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Overview of Developmental Psychology
● Developmental psych does not just stop at 18 – across whole lifespan ● The study of how people grow and change across the lifespan, before infancy and well into adulthood ● Infants – physical growth, mental ● Toddlers - fine motor skills, language, social ● Adolescence - puberty, forming identity, friends may be more important than parents ● Adulthood – different types of relationships, cognitive and emotional growth ● Elderly/late adulthood – physical health, social roles, life perspective Focuses on infancy, toddler, adolescence stages
Studying Child Development
● To understand how children think, feel, and act in the world (often different from adults) ● Ex. Why do toddlers throw tantrums, Why do adolescents take social risks ● Understand how adults come to think feel and act the way they do, shaped through child experiences, cognitive, emotional social skills change all the time ● Explains differences in coping mechanisms, personality, etc. ● To become better teachers, parents, policy makers, apply developmental insights to improve guidance for kids like better environment for children in schools or for children with special needs.
Themes in Child Development
● Nature vs. Nurture: nature = genetic info, nurture = environment – both work bidirectionally to influence development ○ Twin studies are used to study this – biological same individual, not same person. Twins raised apart may show same temperament or personality traits, but a lot develops on resource abundance ● The Active child: kids are not passive sponges, things are not just happening to them, choices shape development ○ Ex. Kids who smile a lot gains more positive feedback, toddlers seek out friends and activities that are similar to their personalities ○ Shapes what they learn and how adults respond ○ Drives their own learning ● Continuity vs discontinuity: continuous = changes occur gradually in small increments, development occurs skill by skill and task by task, ex. Plant growing ○ Discontinuous = changes with age include occasional large shifts, more dramatic, ex. Caterpillar to butterfly, suddenly different ● Mechanisms of change: How does change occur inside and around children, allowing them to grow ○ interaction of genes and environment determines wat and when changes occur
○ Ex. One child may be better at sharing compared to another due to supportive experiences with sharing, genetic predisposition, etc. ● The sociocultural context: the social, cultural and historical environment in which a person lives and interacts ○ Ranges from immediate connections (family) to further (media, policies) ○ Larger circle = more indirect effect ○ Bidirectional arrows – different layers and systems are influencing each other ○ Ex. Child affects family/friends, those affect attitudes ○ Ex. Childs understanding of gender roles in society is influenced by sociocultural contexts they are embedded in ○ Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model as the framework for understanding how the sociocultural context influences development ● Individual differences: unique traits make each person distinct: genetic difference, differences in treatment by parents and others, reactions to similar experiences, choices of environment ○ Individual differences influence why children respond differently to the same thing ● Research and child welfare: research leads to benefits for children: educational innovations, social skills programs, more valid child eyewitness testimony methods ○ Ex. Lloyd Morrisett saw that there were children that started school behind in education, created high quality and home education to disadvantaged children before school ○ He created sesame street: literacy, numeracy, prosocial behavior, representation of non-white children ○ Not all media is helpful for development – ex. Baby einstein has no advantage to language development, passive screen time may interfere with learning and parent child interactions ● Children contribute to their own development through their actions, decisions, and interactions with the world. ● Questionnaires, interviews, and observations are all common research methods for gathering data about children ● In the context of the Romanian Adoption Study, a significant finding regarding the impact of adversity and early mistreatment is that the timing and age of experiences influence a child's development ● Ethical standards to which psychological researchers are expected to adhere include: ○ Counteracting negative outcomes of research ○ Obtaining informed consent ○ And preserving the participants’ anonymity
Final exam – half = ch. 1-10, half = ch. 11- Primarily multiple choice, some short answer (half a page) Ch. Quizzes are 10-15 MC + T/F questions Ch1 quiz due sept 18 (try to finish by sept 11)
For us, as both parents and researchers, the sheer enjoyment of watching children and trying to understand them is reason enough to study child development. What could be more fascinating than the development of a child? But there are also practical and intellectual reasons for studying child development. Understanding how children develop can improve child rearing, promote the adoption of wiser social policies regarding children’s welfare, and answer basic questions about human nature. We examine each of these reasons in the following sections. Raising Children Trying to be a good parent raises endless questions. Should I change my diet while pregnant? Is it okay to take the baby outside in the cold weather? Should I raise my child at home for the first few years, or would going to childcare be better for their development? My child is 3 years old and not speaking yet—should I worry? Should I try to teach my 5-year-old to read early, or will they learn when they’re ready? How can I help my kindergartner deal with their anger? My teenager seems lonely and says that no one likes them; how can I help?
Child-development research can help answer such questions. For example, one problem that confronts almost all parents is how to help their children control their anger. One tempting reaction is to spank children who express anger in inappropriate ways, such as fighting, name-calling, and acting disrespectfully. In Canada, prevalence rates show that about 25% of parents report spanking their children (Fréchette & Romano, 2015; Perron et al., 2014). Research, however, indicates that spanking worsens the problem (Grogan-Kaylor, Ma, & Graham-Bermann, 2018).
The more often parents spank their children the more often the same children argue, fight, and act inappropriately at school. This relation holds true across the different racial and ethnic groups studied, and it holds true above and beyond the effects of other relevant factors, such as parents’ income and education. Fortunately, research suggests several effective alternatives to spanking (Denham, 2006; Feindler & Schira, 2022).
One is expressing sympathy: when parents respond to their children’s anger with sympathy, the children are better able to cope with the situation causing the distress. Another effective approach is helping angry children find positive alternatives to expressing their feelings. For example, encouraging them to do something they enjoy helps them cope with their hostility. These strategies and similar ones, such as time-outs, can also be used effectively by others who contribute to raising children, such as day-care personnel and teachers.
One demonstration of this was provided by a special curriculum devised for helping preschoolers (3- and 4-year-olds) who were angry and out of control (Denham & Burton, 1996). This curriculum encourages preschool teachers to help children recognize their own and other children’s emotions, as well as to teach children techniques for controlling their anger and peaceably resolving conflicts with other children. One approach that children were taught for coping with anger was the “turtle technique.” When children felt themselves becoming angry, they were to move away from other children and retreat into their “turtle shell,” where they could think through the situation until they were ready to emerge from the shell. Posters like this are used in the turtle technique to remind children of ways to control anger. The curriculum was quite successful. Children who participated in it became more skillful in recognizing and
regulating anger when they experienced it. For example, one boy, who had regularly gotten into fights when angry, told the teacher after a dispute with another child, “See, I used my words, not my hands” (Denham, 1998, p. 219).
The benefits of this program can be long term. In one test, positive effects were still evident as long as 4 or 5 years after children completed the curriculum (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). In recent years, a variety of other curricula based on similar principles have also been shown to be effective in helping preschoolers and older children control their anger (Feindler & Schira, 2022). As this example suggests, knowledge of child-development research helps everyone involved in the care of children.
Building Empathy for Diverse Populations of Children Empathy: This refers to a person’s capacity to understand and share the feelings of another person, and is a key part of emotional and moral development. It often is easier for us to empathize with the struggles of people whose backgrounds are similar to our own than with people whose lives are very different. However, as our society has become more diverse, it has become increasingly important that we learn to understand and empathize with children and families facing stressful or extreme circumstances, such as poverty, displacement into an unfamiliar language, community, and culture, or memories of traumatic experiences.
Developing empathy for children who face such challenges is a skill that benefits everyone, but it is especially important for people who work with children: teachers, health-care workers, social workers, psychotherapists, family counsellors, pediatricians, preschool and day-care workers and directors, child and school psychologists, and others. The better we understand the traumatic and stressful events that some children face, and how those events impact their lives and development, the better equipped we will be to provide empathic and effective care and treatment for them.
Choosing Social Policies : Another reason to learn about child development is to be able to make informed decisions about the wide variety of social-policy questions that affect children. For example, does playing violent video games increase aggressive behaviour? How much trust should judges and juries place in the testimony of young children in child abuse cases? Should children who do poorly in school be held back, or should they be promoted to the next grade so that they can be with children their age? Consider the issue of whether playing violent video games makes children and adolescents more aggressive. This issue has been hotly contested by politicians, advocacy groups, and researchers, with some arguing that such games are sufficiently harmful that their sale to minors should be forbidden.
In Canada, the Entertainment Software Association is responsible for rating video games in terms of age-appropriateness, content, and interactive features. Most retailers in Canada, using this rating system, require age verification for the purchase of games rated M (mature; Entertainment Software Rating Board, n.d.). To provide a thorough evaluation of the evidence, Ferguson (2015; also see Furuya- Kanamori & Doi, 2016) reviewed findings from 101 studies on
because he more than any other has a fount of intelligence in him which has not yet “run clear,” he is the craftiest, most mischievous, and unruliest of brutes. (The Laws, bk. 7, 1961, p. 1379)
Consistent with this view, Plato emphasized self-control and discipline as the most important goals of education (Borstelmann, 1983). Aristotle agreed with Plato that discipline was necessary, but he was more concerned with fitting child rearing to the needs of the individual child. In his words: It would seem … that a study of individual character is the best way of making education perfect, for then each [child] has a better chance of receiving the treatment that suits him. (Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 10, chap. 9, p. 1180) Plato and Aristotle differed considerably in their views of how children acquire knowledge. Plato believed that children have innate knowledge.
For example, he believed that children are born with a concept of “animal” that, from birth onwards, automatically allows them to recognize that dogs, cats, and other creatures they encounter are animals. In contrast, Aristotle believed that all knowledge comes from experience and that the mind of an infant is like a blackboard on which nothing has yet been written. Although no one knows what Plato or Aristotle looked like (no cameras or iPhones in their day), this painting, The School of Athens, by the great painter Raphael, allows us to imagine how the two might have looked. Perhaps they were discussing their contrasting views of child development.
Roughly 2000 years later, the English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) and the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) refocused attention on the question of how parents and society in general can best promote children’s development. Locke, like Aristotle, viewed the child as a tabula rasa, or blank slate, whose development largely reflects the nurture provided by the child’s parents and the broader society. He believed that the most important goal of child rearing is the growth of character. To build children’s character, parents need to set good examples of honesty, stability, and gentleness. They also need to avoid indulging the child, especially early in life. However, once discipline and reason have been instilled, Locke believed that authority should be relaxed as fast as their age, discretion, and good behavior could allow it…. The sooner you treat him as a man, the sooner he will begin to be one. (Cited in Borstelmann, 1983, p. 20)
1.3 1.2 Enduring Philosophical Issues in the Study of Child
Development
The modern study of child development begins with a set of fundamental questions. Everything else—theories, concepts, research methods, data, and so on—is part of the effort to answer these questions. Although experts in the field might choose different particular questions as the most important, there is widespread agreement that the seven questions in Table 1.1 are amongst the most important. These questions form a set of themes that we will highlight throughout the book as we examine specific aspects of child development. In this section, we introduce and briefly discuss each question and the theme that corresponds to it.
TABLE 1.1 Basic Questions About Child Development
- How do nature and nurture together shape development? (Nature and nurture)
- How do children shape their own development? (The active child)
- In what ways is development continuous, and in what ways is it discontinuous? (Continuity/discontinuity)
- How does change occur? (Mechanisms of change)
- How does the sociocultural context influence development? (The sociocultural context)
- How do children become so different from one another? (Individual differences)
- How can research promote children’s well-being? (Research and children’s welfare)
Nature and Nurture: How Do Nature and Nurture Together Shape Development?
The most basic question about child development is how nature and nurture interact to shape the developmental process. Nature refers to our biological endowment, in particular, the genes we receive from our parents. This genetic inheritance influences every aspect of our makeup, from broad characteristics such as physical appearance, personality, intellect, and mental health to specific preferences, such as political attitudes and propensity for thrill-seeking (Harden, 2021; Plomin, 2018).
Nurture refers to the wide range of environments, both physical and social, that influence our development, including the womb in which we spend the prenatal period, the homes in which we grow up, the schools that we attend, the broader communities in which we live, and the many people with whom we interact.
Popular depictions often present the nature–nurture question as an either/or proposition: “What determines how a person develops, heredity or environment?” However, this either/or phrasing is misleading. All human characteristics—our intellects, personalities, physical appearances, and emotions—are created through the joint workings of nature and nurture. That is, who we are is created through the constant interaction of our biology and our environment. Accordingly, rather than asking whether nature or nurture is more important, developmentalists ask how nature and nurture work together to shape development.
That this is the right question to ask is vividly illustrated by findings on the development of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia refers to a family of serious mental illnesses, often characterized by hallucinations, delusions, confusion, and irrational behaviour. There is an obvious genetic component to this disease. Children who have a schizophrenic parent have a much higher probability than other children of developing the illness later in life, even when they are adopted as infants and therefore are not exposed to their parents’ schizophrenic behaviour (Henriksen, Nordgaard, & Jansson, 2017). Amongst identical twins—that is, twins whose genes are identical—if one twin has schizophrenia, the other has a roughly 40% to 50% chance of also having schizophrenia, as opposed to the roughly 1% probability for the general population (see Figure 1.1; Gejman, Sanders, & Duan, 2010; Gottesman, 1991).
use, and play. Infants shape their own development through selective attention. Even newborns attend more to objects that move and make sounds than to other objects. This preference helps them learn about important parts of the world, such as people, other animals, and inanimate moving objects, including cars and trucks. When looking at people, infants’ attention is particularly drawn to faces, especially their mother’s face; given a choice of looking at a stranger’s face or their mother’s, even 1-month-olds choose to look at Mom (Bartrip, Morton, & de Schonen, 2001). At first, infants’ attention to their mother’s face is not accompanied by any visible emotion, but by the end of the second month, infants smile and coo more when focusing intently on their mother’s face than at other times. This smiling and cooing by the infant elicits smiling and talking by the mother, which elicits further cooing and smiling by the infant, and so on (Lavelli & Fogel, 2013).
In this way, infants’ preference for attending to their mother’s face leads to social interactions that can strengthen the mother–infant bond. One of the earliest ways children shape their own development is through their choice of where to look. From the first month of life, seeing Mom is a high priority. Once children begin to speak, usually between 9 and 15 months of age, their contribution to their own development becomes more evident. For example, toddlers (1- and 2-year-olds) often talk when they are alone in a room. Only if children were internally motivated to learn language would they practice talking when no one was present to react to what they are saying. This “crib speech” is entirely normal, and the practice probably helps toddlers learn language.
