Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D.

CSULB, Department of Psychology

Psychology 361 -- Lecture Notes I--Hetherington & Parke

NOTE: MATERIAL APPEARING IN BLUE IS FOR THE MID-TERM ESSAY TEST ONLY; IT IS NOT ON THE FIRST MULTIPLE CHOICE TEST FOR CHAPTERS 1, 4, 5.

WHY STUDY CHILDREN?
1) CHILDREN CHANGE SO RAPIDLY COMPARED TO US ADULTS.
(2) LONG RANGE INFLUENCES ON ADULT BEHAVIOR: AS THE TWIG IS BENT, SO GROWS THE TREE.
(3) INSIGHTS INTO COMPLEX ADULT PROCESSES
(4) APPLIED VALUE
(5) INTERESTING SUBJECT MATTER
 
 

DEVELOPMENT
(1) CUMULATIVE CHANGE
(2) ORDERLY
(3) DIRECTED (TELEOLOGICAL)

Child Psychology seeks to answer two basic questions:

(1) Developmental changes: Describing the changes that children go through at different ages.
BASIC DESCRIPTION AND OBSERVATION;
E.G., CHANGES IN CHILDREN'S PLAY FROM SOLITARY PLAY TO
PARALLEL PLAY TO PLAYING GAMES WITH RULES

(2) What are the underlying processes that result in change?
For example, what strategies do children use to achieve new skills and behaviors? Cooperation is a social strategy that facilitates interaction with peers. At a deeper level, developmental psychologists want to know how important genes and environments are: THE NATURE/NURTURE CONTROVERSY

SCIENCE AND HUMAN INTERESTS: Scientists see children through the lenses of their theories. Scientists are often not disinterested observers of children; they are often influenced by:

a.) Political beliefs e.g., a leftist egalitarian bias'everyone is born with the same potential; or a conservative bias toward saying that science supports the rationality of traditional sex roles.

b.) Ethnic agendas: e.g., some scientific issues, such as whether there are racial differences in intelligence, have political implications. This is why books like The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray are so controversial.

c.) Career goals: e.g., doing research that is likely to be funded by government grants;
doing research that is likely to lead to tenure. It's a bad idea for an assistant professor to begin focus his or her research on politically incorrect research.

d.) Moral agendas: e.g., many developmental psychologists want to help children; these
people are meliorists: they want to make the world a better place, but this often makes
them subscribe to theories that people can be easily changed by the environment.

|
|
|
SCIENTIST | CHILD
|
|
|

ARE SCIENTISTS BIASED??? See: Bias in Social Science: 

EXAMPLES OF INTENSELY CONTROVERSIAL ISSUES DEALT WITH IN THIS
COURSE:
(1) RACE AND IQ (CH. 10)
(2) GENETIC INFLUENCES ON INTELLIGENCE (CH. 4 AND CH. 10)
(2) SEX DIFFERENCES (CH. 15)
(3) EFFECTS OF DAY CARE (CH. 12)

HISTORY OF CHILDHOOD

ISSUES in the HISTORY OF CHILDHOOD:

(1) THE STATE VERSUS THE FAMILY AS AGENT OF SOCIALIZATION:

SOCIALIZATION BY THE STATE:
SPARTA: CHILDREN TAKEN AWAY FROM PARENTS IN EARLY
CHILDHOOD;
SOCIALIZATION FOR CONFORMITY, SOCIAL COHESION, ALTRUISM,
MILITARY PROWESS

NAZI GERMANY: NAZIFICATION OF SCHOOLS, HITLER YOUTH;
SOCIALIZATION AS IN SPARTA

SOVIET UNION: COMMUNIST CONTROL OF SCHOOLS; SOCIALIZATION
FOR CONFORMITY; SEE CHAPTER 16.

(2) CHANGES IN THE IMPORTANCE OF LOVE TOWARD CHILDREN AND
BETWEEN SPOUSES

PURITANISM: ORIGINAL SIN AND AUTHORITARIAN PARENTING

LOVE AS THE BASIS OF MARRIAGE BEGINNING IN THE MIDDLE AGES

THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

CONTEMPORARY EMPHASIS ON LOVE

(3) CHANGES IN PARENTAL INVESTMENT IN CHILDREN

CHILDREN COST MORE TO REAR SINCE EDUCATION HAS BECOME
CRITICIAL.

PURITANS AND EDUCATION

DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION: BEGINNING IN 19TH CENTURY, FEWER
CHILDREN, MORE EDUCATION

DEVELOPMENT OF ADOLESCENCE AND PROLONGED CHILDHOOD

(4) CHANGES IN SOCIETAL INVESTMENT IN CHILDREN

RISE OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES, FROM MEDIEVAL MONASTERIES TO
RENAISSANCE FOUNDLING HOMES TO MODERN WELFARE
PROGRAMS SUCH AS AID FOR FAMILIES WITH DEPENDENT
CHILDREN

(5) CHANGES IN SINGLE PARENTING, TEENAGE PARENTING, DIVORCE,
RECONSTITUTED FAMILIES, ETC. Single parenting and divorce were
extremely rare in Western societies until the mid-20th century.

(6) CHANGES IN TECHNOLOGY: Computers, the internet, and the media revolution.
Children are exposed to very sophisticated media messages related to aggression,
sexuality, gender, ethnicity, etc. Depending on adult or societal control, children
are able to follow their own interests by surfing the net, watching TV, going to
movies, etc., but they are also passive recipients of at least some cultural
messages coming from these sources.

THEMES OF DEVELOPMENT

1.) Biological versus Environmental Influences
John Watson: Environment is everything.
Arnold Gesell: Development determined by an 'inner timetable which is produced by genes. Gesell is a
Maturationist

Maturation = Genetically determined process of growth at unfolds naturally over development. Think of cognitive ability as growing just like children grow in height.

SINCE 1980, MORE EMPHASIS ON NATURE, BUT A GREAT DEAL OF CONTROVERSY.

Most psychologists now tend to be interactionists: E.g., there are interactions between the child's genetic tendencies toward aggression and the child's being exposed to violence on TV. Violent TV has a greater effect on children who are genetically inclined toward aggression

2.) PASSIVE CHILD VS ACTIVE CHILD VS TRANSACTIONAL MODEL OF CHILD

PASSIVE: CHILD PASSIVELY INFLUENCED BY ENVIRONMENTAL FORCES;
EXAMPLE: REINFORCEMENT IN CLASSICAL BEHAVIORISM)

ACTIVE: CHILD ACTIVELY APPROACHES, EXPLORES, OR INFLUENCES ENVIRONMENT; EXAMPLE: A CURIOUS CHILD EXPLORES A NEW TOY

TRANSACTIONAL MODEL:
CHILD INFLUENCES ENVIRONMENT AND ENVIRONMENT INFLUENCES CHILD; LIKE A CONVERSATION.
EXAMPLE: PREMATURE CHILD IS EXTREMELY IRRITABLE; THIS MAKES CAREGIVING DIFFICULT AND RESULTS IN FRUSTRATED PARENT; PARENT MORE LIKELY TO ABUSE CHILD)

NO ONE MODEL IS CORRECT. DIFFERENT DEVELOPMENTAL PROCESSES ARE BETTER DESCRIBED BY DIFFERENT MODELS.
THIS IS THE CASE WITH ALL OF THESE ISSUES.

HOWEVER, AS THE TEXT NOTES, MOST PSYCHOLOGISTS DE-EMPHASIZE THE PASSIVE MODEL TODAY. (THE TEXT IGNORES THE TRANSACTIONAL MODEL.)

3.) CONTINUITY VERSUS DISCONTINUITY

CONTINUITY = QUANTITATIVE, SMOOTH CHANGE

DISCONTINUITY = QUALITATIVE, STEP-LIKE CHANGE

QUANTITATIVE CHANGE: A MEASURABLE CHANGE OF AMOUNT (E.G., CHANGES IN HEIGHT, OR
CHANGES IN LEARNING) ASSOCIATED WITH NON-STAGE THEORIES; (When you learn something
new you don't become a different person; you have simply added to your knowledge in a quantitative way.)
 
 
 

QUALITATIVE CHANGE: A CHANGE OF TYPE (E.G., THE CHANGE FROM A CATERPILLAR TO A
BUTTERFLY) ASSOCIATED WITH STAGE THEORIES; QUALITATIVE CHANGES ARE FUNDAMENTAL, REORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES.
 

SMOOTH CHANGE (ASSOCIATED WITH NON-STAGE THEORIES
 
 
 
 

STEP-LIKE CHANGE (ASSOCIATED WITH STAGE THEORIES)
 
 

Textbook: Whether development is continuous or discontinuous "depends on the power of the lens we use in examining changes across development." If we look over a long period of time, the differences are large, qualitative and discontinuous. If we look over a short period of time, the differences are small, quanatitative and continuous. They suggest that Figure 1-1c (p. 10) is a good way to picture it: Child slowly learns the best and developmentally most advanced strategy. (KM: But there could be true discontinuities and qualitative change if, say, genes turn on at a certain age and result in a major cognitive or emotional advance. This may be the case with puberty and some of the other major advances in childhood.)

4.) SITUATIONAL VERSUS INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS
DOES THE CONTEXT INFLUENCE BEHAVIOR?

PERSONALITY VERSUS SITUATIONS: THINK ABOUT HOW THE EXPRESSION OF THE FOLLOWING TRAITS WOULD CHANGE DEPENDING ON WHETHER YOU WERE IN AT A FOOTBALL GAME OR INTERVIEWING FOR A JOB, OR OUT ON A FIRST DATE:
AGGRESSIVE
SOCIABLE

5.) CULTURAL UNIVERSALS VERSUS CULTURAL RELATIVISM

NORMATIVE DEVELOPMENT: THE UNIVERSAL COMMONALITIES OF CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENT (E.G., WALKING, TALKING, STAGES) (PIAGET STUDIED UNIVERSALS);
OFTEN VIEWED AS RESULTING FROM BIOLOGICAL UNIVERSALS (E.G., ARNOLD GESELL);

IDIOGRAPHIC DEVELOPMENT: DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
SOURCE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES CAN BE NATURE AND/OR NURTURE.
ALL POLITICIZED CONTROVERSY IN PSYCHOLOGY INVOLVES INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

CULTURAL RELATIVISM, EXTREME VIEW: CHILD DEVELOPMENT HAS DIFFERENT LAWS AND PATTERNS IN DIFFERENT CULTURES

CULTURAL RELATIVISM, MODERATE VIEW: CULTURES AFFECT THE RATE OF DEVELOPMENT; E.G., CHILDREN WALK SOONER IN CULTURES THAT ENCOURAGE MOTOR DEVELOPMENT

VOGOTSKY IS MAIN THEORIST OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM

6.) RISK AND RESILIENCE
RESPONDING TO RISK: PROTECTIVE FACTORS
1.) INDIVIDUAL FACTORS LIKE AN EASY TEMPERAMENT, 'SUNNY DISPOSITION'
2.) FAMILY FACTORS: SUPPORTIVE HOME ENVIRONMENT
3.) SOCIAL SUPPORT: WELFARE SERVICES, GOOD SCHOOLS

Sleeper effects: children cope well at first, but exhibit problems later.

7.) MOTIVATION: INTERNAL (INTRINSIC) VS EXTERNAL (EXTRINSIC)
INTRINSIC: DOING THINGS FOR THEIR OWN SAKE

E.G., STUDYING BECAUSE YOU'RE INTERESTED;

EXTRINSIC: DOING THINGS IN ORDER TO GAIN REWARDS OR AVOID PUNISHMENTS;

E.G., STUDYING TO AVOID PUNISHMENT


THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON DEVELOPMENT

Theories 1.) help organize and integrate information into coherent accounts;
2.) lead to testable hypotheses or predictions.
3.) No one theory accounts for all of child development; we need different theories to understand
different areas. A theory that accounts for the effects of divorce will probably not be useful for
understanding how children learn to count.

LEARNING PERSPECTIVES:

BEHAVIORISM: (I will not go over this because it is very basic stuff that you should know from PSY 100; please look at p. 14 if you don't know what classical and operant conditioning are; you should also know who Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner are.
1. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING (PAVLOV, WATSON)
2. OPERANT CONDITIONING (SKINNER)


Box 1-1 (p. 16): "G" is for Growing: Sesame Street as an Educational Tool.
Notice all children made gains in test scores after watching Sesame Street, and the more they watched, the more they gained, independent of social class and other variables studies (both low-and middle-income children gained). However, there was no long term effect: Once they got to school, there was no correlation of reading skills with having watched Sesame Street. Notice that young children (age 2-4) watch TV "actively and selectively." They were physically engaged in the program, by singing and clapping, etc. during the parts they really liked a lot.

COGNITIVE SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY: (ALBERT BANDURA):
1. CHILDREN ARE ABLE TO LEARN THINGS WITHOUT REINFORCEMENT. Children observing aggressive models were more likely to imitate the aggressive behaviors even if they were not rewarded for doing so.

2. SOCIAL LEARNING AND COGNITION: Children do not imitate blindly or automatically; cognitive factors are advanced as explaining why children imitate some things and not others.

Bandura changed learning theory by combining it with aspects of cognitive psychology. This can be seen in the four
processes Bandura proposes as relevant to social learning: Attention, Retention, Production, and Motivation. All
of these undergo age changes; they all develop. Therefore, age affects social learning.
1. Attention: Children gradually improve in their ability to pay attention. This affects social learning because they pay better attention to models. One couldn't lecture to kindergartners and expect them to pay attention.
2. Retention: Children gradually improve their ability to remember things they have seen or experienced. This affects social learning because children are better able to remember what models did.
3. Production: Children's abilities gradually improve. This means that they are able to produce more of what they see and try to imitate. Obviously, young children can't imitate behaviors that they are physically unable to reproduce any more than I can dunk a basketball just by watching someone else do it.
4. Motivation: Motivation changes as children get older. For example, older children are probably more concerned about how others see them and more motivated to be socially acceptable. This might affect what types of models they would pay special attention to. A teenager might pay special attention to the behavior of other kids who are seen as cool.

STANDING OF CSLT ON DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES

1.) NATURE vs. NURTURE: CSLT PROPOSES ALL INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES ARE DUE TO DIFFERENT LEARNING CONTINGENCIES; i.e., NURTURE

2.) CLASSICAL BEHAVIORISM VIEWED CHILD AS PASSIVE; HOWEVER, CSLT SEES THE CHILD AS 'MODERATELY ACTIVE' BECAUSE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF CERTAIN CHILD CHARACTERISTICS IN AFFECTING HOW CHILDREN PROCESS THE ENVIRONMENT (ATTENTION, RETENTION, PRODUCTION, MOTIVATION)

3.) DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGE IS CONTINUOUS: THERE IS QUANTITATIVE CHANGE: OLDER CHILDREN HAVE LEARNED MORE THAN YOUNGER CHILDREN; DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGE IS SMOOTH, NOT ABRUPT

4.) EMPHASIS ON SITUATIONS (MODELING OPPORTUNITIES, REINFORCEMENTS, PUNISHMENTS) RATHER THAN INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS;

5.) EMPHASIS ON IDIOGRAPHIC DEVELOPMENT. (NO CONCERN WITH NORMATIVE DEVELOPMENT; CSLT IS CONSISTENT WITH CULTURAL RELATIVISM (why?), BUT THE LEVEL OF ANALYSIS IS THE INDIVIDUAL, NOT THE CULTURE. In other words, social learning theorists don't try to explain why Chinese children are different from British children. They are more likely to try to explain differences among Chinese children or differences among British children.

6.) EMPHASIZE FAMILY AND OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AS MODERATING RISK

7.) MOTIVATION IS EXTRINSIC; CHILD LEARNS IN ORDER TO GET REWARDS OR AVOID PUNISHMENT


COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES (JEAN PIAGET)

1.) DEVELOPMENT IS THE RESULT OF QUALITATIVE CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE OF CHILDREN'S THINKING.

2.) ASSIMILATION: INTERPRETING NEW EXPERIENCES IN TERMS OF EXISTING COGNITIVE STRUCTURES

3.) ACCOMMODATION: CHANGING EXISTING COGNITIVE STRUCTURES TO FIT WITH NEW EXPERIENCES

4.) CONSTRUCTIVISM: CHILDREN ACTIVELY INTERPRET THE WORLD, THEY ARE NOT MERELY PASSIVE RECIPIENTS OF REINFORCEMENTS; THEY CONSTRUCT THEIR OWN REALITY; THEY INTERPRET WORLD AS FUNCTION OF THEIR STAGE

5.) EGOCENTRISM: CHILDREN TEND TO HAVE DIFFICULTY SEEING THINGS FROM OTHERS' POINTS OF VIEW. WITH AGE, CHILDREN GRADUALLY DECENTER.

6.)  YOUNG CHILDREN ARE LESS FLEXIBLE IN THEIR THINKING; e.g., moral rule are absolute: "stealing is bad"; there are no exceptions.
 

STANDING OF CDT ON DEVELOPMENTAL THEMES

1.) NATURE-NURTURE: INTERACTION BETWEEN CHILD AND ENVIRONMENT; ABILITIES SUCH AS ASSIMILATION AND ACCOMMODATION ARE INNATE; BUT DEVELOPMENT OCCURS BECAUSE THE CHILD CONSTANTLY MUST ACCOMMODATE TO NEW ENVIRONMENTS

2.) ACTIVE CHILD: CHILD IS INNATELY CURIOUS AND EXPLORATORY

3.) DEVELOPMENT IS DISCONTINUOUS: COMPLETE RE-ORGANIZATION AT EACH STAGE (QUALITATIVE CHANGE); CHANGE IS STEP-LIKE RATHER THAN SMOOTH.

4.) SITUATIONAL VERSUS INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS: INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS, ESPECIALLY THE STAGE THE CHILD IS IN, ARE EMPHASIZED

5.) CULTURAL UNIVERSALS (NORMATIVE DEVELOPMENT) ARE EMPHASIZED: ALL CHILDREN GO THROUGH THE STAGES

6.) RISK VERSUS RESILIENCE: STAGE THEORISTS DON'T EMPHASIZE THIS MUCH, BUT THEIR THEORY IS CONSISTENT WITH THE IDEA THAT INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS MODERATE RISK: E.G., OLDER CHILDREN WOULD REACT TO A DIVORCE DIFFERENTLY THAN YOUNGER BECAUSE THEY WOULD BE IN DIFFERENT COGNITIVE STAGES.

7.) MOTIVATION IS INTRINSIC; CHILD ENJOYS FIGURING OUT THE WORLD


Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

Vygotsky was the premier psychologist of the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution. He was a Marxist, and his theory reflected that.
Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory:
        1) Did NOT focus on the individual child but on the child as a product of social interaction, especially with adults (parents, teachers).

        2.) Focus on DYADIC INTERACTIONS (e.g., child being taught by a parent how to perform some culturally specific action), rather than child by himself.

        3.) Cognitive development occurs as child's thinking is molded by society in the form of parents, teachers, and peers.

        4.) The result is that people's thinking differs dramatically between cultures because different cultures stress different things. For example, Uzbekis responded to reasoning problems using concrete examples from their own experience. But after learning to read and write, they responded to the problems in a more abstract manner--like a syllogism, where the truth of the premises is irrelevant to the logical properties of the argument.

All people who live in red houses are purple.
John lives in a red house.
John is purple.


Freudian Theory: Know the bold-faced terms: id, ego, superego, Oedipus complex, Electra complex.

Erikson: know his stage of basic trust (p. 23). The idea of basic trust has been influential in thinking about mother-infant attachment. Securely attached infants trust their mothers, insecurely attached infants don't.


DYNAMIC SYSTEMS THEORY
DST sees child development as a system of interacting parts. This is most like the transactional model mentioned above: everything affects everything else and it's all very complicated. The child is constantly changing the environment and the environment is constantly changing the child. It's is much as in the following figure (which is the same as Figure 3-8 on p. 86).

A good example where the theory makes some sense is the family where, for example, if parents have a bad relationship, it may have effects on the child. Child psychologists often want to bring the whole family in if one child is having a problem; dad's drinking problem affects family finances and mom's mood, resulting in harsher punishment and fewer opportunities like after-school tutoring. So all these things affect the child: everyting affects everything else.

The child inherits not only the parents' genes but also the parents' environment and from the moment of conception they are constantly interacting:

Table 1-4 (p. 25) has some characteristics of Systems Theory. The ones I emphasize are:
1.) Complexity: Each part of the system is unique but related to the other parts of the system.
2.) Wholeness and Organization: The whose system is more than the sum of its parts. Its collective behavior can be described in terms that do not necessarily apply to the system's parts and their interrelationships. To study a family, you must do more than study an the characteristics of each member separately and the relationships between them, but the organization of all family relationships and the whole family as an interacting unit. See example above.
3.) Equifinality: Although the dynamics of certain kinds of systems may be quite different, over time they tend to develop similarities. Family systems across different societies share many common characteristics (like parental affection), but the particular customs of a culture may dictate quite different expressions of these charateristics (giving a child a car as a graduation present in the U.S. versus giving a child a bow and arrow in New Guinea.



Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory

Ecological theory emphasizes not only the relationship between the child and the environment (family, school), but also the relationships among the environmental systems (e.g., the relationship between the family and the school).
See Figure 1-4 on p. 26.
The basic levels are:
THE MICROSYSTEM: the face-to-face world of the child; the setting in which the child lives; includes family, school, friends, etc.

THE MESOSYSTEM: Interrelations among the components of the microsystem; e.g., how parents regulate chidren's interactions with peers; how parents try to influence classroom atmosphere at school.

THE EXOSYSTEM: Settings that impinge on child development but which the child has only indirect contact. Father's work environment, local school board, major media conglomerate's decisions on TV programming.

THE MACROSYSTEM: Ideological and institutional patterns that affect the broader culture. For example, capitalism versus communism, religious theocracy versus liberal democracy. This is the sort of thing we discussed in the section on the history of childhood: The governments of Sparta, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany had large influences on children's development, and there are constant pressures in the US by a wide range of influence groups to influence school curriculum and social services for chidren.

CLASSICAL ETHOLOGICAL THEORY: (KONRAD LORENZ, NIKO TINBERGEN)

BEHAVIOR AS AN ADAPTATION (HAS SURVIVAL VALUE)

ADAPTATION = A BEHAVIOR OR MORPHOLOGICAL
FEATURE DESIGNED BY NATURAL SELECTION IN
ORDER TO PERFORM A PARTICULAR FUNCTION

EXAMPLE: ATTACHMENT IS A BEHAVIORAL SYSTEM DESIGNED BY NATURAL SELECTION TO
KEEP THE BABY CLOSE TO ITS MOTHER

BEHAVIOR IS ELICITED IN PARTICULAR CONTEXTS: E.G., AN ANIMAL MAY BE AGGRESSIVE ONLY DURING MATING SEASON, OR ONLY WITH OTHER MALES

LIKE COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY, ETHOLOGY EMPHASIZES UNIVERSALS OF DEVELOPMENT (NORMATIVE DEVELOPMENT: ALL CHILDREN DEVELOP THE BASIC EMOTIONS IN THE SAME SEQUENCE IN ALL CULTURES: JOY, SADNESS, DISTRESS, ANGER, FEAR, ETC.

MUCH OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR IS INSTINCTIVE
INSTINCTIVE BEHAVIOR = :
1.) BEHAVIOR OCCURS IN ALL MEMBERS OF
SPECIES (= SPECIES-TYPICAL BEHAVIOR)
2.) NO LEARNING REQUIRED; OFTEN BEHAVIOR
CAN DEVELOP WITHOUT ANIMAL EVER
EXPERIENCING OTHER MEMBERS OF THE
SPECIES
3.) STEREOTYPED BEHAVIOR

METHODOLOGY: NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION; STRONGLY OPPOSED TO LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS UNTIL BASIC NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION COMPLETED

IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS OF ETHOLOGY:
1.) NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION

2.) THINK OF CHILDREN'S BEHAVIOR AS INCLUDING A SET OF BIOLOGICAL ADAPTATIONS FOR SURVIVAL OVER EVOLUTIONARY TIME

3.) STUDY BEHAVIORS THAT ALSO OCCUR IN ANIMALS (DOMINANCE, AGGRESSION, ATTACHMENT)

4.) FOCUS ON NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR'EMOTIONAL EXPRESSIONS, THREAT GESTURES, ETC.

5.) CRITICAL PERIOD IDEA.

CRITICAL PERIOD: PERIOD IN DEVELOPMENT WHEN
ORGANISM IS MOST OPEN TO ENVIRONMENTAL
INFLUENCES (I. E., HAS GREATEST PLASTICITY)

HIGH

PLASTICITY
 

LOW______________________________
AGE

EXAMPLES OF SENSITIVE PERIODS:
IMPRINTING IN DUCKS;
ATTACHMENT IN HUMANS;
EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENT ON IQ(?)
PRENATAL EFFECTS OF TERATOGENS (E.G., ALCOHOL) ON BABIES

LIFE SPAN PERSPECTIVE

The life span perspective emphasizes that people continue to develop throughout life. In this department we have a course on adult development and aging that reflects this perspective.

BASIC IDEAS:
Normative Events: These are age-graded events that children and adults go through at about the same time. Some of these are biological or maturational, such as walking and talking. Others are programmed by society and differ between cultures, such as when children start school, begin dating, get married.

Nonnormative Events: Events that do not happen to everyone, such as divorce, job loss, having a serious accident.

Cohorts: A cohort is born around the same time and shares the same historical experiences. For example, children born in the 1930s grew up in during the Great Depression--a period of economic hardship, while many children today grow up around computers and have much more opportunity.


The Great Depression in the 1930s had some important effects on child development. People delayed marriage and had fewer children.

1.) Economic hardship and status loss during the Depression resulted in strained interpersonal relationships and emotional distance of adolescents from their parents. Deprived women from middle-class backgrounds who married relatively young tended to have emotionally distant relationships with parents (especially the father), and they were characterized by earlier dating and heterosexual experience.

2.) Rates of divorce, separation and desertion rose, especially among couples whose relationship was shaky to start with. Fathers became more punitive and less supportive of their children. Boys became more peer-oriented and moved away from the family earlier.

3.) Later in life, men who were forced to enter the job marked as teenagers preferred secure but modest jobs over riskier but higher-status positions--a conservative response.

4. Both women and men from deprived backgrounds were more highly committed to family life and parenthood and to secure interpersonal relationships than non-deprived subjects. Their marriages were no less stable than those of the non-deprived group and their husbands had higher levels of education, income, and social status than those of the non-deprived women.