushing a book across the floor like a car

Judy DeLoache and children’s understanding of

symbols – Can children use a scale model to
locate objects in the real environment?
Cognitive development:
Piaget’s preoperational stage

 Egocentric thought
 A way of thinking in which a child views the
world entirely from his or her own perspective
 Assumes everyone shares their perspective and
knowledge
Cognitive development:
Piaget’s concrete operational stage
 7 to 12 years

 Characterized by logical thought and loss

of egocentrism

 Mastery of the principle of conservation –

the knowledge that quantity is unrelated
to the arrangement and physical
appearance of objects
Children in the preoperational stage do not fully understand
conservation yet, but children in the concrete operational
stage do.
Cognitive development:
Piaget’s concrete operational stage
 Logical thinking
 Reversibility: understanding that numbers or
objects can be changed, then returned to their
original state
 Classification: naming and identifying sets of
objects according to appearance, size or other
characteristic
 Transitivity: understanding logical relationships
among elements in a serial order (e.g., If A is
taller than B and B is taller than C, then A is
taller than C)
Cognitive development:
Piaget’s formal operational stage
 12 years to adulthood

 Characterized by abstract, formal, logical

thinking, no longer tied to physical reality
or actual events or experiences

 Only 40-60% of college students and

adults fully reach the formal operational
stage, and even fewer in less
technologically-oriented cultures
Willpower and delayed gratification

 Walter Mischel
 Are children able to resist a tempting treat
in front of them?
 “Hot-and-cool” system: Our “cool” cognitive
system reminds us to resist temptations, but
“hot” stimuli can override and lead to
impulsive actions
Willpower and delayed gratification
 Preschoolers who did better in the
marshmallow test:
 Were more likely to score higher on
standardized tests as adolescents
 Were also more likely to be rated as having a
greater ability to plan, handle stress, respond
reasonably, exhibit self-control, and
concentrate
 Were more likely to do better on self-control
measures as adults, suggesting that some
individuals are more vulnerable to emotional
triggers compared to others
Psychosocial development

 Psychosocial development
 Development of individual’s interactions and
understanding of each other and our
knowledge and understanding of ourselves as
members of society

 How do we develop into social beings?

Psychosocial development
 Attachment
 The positive emotional bond that develops
between a child and a particular individual

 Assessment of attachment
 Ainsworth strange situation: a procedure
involving several brief episodes during which
experimenters observe a baby’s responses to
strangers, separation from mother, and
reunion with mother
Attachment
Strange situation (Ainsworth et al., 1978)

1. Baby plays with toys while mother is present

2. Stranger enters
3. Mother leaves
4. Stranger tries to interact with baby
5. Mother returns, “first union”, and stranger leaves
6. Mother leaves
7. Stranger returns
8. Mother returns, “second union”
Attachment
Category Behavior
Secure attachment Child readily separates from mother
and easily becomes absorbed in
exploration; when threatened or
frightened, child actively seeks
contact and is readily consoled; child
does not avoid or resist contact if
mother initiates it. When reunited
with mother after absence, child
greets her positively. Clearly prefers
mother to stranger.
Insecure attachment
(detached/avoidant)
Insecure attachment
(resistant/ambivalent)
Attachment
Category Behavior
Secure attachment
Insecure attachment Child avoids contact with mother,
(detached/avoidant) especially at reunion after an absence.
Does not resist mother’s efforts to
make contact, but does not seek
much contact. Shows no preference
for mother over stranger.
Insecure attachment
(resistant/ambivalent)
Attachment
Category Behavior
Secure attachment
Insecure attachment
(detached/avoidant)
Insecure attachment Child shows little exploration and is
(resistant/ambivalent) wary of stranger. Greatly upset when
separated from mother, but not
reassured by mother’s return or her
efforts at comforting. Child both seeks
and avoids contact at different times.
May show anger toward mother at
reunion, and resists both comfort
from and contact with stranger.
How does attachment develop?
 Parent must be attuned to the child’s
signals and respond appropriately (e.g.,
smile when the baby smiles, talk to the
baby when he vocalizes)

 Avoidant attachment: mother rejects the

infant or withdraws from contact with the
infant

 Ambivalent attachment: mother is

inconsistently or unreliably available
What are the effects of attachment?
 Children with secure attachment are
 more sociable
 more positive in their behavior towards
friends and siblings
 more empathetic
 more emotionally mature
 less clinging and dependent on teachers
 less aggressive and disruptive
What are the effects of attachment?
 Adolescents with secure attachment
 have more intimate friendships
 are more likely to be rated as leaders
 have higher self-esteem
 are less likely to practice riskier sex
 are less likely to become sexually active
early
What are the effects of attachment?
 Adults with insecure attachment often
experience less relationship satisfaction,
across different cultures

 Side note: One study indicated that, on

average, Hongkongers demonstrated
higher levels of insecure attachment
compared to Americans
(Ho et al., 2011)

26
Moral development

 Lawrence Kohlberg
 People go through a series of stages in the
evolution of their sense of justice and their
reasoning in making moral judgments
 Moral reasoning is bounded by the various
cognitive limitations described by Piaget
Moral development
 Level 1: Preconventional morality
 Focusing on concrete individual interests in
terms of rewards and punishment
 Bounded by egocentric thinking

In favor of stealing: “If Heinz’s wife dies, he could get in

trouble. He’ll be blamed for not spending the money to save
her, and there will be an investigation of him and the
researcher for her death.”

Against stealing: “Heinz shouldn’t steal the drug because if

he’s caught, he’ll be sent to jail. Even if he isn’t caught now,
he may be caught eventually.”
Moral development
 Level 2: Conventional morality
 Approaching moral problems as members of
society; understanding other people’s and the
society’s perspective is needed
 Pleasing others by acting as good members
 Adherence to rules and conventions is rigid; a
rule's appropriateness or fairness is seldom
questioned
In favor: “If his wife dies, Heinz will never be able to look
anybody in the face again.”

Against: “If he steals, he will bring shame onto his family and
himself; he will never be able to face anyone again.”
Moral development
 Level 3: Postconventional morality
 Using broad moral principles (e.g., human
rights, liberty, justice)
 Rules and laws are seen as changeable and
flexible, rather than fixed and absolute
 Abstract, hypothetical reasoning is needed
In favor: “If Heinz lets his wife die, he won’t be blamed or
have violated any laws, but he won’t have lived up to his own
conscience and standards of honesty.”

Against: “If Heinz steals the drugs, he won’t be blamed by

others, but he won’t have lived up to his own conscience and
standards of honesty.”
Moral development

Preconventional morality (stages 1 & 2) dominates in elementary

school; conventional morality (stage 3 & 4) emerges in middle
adolescence; and postconventional morality (stage 5) is
relatively rare, even in adults (Walker et al., 1987)
Moral development
 Moral behavior
 Level of moral reasoning is correlated
positively with prosocial behavior
 Moral reasoning of delinquent children is lower
than non-delinquent children
 20% of a group of incarcerated males and
female were reasoning at conventional or
postconventional levels of morality, compared
to 59% of non-delinquents (Gregg et al., 1994)
 Delinquents appear behind in moral reasoning
because of egocentrism (unable to see crimes
from victim’s viewpoint)
Moral development

 Gender differences –
Carol Gilligan:
 Men view morality primarily in terms of broad
principles (justice, fairness), while women view
morality in terms of individual well-being and
social relationships – the morality of caring
 Compassionate concern for the welfare of others
represents the highest level of morality
Moral development

 Do we really need to wait until puberty to

understand morality?
 By 9 months, infants appear to understand the
difference between “helping” and “hurting”
 By 18 months, children can say which study
character was “nice” and which was “mean”

34
Review

 Chapter 12
 Module 37: Infancy and Childhood
 Module 38: Adolescence: Becoming an Adult