PSY2043 Ch03 Lecture Notes

PSY2043 Introduction to Psychology

Ch03 Psychological Development

Intended Learning Outcomes

• Understand how heredity and environment interact to determine human development. Be able to define the concept of maturation and show how it relates to this interaction.
  • Genetically determined characteristics are expressed through the process of maturation.
  • The environment affects the rate at which children acquire the skills, not the ultimate skill level
  • Maturation – an innately determined sequence of growth and change that is relatively independent of external events 先天决定的成长和变化的顺序，相对独立于外部事件
• Be familiar with what psychologists mean by developmental stages and by the related concepts of critical and sensitive periods.
  • Stages of development
    • Behavior at a given stage is organised around a coherent set of characteristics
    • Behavior at each stage is qualitatively different from that at earlier or later stages
    • States that all children go through the same stages in the same order (many psychologists disagree)
    • Environmental factors may affect speed of progress through, but not the order of, stages
  • Critical periods – crucial time periods in a person’s life when specific events occur if development is to proceed normally
  • Sensitive periods – periods that are optimal for a particular kind of development
• Be able to describe the capacities of the newborn and the procedures used to assess these capacities.
  • Capacities
    • Vision – poor, cannot see as well as an adult until about age 2.
    • 即使新生儿也会注意到声音，他们似乎天生具有已调整到将帮助他们学习语言的人类语音特性的感知机制
    • Infants can discriminate between different tastes and odors shortly after birth. They seem to show a preference for the taste and odor of breast milk.
    • Infants can learn from the moment they are born and show good memories by three months of age
  • Procedures
• Know the sequence of Piaget‘s stages of cognitive development and some difficulties with Piaget’s theory and with alternative views. Be able to describe Kohlberg’s work on moral reasoning and its three levels.
  • Piaget’s theory
    • Stages
      • Sensorimotor (0-2)
      • Preoperational (2-7)
      • Concrete operational (7-11)
      • Formal operational (11+)
    • Difficulties
      • Understimate children’s abilities
  • Alternatives
    • Information-processing approaches
    • Knowledge-acquistion approaches
    • Sociocultural approaches
  • Kohlberg
    • Piaget believed children’s understanding of moral rules developed along with cognitive abilities
    • Kohlberg extended Piaget’s work to include adolescence and adulthood and arrived at six developmental stages of moral judgment, grouped into three levels
      • Level 1 – Preconventional morality
      • Level 2 – Conventional morality
      • Level 3 – Postconventional morality
• Be familiar with characteristics of personality development and early social behavior.
• Be familiar with some aspects of the physiology of puberty and with psychological effects of this period on various dimensions of the adolescent.

Heredity and Environment 先天与后天

• Maturation成熟 : an innately determined sequence of growth and change that is relatively independent of external events 先天决定的成长和变化的顺序，相对独立于外部事件
• Key debate : nature v.s. nurture?
  • John Locke - “tabula rasa” (white board) - nurture
  • Darwin’s theory of revolution - nature
  • Behaviorists (Skinner, Watson) - nurture
• Stages of development
  • 发展过程是依循一套性质不同的阶段的固定顺序
  • Def
    1. 每一阶段的行为都环绕着某一强势特征
    2. 每一阶段的行为的性质都与前后阶段不同
    3. 所有孩子都以相同顺序经历相同的阶段
  • 环境因素会影响速度，但不会改变次序
  • Critical Period
    • Crucial periods in a person’s life when specific events [occur]
    • 在个人一生的重要阶段中，必须发生某种特殊事件，发展才能正常进行
    • 如果在这一阶段发生了错误，未来将无法逆转
    • e.g. 视觉发展
  • Sensitive Period
    • [Optimal] for a particular kind of development
    • 某一特殊发展的最理想时期。如果某些行为无法在这一时期建立好，该行为的潜能就可能无法完全发展
    • 在这一阶段发生的事情未来可以改变但是很难
    • e.g. 学习新语言

Capacities of newborn 新生儿的能力

• Vision
  • Some evidence of facial preference
• Hearing
  • 灵敏并且表现出对母亲声音的偏好
• Taste & Smell
  • 喜欢甜的
  • 出生后不久，能够辨别口味和气味
• Learning & Memory - 具有学习能力，良好的记忆

Cognitive Development in Childhood 儿童期的认知发展

• Piaget’s stage theory
  • Schemas 图式
    • Theories about how the physical and social worlds operate
    • 关于物质世界和社会世界如何运作的理论
  • assimilation 同化
    • Understand new information in terms of a pre-existing schema
  • accommodation(顺应)
    • Modify a new schema to fit new information
  • The sensorimotor stage (0-2 years) 感知运动阶段
    • Recognize self as agent of action and begin to act intentionally 自我是行动的主体
    • Infant uses their senses and motor abilities to understand the world 用感官和运动能力来理解世界
      • e.g. 婴儿把什么都往嘴巴里面塞
    • object permanence(客体永久性)
      • 意识到物体在不可见时仍然存在
  • Preoperational stage (2-7 years) 前运算阶段
    • 学会使用语言
    • 用图像和文字表示物体
    • Egocentrism 自我中心思考（三山实验）
  • Concrete operational stage (7-11 years) 具体运算阶段
    • 逻辑性思考
    • 掌握 守恒（conversation）并获得可逆性（reversibility），
      • number (age 6)
      • mass (age 7)
      • weight (age 9)
  • Formal operational stage (11+ years) 抽象运算阶段
    • 对抽象事物的思考
    • 系统性验证假设
      • 例如在能采用控制变量法来验证猜想
• 对 Piaget’s theory 的批判 Critique
  • 低估儿童能力：实验证明了儿童可以更早的拥有客体永久性概念及数字守恒概念
  • 更多影响 具体运算操作 的因素，如文化环境/学校教育等
• Alternatives to Piaget’s theory
  • Information-processing approaches
  • Knowledge-acquistion approaches
  • Sociocultural approaches(Vygotsky)
• Theory of mind心理理论
  • 理解他人有思考
  • 元认知metacognition - 对思维的思考
  • Flavell的研究：学前儿童尚未有心理理论，即认为别人拥有与它们不同或与现实相异的信念
  • 自闭症（autism）的儿童缺乏心理理论
• The development of moral judgement道德判断的发展
  • Piaget : 儿童整体的认知发展层次决定他们的道德判断
  • Kohlberg : 将皮亚杰的道德推理研究拓展至青春期和成人期
    • 三个层级：
      • Level 1. Preconventional morality前习俗水平
        • Stage 1. Punishment orientation 避免惩罚
        • Stage 2. Reward orientation 得到回报
      • Level 2. Conventional morality习俗水平
        • Stage 3. Good-boy/good-girl orientation 避免他人反对
        • Stage 4. Authority orientation 权威导向
      • Level 3. Postconventional morality后习俗水平
        • Stage 5. Social-contract orientation 社会契约导向
        • Stage 6. Ethical principle orientation 道德原则导向

Personality and Social Development人格和社会发展

• Temperament气质 - 与情绪有关的人格特征
  • 容易型，困难型，迟缓型
  • 遗传基因与环境间的交互作用，造就一位儿童的气质
• Early social behavior早期社会行为
  • smile
  • stranger anxiety
    • 记忆
    • 自主性
• Attachment依恋
  • Harlow’s monkey experiment – 母亲和婴儿间的依恋不只是出于哺育的需要
  • Strange situation : 评估依恋
  • Types
    • Securely attached 安全依恋
    • Insecurely attached: avoidant 不安全依恋：逃避
    • Insecurely attached: ambivalent 不安全依恋：矛盾
    • Disorganized 混乱型依恋
  • Parenting styles 父母反应方式
    • caregiver’s sensitive responsiveness to baby’s needs produces secure attachment
    • attachment patterns reflect interaction between baby’s temperament and parents’ responsiveness
  • Later development
• Self-concept
• Self-esteem

Adolescent Development

• Sexual development 性发展
  • Puberty 青春期
  • Menarche 初潮
• Psychological effects of puberty 青春期的心理效应
• Identity development 自我认同发展
  • Erickson’s theory of identity development
    • 青春期的重要任务： developing sense of identity
    • Identity crisis 同一性危机：Erickson用来描述青年主动界定自我特性的历程
    • Identity confusion 同一性混淆：同一性危机处理失败的结果
• Identity Statuses 同一性状态 (James Marcia)
  • Identity achivement 同一性获得
  • Foreclosure 过早自认
  • Moratorium 同一性延缓
  • Identity diffusion 同一性扩散
• Erikson’s 8 stages of development