Development

Developmental psychology- the branch of psychology that studies the patterns of growth and change that occur throughout life. The question is this: How can we distinguish between the environmental causes behavior ( the influence of parents, siblings, family, friends and all the other experiences to which a child is exposed) and heredity causes (those based on the genetic make up of an individual that influence growth and development throughout life)? This question embodies the nature- nurture issue. In this context, nature refers to heredity factors, and nurture to environmental influences.

Although the question was first posed as a nature- versus- nurture issue, developmental psychologists today agree that both nature and nurture interact to produce specific developmental patterns and outcomes. No one grows up free of environmental influences, nor does anyone develop without being affected by his or her inherited genetic makeup. The debate over the comparative influence of the two factors remains active, with different approaches and different theories of development emphasizing the environment or heredity to a greater or lesser degree.

Scientists agree that genetic factors not only provide the potential for specific behaviors or traits to emerge, but also place limitations on the emergence of such behavior or traits. For instance, heredity defines people’s general level of intelligence, setting an upper limit that- regardless of the quality of the environment- people can not exceed. Heredity also places limits on physical abilities.

Developmental psychologists also degree that in most instances environmental factors play a critical role in enabling people to reach the potential capabilities that their genetic background makes possible.

The relationship between heredity and environment is far from simple. As a consequence, development typically take an interactionist position on nature- nurture issue, suggesting that a combination of heredity and environmental factors influence developmental.

Developmental research:

o    Cross- sectional research- a research method that compares people of different ages at the same point in time.

o    Longitudinal research- a research method that investigates behavior as participants age.

o  Sequential research- a research method that combines cross- sectional and longitudinal research by considering a number of different age groups and examining them at several points time.

Infancy and childhood

The extraordinary newborn

         The formed bones of the skull together and squashed the nose into the head, skin differences- all these features change during the first two weeks of life as the neonate takes on a more familiar appearance.

Reflexes

A neonate is born with a number of reflexes- unlearned, involuntary responses that occur automatically in the presence of certain stimuli. Many of those reflexes unfold naturally as part of an infant’s ongoing maturation.

• Rooting reflex
• Sucking reflex
• Gag reflex
• Startle reflex ( a series of movements in which an infant flings out the arms, fans the fingers, and arches the back in response to a sudden noise)
• Babinski reflex ( a baby’s toes fan out when the outer edge of the sole of the foot in stoked)

Sensory abilities also develop rapidly; infants can distinguish color, depth, sound, tastes, and smelles relatively soon after birth.

After birth, physical development is rapid; children typically triple their birthweight in a year.

  Attachment the-  positive emotional bond between a child and a particular individual- marks

social development in infancy. Measured in the laboratory by means of Ainsworth strange situation, attachment later to later social and emotional adjustment.

As children become older, the nature of their social interactions with peers changes. Initially play occurs relatively independently, but it becomes increasingly cooperative.

The different child- rearing styles include authoritarian, permissive, authoritative, and uninvolved.

According to Erikson, eight stages of psychosocial development involve people’s changing interactions and understanding of themselves and others. During childhood, the four stages:

o   trust- versus- mistrust( birth-1 ½)

o   autonomy- versus- shame and doubt( 1 ½ -3 years)

o   initiative-vs- guilt( 3-6)

o   industry-versus- inferiority(6-12)

Piaget’s theory suggests that cognitive development proceeds through four stages in which qualitative changes occur in thinking.

Information- processing approaches suggest that quantitative changes occur in children’s ability to organize and manipulate information about the world, such as significant increases in speed of processing, attention span, and memory. In addition, children advance in metacognition, the awareness and understanding of one’s own cognitive processes.

Vygotsky argued that children’s cognitive development occurs as a consequence of social interactions in which children and others work together to solve problems.

Adolescence- the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood.

Puberty- the period at which maturation of the sexual organs occurs, beginning at about age 11-12 for girls, 13-14 for boys.

The age at which puberty begins has implications for the way people view themselves and the way others see them.

Moral judgments during adolescence increase in sophistication, according to Kohlberg’ three level model. Levels provide an adequate description of males’ moral judgments.

Proceeding Erikson theory:

• Identity vs. confusion- adolescence
• Intimacy vs. isolation- early adulthood
• Generativity vs. stagnation middle adulthood
• Ego- integrity vs. despair- late adulthood

Adolescence suicide-  is the third leading cause of death in adolescence.

The 5 biggest problems, why teenagers kill themselves:

1. Family problems
2. Peer relationships
3. Self-esteem
4. Just to talk
5. Drugs and alcohol
   

Adulthood

From about 18 to 25 years of age, people’s strength is greatest, their reflexes are quickest. Reproductive capabilities are at their highest level.

Around age 25, the body becomes slightly less efficient and more susceptible to disease.

The principal kinds of physical, social, and intellectual changes that occur in early and middle adulthood and causes:

• Early adulthood marks the peak of physical health. Physical changes occur relatively gradually in men and women during adulthood.
• One major physical change occurs at the end of middle adulthood for women: they begin menopause, after which they are no longer fertile.
• During midlife adulthood, people typically experience a midlife transition in which the notion that life is not unending becomes more important. In some cases this may lead to a midlife crisis, although the passage into middle age typically relatively calm.
• Among the important development milestones during adulthood are marriage, family changes, and divorce.          Another important determinant of adult development is work.
  

Growing old- late adulthood

The societal stereotype of “old age” as a time of inactivity and physical and mental decline. Although the activities of people in adulthood are not all that different from those of younger people, older adults experience declines in reaction time, sensory abilities, and physical stamina.
Intellectual declines are not an inevitable part of aging. Fluid intelligence does decline with age, and long-term memory abilities are sometimes impaired. Crystallized intelligence shows slight increases with age, and short-term memory remains at about the same level.

5 Kubler- Ross stages- how we outlive death?

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Personality. Psychodynamic approaches to personality trait. Learning, Biological, Evolutionary, and humanistic approaches to personality Assessing personality: determinig what makes people distinctive

Personality is the pattern of enduring characteristic that produce consistency and individuality in a given person. . Personality encompasses the behaviors that make each of us unique and that differentiate us from others.

Psychodynamic approaches to personality are based on the idea that personality is motivated by inner forces and conflicts about which people have no control. The most important pioneer of the psychodynamic approach was Sigmund Freud. He developed psychoanalytic theory. This theory state that unconscious forces act as determinants of personality. To describe the structure of personality, Freud developed a comprehensive theory that personality consists of three components :the id, the ego, and the superego.

The ID  is the raw, unorganized , inborn part of personality. From the time birth , the ID attempts to reduce tension created by primitive drives related to hunger , sex , aggression , and irrational impulse.

The EGO , which begins to develop soon after birth , strives to balance the desire of the ID and the realities of the objective , outside world.

The SUPEREGO , the final personality structure to develop in childhood , represents the right and wrong of society  as taught and modeled by a person‘s parents, teachers, and other significant individuals.

Freud also provided us with a view of how personality develops through a series of five psychosexual stages. 

The first psychosexual stage of development, called the oral stage, the baby’s mouth is the focal point of pleasure.

The second psychosexual stage is anal stage. At this point, the major source of pleasure is anal region and children obtain considerable  pleasure from the both retention and expulsion of feces.

The phallic stage begins at about age 3.All interest is focusing on the genitals and the pleasures derived from fondling them.

After this children move into the latency period , which last until puberty. During this period , sexual interest become dormant , even in the unconscious

Last stage is  genital stage, which extends until death. The focus during the genital stage is on mature.

Furthermore Freud believe that people develop a range of defense mechanism to deal with anxiety. Defense mechanism are unconscious strategies that people use to reduce anxiety by canceling the source from themselves and others.

Trait theory is a model of personality that seeks to identity the basic traits necessary to describe personality.  Traits is consistent personality characteristics and behavior display in different situations. 

There are  big five personality traits are:  opennesses to experience (Independent-Conforming , Imaginative-practical...) , conscientiousness (Careful-Careless , Disciplined-Impulsed...) , extraversion(Talkative-Quiet , Fun-loving—Sober...), agreeableness (Kind-Cold , Appreciative-Unfriedly) , neuroticism (Calm-Anxious , Stamble-Tense).

Learning approaches to personality focus on the “outer” person. Learning theorists say that it is best understood by looking at features of a person’s environment.

Biological and evolutionary personality means the theory that suggests that important components of personality are inherited.

Humanistic approaches to personality means the theory that emphasize people’s innate goodness and desire to achieve higher levels of functioning.

It is very important to assess personality  determining what makes people distinctive.

Psychologist interested in assessing personality must be able to define  the most meaningful ways of discriminating between one person  personality to another. To do this they  use psychological tests. Psychological tests is standart measures devised to assess behavior objectively; used by psychologists to help people make decisions about their lives and understand more about themselves.

Self-report measure- A method of gathering data about people by asking them questions a sample of their behavior.

Projective personality test: A test in which a person is show  an ambiguous stimulus and asked to describe it or tell a story about it.

Rorschach test: A test that involves showing a series of symmetrical visual stimuli to people who  then are asked what the figures represent to them.

Behavioral  assessment- direct measures of an individual‘s behavior used to describe personality characteristics

Before relying too heavily on the results of any personality test , everyone should keep several points in mind :

Understand what the test claim to measure

Base no decision only on the result of any one test(The results should be interpreted in the context of other information)

Remember that test result are not always accurate

Personality leads us to act consistently in different situations and over extended periods of time

Malefique Angel

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

ATTITUDES AND SOCIAL COGNITION. SOCIAL INFLUENCE. PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION. POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR.

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY.  It is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions are affected by others. Social psychologist focuses on research how nature and situations influences behavior. Social psychologists try to answer such questions as why people display violence, aggression, what them influences to place their own lives at risk to help others, why there is situations in which we better will do things like others do instead doing them like we want?

 ATTITUDES AND SOCIAL COGNITION. First of all I want to start about the attitudes, which are the evaluations  of the particular person, behavior , belief or concept. We can change our attitudes, and there is number of factors, such as MESSAGE SOURCE, CHARACTERISTIC OF THE MESSAGE, CHARACTERISTIC OF TARGET [who will accept message and how understand it]. Attitudes influence behavior. But sometimes happens things which cause cognitive dissonance. It means that person holds 2 contradictory attitudes in his thoughts.

Understanding others:  People hold specific schemas in their memory about others.  It generally consists of number of general characteristics which can be for e.g it it is teacher, knowledge,  a desire to impart knowledge.

Impression formatting: impressions are made in few seconds. Impression can be made by previous introductions about person, what was said about him. Also impression can be made judging things person do when we first see him.

Information –processing approaches have found that we tend to average together sets of traits to form an overall impression.

Attribution: theory tries to explain how people understand the causes of behavior, particularly with the respect to situational or dispositional factors. Attribution processes have bad side - people sometimes process information about others, they just try to associate others with ones whom they know. Typical attributions are the halo effect – persons positive traits are used to infer other uniformly positive characteristics. Assumed similarity bias – thinking that people are similar to oneself. The self serving bias – tendency to attribute personal success to personal factors. Fundamental attribution bias – tendency to overattribute others behavior.

SOCIAL INFLUENCE. Is the process by which the actions of an individual or group affect the behavior of others. There is 4 types of social influence – conformity [following behavior or standards of others], groupthink [influence person to think in a group, causes lose of objectivity, critical evaluation, points of view], compliance [behavior which occurs when person have social pressure], and obedience [occurs when people have commands from others who have greater social status]. Social influence can cause negative consequences in persons development, person can become shy, learn phobias such as agoraphobia, can feel pressure or negative emotions in his environment.

PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION.  First of all I see need to talk a bit of stereotypes. Stereotypes come from impression. They can have both negative and positive sides. Stereotypes can lead to prejudice, which as stereotype also can be positive or negative, but prejudice is evaluation of people or group and its members. Common stereotypes and forms of prejudice involve race, religion, ethnicity and gender. Stereotypes can have harmful effect – discrimination. It can lead even to suicide, loss of job, etc.. both prejudice and discrimination come from stereotypes. Both have negative consequences.

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR. There is a question – people are good or bad? One of aspects of positive persons behavior is liking and loving.  Researchers found that liking is the easiest thing to examinate. In two peoples attraction to each other is factors such as PROXIMITY, MERE EXPOSURE, SIMILIARITY, PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS.  Researchers tried to found differences between liking and love and found that love is not the higher step of liking, but it is a different step of psychological state. There are 2 types of love: PASIONATE love [loving someone,pvz: boyfriend] and COMPANIONATE love [parents, friends…].

Negative behavior is that behavior that can harm others mental and physical lives. It can be aggression, which is one of the most likely negative behavior.

Helping behavior is caused by responsibility and deciding to help is 4 staged process.

Motivation and emotion

Human needs

Understanding emotional experiences

Nonverbal behavior and expression of emotion

Motivation – the factors that direct and energize the behavior of humans and other organisms.

Emotions – Feelings that generally have both physiological and cognitive elements and that influence behavior.

How does motivation direct and energize behavior?

·         Motivation relates to the factors that direct and energize behavior.

·         Drive is the motivational tension that energizes behavior to fulfill a need.

·         Homeostasis, the maintenance of the steady internal state, often underlies motivational drives.

·         Arousal approaches suggest that we try to maintain a particular level of stimulation and activity.

·         Incentive approaches focus on the positive aspects of the environment that direct and energize behavior.

·         Cognitive approaches focus on the role of thoughts, expectations, and understanding of the world in producing motivation.

·         Abraham Maslow's hierarchy suggests that there are five basic needs: physiological, safety, love and belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization. Only after the more basic needs are fulfilled can a person move toward meeting higher-order needs.

What biological and social factors underlie hunger?

• Eating behavior is subject to homeostasis, as most people's weight stays within a relatively stable range. The hypothalamus in the brain is central to the regulation of food intake.

• Social factors, such as mealtimes, cultural food preferences, and other learned habits, also play a role in the regulation of eating, determining when, what, and how much one eats. An oversensitivity to social cues and an insensitivity to internal cues may also be related to obesity. In addition, obesity may be caused by an unusually high weight set point-the weight the body attempts to maintain-and genetic factors.

 How are needs relating to achievement, affiliation, and power motivation exhibited?

• Need for achievement refers to the stable, learned characteristic in which a person strives to attain a level of excellence. Need for achievement is usually measured through the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), a series of pictures about which a person writes a story.

• The need for affiliation is a concern with establishing and maintaining relationships with others, whereas the need for power is a tendency to seek to exert an impact on others.

What are emotions, and how do we experience them?

• Emotions are broadly defined as feelings that may affect behavior and generally have both a physiological component and a cognitive component. Debate continues over whether separate systems govern cognitive and emotional responses and whether one has primacy over the other.

What are the functions of emotions?

• Emotions prepare us for action, shape future behavior through learning, and help us interact more effectively with others.

What are the explanations for emotions?

• Several theories explain emotions. The James-Lange theory suggests that emotional experience is a reaction to bodily, or visceral, changes that occur as a response to an environmental event and are interpreted as an emotional response.

• In contrast, the Cannon-Bard theory contends that both physiological arousal and an emotional experience are produced simultaneously by the same nerve stimulus and that the visceral experience does not necessarily differ among differing emotions.

• The Schachter-Singer theory suggests that emotions are determined jointly by a relatively nonspecific physiological arousal and the subsequent labeling of that arousal, using cues from the environment to determine how others are behaving in the same situation.

• The most recent approaches to emotions focus on their biological origins. For instance, it now seems that specific patterns of biological arousal are associated with individual emotions. Furthermore, new scanning techniques have identified the specific parts of the brain that are activated during the experience of particular emotions.

More about expression of emotion:

http://face-and-emotion.com/dataface/emotion/expression.jsp