Beginnings of Life

The Beginnings of Life

Nature and Nurture; Physical, Social, and Cognitive Development

Source: Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 14th ed.

The Beginnings of Life

Capacio, Krista Kae T. & Larrazabal, Ma. Amale Y.


Human beings enter the world with an inborn store of knowledge and understanding of

reality.

Could be accessed through careful reasoning and introspection.

Knowledge is acquired through experiences and

interactions with the world.

JOHN LOCKE

Nature and Nurture

17th Century


For short,

HEREDITY

ENVIRONMENT

Nature Nurture


JOHN LOCKE

The mind of a newborn infant is a tabula rasa (blank state).

Knowledge is provided entirely by experience; there is no built-in knowledge.


CHARLES DARWIN

19th Century

CHARLES DARWINTheory of Evolution

19th Century

CHARLES DARWINTheory of Evolution

HEREDITY

19th Century

BEHAVIORISM20th

Century

John B. Watson

B.F. Skinner

Human nature is completely malleable.


“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in, and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to be any type of specialist I might select—doctor,

lawyer, artist, merchant chief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants,

tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.” (1930)


Today, most psychologists agree not only

that both nature and nurture play important

roles but also that they interact

continuously to guide development.


PHYSICAL Development


Newborn

3x larger brain

but with few connections3 years100 Billion Neurons


• Left brain hemisphere develops more fully which may explain why children

acquire language quickly.

• Handedness—the preference for using one hand

Brain Development

2-6 years

Middle childhood

Brain Developmentinfluenced by

Genetic

factors Stimulation or deprivation a child receives

from the environment

in early years.

fetal behavior


Genesprogram us.

maturationA process that expresses genetically

determined characteristics.

A determined sequence of growth or change that is relatively independent

of external events.


3 months of pregnancy

If the mother contracts rubella, damage

depends on which organ system was developing

during the time of infection

Fetal behavior

Motor Development

kicking, turning, etc.

Follows an orderly sequence depending on stage growth.

Organ development

After birth

Illustrates the interaction between genetically

programmed maturation and environmental influences.


William James

A newborn sees the world a

buzzing, blooming confusion.


NewbornCapacities


Visionlimited focusnearsighted

HearingAble to

distinguish different sounds.

Proof: head-turning response


Taste and Smell

• Babies prefer sweet-tasting liquids over others.• Babies prefer breast milk over others.


Learning and Memory

• 3-month-old babies already have good memories.


Motor Skills

Gross motor skills

Fine motor skills

Involve the use of large bodily movements.

Involve the use of small bodily movements.


Cognitive Developmentin Childhood


Psychological thinking about children’s

cognitive development is dominated by

two perspectives.

Biological Maturation

Environmen-tal-learning perspective


SchemasTheories about how the physical and social worlds operates


Piaget’s 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

Sensorimotor stage

Preoperational

stage

Stage of Concrete

Operations Stage of Formal

Operations


Sensorimotor Stage• First 2 years• Relationship between actions and consequences

• Concept of themselves as separate form the external world

object permanence

Awareness that an object continues to exist when it is not present.


Preoperational Stage• 1 ½ - 2 years• Use symbols• Does not comprehend rules and regulations or operations

• Dominated by visual impressions

egocentrismBelief that everyone sees things the way you do.


Operational Stages

• Ages between 7 & 12• Conservation concept• Logical manipulation• Form mental representations of a series of actions

Although children are using abstract terms, they are doing so in relation to concrete objects—objects to which they have direct

sensory access.

Concrete Operational Stage

Formal Operational StageThe person is able to reason in purely

symbolic terms.


Alternatives to Piaget’s Theory

Information-Processing Approaches

Knowledge-Acquisition Approaches

Sociocultural Approaches

Information-processing skills—specific skills at gathering and analyzing information from the environment.

Knowledge—understanding of how facts in a particular domain are organized.

Culture can influence children’s development in several ways.

Piaget’s theory may be invalid because such factors may have affected child’s response.


Theory of Mind• Much of our behavior toward other people is based on our understanding of what they are thinking.

metacognition

Thinking about thinking.which is generally

HOW DOES A CHILD’S THEORY OF MIND DEVELOP?

3 steps


At 2, children have an understanding of simple desires, emotions, and perceptual experiences but do not understand that people mentally represent both objects and their own desires and beliefs.

1At 3, children begin to talk about beliefs and thoughts as well as desires, and seem to understand that beliefs can be false and true. Yet, they continue to explain their own actions and others by appealing to desires rather than beliefs.

2

At 4, children begin to understand that people’s thoughts and beliefs affect their behaviors and that people can have beliefs that simply do not reflect reality.

3Source: Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 14th ed.

Overall level of cognitive development determines ones

MORAL JUDGEMENTChildren’s understanding of moral rules and social

conventions

He proposed that children’s understanding of rules develops in a series of 4 stages:

Children have no collective purpose.

Children act more by the consequence rather than by the intentions behind an action.

21


Children give weigh to subjective consideration. 3Youngsters show interest in generating rules to deal even with situations they never encountered. Ideological mode of moral reasoning.

4


Personality and SocialDevelopment


TEMPERAMENTMood-related personality characteristics.

Research emphasizes that continuity or discontinuity of temperament is a function of the interaction between the child’s genotype

(inherited characteristic) and the environment.


EARLY SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

Child smiles Parent encouraged

Parent-child bond:

Stranger Anxiety8

months

Separation Anxiety14 -18

months

Secure3years

This is because of • Memory

capacity• Autonomy


ATTACHMENTAn infant’s tendency to seek closeness to particular people and to feel more secure in their presence.

A caregiver’s sensitive responsiveness to baby’s needs produces secure attachment.

A caregiver’s response is not the major cause of attachment behaviors.

Attachment patterns may reflect this interaction between baby’s temperament and parent’s responsiveness.


The mother’s behavior appears to be the most important factor in establishing secure attachment.


LATER DEVELOPMENT

Securely attached babies mostly turned out to be enthusiastic, positive, and non-problematic. They are better equipped to cope with new experience.

Insecurely attached babies grew frustrated, angry, and negative; they easily give up given difficulties.


EFFECTS OF DAY CARE

Children are not significantly affected by nonmaternal care.

Good quality day care can reduce the effects of growing up in a highly stressed home life.

Low quality day care however, may lead to negative effects on a child.


GENDER IDENTITYA firm sense of oneself as either male or female

SEX TYPINGAcquisition of behavioral characteristics that a culture considers apporpirate to ones sex.


But are gender identity and sex typing simply

the product of cultural prescriptions and

expectations, or a are they partly a product

of “natural” development???


Psychoanalytic Theory

Sigmund Freud

“Beginning of the Phallic Stage of Psychosexual Development”

3years

• Children are aware of their reproductive organ.

• They develop sexual feelings to the opposite

sex.

• Oedipal Effect—they feel jealous of their

same sex parent

• Later on diminishes as child wants to become

that of the same sex parent—sex typing. Source: Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 14th ed.

Social Learning TheorySex typing is because of the way a sex is treated in a culture.

• Children themselves may construct and enforce their own exaggerated version of society’s gender rules.

• Development patterns to the child’s view of gender rules.

Contradictions


Cognitive-Developmental TheoryProposes that gender identity plays a critical role in sex typing.

• Children are able to identify their own

sex in a photo.

• Able to identify sex of a stereotypically

dressed man or woman in a photo but

cannot predict another child’s toy

preference.

2years


• Children are able to separate photos

of boys and girls but do not know if

they will either become a mother of a

father.

3years

The understanding that a person’s sex remains

the same despite changes in age and

appearance.

Gender Constancy

Children have strong and clear preference for

activities deemed appropriate for their sex long

before they attain gender constancy.

Contradiction


Gender-Schema TheoryA set of beliefs about gender.

• Children become sex-typed because sex is a major

focus around which their culture chooses to

organize its view of reality.

• It implies that if the culture becomes less sex

typed, children will be less sex typed in their

behavior and self-concept.


SOURCES

Main source:

Atkinson & Hilgard’s

Introduction to Psychology 14th ed.

Google ™

Source of photos:

Education

Beginnings of Life