Psych Ch 5 - Chapter 5- Developing Through the Life Span...

Chapter 5- Developing Through the Life Span
How do we change physically, cognitively, and socially from the womb to the
tomb?
 Infancy and Childhood
 Adolescence
 Adulthood
Major Issues in Developmental Psychology
 Nature vs. Nurture: How do genetic inheritance (nature) and
experience (nurture) influence our development?
 Continuity/ Stages: Is development a gradual continuous process like
riding an escalator or does it proceed through a series of separate
stages, like climbing rungs on a ladder?
 Stability/ Change: Do our early personality and intellectual traits
persist through life, or do we become different people as we age?
Prenatal Development and the Newborn
 Conception
a) Sperm cells surround an ovum
b) As one sperm penetrates the egg’s jellylike outer coating, a
series of chemical events begins that will cause sperm and egg to
fuse into a single cell. Development commences.
 Prenatal Development
a) The embryo grows and develops rapidly. At 40 days, the spine is
visible and the arms and legs are beginning to grow.
b) 5 days later, the inch long embryo’s proportions have begun to
change.

c) By the end of the second month, when the fetal period begins,
facial features, hands and feet have formed.
d) As the fetus enters the fourth month, it is about 3 ounces and
could fit in the palm of your hand.
 Prenatal exposure to teratogens, which are harmful agents such as
viruses and drugs, that increase the risk for problems later in life. For
example, smoking during pregnancy increases ricks of ADHD in
children.
 The effects of alcohol on the fetus and later in life.
 On the bright side, good prenatal nutrition has been linked to positive
outcomes, such as having higher IQ in childhood. Improved prenatal
nutrition is one possible explanation of historical increases in
intelligence test scores.
The Competent Newborn
 Contrary to William James’ assertion that they are little “blank slates”
that experience the world as a “blooming, buzzing confusion,”
newborns come into the world equipped with automatic responses
ideally suited for survival.
 For example, when something touches an infant’s cheek, it reflexively
turns toward that touch, opens its mouth, and roots for a nipple. An
infant will also reliably turn its head toward a human voice.
 Face recognition
 Mother’s smell
 Infants also show habituation- a simple form of learning that occurs
when an organism shows a decrease in response to some stimulus
after repeated presentation of that stimulus.
 Studies of habituation in infants reveals that they are sensitive to
novelty in their environments, and this is a window into the infant’s
mental processes.
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Infancy and Childhood:
Physical Development
 Brain development unfolds though maturation - a biologically
programmed growth process. In humans, at birth, the brain is
immature, but as the child matures, neural networks grow increasingly
more complex. As they so, the infant’s capabilities surge…
Motor Development
 As an infant’s muscles and nervous system mature, more complicated