Chapter 11: Human Development
Chapter Review
Summarizing the Principles of Human Development
What Shapes a Child?1. Development starts in the womb: Many factors in the prenatal environment (i.e., nutrition and hormones) can affect development. The most adverse consequences result from teratogens (i.e., drugs, alcohol, or viruses), exposure to which can result in death, deformity, or mental disorders.
2. Brain development promotes learning: Brain development proceeds in an interaction between maturation and experience. The plasticity of the brain allows changes in the development of connections and the synaptic pruning of unused neural connections. The timing of requisite experiences for brain development is particularly important in the early years.
3. Attachment promotes survival: The emotional bond that develops between a child and the caregiver aids the survival of the child. Attachment styles define the dynamic relationship between caregivers and infants, and are generally categorized as secure, avoidant, anxious-ambivalent, and disorganized. At the biological level, the hormone oxytocin facilitates attachment.
4. Parental style can affect children's well-being: Children's temperaments interact with their parents' behaviors and can result in a good "fit" or less optimal outcomes. Furthermore, parents influence attitudes, values, and beliefs and thus shape their childrens' views of themselves and others.
How Do Children Learn about Their Worlds?
5. Perception introduces the world: Experiments using the preferential looking technique and habituation have revealed the considerable perceptual ability of infants. Vision and hearing develop rapidly as neural circuitry develops.
6. Piaget emphasized stages of development: Jean Piaget proposed that through interaction with the environment, children develop mental schemas and proceed through stages of cognitive development. Initially, infants experience their world in a sensorimotor manner and develop object permanence; next they enter the preoperational stage, during which the appearance of objects dominates thinking; the third stage is marked by the logic of concrete operations; and finally, the formal operational stage is characterized by abstract, complex thinking.
7. Infants have innate knowledge: Experiments using the habituation paradigm have revealed that infants understand some of the basic laws of physics and mathematics.
8. Memory improves over childhood: Infantile memory is limited by a lack of language ability and autobiographical reference. Source amnesia is common in children. Confabulation, common in young children, may result from underdevelopment of the frontal lobes.
9. Humans learn from interacting with others: Being able to infer the mental states of others is known as theory of mind. Through socialization, children move from very egocentric thinking to being able to take another's perspective.
10. Language develops in an orderly fashion: Infants can discriminate phonemes. Language proceeds from making different sounds to words to telegraphic speech to sentences. Noam Chomsky asserts that language is governed by "universal grammar." According to Lev Vygotsky, social interaction is the force that develops language. Exposure to language in the sensitive period is required for its development. Interaction across cultures can shape language. Sign language develops like spoken language.
How Do Children and Adolescents Develop Their Identities?
11. Gender roles are determined by cultural norms: Gender identity develops in children and shapes their behaviors (i.e., gender roles). Gender schemas are the cognitive constructs of gender. People tend to rate themselves as masculine, feminine, or androgynous in stereotypic thinking. Situations affect gender-related response. Biology and culture shape gender differences.
12. Friends influence adolescent identity and behavior: Social comparisons shape children's identities. Parents and peers shape identity.
13. Identity includes moral values: Moral reasoning develops through a series of levels from self-interest to logical, rulebound reasoning to abstract principles and values. Parents influence the understanding and expression of moral emotions (i.e., guilt, sympathy). There is evidence of a physiological and thus developmental component of morality.
14. People define themselves in terms of race and ethnicity: By age four, children begin to categorize themselves and others with regard to race or ethnicity. Ethnic identity is complicated by social prejudice.
What Brings Meaning to Adulthood?
15. Adults are affected by life transitions: Erikson considered development from a life-span perspective, and theorized that there are important social issues to be resolved at each stage of life. For adults, development focuses on generativity: being productive with regard to career and family. Marriage is a central issue, though about half of contemporary marriages fail.
16. Aging can be successful: With the "graying" of the population in western societies, more research has been done on aging. There are inevitable physical changes, but dementia is not normal and has many causes, including Alzheimer's disease. Most older adults are healthy and remain productive, and often become socioemotionally selective about their relationships and activities.
17. Cognition changes during aging: Short-term memory is affected by aging, thus complex memory and dividedattention tasks are affected. Crystallized intelligence increases; fluid intelligence declines in old age as speed in processing declines. Being mentally active and socially engaged preserves functioning.
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