Studying psychological development-Introductory
Periods of development
Prenatal period; Infancy; preschool period; young school age; later school age; adolescence; young
adulthood; middle adulthood; late adulthood.
Areas of development
Perceptual development→development of the ability to pick up and process sensory information
Development of action→development of the ability to move about in the world and achieve goals
by guiding body
Cognitive development→changes in the way people use/understand information (attention;
memory)
Moral development→changes in a child´s sense of values; how moral and immoral behaviors
develop
Social development→changes in the way relationships are formed (child and caregiver)
Emotional development→how emotions take shape, starting at infancy
Developmental plasticity:
Ability of a single genotype to produce different phenotypes in different environments.
Gradual specialization:
Development is gradual and takes place over time.
Developmental programming:
Prenatal and early postnatal experience having lasting effects on adult functioning.
Qualitative change:
Change that causes a structure or process to emerge that was not present before→child enters
certain stages of development.
Quantitative change:
Implies a change in the magnitude of a process, for example growth.
Both quantitative and qualitative changes find place in human development.
Global changes:
Types of changes that occur simultaneously and are related to each other (development of
attention).
Local changes:
Specific changes that occur only in certain areas and independently from each other (mathematical
skills and feeling morality at the same time)
Comparative and evolutionary perspectives
Comparative is focused on developmental research that makes comparisons across species.
Evolutionary is focused on the reasons why certain emerged over successive generations of a
population through the process of natural selection.
Ethology combines both perspectives.
Cross-cultural perspectives
1. The way in which cultures influence patterns of development.
2. The fields of development that are consistent across cultures.
Culture affects people´s goals and expectations: goals and expectations may differ between groups
and individuals due to social transmission.
,Neuroscience perspectives→the way neurobiological systems influence and cause psychological
development
Behaviorists perspectives→the way observable behaviors are formed and influenced by external
factors
Psychoanalytical perspectives→comprehension of internal mental states and processes; Freud;
psychological problems arise because of conflicts between different components of the mind.
Cognitive science perspectives→focused on the mind; combines psychology, computer science,
philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics.
Ecological validity→the extent to which the study is relevant to the real world.
,Coming to understand the physical world
Explicit cognition: cognition that you are aware of and can describe in words
Implicit cognition: cognition that works outside of awareness and may be difficult to describe in
words
Cognitive development: how people change over the lifespan in the ways that they understand and
use information
Piaget´s cognitive development
Scheme: A complex of mental structures, processes and actions that are used to interact with the
environment
Assimilation: interprets new experience
in terms of existing schemes
Accommodation: alters schemes in response to new experiences
Equilibration: assimilation and accommodation working together to foster a better fit with the
environment
Sensorimotor period
Object permanence. Children explore world in circular reactions.
Stage 1: use of reflexes
Behaviors like sucking and grasping are produced spontaneously; Reflex becomes more efficient
through accommodation; No awareness of objects independent of their own actions; No integration
of senses information.
Stage 2: primary circular reactions→infant discovers by chance that he can interact with the body
using a reflex. Repeats pleasant actions. There is still no object concept.
Stage 3: secondary circular reactions→act purposefully on objects and in general on other things
than their own body. Apply new schemes to external objects. Starts by chance. Infants have more
attention to the object´s unique properties. Objects completely out of sight are still out of mind. Still
don’t understand that objects exist independently.
Stage 4: integration of secondary schemes into 1 representation. Put schemes together to achieve a
goal. Infants now know that objects have enduring properties and exist independently of their
actions. Infants will retrieve a fully hidden object, but don’t fully represent it when it is out of sight.
A-not-B error→ an object is repeatedly hidden for the infant to discover in the same spot (place A),
then the object is hidden in a new spot (place B) while he watches; the infant will again search for
the object in place A. Piaget→that is because the infant is unable to apply a new scheme to the
object in its new location.
Stage 5:12-18 months tertiary circular reactions→ applies schemes intentionally, ‘little scientist’
activities
Shows genuine creativity, exploration and experimentation. They no longer commit the A-not-B
errors; fails at invisible displacement→unable to mentally keep track of the object’s movement while
it is hidden.
Stage 6: 18 months-2 years: after about 1 ½ years of age→flexible use of schemes; can represent
objects that are out of sight. Can manipulate mental representations: internal mental exploration
Begin using language: ability to think symbolically. Can solve invisible displacements.
, Key aspects of Piaget´s theory
-Children experience the world very differently than older children and adults.
-Piaget´s theory was one of the first to explain mental states and processes that underlie behavioral
changes.
-Domain generality→every transition from one stage to another influences the child´s thinking and
reasoning on all tasks in which the child engages.
A-not-B task comparative→
→dogs and macaques solve the first task ,but in their brains, there is no preparation for more
complex tasks (like gorillas and humans).
Some species never even commit the A-not-B error.
Reexamining A-not-B error:
Other reasons to make the A-not-B error?
Reliable, but not valid experiments?
-Infants are more likely to look at the correct location of the object than the incorrect one, even if
they make the reaching error.
-Studies that show that children were more surprised to find object at place A, which indicates that
they were expecting it at place B and so actually didn’t make the A-not-B error.
→Research focus: Topal et al.:
Possibility 1: infants think that the game is an act of communication, so the error is a communicative
one
Possibility 2: the error is unrelated to communication
In the communicative experiment the children were less able to pass the task→infants wanted to
show the experimenter he wants them to reach the same place again and again.
So, research of Topal et al. showed that in the communicative condition, less children passed the task
because they thought “the researcher wants them reach to the same place every
time→reinforcement”.
Periods of development
Prenatal period; Infancy; preschool period; young school age; later school age; adolescence; young
adulthood; middle adulthood; late adulthood.
Areas of development
Perceptual development→development of the ability to pick up and process sensory information
Development of action→development of the ability to move about in the world and achieve goals
by guiding body
Cognitive development→changes in the way people use/understand information (attention;
memory)
Moral development→changes in a child´s sense of values; how moral and immoral behaviors
develop
Social development→changes in the way relationships are formed (child and caregiver)
Emotional development→how emotions take shape, starting at infancy
Developmental plasticity:
Ability of a single genotype to produce different phenotypes in different environments.
Gradual specialization:
Development is gradual and takes place over time.
Developmental programming:
Prenatal and early postnatal experience having lasting effects on adult functioning.
Qualitative change:
Change that causes a structure or process to emerge that was not present before→child enters
certain stages of development.
Quantitative change:
Implies a change in the magnitude of a process, for example growth.
Both quantitative and qualitative changes find place in human development.
Global changes:
Types of changes that occur simultaneously and are related to each other (development of
attention).
Local changes:
Specific changes that occur only in certain areas and independently from each other (mathematical
skills and feeling morality at the same time)
Comparative and evolutionary perspectives
Comparative is focused on developmental research that makes comparisons across species.
Evolutionary is focused on the reasons why certain emerged over successive generations of a
population through the process of natural selection.
Ethology combines both perspectives.
Cross-cultural perspectives
1. The way in which cultures influence patterns of development.
2. The fields of development that are consistent across cultures.
Culture affects people´s goals and expectations: goals and expectations may differ between groups
and individuals due to social transmission.
,Neuroscience perspectives→the way neurobiological systems influence and cause psychological
development
Behaviorists perspectives→the way observable behaviors are formed and influenced by external
factors
Psychoanalytical perspectives→comprehension of internal mental states and processes; Freud;
psychological problems arise because of conflicts between different components of the mind.
Cognitive science perspectives→focused on the mind; combines psychology, computer science,
philosophy, neuroscience, linguistics.
Ecological validity→the extent to which the study is relevant to the real world.
,Coming to understand the physical world
Explicit cognition: cognition that you are aware of and can describe in words
Implicit cognition: cognition that works outside of awareness and may be difficult to describe in
words
Cognitive development: how people change over the lifespan in the ways that they understand and
use information
Piaget´s cognitive development
Scheme: A complex of mental structures, processes and actions that are used to interact with the
environment
Assimilation: interprets new experience
in terms of existing schemes
Accommodation: alters schemes in response to new experiences
Equilibration: assimilation and accommodation working together to foster a better fit with the
environment
Sensorimotor period
Object permanence. Children explore world in circular reactions.
Stage 1: use of reflexes
Behaviors like sucking and grasping are produced spontaneously; Reflex becomes more efficient
through accommodation; No awareness of objects independent of their own actions; No integration
of senses information.
Stage 2: primary circular reactions→infant discovers by chance that he can interact with the body
using a reflex. Repeats pleasant actions. There is still no object concept.
Stage 3: secondary circular reactions→act purposefully on objects and in general on other things
than their own body. Apply new schemes to external objects. Starts by chance. Infants have more
attention to the object´s unique properties. Objects completely out of sight are still out of mind. Still
don’t understand that objects exist independently.
Stage 4: integration of secondary schemes into 1 representation. Put schemes together to achieve a
goal. Infants now know that objects have enduring properties and exist independently of their
actions. Infants will retrieve a fully hidden object, but don’t fully represent it when it is out of sight.
A-not-B error→ an object is repeatedly hidden for the infant to discover in the same spot (place A),
then the object is hidden in a new spot (place B) while he watches; the infant will again search for
the object in place A. Piaget→that is because the infant is unable to apply a new scheme to the
object in its new location.
Stage 5:12-18 months tertiary circular reactions→ applies schemes intentionally, ‘little scientist’
activities
Shows genuine creativity, exploration and experimentation. They no longer commit the A-not-B
errors; fails at invisible displacement→unable to mentally keep track of the object’s movement while
it is hidden.
Stage 6: 18 months-2 years: after about 1 ½ years of age→flexible use of schemes; can represent
objects that are out of sight. Can manipulate mental representations: internal mental exploration
Begin using language: ability to think symbolically. Can solve invisible displacements.
, Key aspects of Piaget´s theory
-Children experience the world very differently than older children and adults.
-Piaget´s theory was one of the first to explain mental states and processes that underlie behavioral
changes.
-Domain generality→every transition from one stage to another influences the child´s thinking and
reasoning on all tasks in which the child engages.
A-not-B task comparative→
→dogs and macaques solve the first task ,but in their brains, there is no preparation for more
complex tasks (like gorillas and humans).
Some species never even commit the A-not-B error.
Reexamining A-not-B error:
Other reasons to make the A-not-B error?
Reliable, but not valid experiments?
-Infants are more likely to look at the correct location of the object than the incorrect one, even if
they make the reaching error.
-Studies that show that children were more surprised to find object at place A, which indicates that
they were expecting it at place B and so actually didn’t make the A-not-B error.
→Research focus: Topal et al.:
Possibility 1: infants think that the game is an act of communication, so the error is a communicative
one
Possibility 2: the error is unrelated to communication
In the communicative experiment the children were less able to pass the task→infants wanted to
show the experimenter he wants them to reach the same place again and again.
So, research of Topal et al. showed that in the communicative condition, less children passed the task
because they thought “the researcher wants them reach to the same place every
time→reinforcement”.
