Chapter 4 – The Developing Person



Chapter 5 – Developing Through the Lifespan, 2016Three major issues:Prenatal Development and the Newborn conceptionprenatal development: zygote, embryo, fetus, teratogens – Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, epigenetic effectThe Competent Newborn – rooting reflex, others:-How do we know? habituation, novel stimulusInfancy and ChildhoodPhysical development – brain: neurons, connections, pruning, maturation, infant memory (“infantile amnesia”) / retention?-motor development: sequence, but individual differences in timingCognitive Development – PIAGET; schemas, assimilation, accommodation, stages and terms (figure 4.1)-sensorimotor: object permanence; stranger anxiety-preoperational – egocentrism, language, fantasy, expanding theory of mind -concrete operations – LOGIC, conservation, math transformations-formal operations – abstract logic, hypothetical / propositional, potential for mature moral reasoningAlternative cognitive: VYGOTSKI: inner speech, scaffoldUpdating Piaget:Autism Spectrum Disorder: impaired theory of mind / empathy, Asperger’s Syndrome, systemizersSocial Development – stranger anxiety, bonding AKA attachment: -sources – body contact (Harlow experiment!), safe haven, secure base; familiarity – critical period, imprinting; responsive parenting – Mary Ainsworth, “strange situation”, secure or insecure attachment, temperament -Effects of Attachment: social competence, basic trust (ERIKSON)-deprivation of attachment:-disruption of attachment: daycare?-self-concept – the rouge testParenting Styles (and effects)-authoritarian, permissive, authoritative; controlAdolescencedefinition, modern issue; G. Stanley Hall versus recent surveys…-Physical development: puberty, (sequence versus timing again), early versus late maturing, frontal versus limbic system issue -Cognitive development: formal operations; KOHLBERG / moral reasoning: preconventional morality, conventional, postconventional; criticism of Kohlberg-Moral intuition: Jonathan Haidt – social intuitionist theory; “Talk is cheap”…; predictors, ways to aid moral development – moral action, delay gratification (Mischel, M+M test)Social development: ERIKSON! –table 5.4, pg. 209; learn positives, order / approximate ages of each, starting with trust vs. mistrustIdentity:Intimacy:-parent and peer relat;ionships:-emerging adulthoodAdulthoodPhysical development: 20s, mid-adulthood, later-menopause, life expectancy, telomeres, death-deferral phenomenon; sensory abilities, health, The Aging Brain – exercise, memory, neurogenesis: recall vs. recognition, prospective memory, meaningful; cross sectional versus longitudinal studiesNeurocognitive disorders (dementia) and Alzheimer’s disease – acetylcholine Social development: adulthood’s ages and stages – midlife transitions versus midlife crisis / emotional instability, -social clock, life events and chance encounters-commitments: intimacy, generativity: love and work research:-“empty-nest syndrome”:-well-being across the lifespan: later stability, positive emotions, mellowing and longer-lasting-death and dying: Elizabeth Kubler-Ross stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, research says:-integrity: componentsChapter 5 – Developing Through the Lifespan, 2016Three major issues:Prenatal Development and the Newborn Conceptionprenatal development: zygote, embryo, fetus, teratogens – Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, epigenetic effectThe Competent Newborn – rooting reflex, others:-How do we know? habituation, novel stimulusInfancy and ChildhoodPhysical development – brain: neurons, connections, pruning, maturation, infant memory (“infantile amnesia”) / retention?-motor development: sequence, but individual differences in timingCognitive Development – PIAGET; schemas, assimilation, accommodation, stages and terms (figure 4.1)-sensorimotor: object permanence; stranger anxiety-preoperational – egocentrism, language, fantasy, expanding theory of mind -concrete operations – LOGIC, conservation, math transformations-formal operations – abstract logic, hypothetical / propositional, potential for mature moral reasoningAlternative cognitive: VYGOTSKI: inner speech, scaffoldUpdating Piaget:Autism Spectrum Disorder: impaired theory of mind / empathy, Asperger’s Syndrome, systemizersSocial Development – stranger anxiety, bonding AKA attachment: -sources – body contact (Harlow experiment!), safe haven, secure base; familiarity – critical period, imprinting; responsive parenting – Mary Ainsworth, “strange situation”, secure or insecure attachment, temperament -Effects of Attachment: social competence, basic trust (ERIKSON)-deprivation of attachment:-disruption of attachment: daycare?-self-concept – the rouge testParenting Styles (and effects)-authoritarian, permissive, authoritative; controlAdolescencedefinition, modern issue; G. Stanley Hall versus recent surveys…-Physical development: puberty, (sequence versus timing again), early versus late maturing, frontal versus limbic system issue -Cognitive development: formal operations; KOHLBERG / moral reasoning: preconventional morality, conventional, postconventional; criticism of Kohlberg-Moral intuition: Jonathan Haidt – social intuitionist theory; “Talk is cheap”…; predictors, ways to aid moral development – moral action, delay gratification (Mischel, M+M test)Social development: ERIKSON! –table 5.4, pg. 209; learn positives, order / approximate ages of each, starting with trust vs. mistrustIdentity:Intimacy:-parent and peer relationships:-emerging adulthoodAdulthoodPhysical development: 20s, mid-adulthood, later-menopause, life expectancy, telomeres, death-deferral phenomenon; sensory abilities, health, The Aging Brain – exercise, memory, neurogenesis: recall vs. recognition, prospective memory, meaningful; cross sectional versus longitudinal studiesNeurocognitive disorders (dementia) and Alzheimer’s disease – acetylcholine Social development: adulthood’s ages and stages – midlife transitions versus midlife crisis / emotional instability, -social clock, life events and chance encounters-commitments: intimacy, generativity: love and work research:-“empty-nest syndrome”:-well-being across the lifespan: later stability, positive emotions, mellowing and longer-lasting-death and dying: Elizabeth Kubler-Ross stages – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, research says:-integrity: componentsChapter 4 – The Developing PersonDevelopmental psychologists study physical, mental, and social changes throughout the human life cycle.3 Major Issues:Nature/nurture: How much do genetic inheritance (our nature) and experience (the nurture we receive) influence our development?Continuity/stages: Is development a gradual, continuous process like riding an escalator, or does it proceed through a sequence of separate stages, like climbing rungs on a ladder?Stability/change: Do our early personality traits persist through life, or do we become different persons as we age?Prenatal Development and the NewbornConceptionThe process starts when a woman’s ovary releases a mature egg and when the 200 million or more sperm deposited during intercourse begin their race upstream toward it.Women are born with all the immature eggs they will ever have (though only 1 in 5000 will ever mature and be released).Men begin producing sperm cells at puberty.The manufacturing process continues 24 hours a day for the rest of his life.The few sperm that make it to the egg release digestive enzymes that eat away the egg’s protective coating, allowing a sperm to penetrate.As soon as one sperm comes in, the egg’s surface blocks out the others while fingerlike projections sprout around the successful sperm and pull it in.Before half a day ends, the egg and sperm fuse together.Prenatal DevelopmentZygote – the fertilized egg; enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo.The zygote divides and differentiates (specializes) their functions. (i.e.: one controls the brain, and the other controls the intestines)10 days post-conception, the cells attach to the mother’s uterine wall. The zygote’s outer part attaches to the uterine wall, forming the placenta, through which nourishment passes.Inner cells become the embryo, the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.Over the next 6 weeks, organs begin to form and function.Fetus – the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception until birth.By the end of the 6th month, organs are sufficiently formed and functional. The fetus is responsive to sound (the infants prefer their mother’s voice over anyone else’s).The placenta transfers nutrients and oxygen from mother to fetus, and teratogens, agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm, can slip by. (i.e.: a heroin addict has a heroin addicted baby, etc.)Heavy maternal smoking may affect the fetal brain.If the mother drinks heavily, her baby will be at risk for birth defects and mental retardation, such as fetal alcohol syndrome, physical and cognitive abnormalities in children. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions.FAS is the leading cause of mental retardation.The Competent NewbornRooting reflex – a baby’s tendency, when touched on the cheek, to open the mouth and search for the nipple.Scientists discovered that babies can tell you what they can do—gaze, suck, turn their head.People are born preferring sights and sounds that facilitate social responsiveness; we turn our heads in the direction of human voices, gaze at drawings of face like images, prefer to look at objects 8-12 inches away (distance between an infant’s eyes and its mother.)Our perceptual abilities develop continuously during the first months of life.Babies prefer their mother’s scent and voice rather than that of a stranger’s.Close-Up: Research Strategies for Understanding Infants’ ThinkingHabituation – decrease in responding with repeated stimulation. A novel stimulus gets attention when first presented, but the more often the stimulus is presented, the weaker the response becomes.Babies can remember and discriminate between differing visual stimuli and can discriminate colors, shapes, and sounds and can understand some basic concepts of numbers and physics.Infancy and ChildhoodPhysical DevelopmentBrain DevelopmentDeveloping brain cortex overproduces neurons. When born, you have the most of the brain cells you would ever have, however, your nervous system was immature.Maturation – biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.Maturation decrees commonalities (standing before walking, using nouns before adjectives, etc.)Severe deprivation or abuse will retard development, and ample experiences with parents who talk and read to the child will help sculpt neural connections.Genetic growth tendencies are inborn. Maturation sets the basic course of development; experience adjusts it.Maturation and Infant MemoryLack of neural connections prevent us from recalling memories from age 3 and earlierAverage age of earliest conscious memory is 3.5 years. (By 4 or 5, childhood amnesia is giving way to remembered experiences)Given reminders, 3-month old infants who kick and move mobiles remember the association for at least 1 monthEleven-month olds who observe the movement of a rattle will imitate if given the objects a day or 3 months laterShown a fuzzy picture, 3 year-olds will recognize a picture if shown a clear one 3 months earlierIn humans, the brain is immature at birth. As the child matures, the neural networks grow increasingly more complex.Motor DevelopmentDeveloping brain enables physical coordination (as they mature, more complicated skills emerge)Babies roll over before they sit, sit before they crawl, crawl before they walk, etc.25% of all babies walk by 11 months, 50% within a week after their 1st birthday, and 90% by 15 months.Cognitive DevelopmentPiaget, developmental psychologist, took interest in 1920 when developing questions for children’s intelligence tests. Their mistakes startled him.Piaget revolutionized our understanding of children’s minds (children don’t know less than adults, they know differently than adults.)Believed child’s mind develops through stages.Piaget’s core idea is that “children are active thinkers, constantly trying to construct more advanced understandings of the world”The maturing brain builds concepts, or schemas (concept or framework that organizes and interprets information).To explain how we use and adjust schemas, Piaget proposed two new conceptsAssimilate (interpreting one’s new experience in terms of one’s existing schemas) new experiences – we interpret them in terms of our current understandings (schemas. Then we 2) adjust, or accommodate (adapting one’s current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.As children interact with the world, they construct and modify their schemasPiaget’s Theory and Current ThinkingCognition refers to all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.Described in 4 stages, believed that children experience spurts of change followed by greater stability as they move from one developmental plateau to the next.SensorimotorFrom birth to age 2, babies take in the world through sensory and motor interactions with objects (looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping).Babies live in the present, lack object permanence – the awareness that objects continue to exist when not perceived, begin exhibiting memory for things no longer seen.If you hide a toy, the infant will look for it momentarily.Shown a numerically impossible outcome, infants stare longer.Piaget underestimated young children’s competence, that they could not think before age 2. He believed they can recognize things, smile at them, crawl to them, manipulate them, but have no abstract concepts or ideas.Within a year, babies can evaluate and imitate others’ actions selectively.PreoperationalDuring the preschool period and up to age 6, children are in a preoperational stage (a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic)—too young to perform mental operations.Child lacks concept of conservation – the principle that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.Piaget did not view the stage transitions as abrupt.DeLoache discovered this when she showed children a model of a room and hid the model toy in it (a mini stuffed dog behind a mini couch). 2 year olds could not use a model room to find a stuffed dog, yet a 3 year old could easily do it.Egocentrism – in Piaget’s theory, the inability of the preoperational child to take another’s point of view. TV-watching preschoolers who block the view of the television assume that you see what they see; they may nod their head while on the telephone, thinking you could see their actions.Parents who abuse their children generally have no understanding of these limits.Theory of Mind – people’s ideas about their own and other’s mental states—about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict.Although still egocentric, preschoolers begin forming this theory and come to realize that people have minds.Children seek to understand what makes people angry, what might make a parent buy a toy, when a sibling will share, etc.Growing ability to tease, empathize, and persuade. Theory of mind enables us to infer others’ feelings—for example, that reminders of a previously sad event can trigger a sad feeling.Autism – a disorder characterized by deficient communication and social interaction, marked by an impaired theory of mindAutistics have difficulty inferring others’ thoughts and feelings.They have difficulty reflecting on their own mental states and less likely to use the personal pronouns “I” and “me”.By age 7, children become increasingly capable of thinking in words and using such to work out solutions to problems.Internalize their culture’s language and rely on inner speech.Parents who say “no” give a child self control.Concrete OperationalBy about 7, Piaget says that children enter the concrete operational stage (the stages of cognitive development during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.Given concrete materials, they begin to grasp conservation, that change in shape doesn’t mean change in quantity.During this, children fully gain the mental ability to comprehend mathematical transformations and conservation.Formal OperationalBy 12, reasoning expands from the purely concrete to encompass abstract thinking.If John is in school, then Mary is in school. John is in school. What can you say about Mary? – Have no trouble answering correctly.Reflecting on Piaget’s TheoryStudies reveal that human cognition everywhere unfolds basically in the sequence he proposed.Piaget identified significant cognitive milestones and stimulated worldwide interest in how the mind develops, with emphasis less on the ages of which children typically reach specific milestones than on their sequence.Piaget contended that children construct understandings from their interactions with the world.Young children are incapable of adult logic.Social DevelopmentIn all cultures, infants develop an intense bon with their caregivers, infants prefer familiar faces and voicesAfter object permanence emerges and children become mobile, they develop a fear of strangers (stranger anxiety) and greet strangers with cries.Children have schemas for familiar faces, when they can’t assimilate new face into the schemas, they become distressed.At 1 year old, many cling tightly to a parent when they are frightened or expect separation.Attachment – an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation.Origins of AttachmentInfants become attached to those who are comfortable, familiar and responsive to their needsBody ContactHarlow bred monkeys and to equalize the infant monkeys’ experiences and to isolate any disease, he separated the monkeys from their mothers shorting after birth and raised them in sanitary individual cages.The infants became attached to their blankets, and they became distressed when it was taken away.To pit the drawing power of a food source against the contact comfort of the blanket.When reared with both the nourishing wire mother and a no nourishing cloth mother, the monkeys preferred the comfy cloth mother.Rocking, warmth, and feedings made the cloth mother more appealingHuman attachment is one of the people providing a safe haven.FamiliarityCritical period – optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper developmentThe first moving object is a godsling, duckling, or chick and it is its mother, from then on. Imprinting (process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.Although birds imprint best to their own species, they also will imprint to a variety of moving objects, and this attachment is difficult to reverse.Children do not imprint, but do become attached to what they’ve known. Mere exposure to people and things fosters fondness.Responsive parentingPlaced in a strange situation, 60% of infants display secure attachment, which means that in their mother’s presence, they play comfortably, happily exploring the environment. When she leaves, they are distressed, and they seek contact with her.Insecure attachment is when they are less likely to explore their surroundings; they may even cling to their mother and when she leaves they cry or remain upset.Female rats reared by relaxed, attentive adoptive mothers become more relaxed.Sensitive, responsive mothers had infants who exhibited secure attachment while insensitive, unresponsive mothers had infants who often became insecurely attached.Sensitive mothers and fathers tend to have securely attached infantsVan Den Boom’s randomly assigned 100 6-9-month old temperamentally difficult infants to either an experimental condition.When 12 months old, 68% of the experimental-condition infants were rated securely attached while in the control-condition group, only 28% were.Infants who lack a caring mother are said to suffer “maternal deprivation”, yet those lacking the care of a father are said merely to experience “father absence”.Anxiety over separation, no matter where they are from, parents peaks around 13 months, and then gradually declines.The power of early attachment does gradually relax, allowing us to move out into a wider range of situations and communicate with strangers more freely.Effects of AttachmentSecure Attachment Predicts Social CompetenceInfants who were securely attached at 12 – 18 months where enthusiastic and persistent when given challenging tasks and with other children, they were more outgoing and responsiveErikson said that securely attached children approach life with a sense of basic trust—a sense that the world is predictable and reliable.Theorized that infants blessed with sensitive, loving caregivers form a lifelong attitude of trust rather than fear.Deprivation of AttachmentBabies reared in institutions without the stimulation and attention of a regular caregiver, or locked away at home under conditions of abuse or extreme neglect, are often withdrawn, frightened, even speechless.Harlow’s monkeys similarly bore scares if reared in total isolation, without even an artificial mother, then when put in a social environment, they became angry and abusive.Most abusive parents report having been neglected or battered as children, and most condemned murderers report the same.Most children growing up under adversity are resilient. Even after years of banishment to a speechless attic environment, some children have matured.Young children terrorized through sexual abuse, physical abuse, or wartime atrocities may suffer other lasting wounds—often nightmares, depression, and a troubled adolescence involving substance abuse, binge eating, or aggression.Extreme childhood trauma can leave footprints on the brain.Women who suffered child sexual abuse that included intercourse have greater risk of depression, anxiety, and alcohol abuse.Disruption of AttachmentSeparated from their families, both monkey and human infants become upset and, before long, withdrawn and even despairing.If placed in a more positive and stable environment, most infants recover from the separation distress.Foster care that prevents attachment by moving a child through a series of foster families can be very disruptive.Adults also suffer when attachment bonds are severed. Whether it occurs through death or separation, the break produces predictable sequence of agitated preoccupation with the lost partner.Newly separated couples who have long ago ceased feeling affection are sometimes surprised at their desire to be near the former partner.Does Day Care Affect Attachment?No, because children are biologically sturdy individuals who can thrive in a wide variety of life situations.High quality childcare consists of warm, supportive interactions with adults in a safe, healthy, and stimulating environment…poor care is unresponsive to children’s needs.Children who had earlier spent the most time in day care had slightly advanced thinking and language skills, though also an increased rate of aggressiveness and defiance.Family qualities, the child’s temperament and the goodness of fit between family and expectations and the child’s temperament matter much more than time spent in day care.Children’s ability to thrive under varied types of responsive care giving should not surprise us, given cultural variation in attachment patterns.Many preschool children left alone for part of their parents’ working hours deserve better.Self-ConceptThe number one social achievement of infancy is attachment.Childhood’s major social achievement is a positive sense of self.Self-concept – a sense of one’s identity and personal worthSelf-awareness begins when we recognize ourselves in a mirror (Charles Darwin), emerges gradually over about a year, starting in roughly the sixth month as the child reaches toward the mirror to touch her image as if it were another child.Researches dab rouge on the cheek to see if the child will wipe it off. If so, they have achieved self-awareness.Child-Rearing PracticesAuthoritarian parents impose rules and expect obedience: “Don’t interrupt…why? Because I said so”Permissive parents submit to their children’s desires, make few demands, and use little punishment.Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive. They exert control not only by setting rules and enforcing them but also by explaining the reasons and, especially with older children, encouraging open discussion and allowing exceptions when making the rules.Children with the highest self-esteem, self-reliance, and social competence usually have warm, concerned, authoritative parents.Authoritative parenting provides children with the greatest sense of control. When they feel that rules are more negotiated than imposed, older children feel more self-control.Authoritative parents are more often well educated and less often stressed by poverty or a recent divorce, factors that can affect children’s competence.AdolescenceAdolescence – life between childhood and adulthood, starts with physical beginnings of sexual maturity and ends with the social achievement of independent adult statusShortly after sexual maturity, society bestowed adult responsibilities and status on the young person, often marking the event with an elaborate initiation.With improved nutrition, sexual maturity began to occur earlier in many countries.Earlier puberty has coincided with increasing child obesity and father absence, and heavier girls.Earlier puberty and later independence have widened the once-brief interlude between biological maturity and social independence.After 30, many who grow up in independence-fostering western cultures look back on their teenage years as a time they would not want to relive.Despite mood swings, adolescence can be a time of vitality without the cares of adulthood, a time of rewarding friendships, or heightened idealism and a growing sense of life’s exciting possibilities.Physical DevelopmentPuberty – the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.Puberty follows a surge of hormones, which may intensify moods and which trigger a two-year period of rapid physical development, usually beginning at about 11 in girls and 13 in boys.During the growth spurt, the primary sex characteristics—the reproductive organs and external genitalia—develop dramatically.Secondary sex characteristics – nonreproductive traits such as breasts and hips in girls, facial hair and deepened voice in boys, pubic and underarm hair in both sexes.In girls, puberty starts with breast development, which now often begins by age 10.Puberty’s landmarks are the first ejaculation in boys by about 14, and first period in girls around 12.The first menstrual period – menarche.Nearly all adult women recall it and remember experiencing a mix of feelings—pride, excitement, embarrassment, and apprehension.Girls who have been prepared for it usually see it as a positive life transition.Girls have a growth spurt around 9, while boys have it as late as 16.Adolescents’ brains are also a work in progress.Until puberty, brain cells increase connections, like trees growing more roots and branches.Cognitive DevelopmentAdolescents’ developing ability to reason gives them a new level of social awareness and moral judgment.Young teenagers become capable of thinking about their thinking and other people’s and imagining what others are thinking about them.Developing Reasoning PowerAdolescents think their private experiences are unique.Pre-adolescents reason concretely, but adolescents become more capable of abstract logic: If this, then that.Adolescents’ ability to reason hypothetically and deduce consequences also enables them to detect inconsistencies in others’ reasoning and to spot hypocrisy.Developing MoralityA crucial task of childhood and adolescence is discerning right from wrong and developing characterMoral ThinkingBelieved that children’s moral judgments build on cognitive development.Moral reasoning – the thinking that occurs as we consider right and wrongKohlberg argues that as we develop intellectually we pass through as many as six stages of moral thinking moving from the simplistic and concrete toward the more abstract and principled.Preconventional Morality – before 9, most children has a preconventional morality of self-interest: they obey either to avoid punishment or to gain concrete rewards.Conventional Morality – by early adolescence, morality usually evolves to a more conventional level that cares for others and upholds laws and social rules simply because they are the laws and rules. Being able to take others’ perspectives, adolescents may approve actions that will gain social approval or that will help maintain the social orderPostconventional morality – some of those who develop the abstract reasoning of formal operational thoughts may come to a third level. This affirms people’s agreed-upon rights or follows what one personally perceives as basic ethical principles.Kohlberg’s claim was that the levels form a moral ladder; as our thinking matures, our behavior becomes less selfish and more caring.Critics therefore contend that the theory is biased against the moral reasoning of those in communal societies such as China and India—and also against Western women, whose morality may be based slightly less on abstract, impersonal principles and more on caring relationships. Moral FeelingThe mind makes moral judgments as it makes aesthetic judgments—quickly and automaticallyThe social intuitionist explanation of morality finds support from study of moral paradoxesImagine a runaway trolley headed for five people and all will be killed unless you throw a switch that diverts the trolley onto another track, where it will kill one person. Would you kill one to save five? What if you had to push that one person?Moral ActionOur moral thinking and feelings affect our talk, but emotions are fleeting.Because of social influences, people’s willingness to cheat, to discriminate racially, and to smoke marijuana are not neatly determined by their attitudes toward cheating, race, and drugs.Can stimulate children’s moral reasoning through discussions of moral issues and their implications and empathy for other’s feelings.Can model just and caring moral behavior, likely to act ourselves into a way of thinking as to think ourselves into action.Social DevelopmentYoung children wrestle with issues of trust, then autonomy, then initiative.School children strive for competence, feeling able and productive.Erikson says the adolescent’s task is to synthesize past, present, and future possibilities into a clearer sense of self. (THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY)Forming an IdentityAdolescents in Western cultures try out different “selves” by acting differently at home than at school or work or with friends.If two “selves” overlap, the discomfort is considerable.Role confusion gets resolved by forming a self-definition that unifies the various selves into a consistent and comfortable sense of who one is—an identity.Some may adopt a negative identity that defines itself in conformity (jocks, geeks, Goths, etc.)The older you get, it is normal to have a clearer identity.Developing IntimacyErikson contended adolescent identity stage is followed in young adulthood by a developing capacity for intimacy, the ability to form emotionally close relationships.Once you are comfortable with yourself, you are ready to have intimate relationships with others.Gender and Social ConnectednessGilligan believes females differ from males in being less concerned with viewing themselves as separate individuals and in being more concerned with “making” connectionsGender differences surface early, in children’s play. Boys play with large groups with an activity focus and girls usually play in smaller groups.Girls’ play is less competitive than boys’ and more imitative of social relationships.Females are more open and responsive to feedback than males, but do not answer when they don’t knowMen often answer rather than admit they do not know the answer, and this is called the male answer syndrome.As teens, girls spend more time with friends, and less time alone, and are more interdependent to explore relationships.Women emphasize caring and provide most of the care to very young and very old.Women purchase 85% of greeting cards, and are very close to their parentsMen emphasize freedom and self-reliance.Women’s ties bind families together and are more intimate than men and talk more often and more openly.Men enjoy talking “side-by-side” while women like “face-to-face”.As long as men are expected to provide and protect, they forgo their more dependent and tender sides.As long as women are expected to nurture, they forgo their impulses to be assertive and independent.Separating From ParentsTransition occurs gradually. By adolescence, arguments occur more often, usually over mundane things—household chores, bedtime, homework, etc.Parent-adolescent conflicts become intense but progressively less frequent.Adolescence is typically a time of diminishing parental influence and growing peer influence.Peer influence often decides what the teen will become.The teens act more like their peers than their parents.As people mature in young adulthood, the emotional ties between parents and children continue to loosen.During early twenties, many still lean heavily on their parents.“Emerging adults” are no longer adolescents, but they have not yet taken on adult-level responsibilities and independence.AdulthoodIt is more difficult to generalize about adulthood stages than about life’s early yearsPhysically, cognitively, and especially socially, people at age 50 differ from their 25-year-old selves.Physical DevelopmentOur physical abilities all crest by the mid-twenties.Athletes are often the first to notice after their peak; women also peak earlier since they grow and mature before menPhysical Changes in Middle AdulthoodDiminished vigor is sufficient for normal activities; physical vigor has less to do with age than with a person’s health and exercise habitsIn adolescence, the physical changes of adult life may trigger psychological responses, which vary depending on how one views growing older.In western cultures, where the perceived ideal is smooth skin and a slim torso, the wrinkles and bulges that frequently accompany middle age can threaten self-esteemFor women, aging means a gradual decline in fertility.Women’s foremost biological sign of aging is menopause (the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declinesMenopause usually does not create psychological problems for womenA woman’s expectations and attitudes influence the emotional impact of menopauseOf the older women who had menopause, two-thirds says they felt better when they got it.Men experience a more gradual decline in sperm count, testosterone level, and speed of erection and ejaculation.After middle age, most men and women remain capable of satisfying sexual activity.Physical Changes in Later LifeLIFE EXPECTANCYLife expectancy at birth increased from 49 in 1950 to 67 in 1995, combines with decreasing birthrates to make the elderly a bigger and bigger population segment.By birth, the sex ratio is down to 105 males for every 100 females; male infants; death rates exceed females’ by one-fourth.Women outlive men by 4 years worldwide.Few live to 100, and life expectancy would only increase to 85SENSORY ABILITIESPhysical decline begins in early adulthood, but we are not usually aware of it until later life.Visual sharpness diminishes, and adaptation to changes in light level slowsMuscle strength, reaction time, and stamina diminish noticeably, as do hearing, distance perception, and the sense of smell.The eye’s pupil shrinks and its lens becomes less transparent, reducing the amount of light reaching the retina.HEALTHThe body’s disease fighting immune system weakens, making the elderly more susceptible to life-threatening ailments such as cancer and pneumoniaOlder people less often suffer short-term ailments, such as common flu and cold virusesAging levies a tax on the brain by slowing our neural processing.Up to the teen years, we process information with greater and greater speed.Older people take more time to react, to solve perceptual puzzles, even to remember names.Brain regions important to memory begin to atrophyIn young adulthood, a small, gradual net loss of brain cells begins, contributing to a 5% reduction of brain weight by 80.Birth of new cells and proliferation of neural connections, especially in those who remain active.Helps explain that adults who remain active retain more of their capacity for activities in later years.It stimulates brain cell development thanks to increased oxygen and nutrient flow.We are more likely to rust from disuse than to wear out from overuse.DEMENTIA AND Alzheimer’s diseaseIncidence of mental disintegration doubles roughly every 5 yearsSeries of small strokes, a brain tumor, or alcoholism can progressively damage the brain, causing that mental erosion (Dementia)Alzheimer’s disease – a progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and, finally, physical functioningDestroys even the brightest of minds (memory, then reasoning)As Alzheimer’s runs its course, the patient becomes emotionally flat, then disoriented, then incontinent, then vacant.Deprived of acetylcholine, memory and thinking suffer. An active, challenged mind is less at risk for Alzheimer’s.Cognitive DevelopmentAdult cognitive abilities (memory, creativity, and intelligence)…do they parallel the gradually accelerating decline of physical abilities?Aging and MemoryAs we age, we remember some things well; most remember great events as happening in their teens or twenties.Our teens and twenties are the time when we experience so many of life’s memorable first’s (first date, job, etc.).2/3 of those at age 40 say their worst memories were from 10 years ago.Early adulthood is indeed a peak time, though young adults remember and recall more than older adults.To recognize information is easier than to recall it.If information is meaningful and you are older, your rich web of existing knowledge will help you to catch it.Prospective memory remains strong when events help trigger the memory.Time-based tasks are more challenging for the elderly.Aging and IntelligencePhase I: Cross-Sectional Evidence for Intellectual DeclineCross-sectional studies – a study in which people of different ages are compared with one anotherOlder adults give fewer correct answers than younger adults.The decline of mental ability with age is part of the general [aging] process of the organism as a whole Phase II: Longitudinal Evidence For Intellectual StabilityPsychologists study intelligence longitudinally—retesting the same people over a period of years.They expected to find a decrease in intelligence but it was stable until late life.When a cross-sectional study compares 70-year-olds with 30-year-olds, they are comparing two different ages and different eras. It also compares generally less-educated people who are born earlier, with better educated people who were born later where education has greatly improved.Phase III: It All DependsThose who survive longitudinal studies may be bright, healthy people whose intelligence is least likely to decline.Intelligence tests that assess speed may place older adults at a disadvantage because of their slower neural mechanisms for processing info.When given tests that assess general vocabulary, knowledge, and ability to integrate info, older adults do well.Baltes developed “wisdom” tests that assess expert knowledge about life in general and good judgment and advice about how to conduct oneself in the face of complex, uncertain circumstances. Results suggest that older adults hold their own.Crystallized intelligence – one’s accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with ageFluid Intelligence – one’s ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood. (decreases up to age 75)Poets who depend on fluid intelligence reach their peak output earlier than prose authors who need a deeper knowledge reservoir.Social DevelopmentAdulthood’s Ages and Stagesas people enter their forties, they undergo a transition to middle adulthood, a time when they realize that life will soon be mostly behind them instead of ahead of them.Unhappiness, job dissatisfaction, marital dissatisfaction, divorce, anxiety and suicide do not surge during the early forties.Social clock – the culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.The once-rigid sequence for western women—of student to worker to wife to at-home mom to older worker—has loosened.Life Events and Chance Encounterschance events can have lasting significance because they often deflect us down one road rather than another.Romantic attraction is often influenced by chance encounters.Given repeated exposure to someone after childhood, you may form a bond or infatuation with almost any available person who has a roughly similar background and level of attractiveness and who reciprocates your affections.Adulthood’s CommitmentsErikson called the basic aspects of our lives intimacy and generativity (forming close relationships and being productive/supporting future generationsFreud said: The healthy adult, is one who can love and work.LOVEwe flirt, fall in love, and marry—one person at a time.The bond of love is most satisfying and enduring when marked by a similarity of interests and values, a sharing of emotional and material support, and intimate self-disclosure.Marriages are likely to last when couples marry after 20, but they are twice as likely to divorce.Living together before marriage actually increases divorce risk.Most married people consider themselves happier than those who aren’t married.Marriage is a predictor not only of happiness but also of health, sexual satisfaction, and income.Stable marriages provide five times more smiling, touching, complimenting, and laughing than that of sarcasm, criticism, and insults.The effort to create an equitable relationship can pay double dividends, making for a more satisfying marriage, which also breeds better parent-child pared with middle-aged women who still have children at home, those whose nest has emptied report greater happiness and enjoyment of their marriage.WORKBaruch and Barnett conclude that what matters is not which roles a woman occupies—whether it be as paid worker, wife, an/or mother—but the quality of her experience in those rolesDuring the first two years of college or university, few students can predict their later careers.In the end, happiness is about having work that fits your interests and provides you with a sense of competence and accomplishment.Well-Being Across the Life Spanto live is to grow, which means we can all look back with satisfaction or regret, and forward with hope or dread.In later life, income shrinks, work is taken away, the body deteriorates, recall fades, energy wanes, family members and friends die or move awayOlder people report as much happiness and satisfaction with life as younger people do.Positive feelings grow after midlife and negative feelings subside.Feelings mellow, highs become less high, lows less pliments provoke less elation and criticisms less despair.Teenagers typically come down from elation or up from gloom in less than an hour.Adult moods are less extreme but more enduringSocial engagement becomes progressively more focused throughout adulthood.Death and Dyingmost of us will suffer and cope with the deaths of relatives and friendsgrief is especially severe when the death of a loved one comes suddenly and before its expected time on the social clockthe accidental death of a child or the sudden illness may trigger a year or more of mourning.AIDS strikes down people in midlife and younger, has left countless grief-stricken partners experiencing bereavement, as well as millions of orphaned children.Some cultures encourage public weeping, while others encourage hiding it.Death often brings integrity, that a life lived has been worthwhile.Continuity and Stagesresearchers see development as a slow, continuous shaping process, see it as a sequence of genetically predetermined stages or steps.Young children have some abilities that Piaget attributed to later stages.There are spurts of brain growth during childhood and puberty that correspond roughly to Piaget’s stages.Stability and Changethere is continuity to personality and yet, happily for troubled children and adolescents, life is a process of becoming: the struggles of the present may be laying a foundation for a happier tomorrow.the first two years of life provide a poor basis for predicting a person’s eventual traits.Some characteristics, such as temperament, are more stable than others, such as social attitudesIn some ways, we all change with age.we should remember that life requires both stability and changestability enables us to depend on others, motivates our concern for the healthy development of children and provides our identity.Change motivates our concerns about present influences, sustains our hope for a brighter future, and lets us adapt and grow with experience. ................
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