Week 1

Introduction to Lifespan Human Development

Five Principles of Lifespan Human Development
1. Development is Multidimensional
1. Physical
1. Body maturation and growth
2. 2 year old body vs 15 year old
3. Body proportions (infant's head 1/4 length of their body)
4. Health issues
5. Puberty
2. Cognitive
1. Maturation of thought processes and tools we use to obtain knowledge, become aware of the world and
solve problems
2. How we think + understand the world around us and how we fit into it
3. Ch 6, 7, 8, 9
3. Socioemotional
1. Changes in personality, emotions, views of oneself, social skills and interpersonal relationships
2. Part 4 of txt ch 10 11 12 13
2. Development is Multidirectional
1. Consists of both gains and losses, growth and decline throughout lifespan
2. Loss/decline happens not only later in life
1. Ex. When infants are born they have a stepping reflex, reflex disappears once infants learns how to walk
3. Development is Plastic (Plasticity)
1. Malleability or changeability
1. Brain injury harder to recover from as the brain is more developed; easier for 6 month old to recover than
50 y/o
2. Resilience: capability to adapt effectively to adverse contexts or circumstances
1. Development Is Influenced by Multiple Contexts
1. Context:
1. Where and when a person develops
2. Cultural values you grew up around
3. Ideas of right and wrong
4. Customs and traditions
5. Religion
2. Cohort:
1. Generation of people born at the same time
2. Developmental Science is Multidisciplinary
1. Contributions of many disciplines are needed to understand how people grow, think and interact with the world
2. Lifespan human development requires contribution from psych, sociology, econ, neuroscience, medicine, gender
studies, etc. Not just one area

Importance of Context
● Context shape our lives
○ Social context creates a path for what future could or could not look like
○ Can almost predetermine what your future might look like
○ Limits choices
■ Different opportunities for a lower class/upper class child
■ Growing up with the assumption you'll go to college
● Contexts can limit our choices
 ● Life course perspective
○ Looks at how lots of different things interact
○ How old were you when certain things happened to you
○ What historic time did that thing happen to you
■ Ex. Pregnancy: if you got pregnant at 16 in the 1950's - given up for adoption, very socially unacceptable vs
2000's - can have the baby, abortion, etc.

Week 2
Understanding Human Development Theories
Theoretical Perspectives on Human Development
● Theory:
○ Way of organizing set of observations or facts into a comprehensive explanation of how something works
○ Can be used to make predictions
● Hypotheses:
○ Proposed explanations for a given phenomenon
● Five major categories of theoretical perspectives on lifespan human developmentW
1. Psychoanalytic Theories
1. Development and behavior are the result of interplay of inner drives, memories, and conflicts we are unaware of
and cannot control.
2. Two major Psychoanalytic theories/theorists:
1. Freud’s Psychosexual Theory - Behavior is driven by unconscious impulses outside our awareness.
2. Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory - Included the role of the social world in shaping our sense of self
3. Freud's psychosexual stages
1. On slides
4. Erikson's 8 psychosocial stages:
1. On slides
2. Trust vs mistrust: if parent always responds to baby's cry then they learn to trust that their basic needs will
be met, if parent doesn't come then they learn mistrust
3. If learn mistrust in stage 1 they will have a difficult time forming bonds later in life
1. Behaviourist and Social Learning Theories
1. Development and behaviour are influenced by the physical and social environment - not just internal like Freud
2. Two major Behaviourist and Social Learning theories/theorists:
1. Behaviourism: examines only observable behaviour - things that for ex a researcher could observe (can't
observe what's in someone's mind)
2. Social learning theory: people actively process observable information and their thoughts and feelings
then influence their future behaviour - we learn inside our social environment which then impacts later
behaviour
3. Behaviourist Learning Theory (John Watson)
1. Classical conditioning: person or animal comes to associate environmental stimuli with physiological
responses - Pavlov's dog: dog conditioned to salivate at the bell - children conditioned to hate doctor
because early experiences are with vaccines; go to doctor and cry, etc.
2. Operant conditioning: behaviour becomes more or less probable depending on its consequences;
continue rewarded behaviour, stop punished behaviour
4. Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura)
1. Observational learning: people learn through observing and imitating models.
1. Ex. Younger sibling watches older sibling get punished and rewarded for certain behaviour, mimics
rewarded behaviours only
2. Ex. Bobo doll experiment
3. The kinds of toys that kids want imitate parents' behaviour (toy phone, toy vacuum, etc.)
 2. Reciprocal determinism: individuals and environment interact and influence each other
1. We learn from parents and parents learn from us, ex. parents become more patient within months
of baby being born
2. Cognitive Theory
1. Development and behaviour are the result of thought or Cognition
Piaget's Cognitive-Developmental Theory:
1. Children and adults use their ability to think to better understand their environment
2. Organization of learning results in Cognitive schemas or concepts ideas and ways of interacting with the world
3. Schemas are ways for us to organize our knowledge so it makes sense in our brain eg. "food," "furniture" sit on chair, eat
banana not the other way around
4. Piaget's stages of cognitive development
1. Sensorimotor
2. Preoperational
3. Concrete operational
4. Formal operational
1. Systems Theories
1. Emphasizes the role of social context in development
2. People are inseparable from the familiar, neighbourhood and societal contexts in which they live
3. Two systems theories:
1. Vygotsky's Sociocultural Systems Theory:
1. Examines how culture is transmitted from one generation to the next through social interaction
2. Ex. You grew up in Vancouver but Chinese parents - would be brought up with Chinese and
Canadian culture, Vygotsky would suggest that you understand the world based on your cultural
training
2. Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Systems Theory:
1. Addresses both the role of the individual and that individual's social interactions
2. Development is result of interactions among biological, cognitive and psychological changes within
a person and their changing context
3. Individuals are embedded in, or surrounded by, series of sociocultural contexts
4. Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological model: in slides
2. Ethology and Evolutionary Developmental Theory
1. Applies principles of evolution and scientific knowledge about interactive influence of genetic and environmental
mechanisms to understand development
2. Genetic programs and biological predispositions interact with physical and social environment to influence
development

Human Development Research

Fundamental Questions in Lifespan Human Development
1. Are individuals active in their own development?
1. Most would say yes to some degree
2. Ex. Parent makes child smile, parents smiles back and is more likely to talk to the baby in baby talk - "parent-ese"
3. When a baby cries a parent may react with concern or anger/frustration - negative environment created by the
baby
4. Bi-directional relationship
2. Is development influenced by nature or nurture or both?
1. Nature: genetic endowments or heredity, maturational processes and evolution
2. Nurture: physical and social environment
3. Interaction of nature and nurture
4. Both
Methods of Data Collection
● Self report: measures where the person under study answers questions about their experiences, attitudes, opinions,
beliefs and behaviour
○ Most common method of data collection in a lot of social science fields
● Three types:
○ Open-ended interview
■ Researcher sits down with an individual and asks them questions - have a series of questions but may or
may not ask all of them because an open ended interview is driven by the interviewee's responses
(interviewer thinks some questions are inapplicable, etc.)
○ Structured interview
■ Interviewer has a series of questions and asks every single one to every person they interview
■ Not looking for specific responses that can be reduced to numbers
■ Complex data
■ Time-consuming
■ Harder to interview 1000 people than give 1000 people a survey
○ Questionnaire
■ Quantitative data
■ Most common self-report method
● Observational methods: collect and organize information based on watching and monitoring people's behaviour
● Types:
○ Naturalistic observation
■ Go out and observe things in their natural environment
■ Typically person/thing doesn't know they're being watched
■ Jane Goodall
■ Ex. Watch parents interact with their kids at the park (where kids are pretty much free to play however
they want) vs interacting at a restaurant (esp. a nice restaurant bc have to be quiet)
○ Structured observation
■ Researcher sets up a controlled environment where the subject(s) can be observed
■ John Gottman - relationship dude that could predict divorce based on how couples fought/resolved
conflict
● Physiological measures: measure physiological indicators of cognition, emotion and behaviour
● Examples: heart rate, perspiration, cortisol levels

Research Designs
● Case study: in-depth examination of a single person (or small group of individuals)
○ Often done with a person that has gone through a rare experience, has a rare disorder, etc.
○ An individual that possesses a unique quality or experience
● Correlational research: examines the relationship among measured characteristics, behaviours, and events
○ Most common
● Experimental research: procedure that uses control to determine causal relationships among variables
○ Is what finds causation

Developmental research designs

● Cross-sectional: compare groups of people of different ages at one time
○ Most common - can publish v fast
● Longitudinal: study one group of participants at many points in time
● Sequential: assess multiple groups over time
Ethical issues in research
● Responsibilities to the discipline and the process
● Responsibilities to participants
○ Do good and do no harm
○ Informed consent: informed, rational and voluntary agreement to participate
■ Milgram experiment on obedience and authority figures
■ Tuskegee syphilis study
■ Try to determine natural path syphilis takes in the body - watched individuals with syphilis and the
illness taking its course
■ Research did not stop after the cure was found bc they wanted to continue to see if syphilis
affected different people differently
■ The entire sample for this study was African American men
■ 1932-1972
● Responsibilities to society

Week 3
Biological and Environmental Foundations and Prenatal Development
Genetic Disorders
● Dominant-Recessive Disorders
○ Ex. Huntington's Disease; Phenylketonuria (PKU)
● X-linked disorders
○ Ex. Hemophilia (blood won't clot); colour blindness
○ Things that show up on the X chromosome
○ Males more susceptible because don't have other X-chromosome to counter it
● Chromosomal abnormalities
○ Ex. Down syndrome (extra chromosome on 24th pair); Turner syndrome (missing 1 of 2 sex chromosomes, more
likely to be female by default with just X chromosome), Klinefelter syndrome (extra X chromosome, more likely to
be male XXY)
○ An error in cell reproduction (can happen in miosis/mitosis, or damage after miosis/mitosis)
● Mutations
○ Examples of toxins: radiation and agricultural chemicals in food
○ Can occur spontaneously or over time
○ Related to pregnant mom being exposed to toxins or something in environment that causes gene mutation
● ~1/2 of all conceptions have some sort of mutated chromosome but depending on how bad it is, it'll be spontaneously
aborted (miscarriage)
○ Some women don't even notice because it's only like 4-5 weeks past last period

Predicting and Detecting Genetic Disorders

● Genetic counseling
○ Constructing family history of heritable genetic disorders to determine risk of genetic defects and chromosomal
abnormalities
○ If one partner or the other has a history of heritable genetic disorders they might want to do genetic counseling
before deciding to conceive
● Prenatal diagnosis
○ Testing done to assess for genetic defects and chromosomal abnormalities
○ Done after the woman is already pregnant
○ Often done for high-risk individuals (ex someone that did genetic counseling and decided to risk it anyways)
○ Amniocentesis
○ CVS - Chorionic villus sampling: higher risk
 ○ Automatically a high risk pregnancy if over the age of 35 - esp if it's their first child
● Prenatal treatment
○ Therapies administered prenatally to reduce effects of genetic abnormalities
○ Drugs or surgery on developing fetus while it's still developing

Behavioural Genetics
● Examines how genes and experience combine to influence human traits, abilities and behaviours
○ Studies of families (twins, adoption)
● Dizygotic twins more similar than siblings 2 years apart bc share prenatal environment
● The Mixed Up Brothers of Bogota
○ 2 sets of twins that got swapped

Gene-Environment Interactions
● Range of reaction:
○ Wide range of potential expressions of genetic trait, depending on environmental opportunities and constraints
○ Set genes, variable environment
○ Ex. Nutrition (can positively or negatively affect a child's development) - height, strength (muscle strength),
● Canalization:
○ Heredity narrows range of development to only one or a few outcomes
○ Only a few things that could happen in the way that trait develops
○ Opposite of range of reaction
○ Would have to be really powerful forces to change heredity
○ Ex. Worldwide most babies start walking around 12 months. Heredity says you'll walk at 1 year. But severe
deprivation can make kids not walk till the age of 2 (developing countries) - ex. The ground is dangerous so they
are carried all the time
● Gene-Environment Correlations:
○ Many traits are supported by both genes and environment
○ Ex. Of a gene-environment correlation: both your parents are musically talented so they pass that trait to you and
provide you with music lessons to make the trait even stronger (gene sets the stage and environment feeds it)
○ Niche-picking
■ When the child is an active participant
■ Ex. Both parents musically inclined, played instruments early in life but now don't because they hate it and
parents forced them to do it so they don't put you in music lessons BUT you want to try music so you do

Prenatal Development
● The Embryonic Period
○ 3rd-8th week after conception
○ Most rapid development ever in our life
○ All our systems begin to develop (digestive, circulatory, not skeletal but everything else basically), brain, heart
○ Period where if there is seriously wrong then the embryo is spontaneously aborted/miscarried
○ For many embryos that are spontaneously aborted there would be so many complications that it would die in the
first year of life or basically die on the spot once born
● Fetal period
○ 9th week to birth
○ Marked by the development of bone
○ More about all of the organs and systems becoming functional
○ Fine-tuning of systems
○ Age of viability (22 weeks in developed countries - 4 months early) - the age the baby can be kept alive if born
(with help of hospitals, etc.)
Infants at Risk: Low Birth Weight Babies
● Birth weight
○ Low birth weight
■ 2500g / 5.5 lbs
○ Very low birth weight
■ 1500g / 3.5 lbs
○ Extremely low birth weight
■ <750g / 1 lb 10 oz.
● Two types of low-birth weight babies
○ Preterm
■ Baby was born before estimated due date which is why it's small
○ Small for date
■ Full term pregnancy but baby is still small
● At risk for more problems
○ #1 cause of infant mortality
● Kangaroo Care
○ Used in NICU
○ When one of the parents or nurse removes their shirt and puts baby directly on skin and u put the baby so the ear
is on your chest and can hear HR
○ Skin to skin contact, warmth + hear heartrate
○ Low birthweight babies that do this grow faster, eat more, sleep more, cry less

Environmental Influences on Prenatal Development

● Teratogens
○ Agents that causes damage to prenatal development, such as disease, drug or other environmental factors,
producing a birth defect

Effect of Teratogens are Complicated

● Critical periods
○ Periods when embryo/fetus is more susceptible to damage from exposure to teratogens
○ Complicated bc some birth defects are caused by a specific teratogen and multiple birth defects can be linked to
one teratogen and multiple teratogens can be linked to one birth defect
● Dose
○ Amount of exposure influences effects of teratogens
○ Higher dose = more problems
● Individual differences
○ Individual variation in susceptibility to teratogens
○ Different effects on different women

Types of Teratogens
● Prescription and Non-prescription/over-the-counter/OTC Drugs (Thalidomide)
○ Antibiotics
○ Anticoagulants - so mother doesn't get a blood clot and die
○ Thalidomide - given to women w morning sickness in 1950s. Widely used. Thalidomide babies were born -
truncated limbs, blindness, deafness - half the babies died
● Alcohol
○ Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: Continuum of effects of exposure to alcohol. Which vary with the timing and
amount of exposure
 ○ Leading cause of developmental disabilities (cognitive)
● Cigarettes
○ Linked to fetal death, premature birth, low birth weight, SIDS - sudden infant death syndrome, respiratory
problems
● Marijuana
○ Mixed research
○ Some shows it functions as a teratogen and results in low birth weight but some research shows it does nothing
● Cocaine and heroin
○ Addiction, withdrawal and other problems
○ Baby is born addicted and has to go through withdrawal
○ Low birth weight, impaired motor performance, problems with brain development, smaller head
● Maternal illness
○ When pregnant mom gets really sick
○ Rubella/German measles when occurs before 11th week - blindness, deafness, heart defects, brain defects,
spontaneous abortion
● Environmental hazards
○ Chemicals
○ Radiation
○ Air pollution
○ Heavy metals

Maternal Characteristics and Behaviours

● Age
○ >35 y/o = high risk pregnancy
○ Risk of down syndrome goes up the most with age
● Nutrition
○ What the woman eats goes directly to fetus
○ 2000-3000 calories a day to maintain pregnancy
○ Spina bifida - lack of folic acid
● Emotional wellbeing
○ Chronic stress in pregnant women (domestic violence, dangerous neighbourhood) - low birth weight, premature
birth, longer hospital stays, stress hormones go to the baby = child has ADHD, anxiety, aggressive tendencies
● Prenatal care
○ Sonograms, doctors visits, amniocentesis, vitamins, advice on nutrition + emotional wellbeing

Physical Development
Physical Development in Infancy and Childhood
● Growth norms: expectations for typical gains and variations in height and weight for children based on chronological age
and background
● Growth in infancy
○ Infancy is the first year of life
● Growth in early and middle childhood
○ Early childhood: 1-5
○ Middle childhood: 5-9
○ Early and middle childhood are pre-puberty
○ More adult body proportions (grow into their head)
● Biological and contextual influences
○ Genetics
○ Hormones
 ○ Health and environment
■ Access to clean water, proper sanitation, access to medical care

Physical development in adolescence

● Puberty
○ The biological transition that an individual makes that takes them from being a child to having the capacity to
reproduce
○ Takes ~4 years
○ Changes can occur as early as 9 years old (hormonal changes) then ~9 months later physical changes start
○ Hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis (HPG)
■ Related to hormones and how much hormones of varying types get released to spur on the physical
changes of puberty
○ Adolescent growth spurt
■ Adolescence is when the body starts changing hormonally to transition into adulthood (when puberty
starts). Ends at the age of ~24: brain still develops till then
■ Biggest growth spurt is the growth spurt related to pubertal growth (~ age 10 for girls, 12 for boys) - rapid
gain in weight and height
■ Girls gain more fat (hips + breasts)
■ Boys gain more muscle (shoulders broaden)
○ Secondary sex characteristics
■ The things that make a man look like a man and a woman like a woman (pubic hair, underarm hair,
breasts, more course body hair on men, deeper voice in men, facial hair)
○ Primary sex characteristics
■ Parts of the body directly related to reproduction
■ First period (menarche)
■ Uterus + ovaries grow
■ Ovaries become functional
■ Spermarche - first time a male ejaculates (wet dream)
■ Testes, prostate, penis grows and matures
■ Most girls are at reproductive capacity when girls are 14 and boys are 16
■ Puberty is happening earlier and earlier
● Biological influences on pubertal timing
○ Age at which your parents went through puberty is #1 influence
○ More related to mom-daughter, dad-son
● Contextual influences on pubertal timing
○ Nutrition
■ Fat: fatty diets --> protein leptin --> starts process of getting ovaries ready to work
■ Basically the more fat that a girls has = earlier puberty/ovulation
■ Most likely also happens with boys and spermarche but easier to track in girls
○ Stress
■ Extreme stress (domestic abuse, sexual abuse, poverty, severe untreated anxiety) causes puberty to occur
earlier
○ SES (socioeconomic status)
■ Low SES linked to earlier puberty because they are more likely to be overweight and obese

Psychosocial effects of early and late puberty

● Off-timed puberty
○ Related to anxiety, depression
○ Early: before 8 (10-20% of girls) or 9 (boys)
 ○ Late: after 13 (girls) or 14 (boys)
■ Not nearly as problematic
■ More problematic for boys bc at 16 their friends will look fully developed but they look like a kid
■ Girls' friends typically won't shun them for not going through puberty
○ Early maturation linked with more problems than late maturation especially in girls
■ Body image issues
■ Low self esteem
■ Depression, anxiety
■ Girls who start early, once they get a bit older (13, 14) they usually end up being the victims of rumor
spreading about being really sexual/slutty because they look fully developed
○ Contextual factors influence the effects of pubertal timing
■ Starting early wouldn't be a problem if people didn't treat them differently
■ Girls who are early end up maturing really early then get treated like they are older than they are then
they start participating in sexual activity early, use drugs/alcohol because they are being treated as adults
■ Higher risk for STIs, teen pregnancy, termination of pregnancy or being a teen mom because brain
isn't that developed
■ Start hanging out with older kids
■ Sometimes girls who are early look really grown up so attract 18/19/20 year old men

Eating behaviours in infancy and childhood

● Breast feeding
○ The "perfect meal"
○ Has the right amount of nutrition, vitamins, minerals
○ Has immunities in it
○ Strongly recommended by doctors
○ Benefits for babies: perfect nutrition, lower rates of allergies and asthma, less likely to grow up to be obese
○ Breast milk less likely to cause digestive issues than formula
○ Middle class women can take time off work (paid or unpaid) or has office with lock on door where she can pump
or breastfeed
○ Lower class women can't take time off work = can't breastfeed + need to buy expensive formula
○ Benefits to moms: less likely to have postpartum depression, more likely to lose weight after giving birth, enables
the mom to eat a lot of food that turns into breast milk so doesn't have to watch what she eats as much
● Eating solid food
○ ~6 months
○ Important to introduce 1 food at a time to figure out allergies
○ Toddlers (2-3): appetite decreases because rapid growth is over + they feed themselves
● Food insecurity in Canada
○ Lack of consistent access to adequate food sources
○ Eating less or eating bad quality food
○ Statistics
■ 8.3% of Canadian households are food insecure
■ Single parent families: 22.6%
■ Nunavut: 36.7%
■ Poorer households = more food insecure
○ Consequences
■ When families are food insecure =/= fresh food and veggies = much more likely to be obese bc eating
calorie dense, nutrient poor food (bread, pasta, etc.)
■ Kids that don't have enough food (breakfast in particular) affects concentration and cognition = worse
grades
 ■ Worse immune system = get sicker easier

Eating behaviours in adolescence and adulthood

● Adolescence
○ Growth spurt
○ Diet trends
■ Higher obesity and overweight rates with high schools with fast food near them
■ Uptick in overweight and obesity in adolescence because of change in eating habits
○ Family meals
■ Adolescents that eat dinner as a family every night = less overweight/obesity
■ Rates go down even more if they help cook the meal
● Adulthood
○ Caloric intake needs to go down which a lot of the time it doesn't
○ Ability to remain active goes down
○ Need to reduce caloric intake because not growing anymore and not exercising as much

Child and adolescent overweight and obesity

● Body mass index (BMI)
○ Obesity = 95th percentile
● Rates in Canada
○ Canada has made a dip downward for obesity
○ High rates of overweight and obesity in developed, rich countries
○ 1987: 23%, 2004: 35%, recently: 30%
○ Canada ranked 11th in the world for obesity rates
○ US: 5th in world, 47%(?)
● Consequences
○ 80% chance of maintaining obesity status for entire adult life if a child is obese
● Causes
○ Biological/genetic connection takes a back seat
○ Sometimes poor eating habits
○ Being poor
○ Food desert: no access to nutritious food + rarely/never have organic products - poor neighbourhoods have mini
marts rather than grocery stores = worse quality food
○ Lack of physical activity

Physical activity and exercise

● In childhood and adolescence
○ Rates in Canada
○ Facilitating increased rates
○ Causes of low activity
■ Inactive parents
■ Living in unsafe neighbourhood or that doesn't have parks
● In adulthood
○ Rates in Canada
■ Recommend 20-22 mins vigorous activity every day
○ Physical and Mental Health Benefits
■ Adults that are regularly active have better balance
■ Less disease in the long run
■ Could just be because those who exercise tend to eat better
 ■ Food + exercise go hand in hand
■ Mental health: stress relief, increases mood, more energy, more ability to cope with day to day stressors

Total physical activity

Age group Self-report minutes a day Accelerometer-reported minutes a day
18-39 57.6 26.6
40-59 48.8 22.8
60-79 34.1 15.5
● Canadian study done in 2015
● Self-report data vs. accelerometer data (kinda like a Fitbit)
● People think they're doing 2x less exercise as they think
● 18-59 age group still getting recommended amount of daily exercise

Week 4
Health
Injuries and Death in Infants, Children and Adolescents
● Infant mortality
○ Low birth weight
○ Chromosomal abnormalities
○ SIDS
● Deaths in 2-17 year-olds
○ Drowning
○ Motor vehicle accidents
■ 1 and 2 but switch sometimes (ex. 1 motor vehicle 2 drowning)
● Individual and contextual factors putting children at risk for injury and death
○ Poor caretaker supervision
■ Kids under 10 (2-5 esp.)
■ Parents responsible for keeping them safe
■ Sometimes parents feel like they don't have control over a child so they don't try to gain control over their
child
■ May think injuries are an inevitable part of childhood
■ Parents also just get distracted (esp. 18 months - 2 years)
○ SES (socioeconomic status)
■ Poor people often live in less maintained neighbourhoods (kid hits a pothole on bike, falls)
■ Higher risk of being shot in extreme cases
○ Sometimes kids put themselves at risk
■ Impulsive
■ ADD/ADHD

Child Maltreatment
● Child abuse: any intentional harm to a minor
○ Decreases with age (can speak up, leave situation, fight back)
● Child neglect: child is deprived of adequate food clothing, shelter or medical care
○ Medical neglect more common in US because it's expensive
○ More often than not the parent simply does not have the resources to provide food/medical care/shelter/clothing
○ When child protective services steps in they usually try to aid the family in getting the resources they need to take
care of the child instead of removing it
● Mandated reporters: people legally obligated to report suspected child maltreatment
 ○ Teachers, councillors, therapists, people in religious organizations, coaches

Child Maltreatment
● Effects of child maltreatment
○ Effects on brain development
■ Shaking babies can cause brain damage
■ Shaken baby syndrome: baby won't stop crying so the parent shakes it
■ ACE - adverse childhood experiences
■ More ACEs = more significant effects on brain (damage)
○ Socioemotional effects
■ Physical/emotional abuse (not so much neglected) = have difficult time regulating emotions
■ Kids exposed to ACEs grow up into adults that don't know how to regulate their emotions
■ Difficult time holding a job (scream at customer, outbursts in the workplace)
■ Short-term relationships or tenuous relationships (not very good)
■ Difficulty recognizing other people's emotions
● Risk factors for child maltreatments
○ Child characteristics
■ Can be seen as victim blaming
■ Ex. Special needs children are more likely to be abused because they're more challenging
■ Ex. Low birth weight babies/preemies: don't like being touched, don't smile so lowered ability for parent
and child to bond. Crying baby + no bond = abuse
○ Patent characteristics
■ Poor coping skills (shaking babies)
■ Low problem solving skills
■ Poor impulse control
■ Little understanding of normal childhood development
■ Marital instability
■ Poor people
○ Societal factors
■ Political/religious views that suggest that a parent has the right to do whatever they want with a child
■ Ex. It is legal to spank a child but you can't hit a child with an object
■ Still some parents out there that think beating a child with a belt is a good form of discipline
■ US is a very violent country
■ More child abuse in more violent societies

Tobacco Use in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

● Health consequences of smoking
○ Cancer
○ Vascular problems (stroke, aneurysm)
● Smoking cessation
○ Difficult because nicotine is so highly addictive
○ Withdrawal symptoms kick in almost immediately (within a day)
■ Irritability, cravings for other things to replace smoking, anxiety, attention deficit
● E-cigarette use
○ People used to replace cigarettes
○ Told it was safer than smoking forms of tobacco
○ 2012-2015: 900% increase in e-cigarette use in youth
○ Long-term effects
■ Don't know if safer than regular cigarettes
 ■ Took decades to realize cigarettes are bad so may take equally long to figure out that e-cigarettes are
equally bad or worse
■ Linked to short term cardiopulmonary problems (lungs + heart) from chemicals
■ More research needs to be done
○ E-cigarettes purchased at convenience store
■ Canadian study: purchased e-cigarettes from convenience stores that were "nicotine-free" - half had
nicotine in them
■ Additionally, consequences of mechanism used to make the liquid turn into vapour and putting it into your
lungs is unknown

Alcohol Use in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

● Alcohol use is very common in Canada
○ 69% of university students use
○ Numbers most likely very similar across US and Canada even though there are different drinking ages
○ Statistics
■ Binge Drinking: Consuming five (men) or four (women) or more drinks in one sitting
■ Grade 7-12 - 24% have had experience with binge drinking
■ 35% of university students have had experience with binge drinking
● May serve developmental function
○ Provides autonomy from parents (hide from parents)
○ Big part of social gatherings so if you want to maintain and facilitate social relationships, alcohol can do that
● Biological effects on adolescents
○ Can do some neurological damage esp. with binge drinking - cognitive impairment
● Use increases during transition to adulthood and then declines with transition into adult roles (career, marriage,
parenthood)
○ Can be hard to maintain career, marriage, etc. if drinking a lot

Marijuana Use in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

● Common substance used by teens and young adults
○ Canada statistics
■ Average at first use is 14
■ Haven't seen big increase in consumption of marijuana since legalization
■ 24% have used cannabis in last 3 months
■ One study surveyed consumption + perceptions of marijuana use + ideas of effects + what's ok/not ok =
big difference in males than females
■ Males perceive as less risky than females
■ Males consume more
■ Males are more likely to drive a car after using marijuana
● Short term negative effects
○ Cognitive difficulties
○ Impaired judgement
○ Impaired problem solving
○ Impaired abstract reasoning
● Long term negative effects
○ Chronic (daily) users:
○ Cognitive difficulties (consistent)
○ Lung/breathing illnesses
○ Cancer
● Lifetime problems associated with use
 ○ General life problems
○ Lower academic achievement especially if they start grade 8-12
○ Lower income due to low academic achievement
○ Higher unemployment rate
○ Poor relationships
○ Less satisfied with relationships, more conflict
○ Poor life satisfaction
● Addictive nature of marijuana
○ Activates brain's reward centre, brain wants more = addiction
○ Withdrawal - kicks in quickly for individuals that use every day, anxiety, difficulty sleeping, irritability

Brain, Perception and Motor Development

Brain Development in Infancy and Childhood
● Synapses
○ Synaptogenesis: the formation of new synapses
■ The brain makes way more synapses than we need in the first years of life (birth to 2 years old - 500%
increase in synapses)
○ Synaptic pruning: loss of unused neural connections
○ Connectors that allow messages to be sent from one neuron or nerve cell to another throughout the body
● Lateralization: process of brain hemispheres becoming specialized to carry out different functions
○ Growth of corpus callosum (neural fibers that connect the two hemispheres)
○ Process begins before birth
○ Left/right handedness: predisposed to before we are born; genetic
■ A child is born with a preference for left or right hand
■ Environment might also contribute to which hand is more dominant
■ Right handedness used to be preferred and left handedness would try to be corrected
● Plasticity: brain's capacity to change its organization and function in response to experience
○ More plastic in first few years of life (infancy and early childhood)

Brain Development in Adolescence

● Pubertal hormones trigger neurological developments
○ Synaptogenesis
○ Increase in cerebral cortex volume
■ Helps with judgement
■ Can analyze things more complexly
● Dual process model: limbic system (responsible for emotion and reward) undergoes burst of development before
prefrontal cortex (responsible for judgment)
○ This difference in development may account for "typical" adolescent behaviours

Gross Motor Development

● Ability to control the large movements of the body
○ Actions that help us move around in our environment
● Evolve in predictable sequence
○ Cephalocaudal progression
○ Head down
● Gains in coordination
● Control over large muscles

Fine Motor Development

 ● Ability to control small movements of the fingers such as reaching and grasping
● Opportunities to practice motor skills
● Child-rearing context

Sensation and perception

● Sensation: occurs when senses detect a stimulus
● Perception: the sense our brain makes of the stimulus and our awareness of it

Vision and Hearing

● Visual acuity: sharpness of vision
○ Newborn
○ 6-12 months
● Visual tracking: follow movements with eyes
○ Newborns bad
○ Better after a few months
● Hearing is most well-developed sense at birth
● Newborns are attentive to voices and prefer speech sounds over other, nonspeech sounds

Touch, smell and taste

● Touch (especially with the mouth) is a critical means of learning about the world
● Caregiver's massage can reduce stress responses
● Skin-skin contact has analgesic effect (reducing infants' pain response)
● Smell and taste are well developed at birth
● Can recognize mother's odor
● Show innate preferences for some tastes

Week 5
Cognitive Change: Cognitive-Developmental and Sociocultural Approaches
Piaget's Cognitive-Developmental Perspective: Process of Development
● Piaget referred to toddlers as "little scientists"
● 4 different concepts/ideas used to explain cognitive development:
● Schemas:
○ Concepts, ideas and ways of interacting with the world
○ With each new experience, kids learn something new and put it into an existing schema or they may have to
create a new schema
● Assimilation:
○ Integrating a new experience into a pre-existing schema
● Accommodation:
○ Modifying or creating a schema in light of new information
● Cognitive disequilibrium:
○ Our schemas do not match everything in the world

Infancy: The Sensorimotor Stage

Name of reflex Response Developmental stage

Palmar grasp Curling fingers around objects that touch the palm Birth to about 4 months when it's replaces by
voluntary grasp
Rooting Turing head and tongue toward stimulus when cheek is touched Disappears over first few weeks of life and is replaced
by voluntary head movement

Sucking Sucking on objects placed into the mouth Birth to about 6 months

Moro Giving a startle response in reaction to loud noise or sudden change in the Birth to about 5 to 7 months
position of the head, resulting in throwing out arms, arching the back and
bringing the arms together as if to grasp something

Babinski Fanning and curling the toes in response to striking the bottom of the foot Birth to about 8-12 months

Stepping Making stepping movements as if to walk when held upright with feet Birth to about 2 or 3 months
touching a flat surface

Swimming Holding breath and moving arms and legs as if to swim, when placed in Birth to about 4 to 6 months
water

Infancy: The Sensorimotor Stage

● Piaget says infancy is birth - 18 months
● Primary Circular Reactions: repeating actions involving body parts that produce pleasurable or interesting results
○ Birth-4 months
○ Accidental
○ Hands and feet free, eventually they find a hand/finger and start sucking on it, or they'll find a foot and start
playing with it
● Secondary circular reactions: repetitions of actions that trigger responses in external environment
○ 4-8 months
○ Swing around a rattle because it makes a cool noise
● Object permanence: understanding that objects continue to exist outside of sensory awareness
○ 8-12 months according to Piaget
○ New research says maybe younger
○ Peekaboo - child will look away if you cover yourself with a blanket because they think you're gone
○ Eventually they realize you're still there even though they can't see you
● Tertiary circular reactions: active, purposeful, trial and error exploration to search for new discoveries
○ 12-18 months
○ Ex. Turning the milk cup over (trial and error) if I do this thing will it get the same result
○ Drop things off high chair (drop ball, it bounces, keys don't bounce)
○ Learn to interact with environment
○ Learning that they can control their environment in some way and in process they learn more about environment

Early Childhood: Preoperational Reasoning

● 18 months - 6 years
● Egocentrism: Inability to take another person's perspective
○ Think that everyone has the perspective they have
○ One way they test egocentrism: the three mountain problem:
■ Little girl and mother on one side of table, bear is on other (tree on bear side, little girl sees tree when she
walks in, house on girl side)
■ Ask what the bear sees, she says a house because she assumes the bear sees the same thing she sees
● Animism: Belief that inanimate objects are alive and have feelings and intentions
○ Doesn't just think the bear sees the house but also believes the bear is like another human and has the ability to
see and hear things
○ Kinda goes hand in hand with egocentrism
 ● Irreversibility: Lack of reasoning to see that reversing a process can often undo and restore it to the original state
○ Ex. Build blocks into a tower, can take blocks down but you know you can put it back up in the same order; these
kids don't understand that - think that once it's gone it's gone
● Conservation: Understanding that the quantity of a substance is not transformed by changes in its appearance
○ Not doing any operational reasoning at this stage, don't understand reversibility
○ Pre-operational perspective
○ Will take pre-operational child (5 years old) and 12 pennies and line them up 6 wide, 2 long
○ Spread out first row, squeeze together bottom row, and they watch you do this, they now think first row has more
pennies
○ Take two equally big balls of clay - are they same size?? Yes. Squish down one to baguette size - they now think it
has more clay
○ Two glasses with same amount of water, take one glass and pour into bowl - will think glass has more water than
bowl

Middle Childhood: Concrete Operational Reasoning

● Acquire reversibility and conservation skills
● Classification: ability to understand hierarchies, to simultaneously consider relationships between a general category and
more specific subcategories
○ Seriation: Ability to order objects in a series according to a physical dimension
■ Ex. Ask a child (9 years old) and give them blocks of different sizes, ask them to put in order of biggest to
smallest, they can now do that
○ Transitive Interference: Ability to infer the relationship between two objects by understanding each object's
relationship to a third
■ Ex. If you say to them "Sarah is taller than tom, and tom is taller than Rebecca, what can you tell me about
Sarah and Rebecca?" they can infer than Sarah is taller than Rebecca
● Cultural differences in concrete operational reasoning
○ Education plays big role
○ Train kids in developed countries to do things that kids in developing countries are not trained to do

Adolescence: Formal Operational Reasoning

● ~11-12 years old
● Hypothetical-deductive reasoning: ability to consider problems, generate and systematically test hypothesis, and draw
conclusions
○ Even some adults can't do this
○ Education plays a role
○ Not consistent among all adults - not associated with lower IQ
● Adolescent egocentrism: difficulty separating one's own perspective from that of another person
○ Imaginary Audience: Heightened level of self-consciousness because you believe that everyone is always looking at
you - "I'm having a bad hair day and EVERYONE is going to notice"
○ Personal fable: sense of self-importance and invincibility - ex. unprotected sex, "it won't happen to me" mindset

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Perspective

● Scaffolding: assistance that permits the child to bridge the gap between his or her current competence level and the task
at hand
● Guided participation: more skilled partner is attuned to needs of the child and guides her to accomplish more than she
could do alone
● Zone of proximal development: the gap between a child's competence level (what she can do alone) and what she can do
with assistance
● Cultural tools: includes physical items, ways of thinking about phenomena, and problem solving
Cognitive Change: Information Processing Approach
The Information Processing System
● Sensory memory: hold incoming sensory information in the original form
○ One of five senses has to be stimulated
○ Attention: awareness of information
● Working memory (short term memory): holds and processes information that is being "worked on", manipulated, encoded
or retrieved
○ Nothing is stored here
○ Info processing approach: take info in from sensory memory and do something with it (manipulate, encode,
retrieve)
○ Trying to figure out if what we know is important and where we wanna put it
○ Two aspects:
○ Central executive: control processor that directs the flow of information and regulates cognitive activities such as
attention, action and problem solving
■ The "boss" in the brain
■ Decides what your brain should do with that info: new: new place in long term memory to store, related to
something in long term memory and needs to be merged
○ Executive function: cognitive process of understanding information, making decisions and solving problems
■ What's manipulating, encoding or retrieving information
● Long term memory: unlimited store that holds information indefinitely
○ Nothing is being done with the info here, if something needs to be done it's moved to working memory then
moved back
● Suggested this system is in place since birth

Information processing in infancy

● Attention: direct one's awareness at a particular object
○ Can direct attention at things by second month (?)
○ More likely to pay attention to something dynamic/moving than static
● Memory
○ Visual & auditory stimuli
■ Even newborns have
○ Motor activity
■ Muscle memory - can learn to remember actions
○ Emotional engagement
■ Increases ability to remember things
■ Talking, cuddling, hugging, getting them to laugh
■ Negative emotional engagement also increases ability to remember things (yelled at, shaken, etc.)
● Thinking
○ Categorization: grouping different stimuli together
■ Things like food, toys and then dolls vs. blocks within toys
■ Can be seen at 4-5 months
■ Often will do with toys and clothes, balls and blocks may be more difficult

Information processing in childhood (2-11)

● Selective attention: ability to systematically focus on relevant information and ignore distractors
○ Younger kids not good at this
○ "School aged" (grade 1-6) kids are much better at this
■ Result of their executive function and working memory trying to decide what's imporant
 ● Memory strategies: cognitive activities that make us more likely to remember
○ Tricks to help us better remember
○ Rehearsal
■ Keep repeating things over and over again so you can retain them to memory
■ Ex. Alphabet song
■ Ex. for school aged kids - multiplication tables
○ Organization
■ Like classification
■ Like Piaget's schemas - creates groupings of things
■ Dogs and cats
■ Trees vs flowers
■ Different foods
■ 3 and 4 years old can start to teach
■ Protein, diary, fruits and vegetables, grain
● Knowledge: knowledge structures become more elaborate and organized across childhood
○ Come up with different ways of trying to learn and organize things
○ This together becomes their collective knowledge
● Cultural influences
○ Much of what was described for childhood is all about being in a formal education setting
○ Children not in a formal education setting will come up with memorization strategies but may not be rehearsal and
organization because they're not being trained to do so in school
● Long term memory in children
○ Memory for scripts: scripts are routines
■ Impotant for 2-6 year olds
■ Creating routines = less chaos
■ Helps them store stuff in long term memory and retrieve it
■ Ex. Process of getting ready for bed: brush teeth, go to bathroom, put on pajamas, get into bed, read
book, sleep
■ They retrieve this from long term memory every night
○ Autobiographical memory: memory of personally meaningful events that took place at a specific time and place in
one's past
■ Oftentimes related to positive memories of family celebrations (ex. their birthday, Christmas, family
vacations)
■ Often something emotional related that helps them remember
■ Also negative autobiographical memory if they were abused, neglected, etc.
■ ACES go into autobiographical memory
■ Infantile amnesia: lack of memories prior to age 3
■ In first year of life brain is still doing these functions and storing things in autobiographical
memory but after age 3 it gets lost from our memory
■ ACES might be different
○ Metacognition: thinking about thinking
■ Doing it rn - talking about how we think
■ Starts in childhood
■ Helps us figure out how our own mind works in comparison to other people
■ Metamemory: understanding of one's memory and ability to use strategies to enhance it
■ Oftentimes the types of strategies we use have been given to us or practiced by our teachers and
parents and siblings

Information processing in adolescence

 ● Attention, working memory and executive function skills increase
○ Better at selectively choosing things
○ Response inhibition (impulse control)
■ Keeping your mouth shut when you should
■ Raising hand to answer a question and waiting your turn
■ Not telling other people's secrets
■ Sometimes problematic (risk taking)
● Metacognition: more planful about their cognitive system
○ They are creating a lot more sophistical ways of remembering things (has to do with formal education)
○ When you get out of a particular grade there's stuff you know (stuff that's been put in your long term memory)
● Brain development and adolescent cognition
○ Helps with impulse control
○ Prefrontal cortex and cerebellum
■ Not as developed as adults therefore can run into decision making problems
● Decision making
○ Capable of rational decision making
■ Set aside time to study for test or do homework
○ Risk taking behaviours
■ This is where the brain fails them because is not powerful enough to over power the:
■ Limbic system
■ Responds when we get a rush of adrenaline or something looks really fun or appealing
■ Part of reward center in brain
■ Become poor decision makers when we have the opportunity to do something that will stimulate
reward center/limbic system
■ Ex. If given opportunity to drag race in car and give them 5 things fun about drag racing and 5
things that could go really wrong they are bound to look at the positive things that are much more
likely to happen than the negative risks - prioritize rewards, downplay risks
■ Part of the personal fable
■ Less likely to listen to people that tell them they shouldn't do things (often parents with
functioning prefrontal cortex) than people that tell them they should do things (their friends with
underdeveloped prefrontal cortex)

Week 6
Intelligence
Two Types of Intelligence
● Crystallized Intelligence: One's knowledge base acquired through experience, education and living in a particular culture
● Fluid intelligence: Underlying capacity to make connections among ideas and draw inferences

Measuring Intelligence
● Wechsler Scales (1935)
○ Measure verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory and fluid reasoning (processing speed)
○ More commonly used than Stanford-Benet
○ Basically measures crystallized and fluid intelligence
○ What you know and what you can do with what you know
○ Better IQ tests (like this one) measure verbal (not necessarily speaking but with words) and nonverbal skills
(manipulate objects a certain way)
● Normal distribution: Most people score close to the mean score with few people scoring extremely high or low
○ Bell curve
 ○ Mean score for IQ is 100

What Does IQ Predict?

● Academic Achievement
○ High correlation between IQ and academic achievement
● Occupational success
○ Higher IQ = more occupational success (higher authority, high flexibility, decision making, high salary)
● Job performance in some professions
○ Physics harder than sociology
○ Within medicine - brain surgery harder than being a family doctor
● Health and longevity
○ High IQ = healthier and live longer but this could also be due to SES

Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

● Three forms of intelligence
○ Analytical - what a standardized IQ test measures
■ "book smarts"
■ K-12 and higher education
○ Creative - ability to deal with novelty
■ Given a new problem, see if you can figure it out
■ All new info and see how u manipulate rather than seeing how you can manipulate things you already
know
■ How quickly people can do things
■ Street smarts
○ Practical - ability to deal with surroundings
■ How well you can take your environment and manipulate it to your benefit
■ Street smarts
● Looks at intelligence as a socially and culturally defined construct
○ Vygotsky big on culture
○ Each culture has their own set of knowledge
● All 3 skills are recognized across cultures

Large Cohort Effects in Intelligence

● Flynn Effect
○ The idea that intelligence tends to go up with each generation
○ When looking at IQ scores, that score seems to go up ~3 points every decade for the last 100 years
○ Looked at 4 million people in 30 different countries (cross-cultural)
○ Over 100 years raw IQ scores went up 30 points
○ Attributed to better access to education
○ Most people didn't get more than a grade 6 education in early 1900's
○ 70-80% finishing grade 12 by like 1940
○ Need more knowledge and skills just to survive
○ This applies to raw IQ because as they noticed scores going up, they adjusted it so that the mean remained at 100

Group and Contextual Differences in IQ

● Ethnic differences in IQ
○ African Americans tend to score 10-15 points below Caucasian Americans on IQ tests
○ African Americans < Hispanic Americans < Caucasian Americans =< Asian Americans
● Socioeconomic status
 ○ Accounts for many ethnic differences in IQ scores
○ Differences based on SES are not inborn
■ Can do tests on infants to predict IQ, infants of different ethnicities = no difference
○ Contributes to IQ through differences in culture, nutrition, living conditions, school resources, intellectual
stimulation and life circumstances
● Education
○ IQ scores are closely linked with education
○ For sept-may school year, IQ is highest when school ends and lower when school starts again

Reducing Cultural Bias in IQ tests

● IQ tests tap the thinking style and language of the majority culture, placing minority groups at a disadvantage
○ Majority culture in Canada and US is Caucasian
● Need to include culturally fair questions (questions familiar to people from all backgrounds)
● Need to reduce reliance on verbal tasks

Variations on Intelligence
● Giftedness: IQ score higher than 130 OR specific ability substantially above average
○ Needs to be developed and nurtured through either enrichment (different school or classroom, get more breadth
of a topic, more complexity) or acceleration (skipping grades)
○ Gifted kids before they are identified have a tendency to get in trouble in school because they're bored
○ Historically IQ above 130 but now they are also looking at specific abilities
○ In childhood, reach milestones earlier (crawl, walk, toilet trained)
○ Low income kids more likely to not be identified as gifted (parents don't pay as much attention, more kids per
classroom in school)
● Intellectual Exceptionalities: Deficits in cognition (IQ below 70) and age-appropriate adaptive skills
○ Delayed development or they never get there
● Learning exceptionalities
○ Dyslexia: reading disorder/exceptionality
● Autism spectrum disorder (ASD): marked by social and communication deficits and restrictive and repetitive behaviours

Special Education
● Mainstreaming: Whenever possible, children are educated with their peers for all or part of the day
● Inclusion: Including children with learning disabilities in the regular classroom but providing them with a teacher or
paraprofessional specially trained to meet their needs

Language Development
Five Basic Components That Underlie all Languages
1. Phonology: Knowledge of sounds used in a given language
1. Learning how to detect, discriminate and produce speech sounds
2. Morphology: Understanding the ways that sounds can be combined to form words
1. Infants learn that sounds can be combined in meaningful ways
3. Semantics: Meaning or content of words and sentences
1. Growing vocabulary signals an increase in semantic knowledge
4. Syntax: knowledge of the structure of sentences
1. Rules by which words are to be combined to form sentences
5. Pragmatics: Understanding how to use language to communicate effectively
1. Ex. Learning how to talk to a child vs your boss vs your grandma
2. Different words, tone of voice
Paralinguistic Communication
● Phonological development may begin before birth
○ Some evidence that babies recognize some voices the second they are born
○ Crying - only mode of communication
● Cooing: Making deliberate vowel sounds (Phonology)
○ "oo" and "aa"
○ Begins at 2-3 months
● Babbling: Repeating strings of consonants and vowels (Morphology)
○ Begins around 6 months
○ Universal but becomes similar to native language over time
○ Socially interactive process
■ Usually will get a positive response when interacting with others (parents, siblings)
○ "babababa" "dada" "mama"

Semantic Growth and Syntax

● Holophrases: One-word expressions to express complete thoughts
○ Appears at about a year
○ "up"
■ If they say up you will pick them up
○ "cup" - sippy cup
○ "baba" - bottle
● Receptive vs Productive Language
○ Receptive - can understand
○ Productive - can produce the language themselves
■ Mouth, lips, tongue needs to be developed enough to make certain sounds
■ Ex. Saying mirk instead of milk becuase the "L" sound isn't developed yet
● Fast Mapping: Process of quickly acquiring and retaining a word after hearing it applied a few times
○ When they get to the point that they are developed to say all the words they've been retaining
● Telegraphic speech: Toddler speech is like a telegram, child's speech only includes a few essential words
○ Begins about 21 months
○ Always refer to babies under 2 years by months
○ Telegram: use the least amount of words to get your point across
○ Holophrases (1 word) to one or two words
○ Often name + word "emma up"

Early Childhood Language Advances

● 2-5 years old
● Vocabulary: Learn a new word every 1-2 hours
○ Learn best in interactive contexts
○ Start this stage with 500 words, end with 14 0000
● Syntax: Learn to combine words into sentences in sophisticated ways
○ Order of words in sentence matches the language they're speaking
○ Learn about tense (present, past)
○ Plural (shoe, shoes, deer, deer)
● Private speech: Self-talk with no apparent intent to communicate with others
○ Self-Regulation: Ability to control one's impulses and appropriately direct one's behaviour
● Hockey private speech
School-Age Children and Adolescents
● Vocabulary expansion and greater understanding of meanings of words
● Better understanding of language in general

Contextual Influences on Language Development: Culture

● Infant-Directed Speech ("Parentese"): Type of speech that uses repetition, short words and sentences, high and varied
pitch and long pauses
○ Preferred by infants
○ Cross-cultural patterns
■ Nouns in North America, social and interactive words in Asia because social harmony is stressed

Contextual Influences on Language Development: Poverty

● Less developed language skills
● Less exposure to speech
○ Smaller variety of words
○ High and middle SES children exposed to 4 million more words than low SES
■ Looked at thousands of families
○ One study in 1960's or 1970's said by the age of 3 kids in low income families are exposed to 30 million less words
■ Kinda sketchy study though - only look at 50 families
● Lower quality parent-child interactions
○ Parents less likely to instruct child to do things "wash your hands," etc.
○ High SES children talk to and with their parents more + speech they learn is more complicated
● Increased household instability and disorder
○ More at risk for ACES
○ Instability + disorder = the kid retreats, plays by themselves, goes to their room

Contextual Influences on Language Development: Bilingualism

● Simultaneous Bilingualism: Exposure to two languages from birth
○ Build distinct language systems
● Bilingualism is associated with many cognitive skills
○ Cognitive flexibility, executive function skills better
● Immersion: Foreign language speaking children are placed into English speaking classes
● Dual Language Learning (Two-Way Immersion): English speaking and non English speaking students learn together in both
languages and both languages are valued equally

Week 7
Emotional Development
Emotional Development in Infancy
● At Birth: Interest, distress, contentment
● Basic Emotions: Discrete (obvious) emotional expressions of anger, sadness, joy, surprise and fear
○ May be biologically predetermined (like physical reflexes)
○ If you can't express some of these things your caregiver won't know what's going on and how to deal with it
○ Universal and innate in a way
● Social smile: Smile in response to seeing familiar people + smile in response to a smile
○ Interactive
○ Emerges at ~6-8 weeks

Emotional Development in Infancy (year 1) and Toddlerhood (2 to maybe 3rd year)

 ● Emotional Regulation: Ability to manage one's emotions
○ Strategies in infancy and toddlerhood
■ Suck vigorously on something (finger, blanket)
■ Turn away
■ Roll/turn/walk away
■ When there is screaming going on babies will cry
■ Toddlers will do these things but they will also get in between the two people and try to separate them or
they will grab one caregiver by the hand and try to pull them out of the room
○ Emerges early on but not very good at it
● Parental Interaction
○ Techniques to help infants learn to manage emotions
■ Selective reinforcement - good job at managing emotions = parents will reinforce, toddler throws tantrum
= parent will ignore
■ Modelling healthy emotional regulation (not getting angry and hitting something, yelling, crying)
■ Verbal instruction (toddlers) - talk a child through their emotions
○ Accurate interpretation of child's emotional displays
■ Important for parents to accurately interpret otherwise they can't help
■ Sometimes parents will interpret a temper tantrum as manipulation/intentional misbehaving they will try
to stop it - best thing to do is ignore
● Social referencing: look to caregiver's' emotional expressions for clues to interpret ambiguous events
● Stranger wariness/stranger anxiety: fear of unfamiliar people
○ Influenced by culture and caregiver's anxiety
○ Manifestations of stranger wariness varies by culture - western culture more likely to have than eastern culture
because eastern culture = interact with more people (extended family)
○ Western culture parents more wary about exposing baby to new people, eastern parents will introduce and hand
baby around to many people

Emotional Development in Childhood

● Emotion regulation skill improving
○ Influences include developmental advances and interactions with others
○ As they get to be 3, 4, 5, 6 years old, their language is developing = learn words that represent their emotions
○ Language development has lots to do with emotion regulation
○ Talk instead of just cry
○ Caregivers are the ones giving them the words to label the emotions + having convos w them about emotions =
caregiver talks to them about how to label emotion
○ If they have siblings, guided though conflict resolution and anger management with them
● Emotional display rules: socially desirable responses
○ Not telling your grandma you hate what you cooked
○ Not telling someone you hate their bday present
● Contextual risks to emotional development: neighbourhood and community violence
○ Exposure to community violence presents constant threat to sense of safety
■ Gang violence in neighbourhood, terrorism in country
■ Teaches them the world is not a safe place
■ Kids typically curious about their world and go explore it but these kids don't go outside - don't wanna
learn about their world
○ Linked with anxiety and PTSD symptoms

Fostering Resilience in Children

● Resilience: ability to achieve despite the presence of risk factors
 ● Risk factors: individual or contextual disadvantages/challenges that tax one's coping capacities
● Individual
○ Physical, emotional, cognitive exceptionality
○ Things about that person that puts them at risk
● Contextual
○ Environmental
○ ACES
○ Resilient kids rise above that
● Protective factors: individual or contextual conditions that promote positive outcomes and reduce poor outcomes in the
face of risk factors
○ Make kids more resilient
○ Individual protective factors
■ No exceptionalities
■ Good self esteem
■ Emotional intelligence/regulation
■ Positive relationship with religion
■ Physically active
■ Coping skills
■ Easygoing personality/easy temperament
■ Academic success
■ Self efficacy
■ Hobbies
■ Problem solving skills
○ Contextual protective factors
■ Positive attitude from caregiver
■ Good parental supervision
■ Strong emotional/social support from parents
■ Good school programs
■ Good access to healthcare
■ Therapy
■ Money
■ Community connection
■ Religious service participation

Attachment
● A relatively enduring emotional tie between two people, each striving to maintain their closeness and acting to ensure the
relationship continues over time
● Bowlby's four stages of attachment formation
1. Indiscriminate social responsiveness (birth to 2 months)
1. That infant doesn't care who comes to their aid, they just need someone to respond to their needs
2. Discriminating sociability (2 through 6-7 months)
1. When they begin preferring familiar people
2. Happiest if someone familiar to them is meeting their needs
3. Start to connect/attach to their primary caregiver(s)
3. Attachments (7 to 24 months)
1. First said 7-12 but sometimes can take up to 2 years for full attachment to take effect
2. If the parent/caregiver isn't good at meeting their needs = insecure attachment
4. Reciprocal relationships (24 to 30 months and onward)
1. Infant + primary caregiver(s)
 2. Those two individuals interact with each other
3. Parent and individual want to maintain attachment
4. Reciprocal relationship

Attachment Concepts
● Secure base: a foundation for an infant to return to when frightened
● Separation protest (separation anxiety): reaction to separations from attachment figure characterized by fear, distress,
crying and whining
● Internal working model: Set of expectations about one's worthiness of love, the availability of attachment figures during
times of distress, and how one will be treated
○ If parent/caregiver forms secure attachment with you, you will trust that other people will care for you and be
there for you
○ Insecure/no attachment = think not worthy of love bc as an infant, in times of need people didn't help of didn't
consistently help
■ Not worthy of being taken care of so people aren't gonna do for you

Significance of Secure Attachment

● Security of Attachment: extent to which infant feels she can count of parent(s) to be there to meet her needs
○ Attachment completely depends on caregiver's response
○ Secure = needs met
○ Insecure = needs not met
● Secure attachments linked with a host of positive developmental outcomes
○ Childhood
■ Kids who have formed secure attachment = greater social competence = more liked, more friends, read
others' emotions better
○ Adolescence
■ Handle more complex emotions + situations
■ Much better emotion regulation skills
■ Better at making and keeping friends because of social competence
■ Less likely to participate in delinquent activity
○ Adulthood
■ Securely attached
■ Desire closeness in a relationship because they trust that they can be vulnerable and their partner
won't reject them
■ Way more likely when they have children of their own to form a secure attachment with that child
■ 65% of adults
■ Insecurely attached
■ Jealous type
■ Possessive
■ Don't really trust the relationship
■ Domestic violence - abuser
■ Sabotages adult relationships
■ 35% of adults

Week 8
Self-Concept, Self-Esteem and Identity
Self-Concept
● The way we describe ourselves
● Our assessment of our abilities, traits and characteristics
 ● The way we see ourselves - which may not be in line with how others see us
● Self-concept is an ever-changing process, becoming more complex over our lifespan

Self-Concept in Infancy and Toddlerhood

● Infant Self-awareness: See themselves as physically separate from the world around them; understand their behaviour can
be described and evaluated by others
● Self-recognition: ability to recognize or identify the self
● Categorical self: self-description based upon broad categories such as sex, age and physical characteristics
● Begin to use personal pronouns and adjectives

Self-Concept in Childhood
● Early childhood
○ Understand self in concrete terms
○ Appearance, general abilities, favourite activities, possessions and simple psychological traits
● Middle childhood
○ Self-concept shifts to trait-like psychological constructs
○ Includes positive and negative traits

Self-Concept in Adolescence
● Primarily influenced by their relationships with parents, peers and teachers
● Describe self in multiple ways that often are contradictory
● Ideal self: a self one aspires to be
● Real self: one's actual self

Self-Esteem
● Based on evaluation
● Feelings of self-worth, self-acceptance, and self-respect
● Relies on cognitive development and a sense of self that emerges over the course of childhood

Self-Esteem in Childhood
● Preschoolers typically have a very positive sense of self
● School-age children have a more accurate and comprehensive description of themselves
● Social comparison: process by which children compare their abilities and skills with other children

Self-Esteem in Adolescence
● Beliefs about self become more closely related to behaviour and relationships
● Global self-esteem: overall evaluation of self-worth
○ Drops and then rises
● Evaluate self with respect to multiple dimensions and relationships

Identity (As a Process)

● Identity achievement: establishing a coherent sense of self after exploring many possibilities
● Identity Moratorium: Time-out period providing more freedom and autonomy than childhood but is without the full
autonomy and responsibilities of adulthood
○ Emerging Adulthood: Extended transitional period between adolescence and adulthood
● Identity diffusion: not having explored or committed to a sense of self
● Identity foreclosure: chosen an identity without engaging in exploration

Identity
 ● Contextual influence on identity development
○ Relationships with parents
○ Socioeconomic status
● Ethnic Identity: Sense of membership in or connection to an ethnic group
○ Role of discrimination
○ Role of parents

Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development

● Throughout the lifespan we all proceed through series of psychosocial crises or developmental tasks
● How well each crisis is resolved influence psychosocial development

Erikson's Stages
● Trust vs Mistrust (birth-1 year): views world as safe place where basic needs will be met
● Autonomy vs Shame and Doubt (1-3 years): Confident in ability to explore
● Initiative vs Guilt (3-6 years): Takes pride in accomplishments
● Industry vs Inferiority (6-11 years): Feeling competent
● Identity vs Role Confusion (adolescence): Figuring out who one is (sense of self)
● Intimacy vs Isolation (early adulthood 20-40)
○ Developing capacity for intimacy and making a permanent commitment to romantic partner
● Generativity vs Stagnation (middle adulthood 40-60): Concern and sense of responsibility for future generations and
society)
● Ego Integrity vs Despair (older adults 60+): Find sense of coherence in life experiences; conclude their lives are meaningful
and valuable

Moral Development
Kohlberg's Cognitive Developmental Perspective
● Studied how people think about moral issues involving justice, fairness and rights
● Our level of morality develops in stages that are to a degree predictable by age (like Piaget)
● Studied just boys
● Looked at groups of boys that were 10, 13 and 16 and then followed them longitudinally over time to monitor
developmental change
● Tracked moral development by asking about Heinz's dilemma
● Heinz's Dilemma
○ "Near death a woman with cancer learns of a drug that may save her. The woman's husband, Heinz, approaches
the druggist who created the drug, but the druggist refuses to sell the drug for anything less than $2000. After
borrowing from everyone he knows, Heinz has only scraped together $1000. Heinz asks the druggist to let him
have the drug for $1000 and he will pay him the rest later. The druggist says that it is his right to make money from
the drug he developed and refuses to sell it to Heinz. Desperate for the drug, Heinz breaks into the druggist's store
and steals the drug. Should Heinz have done that? Why or why not?
● Believed that as we age we go from level 1, 2, 3 then stay at 3
● More current research says some don't even make it to 3 but can get to 3 and make a decision at a lower level
● Level 1: Preconventional reasoning: Behaviour governed by self-interest
○ Concerned with rewards and punishments
○ Base level of moral reasoning
○ Internally motivated - how it affects you and only you
○ Young kids reason at this level
○ Desire to gain a reward or avoid a punishment
○ "I'm not gonna hit my little sister because I don't want to get punished" "I'm going to do what my parents say so I
get a reward"
 ○ Adults: don't speed because they don't want a speeding ticket - not because it's dangerous to speed - would speed
if no one was around to give a ticket
○ Don't steal the drug because it's against the law, should follow law to not get in trouble
● Level 2: Conventional reasoning: behaviour is governed by concern for others
○ Uphold rules and maintain social order
○ Governed externally, concern for others rather than self
○ Motivation here is for approval sometimes
○ Socially or culturally the right thing - could be considered self interest kinda
○ Ex. wearing masks and getting vaccinated
■ Do it because you have a concern for others
○ Take care of your elders because that's culturally appropriate and a duty (in Asian cultures)
● Level 3: Post-conventional reasoning: behaviour is governed by abstract principles applied to individual rights
○ Laws are flexible social contracts and can be violated given a unique situation
○ Heinz stealing the drug, because it's a unique situation and that his wife will die if he doesn't, would be moral
according to post-conventional reasoning
○ Even though there's a law against stealing, the worst consequence would be her dying
○ How we change unjust laws (laws supporting racism, sexism, homophobia)
○ Kohlberg's ultimate way of thinking of things - not about being a sheep following laws, or avoiding punishment but
about social justice
○ Looking for the greater good for all of society
○ Two people can be convicted of the same crime but get different punishments due to contextual factors

Individual and Contextual Influences on Moral Reasoning

● Gender differences on Moral Reasoning (Carol Gilligan)
○ Less evidence for this today: period of time where researchers saw gender differences on moral reasoning (1980s,
20 years after Kohlberg)
○ Big push: she said Kohlberg only looked at boys/men
○ Tried to replicate Kohlberg's stuff with boys and girls
○ Found 2 different orientations, particularly in adults:
○ Care orientation:
■ desire to maintain relationships and responsibility not to cause harm
■ Similar to conventional reasoning
○ Justice orientation:
■ based on abstract principles of fairness and individualism
■ Similar to post-conventional reasoning
○ Found care orientation more likely to be expressed by women, justice orientation more likely to be expressed by
men
○ Said one is not a higher level of development, just different way of looking at things
○ Research NOW says individual people take on both perspectives depending on situation, no gender difference
● Culture and moral reasoning
○ Kohlberg believed his sequence was cross-cultural
○ Western cultures emphasize right of the individual (Justice Orientation; Post-conventional)
■ Thought Western cultures made higher level moral decisions
○ Non-Western cultures focus on human interdependence (Care orientation; conventional)

Prosocial Behaviour
● Prosocial Behaviour: voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another
● Empathy: capacity to understand someone's feelings
○ Kicks in as early as 2-3
 ○ Toddlers recognize when someone else is in distress - they will go over and try to comfort them
○ When someone else is distressed, they're distressed (according to monitoring nervous system)
● Biological and Contextual Influences on Prosocial Behaviour
○ Genes that influence oxytocin
○ Cognitive advances
■ The more advanced a person's cognitive ability is - higher chance they exhibit prosocial behaviour
■ Older we get, better at exhibiting prosocial behaviour
○ Parents and other caregivers
■ Parent that encourages prosocial behaviour, parents being kind to each other, encouraging kids to
participate in household chores and framing it like "we're a community and everyone does chores to make
the house function" - for the good of the family, encourage older sibling to partake in caring for younger
sibling, use prosocial language, talk to kids about emotions
○ The broader social world
● Discipline: Variety of methods used to socialize children toward acceptable behaviour
○ Don't think of discipline as punishment
○ Punishment is discipline but there are positive methods too
● Induction: Discipline method based on reasoning and guidance
○ Parents model effective conflict resolution
○ Focuses on behaviour and not child's characteristics
■ Focus on what they're doing not who they are
■ "I love you but I don't love what you just did"
○ Helps children internalize rules and standards
○ Most positive method of discipline
○ Parent reasons with child and guides them to prosocial behaviour
○ Facilitate conflict resolution between siblings
● Spanking and other power assertions: controlling a child's behaviour through the use of power
○ Using physical restraint, yelling
○ Hinders development of prosocial behaviour
■ Aren't helping child understand what prosocial is, just punishing what they did
■ Not helping them alter behaviour
○ Damages the parent-child relationship
■ Child will behave according to what you say because they fear you
○ Only temporarily increases compliance
■ Often kids that are spanked, when they are old enough, won't be compliant anymore
■ Physical altercations between parent/child
■ Teaching child that using power and control and physical violence is what will resolve a problem and get
you what you want
■ Creates a bully
■ Part age of 5, social, emotional, behavioural problems in kids that are spanked beyond the age of 5
○ Linked with emotional, social and behavioural problems

Antisocial Behaviour and Aggression

● Antisocial behaviour: behaviour that harms others, is disruptive or hostile, or transgresses social norms
● Aggression: behaviour that harms of violates the rights of others, whether overtly or covertly
○ One aspect of antisocial behaviour
○ Instrumental aggression: aggression oriented toward achieving a goal
■ Often see in toddlers + preschoolers about getting a toy back and not wanting to share
■ Can start at the age of 1, continue into school age
■ 3, 4, 5 y/o esp.
 ■ Common for kids but most grow out of it
○ Relational aggression: verbal form of aggression intended to harm others' social relationships
■ Name calling
○ Peer victimization (bullying): ongoing interaction in which a child repeatedly attempts to inflict physical, verbal, or
social harm on another child

Influences on Aggression
● Genetic influences
○ Ex. Genes that are associated with antisocial behaviour like how oxytocin (?) associated with prosocial behaviour
○ Epigenetic effects: genetic disposition to do something, depending on nurture it either comes out or it doesn't
● Brain development
○ Immaturity or impairments in the prefrontal cortex may increase risk for aggressive, impulsive behaviour
○ Those adolescents with underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, developed limbic system don't think about how
behaviour will affect others, can say rude things, don't think before they speak, poor decision makers = more
aggressive behaviour in this time period
● Parenting influences
○ Spanking and other controlling behaviour
● Exposure to aggressive models
○ Parents (domestic violence)
○ Violent video games (boxed info on page 459)
○ If kids watch someone behave aggressively with bobo doll, they will be aggressive with it
○ If you grow up in intimate terrorism/domestic violence household, child will end up being more aggressive
● Community factors
○ Live in community with lots of violence (poor community w gang violence)
○ Many kids join gang bc don't feel loved at home
○ Gang = protection, safety, belonging
○ When kids don't feel loved and safe at home = more likely to join gang

Week 9
Gender
Gender Terminology
● Sex vs gender
○ Sex is biological, chromosomal, anatomical
■ Clit vs penis
■ Testes vs ovaries
■ XX or XY
○ Gender: how we behave
■ Feelings
■ Female, male, intersex
■ More fluid
● Gender role norms: normative expectations for females and males that are applied to individuals' everyday behaviour
○ What society is saying is normative for a girl/woman and boy/man
○ Females expected to have a more expressive role
■ Caretaking, being kind, gentle, cooperative
○ Males expected to have a more instrumental role
■ Producing something, in charge of something, breadwinners, competitive, independent, dominant
● Gender identity: seeing one's self as feminine or masculine
○ For the most part gender norms only allow for feminine or masculine
● Cisgender: biological/birth-assigned sex matches gender identity
 ○ Based on gender binary: gender is categorical with only two choices (like sex)
○ Born female, identifies as female
● Transgender: those who do not identify with their biological/birth-assigned sex but instead adopt a different gender
identity
● Non-binary, gender-nonconforming, or genderqueer
● Androgyny: integrating masculine and feminine characteristics
○ Linked with positive adjustment in life
■ Higher self esteem
■ Higher relationship, career, overall life satisfaction

Sex differences
● Physical differences
○ Childhood
■ Boys more active
○ Post-puberty
■ Men taller, weigh more, more muscle mass = stronger and faster
● Cognitive differences
○ Girls
■ No IQ difference
■ Talk earlier, have a larger vocabulary but eventually disappears
○ Boys
■ Better at spatial relations (mental rotation of objects)
● Socioemotional differences
○ Emotions
■ Girls/women have advantage in number of ways in terms of managing and identifying emotions,
emotional regulation
■ Boys told not to cry - don't identify with this emotion you're having
■ Expect girls to cry
○ Aggression
■ Boys/men more aggressive
■ Boys are physically aggressive, girls exhibit relational aggression (name-calling, gossiping, etc.)

Gender Development in Infancy, Toddlerhood and Childhood

● Infancy and Toddlerhood
○ Seem to have understanding of their own sex by 18 months
■ Related to their parents and other caregivers referring to them as a girl/boy
○ Tend to show more interest in toys that match their biological sex
■ Parents have a tendency to purchase "boy toys" and "girl toys"
● Childhood
○ 4-12
○ Tend to hold rigid beliefs about how boys and girls should act
○ Knowledge of their own gender influences preferences for toys, activities, and playmates

Gender Development in Adolescence and Gender Expression in Adulthood

● Adolescence
○ Gender intensification: young adolescents (13, 14, 15) become increasingly sensitive to gender stereotypes and
their behaviour is likely to adhere to gender stereotypes
○ Social pressures may drive more gender-stereotypic behaviour
■ Peer approval big in adolescence
 ● Adulthood
○ Early adulthood
■ Early 20s
■ More flexible and androgynous
■ Pressures to conform are less (out of high school)
■ Go out and get a job -
■ Learn to adapt to surroundings - having androgynous characteristics can help in career (leadership,
competitive) and relationships (nurturing, empathetic)
○ Arrival of children
■ Egalitarian - both breadwinners, both cook, do laundry, etc.
■ Reverts back to gendered behaviour following the arrival of a child (woman takes care of child)
■ Sociocultural - if have to take one parent out of workforce to care for child it is usually the woman bc men
make more - systemic sexism

Biological Influences on Gender Development

● Evolutionary Perspective
○ Gender differences in behavior are adaptive
○ Man needs to be competitive to get mate and reproduce
○ Woman needs to be nurturing so can nurture the young
○ Could argue there is an underlying biologic force driving gender norms
● Hormonal Influences
○ Prenatal hormones
■ Androgens - masculinizing hormones: want them there when there is an XY embryo developing
■ If there is a female embryo and androgens are present (shouldn't be) then the developing embryo can end
up with ambiguous genitalia or genitalia that looks male
■ Does this affect development of brain? --> drives gender identity?
■ One study --> done with a number of women pregnant with girls, some women had excessive androgens
circulating in body (their own body or the embryo) as the girls developed until age 5, were interested in
"rough and tumble play --> climb trees, play in dirt, wrestle with other kids", not interested in dolls, if had
younger siblings/babies present did not want to take care of them, did not like them (girls usually like to
take care of babies)
○ Pubertal hormones
■ Individuals that have XX chromosomes, release estrogen during puberty
■ XY --> testosterone
■ Biological scientists --> estrogen drives feminine behaviour, testosterone drives masculine behaviour
○ High levels of estrogen promote female-typical behavior
○ High levels of testosterone promote male-typical behaviour

Cognitive-Developmental Influence on Gender Development

● Gender Schema: A concept or mental structure that organizes gender-related information and embodies the
understanding of what it means to be feminine or masculine

Contextual (Socio-familial) Influences on Gender Development

● Social Construction of Gender: Society constructs or creates a set of beliefs that describe how each gender should behave
○ Men shouldn't wear skirts/dresses
○ In France it is common for men to kiss each other on the cheek as a greeting, in the US/Canada they would assume
you're gay
● Influence of models in acquiring gender-typical behavior
○ Use models to guide behavior
 ■ Girls look to mom/other women to figure out how to act
■ Boys look at dads to model what it means to be a boy/man
○ Feedback from others serves as reinforcement
● Gender identity develops through socialization, through a child’s interpretation of the world, influenced by parents, peers,
media, and culture

Contextual Influences on Gender Development

● Parents – Different perceptions and expectations for each gender
○ Encourage gender-typed behavior
○ Dads: find out they're gonna have a girl - think about how they'll have to protect them, interrogate bf, walk down
isle, etc.
○ Moms perceive relationship with daughter differently than son
■ Daughter: go shopping and get mani pedis
● Peers
○ Reinforce gender-typed behavior and criticize cross-gender activities
● Media
○ Gender stereotyping in media depictions
○ Depictions of female and male characters
■ More male than female characters
■ Cast males in action roles, females in domestic roles
● Larger Culture
○ Most cultures emphasize and magnify gender differences
■ All societies have values regarding gender-appropriate behavior
■ All societies transmit these values to children

The Maintenance of Gender

● “Doing Gender” in Adult Relationships
● Seems natural that women need to be feminine, men need to be masculine

Sexuality
Emerging Sexuality
● Normal for children to have sexual feelings
○ Not about thinking about people/things that arouse them
○ Childhood self-stimulation
■ As young as 2
■ Just do it cuz it feels good
● Adrenarche: the maturation of adrenal glands
○ Marks transition in children's sexual desire
○ Stimulates hormones that begin pubertal changes
○ ~8-10
○ Start thinking about sexual orientation
○ Transition from self oriented to other oriented
● Sexual identity: one's sense of self regarding sexuality, including one's awareness and comfort regarding one's sexual
attitudes, interests and behaviours

Sexual Orientation
● Who you want to have an emotional relationship with, not who you want to have sex with
● May be largely present at birth
 ○ If woman is pregnant with girl who is exposed to masculinizing hormones = more masculine behaviour, might be
linked to sexuality
● Same-sex behaviour is found in virtually all societies and animals
○ Amount to which it's acceptable/unacceptable that varies
○ Western societies quite accepting
● Legalization of behaviour
○ If illegal = justification for prejudice, violence, etc. but there is a period between legalization and acceptance
○ "Sodomy laws" - any non penile/vaginal sexual activity illegal
○ Especially did not like anal sex
○ 2003 - US eliminated all laws making sodomy illegal
○ 20 years in prison if found guilty of sodomy in 2002 in US
● Disclosing sexual orientation ("coming out")
○ Individuals coming out younger and younger
● Experience of prejudice and discrimination
○ Peer harassment and victimization
○ Less comfortable with sexual orientation = more likely to internalize discrimination/prejudice, etc. = will delay their
coming out bc identity as non-heterosexual is not fully ready

Sexual Activity in Adolescence

● Average age of first intercourse for Canadian youth
○ 16.5
○ Doing other stuff before this (oral, manual stuff)
● Early sexual activity influenced by SES and contextual factors
○ Early defined by researchers = before 15 years old
○ More likely to be in a single parent home, less likely to experience parental monitoring, more poor
neighbourhoods w less resources (YMCA, boys and girls club, after-school program)
○ Can be problematic: linked with drug use, poor academic achievement, delinquent activity (shoplifting, gang
activity)
● Sexting: exchange of explicit sexual messages or images via mobile phone
● Influences on adolescent sexual activity
○ Early sexting associated with early sexual activity/risky sexual activity (less condom use, no kind of contraceptive
use)
○ Peers
■ Can be influential
■ If peers are sexually active, might be more likely to do it
■ Likely to have more sexual partners = more at risk for STIs and pregnancy
○ Parents
■ If parents communicate about sexuality regularly and early (start at 2, 3, 4) have first sexual experience
later, less sexual partners, participate in less risky sexual behaviours

Teen Pregnancy
● Teen pregnancy rate
○ Canada: 6.3 per 1000 (2019)
○ 15-19 year olds
○ US: more than 2.5x than Canada: 16.7 per 1000
● Risk factors
● Maternal outcomes
● Child outcomes
● Protective factors'
 ○ Participation of baby daddy
○ Stable living environment
○ Affordable childcare
○ Stay in school
○ Good parenting skills

Sexual Activity in Emerging Adulthood

● ~18-20s
● Casual sex: sexual activity outside of romantic relationships ("hooking up")
○ Often occurs in context of college parties and most frequently involves alcohol use
○ Benefits to casual sex
■ Less commitment than an actual relationship
■ No opportunity to get hurt emotionally bc just a physical relationship
○ Negative emotional consequences common

Sexual Coercion/Sexual Assault

● Broad term referring to a wide variety of non-consensual sexual contact or behaviour
○ Historically known as rape but legally rape is very specific
○ Good at encompassing the variety of things that can happen
○ Said no, threatened with violence, coerced, intoxicated or incapacitated due to a lack of mental capacity (very low
IQ, probably below 70)
● Perpetrators
○ Most are known by the victim/survivors (some studies say as high as 95%)
○ Partner/former partner/acquaintance/someone they see regularly in public but have never talked to (see at coffee
house, works at grocery store, etc.)
○ Most studies say at least 75% known their perpetrator
○ Stranger sexual assault is fairly unusual
● Consequences
○ PTSD
○ Hypersexual activity in order to cope (one sexual partner whom they perform a lot of sexual activity with or many
sexual partners)
● Contextual factors
○ Prevalence of myths about sex/sexuality/sexual assault
○ The idea that if she didn't want to have sex she would have fought him off, she was flirting with him, she was
dressed a certain way, belief you can't sexually assault someone you are in a relationship with
○ Gender stereotypes - hypermasculinity: forcing it on boys who then grow up to think they have to be hyper
masculine (competition, dominance, control, aggression) - think it's ok to have control over your partner, etc.
○ Sexual assault is about power/control
○ Fraternities - high rates of sexual assault in their houses during parties
○ Military
○ Male athletes

Sexual Activity in Adulthood

● Sexual activity is highest in young adulthood
○ 20-30s
○ Also high in new relationships
○ Couple of 25 year olds who have been together for 4 years probably having less sex than a new couple in their 50s
● Modest decline over time
 ● Frequency of sexual intercourse associated with emotional, sexual and relationship satisfaction, as well as overall
happiness

Week 10
Family Formation and Diversity
Family Formation
● A lot has changed in the last 50 years
○ How people form families/process of creating a family
○ Love --> marriage/cohabitation --> baby (50 years ago)
○ More common now: love --> cohabitation --> maybe marriage or maybe a child or maybe no marriage or child
○ A family is a group of people that take care of each other + intricately woven into each others lives + usually live
together
● Cohabiting households (unmarried)
○ Statistics
■ 1981: 6%
■ 2017: 21%
■ More long term cohabiting couples in Canada than in the United States
■ Quebec and the three territories have way higher rates of cohabitation than the other nine provinces
■ Across Canada - 16%, Quebec - 40%, Nunavut 50%
○ Who cohabits?
■ There was a strong connection in Quebec to Catholicism then it went away in 50s/60s (?) so that's why
■ Nationwide in Canada/US - the people who cohabit are individuals with lower levels of education and
income - explains high levels in territories (lower income/education) this is because having a wedding is
expensive so I guess they just don't get married for that reason also cohabiting is more economical
● Households with children
○ Statistics
■ In Canada - majority of kids living with married couples (2/3?)
■ 17% living with cohabiters, 16% living with single parent
■ Often people have kids before getting married - 39%
■ This means a lot of women are falling in love --> having a baby --> getting married

Single-Parent Families
● Result of divorce or long term cohabiting couples splitting up
● Statistics
○ Canada has fairly high divorce rate (24th highest out of 55), US even higher - bc divorce becoming more acceptable
○ Before, to get divorced you had to prove someone did something wrong - now there is "no fault divorce"
● Children's experiences
○ Problems?
■ Short term
■ During period of divorce
■ About 2 years (point where they decide to get divorced to where the dust has settled)
■ Grades might go down, kids might have behavioural, social/emotional problems
■ Long term
■ Vast majority of kids who went through divorce do not have problems (behavioural, academic,
social/emotional)
■ 20% of kids still have problems
■ None
■ Ranking kids on problems: children of divorce vs non-divorced
■ 10% of kids in non-divorced families have problems
 ■ Basically divorce is only responsible for 10% of kids of divorce having problems
■ Compared to children in non-divorced families
○ Protective factors
■ #1 most important factor: the parents get along
■ #2: kids experiences few transitions/changes: not moving out of the home/not leaving the school
■ Only negative aspect of divorce (?) is the kid is now more likely to live in a low income neighbourhood
● Parents' experiences
○ Mothers and physical custody
■ 70% of moms awarded sole custody, 15% of dads awarded custody, 9% do joint, sometimes grandparents
end up doing custody
○ Financial wellbeing
■ Statistics
■ 42% of single moms likely to live in poverty
■ 26% of dads likely to live in poverty
■ Gender wage gap
■ Contributes to that ^
■ Child support
■ Vast majority of men who are supposed to pay child support don't pay the full amount
■ Only 2/3 make full payment
■ Child support isn't enough anyways bc it is based on his income - if he doesn't make a lot of
money he can't contribute that much
■ Make income under the radar or run away so they don't have to pay
■ Some can't pay (unemployed)
■ Good parents pay
■ Website from Ontario
■ Any man who doesn't pay child support is posted
○ Non-custodial father involvement
■ Mother has custody and father has visitation
■ Dads need to be involved bc: way more likely to pay child support if he is in the kids' life, the kids have two
adults in their life that love them, typically the dad probably gets along with the mom if he is in the kids'
lives

Stepfamilies
● Types
○ Stepfather stepfamily
■ Most common
■ Woman married, had kids, divorced then remarried/recoupled
○ Stepmother stepfamily
■ Pretty unusual
■ Biological father with full custody of children + his new partner
○ Simple versus complex
■ Simple: biological parent, kids + step parent
■ Complex: two parents who come into the family with their biological children but they are each step
parents to the other person's children
■ Parent + kids, parent + kids
■ One parent has children from previous relationship, then has new child with new partner (2 biological
siblings, 1 half sibling)
● Challenges
○ 3 sets of grandparents
 ○ During holidays, there are so many places people want them to be (ex. Who gets them for Christmas, etc.) =
creates conflict
● Children's experiences
○ Comparing step children with children who live with their biological parents, they have weaker relationships with
step parent + step siblings
○ Sometimes resent step parent (you're not my dad don't tell me what to do)
○ Alliances can form - mother + bio child are a team who side with each other against the step parent
○ Parents more likely to side with their biological children so it's difficult to resolve conflict between step siblings
● Parents' experiences
○ Stepfathers
■ Mother sometimes has trouble letting stepfather parent kids
■ If he has own bio children that live with the mom, he is now spending way more time raising not his own
kids - hard for him + his bio kids
○ Stepmothers
■ Moms are more commonly put into the role of caretaker so sometimes the bio dad passes parenting
duties onto stepmother
■ When father has visitation not full custody - does she parent them? Does she try to be their friend?

Lesbian/Gay Families
● Statistics
○ ~10 000 kids in Canada live in lesbian or gay parented households
○ ~80% of these 10 000 live with lesbians
● Pathways to parenthood
○ More challenging for LGBT couples = less likely to have kids
○ 51% of hetero couples have kids, 12 % of same sex couples have kids
○ Reasons: Lesbian and gay couples never accidentally get pregnant
○ 50% of the time, pregnancy is unplanned with hetero couples (doesn't mean unwanted)
○ Very conscious, methodical decision for gay couples to become parents + it's very expensive
○ Cheaper for lesbian couples bc all they need is sperm
■ Sometimes get from sperm bank (artificial insemination - pricey), sometimes get from friend (turkey
baster method)
○ Adoption = expensive, surrogacy = crazy expensive (couldn't do for under 15-20k)
● Children's experiences
○ Any family composition - if parents have formed a very strong, positive relationship with their kid = positive child
outcomes
○ Kids raised by LGBT parents might actually be better off
■ Psychosocial and emotional development, levels of self-esteem, depression, suicidal ideology, friendships
= no difference between LGBT and hetero parents
■ Social competence, navigating social relationships, higher academic measures, fewer social and
behavioural problems in LGBT parents
■ Bc consciously became parents
■ Probably higher level of secure attachment

Foster Families
● Statistics
○ 13% of Canadian children live in a foster family
○ The average number of homes that a kid in the foster system lives in is 7
○ Most of the time kids end up in the foster system bc their parents are unable to care for them (abusing them,
abusing drugs/alcohol)
 ○ Relatives can be the foster family
● Adoption rate
○ A third of kids in foster families are available for adoption
○ Only 13% of those third are actually adopted by the foster family
● Disproportionate are Indigenous
○ 4% Indigenous children in foster care, .3% of rest of kids in foster care
○ Many agencies are prejudiced against Indigenous parenting styles
● '60s scoop
○ Scooped up 20 000 indigenous kids and put them in foster care
● Aging out
○ Most don't get adopted, they age out of the system
○ When you become age of majority (most time 18, sometimes 19), your foster parents no longer get money from
the government to help raise the foster kid so they're like ok bye
○ No family, can get some financial support but usually for school or job training, not enough to live off of
○ A lot of homeless youth were in the foster system
○ A lot of parents that are foster parents do it for the money
● Amara

Week 11
Parent-Child Relationships
Parenting Dimensions
● Responsive and emotionally supportive
○ Secure attachment - if child needs something you give it to them
● Demanding and controlling
○ Respectful discipline
○ Socialize child (want to produce a responsible, respectful contributing member of society)
○ Keeping the child safe (hold hand when out in public - crossing street, in parking lot) - demand they hold your
hand so you have control over their physical body
○ As they age you don't have to demand and control in a mean spirited way

Parenting Styles - in order of best to worst

● Authoritative
○ Responsiveness and demandingness
■ High on both
■ Secure attachment cultivate self-esteem - doing in structure of discipline and behaviour expectations
■ Have rules in household and if not followed there are consequences - rules are explained, consequences
are explained (not physical discipline)
■ Rules open to negotiation (ex. Teenager can't go away for the weekend without you - they negotiate that
their best friend invited them to whistler and their parents will be there and they will meet u so can i go)
○ Outcomes for children
■ Positive
■ High academic achievement, cooperative with everyone, have empathy for others, first person they go to
when they have a problem is their parents
● Authoritarian
○ Responsiveness and demandingness
■ Rules not explained, not open to negotiation
■ Expect blind obedience - "my house my rules, my way or the highway, do as I say not as I do"
○ Outcomes for children
■ Lower academic achievement compared to authoritative
 ■ Bc rules never explained or open to negotiation, these kids do not have conflict resolution and
compromising skills
■ Incredibly compliant (good) but out of fear (bad)
■ Easy to push them around in a relationship because it seems normal to them
● Permissive/Indulgent
○ Responsiveness and demandingness
■ High on responsiveness, low on demandingness
■ Love the kids, but no structure
■ Kids can do whatever they want
■ No routine, chaotic household (no rules, no bedtime, no structure, no routine)
○ Outcomes for children
■ No self regulation because have never been trained to monitor their own behaviour
■ People you don't want as a roommate bc will not feel a sense of obligation to treat the common space
respectfully + pretty spoiled
■ Challenging to have a relationship with
■ Lack impulse control (go into debt, get injured, etc.)
● Indifferent
○ Responsiveness and demandingness
■ Low on responsiveness and demandingness
■ Parents who want to be as uninvolved in their children's lives as possible
■ Sometimes parents who are indifferent are abusing drugs/alcohol
■ Sometimes parents that appear indifferent have untreated mental illness = difficult to take on parenting
responsibilities
■ Sometimes intentionally abusive/neglectful parents
■ Kids weren't really raised, they just grew up
○ Outcomes for children
■ Low academic achievement
■ Low on cognitive, psychosocial abilities
■ Sometimes physical development stunted
■ Behavioural problems
■ Delinquent behaviour
■ Peer rejection bc lack social skills
■ Early sexual activity
■ Early drug and alcohol users
■ Sociopaths likely to have indifferent parents

Differences in Parenting Approaches

● Cultural differences
○ Western parenting
■ Typically has the ideals of an individualistic society - Vancouver kinda balanced between eastern and
western but Canada = western
■ Individualism
○ Eastern parenting
■ Collectivist
■ More likely to value selflessness not individualism
■ Think about family/community/country over yourself
■ Value family and societal obligations
○ Indigenous parenting
■ Western society doesn't like kids being out with no supervision
 ■ Hold strong to this notion o f
● Social class differences in North America
○ What the most important thing is for them to do for their kids
○ Middle and Upper classes
■ Concerted cultivation
■ Concerted - intentional effort
■ Cultivated - try to make things happen
■ Doing everything possible to make sure their children succeed - most of these things require money
■ Sports, musical instruments, tutors
■ Facilitate their kids' growth in lots of different areas bc expect the kids will go to college and these skills
are important for college and then college = career
■ Basically giving their kids a better college application and better resume
■ Family organized around their kids' activities
■ One parent spends their day taking kids from one event to the other usually when the other works
■ Don't spend a lot of time interacting with parents but parents drive them around and watch their activities
○ Working/Lower and Under classes (poverty)
■ Accomplishment of natural growth
■ Can't enrol kids in lots of activities bc not enough money
■ More free flowing, kids can create their own activities they do outside of school
■ Less structured
■ Typically have closer relationships with extended family members (kin)
■ Grandparents/aunts/uncles may be after school caretakers bc parent can't afford after school care
or programs
■ Often these are three generational households - not culturally like Asian families but bc none of
these generations can afford to live on their own - economic reasons
○ Pros and cons
■ Concerted cultivation
■ Pro: kids usually go to college, do well in college, end up getting a good job + having a career
■ Jobs - get paid hourly, closely supervised, not a lot of flexibility
■ Career - salary, flexibility, less/no supervision, can take time off whenever I want, pay more than a
job
■ Con: Kids typically very stressed, anxious, and feel overloaded when growing up
■ Kids aren't very creative because everything has been planned for them (time slots for different
activities throughout the day)
■ If things aren't planned/scheduled they don't know what to do with themselves
■ Less close relationships with family members bc spend less time with them bc busy
■ Accomplishment of natural growth
■ Pro: More creative
■ Closer relationships with family
■ Hardly ever complain about being bored because they have learned how to entertain themselves
■ Con: Don't go to university
■ End up with a job
○ People don't typically shift between social classes - social class a person grows up in is social class they will stay in

Parenting after Divorce or Cohabitation Separation

● Parallel parenting
○ When you have two parents that are doing their own thing, separately, and not communicating with each other
about decisions about the kids
○ Different parenting styles sometimes
 ○ These parents not making decisions about school, etc. together
○ Encouraged when parents don't get along post-divorce
○ Court creates custody order ab how decisions will be made
○ Arbitrator assigned to couple sometimes - mediates between parents to figure out the conclusion to a decision
that needs to be made
● Cooperative parenting
○ Better approach
○ When post-divorce, the parents get along and can make decisions without court facilitated mediator
○ Good for kids for parents to get along

Ineffective Forms of Discipline

● Inconsistent discipline
○ From one parent
■ When one parent says one thing one day, and a different thing another day in terms of rules,
consequences, punishment, expectations
■ Kids need structure, rules, consistency - "if I do this what is going to happen"
■ Ex. Teenager with curfew at 11, they come home at 12 and parent does nothing - they're like oh this is ok
then but then next week they do same thing and get punished
■ Probably not doing authoritative parenting - explaining rules or even having rules (indulgent parent)
○ When comparing parents
■ Whichever parent is the easiest - that's who they go to when they want something
■ Don't talk to other parent about decisions - "can I go camping next week" - doesn't say let's ask the other
parent
● Physical discipline (spanking)
○ Parents who use physical discipline
■ Characteristics of parents that spank:
■ Lower income bc typically fewer supports, less money
■ Younger parents vs older parents
■ Single parents bc more stressed, less resources
■ Parents who experience daily frustrations with their kids
■ Frustrations magnified by not knowing about normal child development, don't have many
"tools in the toolbox" - don't have enough "tools" to deal with situation
■ Moms more likely to spank bc moms spend more time with their kids
■ Religious - Christians especially "spare the rod, spoil the child" - if you don't use the rod to hit the
kid into submission, you are spoiling them
■ Parents who spank think it's ok
■ "I was spanked as a child and I turned out fine"
■ Believe it is a useful method of discipline
■ 93% of parents who spank will justify its use and 85% would rather not spank but don't know any
other options and were angry at the time they did it
■ Intergenerational transmission of _______: things that go from one generation to the next
○ Children who recieve physical discipline
■ Most parents that spank stop when their kids enter kindergarten
■ Significant behavioural problems in children spanked after the age of 5
■ Boys more often spanked than girls - girls sensitive, "whip boys into shape"
■ Children w behavioural problems (ADHD) - parents of those children more likely to spank
○ Effects of physical discipline
■ Fear parents
■ Violence is how you resolve conflict
Sibling and Peer Relationships
Sibling Relationships
● Closeness
○ Age
■ Siblings closer in age are closer (emotional relationship) than children far apart in age
■ As children age, their relationships gets better, particularly when entering adolescence bc less
developmental differences
■ Big differences in a 3 year old and 6 year old, but less in a 12 year old and 15 year old
■ Relationship even closer when not living in same house
○ Sex
■ Typically same sex pairs or trios are closer than opposite sex pairs + more harmonious
● Parental contributions
○ Positive
■ Use an authoritative parenting style
■ Be positive role models for close relationships - parents need to get along with each other, get along with
their own siblings
■ Parents help resolve conflict between siblings - when younger: "tell your sister you're sorry, tell your sister
you accept their apology"
■ Encourage to resolve conflict themselves as teenagers: "I want you two to sit and talk about this and
resolve this"
■ Form a secure attachment
○ Negative
■ Model negative relationships with other parent and siblings
■ Other parenting styles that are not authoritative
■ Form an insecure attachment
■ Favour one child over the other
■ When it comes to privileges and punishments, should treat kids of different ages differently: age
at which you get phone, curfew, etc. Sometimes younger kid percieves this as favouritism - "why
can older sibling do this"
● Sibling conflict
○ Inevitable
■ The more parents facilitate conflict resolution, the better off they will be and the less conflict they will
have
○ Sibling rivalry
■ Sibling conflict on steroids
■ Likely to see when parent favours one child over the other - pick fights to get parent's attention bc don't
usually get attention

Peer Relationships in Childhood

● Friendships: characterized by similar: interests, play preferences, and demographics (race/ethnicity, age, sex)
○ First time kids have voluntary relationships - till age 5 all relationships are familial or parents pick friends for us, or
friends are kids in the neighbourhood, cousins, parents' friends' kids
○ Rough and tumble play: running, climbing, chasing, jumping and play fighting
■ Boys more likely to do this because fathers are likely to do some of this rough and tumble play with their
infants and toddler (throw kid up in air and catch them, tickle fight, wrestling) and are more likely to do
with boys than girls
○ Sociodramatic play: taking on roles and acting out stories and themes
■ Girls more likely to do this
 ■ Play with dolls
■ Imitate roles of moms, caretakers, play out something they've seen on TV
■ Reenacting something you've already seen
○ Physical and socioemotional benefits of play
■ When we play (regardless of type) - physical benefits: exercise, use gross and fine motor skills, build
muscle, more control over muscle (climbing, jumping, learn how to skip, jump rope, playing tag)
■ Social and emotional benefits: playing games + creating rules - really cognitive (what you do to win, lose,
what each person does), helps them learn how to negotiate and get along bc all kids have to agree on
what the rules are. Have to be able to articulate ideas, develops prosocial skills
● Play varies by culture
○ Individualist - winning and losing
○ Collectivist - take on ideas of cooperation and getting along as you're doing things and creating groups goals
instead of one person/team wins and loses
● Peer acceptance: degree to which a child is viewed as a worthy social partner by peers
○ Popular children: children who are valued by their peers (want to play with them, want them to be in their group,
sit next to them in class, have play dates)
■ Have a lot of positive characteristics: helpful, trustworthy, prosocial skills, good emotion regulation
■ Bad emotion regulation = cry all the time when they don't get their way and get really angry during play,
other kids don't want to deal with
■ More likely to have authoritative parents bc they teach them all these positive characteristics
○ Peer rejection: children who are disliked and shunned by peers
■ Aggressive rejected
■ Rejected bc aggressive
■ Some of these characteristics may also be the result of being rejected, become magnified
■ Confrontational, hostile, get really angry during play, impulsive, some are kids that are hyperactive
(ADHD)
■ Non-authoritative parents
■ Withdrawn rejected
■ Rejected but the more they're rejected the more withdrawn they become
■ Socially awkward, passive and timid, anxious, non-authoritative parents

Peer Relationships in Adolescence

● Friendships: characterized by intimacy, self-disclosure, trust, loyalty
○ Quality of friendship changed bc puberty, more complex abstract thought
○ Friendships organized on less superficial reasons (similar interests, age, etc.)
○ Emotional closeness
● Boys tend to get together in groups for activities, girls tend to prefer one-on-one interactions and spend time talking
○ Has a lot to do with peer pressure
● Pressure to conform to peer norms
○ Pressure for peers to be like each other
○ Good peer pressure: peers encourage you to do well, study sessions, extra practices in sport to improve a skill
○ Kids with friends doing really good things also do good things
● Cliques: close-knit, friendship-based groups
○ Typically share some similarities, 4-5 people
● Crowds: larger and looser groups based on shared characteristics, interests and reputation
○ "jocks," "nerds," "partiers"
○ Do a lot of the same things, whether it's positive (being in band, being in sport, etc.) or negative (doing drugs)

Dating Relationships in Adolescence

 ● Dating: establishing romantic relationships
○ Not as common in eastern cultures
○ The norm for teens to date in the US and Canada
● Purpose
○ 50-60 years ago: teens dated to find a marital partner
○ Age at first marriage 19-20, now it's 26-27 - goes up one year a decade
○ Now date to figure out how to have these relationships - practice on how to have an intimate love relationship
○ Date for the sake of dating - no end goal
○ Deal breakers - learn what you don't what and what you will not tolerate, learn more deal breakers the more you
date
○ Kinda like shopping
● Outcomes
○ Positive
■ Typically see higher self concept in those that date - correlation and not causation - those with higher self
concept may be more dateable, not that dating gives people higher self concept
■ Less likely to feel alienated bc it's clear people like them and want to date them
■ More likely to express realistic expectations for relationships
○ Negative
■ Related to teens that date too early
■ Much more likely to participate in smoking, delinquency, drinking, early sexual activity
■ Dating violence - occurs younger and younger - not just in married/cohabiting relationships anymore

Week 12
Preschool and Formal Education Experiences
Preschool Programs
● Academically centered programs
○ Provide children with structured learning environments in which teachers deliver direct instruction on letters,
numbers, shapes, and academic skills
○ Prepare kids for grade 1
○ Can make kids feel stressed - is kinda like school
○ Can feel less confident in themselves
○ Most teachers ECEC trained
● Child centered programs:
○ Encourage children to actively build their own understanding of the world through observing and engaging in a
variety of activities that allow them to manipulate materials and interact with teachers and peers
○ Nearly always also prepare kids for grade 1
○ More free flowing, more exchange between teachers and students
○ More interactive (kids + teachers, kids + kids)
○ Active learning = foster independence in kids and they help with self regulation = important for controlling
behaviour, facilitate cognitive and problem solving skills
○ Montessori schools
■ Not copyrighted in North America so anyone can call themselves a Montessori school
■ Teachers should have ECEC training (early childhood education and care)

Primary school
● Importance of grade 1
○ Teachers play an important role in aiding children's adjustment to grade 1
○ Serves as foundation for everything else they are going to learn (each year builds on previous year)
○ Teacher writes report for next teacher - can taint their view of the child (behavioural issues, struggling in one area)
 ○ Want teachers to have positive interactions to facilitate kids liking school = kids do well throughout their academic
career
● Importance of mastering reading and mathematics in primary school
○ Need reading for everything, can't do math hw w/o being able to read instructions
○ Kids w early reading deficits (grade 1, 2, 3) = affects all areas of academic competence from that point onward
○ Children w reading difficulties often remain behind for rest of academic career
○ When kids have larger academic deficits = more likely to have behavioural problems (could go hand in hand (cause
each other) but kids that consistently fall behind = behavioural issues)
○ Math trains us to problem solve
○ Want to be good at math in grades 1 + 2 so problem solving skills can build up from there
● Social promotion:
○ Practice of promoting children to the next grade even when they have not met the academic standards
○ Did this for long time bc it was easier + thought holding back would damage self esteem
● Grade retention:
○ Practice of holding children back
○ Reasons for retention
■ Social promotion pulls down school average for standardized tests (underlying motivation/reason)
■ Give these kids another year to master the material so they meet standards at the end of the year (reason
given)
■ Often kids with unexplained absences - indifferent/indulgent parents
■ Emotional age lower than actual age
○ Outcomes of retention
■ Damages self esteem
■ Don't do as well as socially promoted
■ Doing worse at math and English
■ Poor school attendance bc probably have parents who aren't getting them to school (unexplained
absences)
■ 2x as likely to drop out of high school
○ Socially promote but identify kids who need help + give additional support (social services, tutoring)

Secondary school dropouts

● About 11.5% of Canadian students drop out of secondary
○ Typically drop out in grade 10/11/12
○ BC has lowest rate at 9.6%
○ Nunavut highest - 41%
● Risk factors for dropping out
○ Grade retention
○ Highly likely to drop out - low SES, minorities (racial/ethnic, sexual/gender orientation)
○ Kids with behavioural problems bc always getting in trouble at school and figure it's not worth it at some point
○ Uninvolved parents (don't encourage them, don't help with homework)
○ Attend a very large school where they don't make connections with teachers (anonymous to teachers/peers)
● Consequences of dropping out
○ Jobs available to high school drop out are those available to high school students
■ Low pay
■ Unpredictable/unstable (lay offs)
■ No benefits
○ High unemployment rates
○ Literacy skills so low they can't fill out a job application
○ Low income or in poverty
The Forgotten Third
● Secondary school graduates who transition from secondary to work without attending college or university
● Reasons for nonattendance
○ Not connected to academics - uninteresting to them
○ Desire to work and make money
○ Economic barriers
■ Don't have the money to go to university
■ Need to get a full time job to help support family
● Types of jobs held
○ Low skilled jobs that don't pay that well
○ High unemployment rates

College/university education
● Normative experience for emerging adults
○ 25% of Canadians have some sort of a degree or certificate
○ 29% have Bachelor's degree or higher
■ 54% total
○ 13% drop out and never finish any program
● Associated with positive developmental outcomes (esp uni)
○ Significant influence comes from student involvement in campus life and peer interaction in academic and social
contexts
○ Whole worldview changes - exposed to new ideas, ways of thinking, values
○ Advances in moral reasoning - debates with classmates
○ Intellectual and social growth (interacting with people of different background, social skills)
● First generation college/university students:
○ Students who are first in their families to attend college/university
○ More at risk: can't ask parents about their experiences
○ Higher risk at dropping out and attending discontinuously (go for a term or two, drop out, come back, drop out,
etc.)
○ More likely to come from low income families = may have to leave and come back
● Transition to college/university and success while in college/university is influenced by the college/university environment
○ Institutions like UBC that are vey responsive to academic, social needs = more successful students
○ For-profit institutions less likely to be responsive (Phoenix University)

Motivation
● Achievement motivation: the willingness to persist at challenging tasks and meet high standards of accomplishment
○ Roots of achievement motivation lie in infants' earliest activities
■ Ex. Infant kicks making the mobile/toy move
○ Motivation is fostered by engaging and nurturing environments in which infants have an opportunity to exert
control over stimuli and interactions
■ Extracurricular environments
■ Parents/teachers/siblings/peers big in playing a role in how motivated kids are
● Growth mindset: belief that personal skills and characteristics are changeable
● Fixed mindset: belief that personal skills and characteristics are unchangeable/fixed
● Mastery orientation : Belief that success stems from trying hard and that failures are influenced by factors that can be
controlled (growth mindset)
● Learned helplessness orientation: belief that poor performance can be attributed to internal factors (fixed mindset)
○ Think they're a failure - not that they failed at a task
 ○ Overwhelmed by challenges - avoid challenging things
○ Overly self-critical (think they're stupid/incompetent)
○ Think no amount of effort will change anything

Contextual Influences on Motivation

● Parents
○ Parents' beliefs and attitudes about ability
■ Transfer onto their kids (growth mindset, fixed mindset, etc. - child will have same)
■ Won't facilitate their kid changing/learning/advancing if they have a fixed mindset, won't provide tutors, if
they're bad at a sport - more likely to just say you're not good at that instead of finding them a new sport
to try
○ Availability of opportunities and resources
■ Parent with growth mindset, mastery orientation but doesn't have money to provide kids with music
lessons/tutors/extracurriculars
■ Could also have parents with fixed mindset but have money so don't bother with
lessons/tutors/extracurriculars
■ Money only limits kids' success if the parents have the mastery orientation but not the money
● Teachers
○ Warm and helpful, attribute children's failure to effort
■ Good at helping kids have mastery orientation/growth mindset
○ Attributes child's failure to their core = bad
○ Positive learning environment
■ Make children understand the more effort you put in, the better it's gonna be
● Peers
○ Tend to affiliate with students who share their academic competence and orientation
■ Can influence in either direction (smart kids hang out together, dumb kids hang out together)

Work and Career Experiences

Career Development
● Occurs in 5 stages
● Parental influences on vocational choice
○ Parents' attitudes about work/education have impact
○ If parent encourages child/children to do well in school - channels them to direction of post-secondary education
○ Parents that don't value education, don't help w hw, don't make sure they're doing hw = more challenging for
those kids to do well in school + go to uni + get career
○ Blue collar (unskilled, trades) vs white collar (educated, flexible hours, benefits, time off)
○ Jobs parents have influences - kids have limited knowledge of jobs out there (parents' jobs, grandparents' jobs,
encounter: police, firemen, doctors, mailman, etc.)
○ Parents' approach to work (like it or just do it to pay the bills) has impact
● Occupational stages 1-2
○ Crystallization: begin to think about career in increasingly complex ways
■ Think about own interests, abilities, what sorts of things are needed to do that job
■ Early adolescence (14-18)
○ Specification: identify specific occupational goals and pursue education/training needed to achieve them
■ Late adolescence, early adulthood
■ 18-22
■ Specific goal in mind, doing what you need to do in order to get that job/career
● Occupational stages 3-5
○ Implementation: complete training, enter job market and make transition to become employees
 ■ 22-25
■ Reconciling what you thought your job/career was gonna be like - probably had idealistic version of what
the position was gonna look like and then it's not exactly what you thought it was gonna be
■ People w degrees that don't provide them with specific job skill (sociology) - can't find a job once enter
job market
■ Boomerang children/parents that are re-nested: kids go off to college - have to move back home bc can't
find job after graduation
■ Can end up getting position that doesn't match your education/training bc market is flooded w people w
same degree (electrical engineering for ex.) - challenging bc worked really hard + ready for job but can't
find
○ Stabilization: become established in career
■ 25-35
■ Gain more experience in position
○ Consolidation: accumulate experience and advance up career ladder
■ About careers and not jobs bc with jobs - often not a lot of advances can be made

Career experiences
● Mismatch between jobs and interests and education common in early years of employment
● Experience prompts changes in occupational expectations
○ A lot of people (close to 50%) change careers (not jobs) at least once in a lifetime
○ Some go back to school
● Gender differences in career development
○ Men typically finish their education and enter workforce and work continuously until they retire
○ Women more likely to work discontinuously: finish education, enter workforce, leave workforce to raise children
○ Most new moms can leave workforce for almost a year after having a baby
○ Advancements/opportunities for raises and promotions then go away for a year
○ When re-enter workforce: likely to take a less challenging job or position that requires less of them so they can still
be available for their kids when out of school, sick, etc.
○ Sometimes go back part-time
○ Often times leave workforce again to care for elderly parents
○ Usually daughter cares for elderly parents (or son's wife if no daughter)
○ Detrimental effect on ability to maintain advancements in career bc left workforce
● Job satisfaction
○ Gender pay gap and job satisfaction
■ 89 cents per dollar
■ Women working discontinuously = big factor
■ Pink collar jobs: jobs women are more likely to take - ex. Family practitioner rather than specialized
surgeon
■ Within white collar jobs women pick pink end so more flexible schedule and can take care of kids
■ Corporate lawyer vs family law
■ Women still have higher job satisfaction than men even if making less money
○ Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic rewards
■ Extrinsic: salary, benefits, prestige
■ Young people + men more likely to go for extrinsic rewards
■ Intrinsic: job satisfaction, being helpful, etc.
■ Older people + women more likely to go for intrinsic rewards
○ Job burnout: sense of mental exhaustion that accompanies long-term job stress, excessive workloads and reduced
feelings of control (work for someone else, have to do job exactly how boss says, makes sure they're not taking too
long of a lunch break, etc.)
 ■ High job burnout = not good at job anymore (attention/concentration difficulties (make mistakes in data
entry) (leave gauze/etc. Inside patients)), call in sick more, workplace injuries, higher worker turnover
(people quit, keep having to rehire)

Diversity in the workplace

● Glass ceiling: invisible barrier that prevents women and ethnic minorities from advancing to highest levels of career ladder
○ Particularly holds true for CEOs, upper level management, etc.
○ Intentional/unintentional barriers preventing minorities from getting promotions needed to reach these positions
● Glass elevator/escalator: men in female-dominated jobs experience hidden benefits to career advancement
○ Secretaries, nurses
● Racial and gender bias occurs even prior to interviewing
○ Racism/sexism occurs
● Discrimination in workplace is often subtle
○ Often people w discriminating behaviour will say "I didn't mean to do it" but they still did it
■ Microaggressions

Work-life balance
● Dual earner families
○ 70% of parents with kids under 16
○ Single earner families: better life-work balance
● Paid vs. Unpaid work
○ Unpaid work: household and childcare stuff that needs to be done but that isn't paid
○ Paid work: like a job
○ Dual earner, heterosexual households w children: women do 17.5 hours of unpaid work and men to 10 in a week
■ Resentment
○ Most couples argue about: chores, money, in-laws, sex, kids
○ Homosexual couples w kids less likely to have big gap with who does the unpaid work
● Work-life balance for couples with children under the age of 5
○ Require lots of care and are not in school
○ Often
○ High cost of childcare
■ Motivates someone to leave the workforce
■ 10% have man leave the workforce, 40% have woman leave the workforce
■ 50% of couples with children under the age of 5 are dual-earner
○ $761/month for childcare average in Canada
○ Ontario - $1152/month
○ Quebec - almost fully funded childcare from infancy to kindergarten $152/month
■ Higher numbers of dual earner couples w kids under 5
■ Paternity leave

Week 13
Endings
Mortality
● Overall mortality rates across ages declined significantly between 1935 and 2010
○ Advances in medicine reduce death for things like pneumonia
○ Risk of dying has especially plummeted for infants and young children
■ 94% decrease in children age 1-4 dying
■ Newborn babies with problems = high mortality rate - blue line = 12 months
■ Neonatal = first month
 ■ Double the chance of dying than Postneonatal
■ Postneonatal - next 12 months
○ Leading causes of death
■ Infancy: leading cause = genetic abnormalities, usually die in first week or month , seconds = illness, third =
SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome)
■ Children (1-12): leading cause = accidents due to inappropriate supervision
■ Adolescents: leading cause = accidents, second = drowning, third = unintentional poisoning (overdose)

Children's Understanding of Death

● Do not understand loss and death in same way as adults
● Encounter death in many ways
○ Death of a pet, family, loved ones, grandparents, classmate
○ TV shows (cartoons), the news, parents/other adults talking about death, nursery rhymes children's songs, prayers,
fairy tales
● 3-5: View death as temporary and reversible
● 5-7: Understand death is final, irreversible and inevitable
○ Pre-operations --> concrete operational reasoning
○ Don't understand being alive vs being dead (biological - heart stops)
● Late childhood (7-12): Understand biological causality
● Contextual Influences
○ Parenting
■ Parents should talk to kids, figure out what they understand, and talk at that level of reasoning
■ Some parents want to protect their kids from death, don't talk about in front of child with misconception
that they don't understand or they need to protect from sad things
■ Common in western and European cultures
■ Phrases parents shouldn't use esp for 3-5 year olds:
■ "Grandma has gone away" bc they think they will come back
■ They're sleeping/sleeping for a very long time - kids think eventually will take up
○ Culture
■ European/western - death seen as awful and sad
■ Hispanic - dia de los muertos - more positive, involves children
■ War torn countries, neighbourhoods w lots of violence - kids experience lots of violent death

Adolescents' Understanding of Death

● Often describe death as an enduring, abstract state of nothingness that accompanies the inevitable and irreversible end of
biological processes
● Due to personal fable often view themselves as unique and invulnerable to consequences of risky behaviours, including
death
○ More likely to risk take
○ Risk taking can end in death but didn't happen to me bc I'm invincible
○ Death is unlikely possibility in their head
● Often hold a belief in an afterlife
○ Children not so much
○ Afterlife about abstract thought
○ Could be tied to religion/supernatural

Contextual Influences on the Grief Process

● Deaths are interpreted and grieved differently based on a variety of factors
○ Age of decreased
 ■ Grieve more the younger the person is
○ Nature of death
○ Age of bereaved
■ Might be easier for child to be sad then move on but an adolescent will dwell on it more
● Anticipatory grief: feelings of loss that begin before a death occurs
○ Felt when somebody has a terminal illness and has a certain amount of time to live
○ Does not help with the grieving process
○ Can do stuff like say things that you said have said to them before but doesn't actually make things easier
○ Get to say goodbye

Bereavement in Childhood
● Bereavement = process of grieving something lost
● Influenced by the deceased's role in their life
● Affected by child's developmental level and understanding of the nature of death
● Often experience guilt
○ If believe it's temporary, maybe they were bad child and that's why parents left and if they're really good they'll
come back
● Usually experience grief for their parent for a longer period of time than do adults
○ When a 5 y/o vs 35 y/o has a parent die, the child will grieve for longer bc it affects them developmentally
○ If dad died when kid was 10, will grow up and have a child and be confused about their relationship after the kid
reaches 10 bc he didn't have relationship w dad past 10
● Need support, nurturance and continuity in their lives
○ Someone needs to step in and maintain the routine of things that the person that died did
○ Ex. Pick up from school, read book, watch soccer games - someone else needs to now take on these roles
○ Helps w bereavement bc don't have to deal with other stuff changing in addition to losing a parent/loved one
○ The person left (remaining person) will have a hard time - have to explain over and over that the person is not
coming back

Bereavement in Adolescence
● Loss of parent: Feel intense loss, isolation and sense the parent is irreplaceable and the loss cannot be overcome
● Sense that life is unfair
● Are at risk for social and interpersonal difficulties in adjustment bc going through a lot of changes in adolescents (puberty)
○ Relationships, friendships
○ Higher risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts
● Experience of grief influenced by ability to understand and manage emotions and their experience of egocentric thought
○ Think no one else is going through what they are so they feel isolated
○ Support groups = helpful

The Dying Child

● Less likely to develop clear understanding of their condition and imminent death
○ Understand that something is going on (esp. If in hospital environment and have things going on that they think
will make them better)
● Often show maturity beyond their years
○ Trying to comfort the parent bc don't understand they're dying and see parent in distress
● Death should be discussed using concrete terms and at child's developmental level
● Parents and loved ones should stay with the dying child, reading, singing, holding and sleeping with him or her
○ Way to maintain some sort of routine
○ Never be alone
The Dying Adolescent
● More mature conception of death than children
● May feel that have a right to know about their illness and prognosis, which reflects autonomy
● Sense of invulnerability may lead some to deny their illness or need for treatment
○ Personal fable
● Side effects of treatment may harm self-esteem
● Often focus on social implications of illness
○ Friendships they have and if they can see those friends, how this illness will affect friendships/relationship
● May mourn the loss of the future
○ Angry they're gonna miss out on stuff