SOSC1960

Discovering Mind and Behavior

Lecture 9
Development

1
 Developmental psychology is the scientific
study of the patterns of growth and
change throughout life
Psychosocial development
Cognitive development

2
 Psychosocial development
Development of an individuals interactions
and understanding of each other and of their
knowledge and understanding of themselves
as members of society

3
Attachment
Attachment is an emotional bond or tie to
the caregiver (Bowlby, 1969)
The child can use the caregiver as a safe base
from which he/she derives _______________
security

The ability to make strong emotional

bonds is innate because it ensures survival

4
 Phase 1: Non-focused orienting and
signaling (0-3 months)
Exhibition of an innate set of behaviors to
everyone they come across with to signal
needs

Phase 2: Focus on one or more figures

(3 6 months)
familiar
Signals directed to ____________ figures
Smiles more at people who regularly care for them

5
 Phase 3: Secure base behavior (6 24
months)
Proximity seeking behaviors directed at the
primary caregiver especially when they are
_________________________
anxious / injured / scared

6
 Phase 4: Internal model (24 months and
beyond)
Child can imagine how her behavior would
affect the bonds with her caregiver
Attachment with the primary caregiver forms
the basis of subsequent interpersonal
relationship

7
 Characteristics of attachment
The 4 phases appear in a fixed sequence that
naturally unfold with age (i.e. ____________)
maturation

sensitive
The first 2 years constitute a ___________
period for attachment in human infants

8
 Characteristics of attachment
The most essential component in attachment
formation is ________________
synchrony
The opportunity for parent and infant to develop a
mutual, interlocking pattern of attachment behaviors

9
 Characteristics of attachment
Harlows surrogate mother study

10
 Characteristics of attachment
Attachment is more than fulfilling physical
needs, it provides a _________________
security base

11
Attachment Behaviors
___________
Stranger anxiety
Expressions of discomfort in the presence of
strangers

____________
Seperation anxiety
Expressions of discomfort when separated
from the caregiver

12
 Social ________________
Referencing
An infants use of the caregivers facial
expressions as a guide to his/her own
emotions

Joseph Campos of UC Berkeley's Visual Cliff

experiment shows that young children look for
cues and clues from others to determine how
to proceed in uncertain circumstances.

13
 Mary Ainsworths Strange Situation
A widely used measure to assess the quality of
attachment
Strange situation: a procedure involving
several brief episodes during which
experimenters observe a babys responses to
strangers, separation from mother, and
reunion with mother

14
1. Baby plays with toys while mother is present
2. Stranger enters
3. Mother leaves
4. Stranger tries to interact with baby
5. Mother returns, first union, and stranger leaves
6. Mother leaves
7. Stranger returns
8. Mother returns, second union

Strange situation (Ainsworth et al., 1978)

15
Secure Attachment
Child easily become absorbed in exploration
When threatened or frightened, child seeks
comfort and contact from caregiver and is
readily consoled
Upon reunion, child greets the parent
positively or easily soothed if upset
The child prefers the parent to stranger

16
Insecure Attachment
_______________
Avoidance attachment
Avoid contact with caregiver, especially at
reunion

When offered a choice, these children will

show no preference between a caregiver and a
complete stranger.

17
Insecure Attachment
______________
Ambivalent attachment
Little exploration; clingy to the parent
Extreme separation anxiety in the absence of
the parent, but not reassured by parents
return or comfort

18
Insecure Attachment
_____________
Disorganized attachment
Seem dazed, confused, apprehensive
Terrified by the situation
Contradictory behavioral pattern
Approaching the parent but gaze averted

19
What determines the quality of
attachment?
Synchrony: Quality of parent-infant
interactions
Emotional Availability
______________________
Is the parent emotionally available and willing to
form emotional attachment to the infant

_______________________
Contingent Responsiveness
Sensitive to the infants cue and respond
appropriately

20
 Avoidant attachment
The parent rejects the infant or withdraw from
contact or
The parent is overly intrusive or overly stimulating

Ambivalent attachment
The parent is inconsistent or unreliably available

Disorganized attachment
Abusive parents

21
Does attachment change over time?
Attachment with parents provides an
_____________________________
internal working model of
how the world works
Early emotional attachment shapes subsequent
interpersonal relationship
Attachment style is relatively stable

Major upheavals can alter attachment

22
 What is your attachment style in intimate
relationship?
Relationship Scale Questionnaire (RSQ; Griffin
& Bartholomew, 1994)

23
Scoring
Reverse scoring
1 = 5
2 = 4
3 = 3
4 = 2
5 = 1

The domain with the highest score

indicates your attachment style with your
intimate partner
24
Adult Attachment with Intimate Partners
Secure attachment
Positive view of themselves and partners
Feel emotionally close to the partner
Feel comfortable both with intimacy and
independence

25
 Dismissive-avoidant attachment (avoidant
attachment)
Attempt to avoid intimate relationship
Self-sufficient/ desire a high level of
independence

26
 Anxious-preoccupied attachment
(ambivalent attachment)
Seek high levels of intimacy from their partner
Become overly dependent on their partner
(clinginess)
Distressful when being abandoned

27
 Fearful-avoidant attachment (disorganized
attachment)
Mixed feeling: desire to have emotionally close
relationships but feel uncomfortable with
emotional closeness
Lack of trust in partner
Seek less intimacy and frequently suppress or
hide feelings

28
 Individuals with secure attachment have
greater satisfaction and longer-lasting
intimate relationship
Trust
Intimacy

29
 Out of the conflict between trust and
mistrust, the infant develops hope, which
is the earliest form of what gradually
becomes faith in adults Erik Erikson
(1983)

30
Cognitive Development
The process by which a childs understanding
of the world changes as a function of age and
experience

31
Piagets Cognitive Development Theory
Schema
Beliefs, cognitions, and ideas about things

32
 _________________
Assimilation
Process of using schemes to make
sense of experiences

_________________
Accommodation
Changing a scheme to incorporate new
information
We refine our skills and knowledge

_________________
Equilibration
Balancing assimilation and accommodation
33
 Piagets Cognitive development Theory
From action-, physical reality-based thinking
to abstract, symbol-based thinking

1. Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years)

2. Preoperational stage (2-7 years)
3. Concrete operations stage (7-12 years)
4. Formal operations stage (12 years-adulthood)

Operations: mentally acting on objects

34
1. Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years old)
Infants acquire knowledge of the world from
the ______________________they
physical actions perform
on the environment
Infants progresses from reflexive actions at
birth to the emergence of symbolic thoughts
toward the end

35
 Reflexes (birth-1 month)
Automatic body reactions to specific
simulation
Some reflexes persist into adulthood (e.g.,
eye-blink reflex, pupillary reflex)
Some reflexes disappear gradually in the first
year of life

36
 rooting
________reflex
grasp
_________ reflex

babinski
__________ reflex 37
 Reflexes (birth-1 month)
Some reflexes are essential to the infants
survival
Some reflexes are important to development
of later voluntary movements

38
 Circular reactions
Experimentation with body and the outer world
based on trial-and-error learning
Means-end behavior
The understanding that behavior can lead to certain
outcomes

39
 Circular reactions
1-4 months: primary circular reactions
Discover body actions by accident, repeat them until
they become habits
4-12 months: secondary circular reactions
Repeat some actions in order to trigger a reaction in
the environment
12-18 months: tertiary circular reactions
Try to produce novel reactions with variations of
previous actions

40
41
 Object permanence
The understanding
that objects
continue to exist
even when they
cannot be seen,
heard, or touched

42
 Until the age of about 9 months, children
will make no attempt to locate hidden
toys
Soon after that age they will actively
search for hidden objects

43
 Infants use information from
their senses and motor actions
to learn about the world

44
2. Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
During this stage, the child learns to use and to
represent objects by symbols (e.g., images,
words, and drawings)
Preoperational thought is still illogical
Egocentricism
Centration
Inrreversibility

45
 ________________
Egocentrism
The belief that everyone sees and
experiences the world the way he/she does
Inability to take the perspective of others

Piagets Three Mountains Task

46
 47
Gzesh & Surber (1985)
 Centration
Childs tendency to think of the world in terms
of one variable at a time

48
 Irrevesibility
____________________
The inability to mentally reverse actions or
ideas

Inability to solve conservation tasks due

to centration and irreversibility
Conservation: the understanding that
quantity is unrelated to arrangement or
appearance of objects

49
50
51
Increased proficiency in the use of symbols
but still have difficulty thinking logically

52
3. Concrete operations stage (7-12 years)
Elimination of egocentrism
Development of a set of powerful, abstract
concrete operations critical to logical thinking

53
 Operations
Conservation: understanding that quantity is
unrelated to arrangement or appearance of
objects
Decentration: taking multiple variables into account
Reversibility: mentally undoing a physical or mental
transformation

54
55
 Operations
Classification: naming and identifying sets of
objects according to appearance, size or other
characteristic

Transitivity: understanding logical

relationships among elements in a serial order

56
 Operations
Inductive logic
General principles are inferred from specific
experiences
Operate on reality
Require concrete things and events as
objects of thoughts

57
Children are better capable of thinking logically
about objects and events in the real world

58
4. Formal operations stage
Individuals move beyond concrete
experiences and begin to think abstractly,
reason logically, and apply these processes to
hypothetical situations

59
 Systematic problem solving
The ability to search methodically for an
answer
Example: which factor determines the period
of the swinging pendulum:
Length of string
Weight of object
Force of push
Holding the weight at different height

60
61
 Hypothetical-deductive reasoning
The ability to derive conclusions from
hypothetical premises
All men are mortal
You and I are men
(Therefore,) we are mortal

62
 Criticisms of Piagets theory
Stage changes are not as clear-cut as Piaget
believed
Under-estimation of childrens cognitive ability
Piaget overestimated the cognitive skills of
many adults

63
 Required readings
Chapter 12

64