Invitation to Psychology

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Development Over the Life Span

ChapTer 3 Development Over the Life Span 117

Erik Erikson’s Stages

Jean Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development:

Findings challenge many of Piaget’s views:

1. Sensorimotor (birth to age 2): child learns object permanence


2. Preoperational (ages 2 to 7): development of language and symbolic thought


3. Concrete operations (ages 7 to 12): understanding of conservation


4. Formal operations (age 12 to adulthood): development of abstract reasoning

• Cognitive abilities develop in continuous, overlapping waves, rather than in
  stages.


• Preschoolers are not as egocentric as Piaget thought. As young as 3 to 4
  years, children begin developing a theory of mind, beliefs about how their
  own and other people’s minds work.


• Children, even infants, reveal cognitive abilities much earlier than Piaget
  believed possible.


• Cognitive development is influenced by a child’s culture.

Cognitive Development Moral Development

Adolescence

Children may be born with a “moral sense,”

which can be nurtured or extinguished.

Parental methods of discipline often have

different consequences for children’s moral

behavior, though children’s own tempera-

ments may affect how parents treat them and

how much attention they require.

• Power assertion is associated with
  children who are aggressive and fail to
  internalize moral standards.


• Induction is associated with children who
  develop empathy and internalized moral
  standards and who can resist temptation.


• Young children’s ability to delay
  gratification and regulate their impulses is
  associated with later internalized moral
  standards and conscience.


• Adrenarche occurs in middle childhood (ages 6–12) with increased
  production of hormones that affect brain development.
   Adolescence begins with the physical changes of puberty, including
  menarche in females and genital maturation in males.
   The adolescent brain goes through significant developmental
  changes, including pruning of synapses and myelinization.
   The stereotype of “adolescent turmoil” is inaccurate for most teens.
  However, conflicts with parents, mood swings, and rule-breaking
  behavior are likely to increase.
   The peer group becomes especially important.

Adulthood

 Trust versus mistrust

 Autonomy (independence) versus

shame and doubt

 Initiative versus guilt

 Competence versus inferiority

 Identity versus role confusion

 Intimacy versus isolation

 Generativity versus stagnation

 Ego integrity versus despair

The Transitions of Life

 Emerging adulthood describes a life phase between 18 and 25, in

which young adults accept some responsibilities of adulthood and

delay others.

 The middle years are the prime of most people’s lives. In women,

menopause causes some physical symptoms but rarely the

emotional distress portrayed in the media. In men, testosterone and

sperm production decline.

 People’s views of aging are influenced by the culture they live in and

by the promises of technology, realistic and unrealistic, to prolong

life and health.

Old Age

 Research in gerontology shows that fluid intelligence parallels other biological

capacities in its eventual decline, whereas crystallized intelligence tends to remain

stable or even improve over the life span.

 Senility, depression, and physical frailty in old age are often the result of poor

nutrition, medication (over the counter and prescribed), inactivity, and lack of

meaningful activity. Exercise and mental stimulation promote cognitive abilities in

the human brain, even into old age, though rates of dementia rise steeply after

age 90.

 As people age, most become better able to regulate negative emotions and feel

happier than young people do.

Gender Development

Gender identity: The fundamental sense of being male

or female (or transgender).

Gender typing: The process by which boys and girls

learn what it means to be masculine or feminine in their

culture.

Intersex conditions: Conditions in which children are

born with ambiguous genitals or genitals that conflict

with their chromosomes; as adults, they may consider

themselves transgender.

Transsexuals are usually not intersexed, yet feel that

they are male in a female body or vice versa; their

gender identity is at odds with their anatomical sex or

appearance.

 Biological psychologists account for gender

differences in behavior in terms of genes and prenatal

hormones.

 Cognitive psychologists study how children develop

gender schemas that shape their gender-typed

behavior.

 Learning theorists study the direct and subtle rein-

forcers and social messages that foster gender typing.

 People’s gender schemas, attitudes, and behavior

evolve throughout their lives.