Infants, Children, and Adolescents

Laura E. Berk 5th edition

Chapter 1

History, Theory,
and Research
Strategies

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Child development :
 Child development : a field of study
devoted to understanding all aspects of
human constancy and change from
conception through adolescence.
 Developmental science : an
interdisciplinary field devoted to the study
of all changes we experience throughout
the lifespan.

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A common goal
 To describe and identify those factors that
influence the consistencies and changes in
young people during the first two decades of
life.
 To better the lives of children.
 To improve children’s health required an
understanding of physical growth and nutrition
 To treat children’s anxieties and behavior
problems required information about personality
and social development.
 Child-rearing practices and experiences that
would promote the well-being of their child.
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Why … CHILDREN ?
 The critical period is a limited time span during
which the child is biologically prepared to
acquire certain adaptive behaviors but needs
the support of an appropriately stimulating
environment. Many researchers have
investigated whether complex cognitive and
social behaviors must be learned during certain
periods.
 A Sensitive period is a time that is optimal for
certain capacities to emerge and in which the
individual is especially responsive to
environmental influences.

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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2005
Periods of Development
Prenatal Conception to birth
Infancy and Toddlerhood Birth to 2 years
Early Childhood 2 to 6 years
Middle Childhood 6 to 11 years
Adolescence 11 to 18 years
Emerging Adulthood 18 to 25 years

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Domains of Development
 Physical Development : changes in body
size, proportions, appearance, functioning
of body systems, perceptual and motor
capacities, and physical health.
 Cognitive Development : changes in
intellectual abilities, including attention,
memory, academic and everyday
knowledge, problem solving, imagination,
creativity and language.
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 Emotional and Social development :
changes in emotional communication, self-
understanding, knowledge about other
people, interpersonal skills, friendships,
intimate relationships, and moral
reasoning and behavior.

 The three domains are not really distinct.

Rather, they overlap and interact.

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Domains of Development
Domain Changes in
Physical Body size & proportions, appearance
Function of body systems, health

Perceptual & motor capacities

Cognitive  Intellectual abilities

Social Emotional communication

Self-understanding, knowledge about others

Interpersonal skills & relationships

Moral reasoning & behavior

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 Theory A good theory of infant-
An orderly, integrated caregiver attachment would:
set of statements that • Describe the behavior of
 Describes babies around 6 to 8 months
of age as they seek the
 Explains
affection and comfort of a
 Predicts familiar adult,
behavior • explain how and why infants
develop this strong desire to
bond with a caregiver,
•Predict the consequences of
this emotional bond for future
relationships.
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GOALS OF PSYCHOLOGY
 Describe
 first goal of psychology is to
describe the different ways
that organisms behave.
 Explain
 second goal of psychology
is to explain the cause of
behavior.

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 Predict
 third goal of psychology is
to predict how organisms
will behave in certain
situations
 Control
 the fourth goal of
psychology is to control an
organism’s behavior

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Theory helps us understand development
and to know how to improve the welfare
and treatment of children. But theories
are influenced by the cultural values and
belief systems of their times.
• A theory’s continued existence depends
on scientific verification. It must be
tested using a fair set of research
procedures agreed on by the scientific
community, and its findings must endure,
or be replicated, over time.

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 Many theories offer very different ideas
about what children are like and how they
change. Also, children are complex
beings; they change physically, cognitively,
emotionally, and socially. No single theory
has explained all these aspects. But the
existence of many theories helps advance
knowledge because researchers are
continually trying to support, contradict,
and integrate these different points of
view.

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Basic Issues in Development Theory

Although there are many theories, we can

easily organize them by looking at the stand
they take on three basic issues:
n Continuous or discontinuous?
n One course of development or many
possible courses?
n Nature or nurture?

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Continuous or Discontinuous
Development?
 Some theorists believe that development is a
smooth, continuous process. Children gradually
add more of the same types of skills.
 Other theorists think that development takes
place in discontinuous stages. Children change
rapidly as they step up to a new level of
development and then change very little for a
while with each step, the child interprets and
responds to the world in a qualitatively different
way.
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Continuous or Discontinuous
Development

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Stages
 Qualitative changes in thinking, feeling,
and behaving that characterize specific
periods of development.
 Development is much like climbing a
staircase, with each step corresponding to
a more mature, reorganized way of
functioning.
 Change is fairly sudden rather than
gradual and ongoing.

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 One Course of Development or Many?
Contexts : children grow up in distinct contexts 
unique combinations of personal and
environmental circumstances that can result in
different paths of change. Different
circumstances foster different cognitive
capacities, social skills, and feelings about the
self and others.
Contemporary theorists regard the contexts that
mold development as many-layered and
complex. Personal  include heredity and
biological makeup. Circumstances  children’s
everyday lives: community resources, societal
values and priorities, and historical time period.
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Nature and Nurture
Nature Nurture
 Inborn, biologic  Physical and social
world
givens
 Influence biological
 Based on genetic and psychological
inheritance development

Is the older child’s ability to think in

more complex ways largely the result of
an inborn timetable of growth, or is it
primarily influenced by stimulation from
parents and teachers? Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2005
A Balanced Point of View
 Today, some theorists believe that both
continuous and discontinuous changes
occur.
 A growing number regard heredity and
environment as inseparably interwoven,
each affecting the potential of the other to
modify the child’s traits and capacities.

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Historical Foundations
 In medieval times, the sixth through the
fifteenth centuries, clear awareness
existed of children as vulnerable beings
and of childhood as a distinct
developmental period.
 In the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, the Puritan conception of
original sin led to a harsh philosophy of
child rearing, based on the view that
children were born evil and had to be
civilized through repressive measures.
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Historical Views of Childhood
Medieval Era Childhood (to age 7 or 8)
and Earlier regarded as separate phase
with special needs
16th Century Puritan “child depravity” views

17th Century John Locke “tabula rasa” or

“blank slate” view
18th Century Jean Jacques Rousseau “noble
savages” view
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 The 17th century Enlightenment brought a
new emphasis on human dignity and
respect that led to more humane
conceptions of childhood. Locke’s notion
of the child as a tabula rasa (blank slate)
provided the basis for twentieth-century
behaviorism, while Rousseau’s idea that
children were noble savages (naturally
endowed with a sense of right and wrong
and an innate plan for orderly, healthy
growth) foreshadowed the concepts of
stage and maturation.

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Scientific Beginnings
 Inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution,
efforts to observe the child directly began in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Soon
after, Hall and Gesell introduced the
normative approach, which produced a large
body of descriptive facts about children. In the
early 1900s, Binet and Simon constructed the
first successful intelligence test, which
sparked interest in individual differences in
development and led to a heated controversy
over nature versus nurture.
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Early Scientific Study
of Development
Evolutionary Darwin’s ideas of natural
Theory selection and survival of the
fittest are still influential.
Normative Hall & Gessell: Age-related
Approach averages based on
measurements of large numbers
of people.
Mental Simon & Binet: Early developers
Testing in intelligence tests
Movement
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Mid-Twentieth-Century Theories
 In the 1930s and 1940s, psychiatrists and
social workers turned to the
psychoanalytic perspective for help in
treating children’s emotional problems. In
Freud’s psychosexual theory, children
move through five stages, during which
three portions of the personality – id, ego,
and superego – become integrated.

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Freud’s Three Parts of
the Personality
Largestportion of the mind
Unconscious, present at birth
Id
Source of biological needs & desires

Conscious, rational part of mind

Ego Emerges in early infancy

Redirects id impulses acceptably

The conscience
Superego Develops from ages 3 to 6, from
interactions with caregivers
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2005
The Psychoanalytic perspective
 Freud’s view of personality development, in
which children move through a series of
stages in which they confront conflicts
between biological drives and social
expectations. The way these conflicts are
resolved determines psychological
adjustment.

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Psychosexual theory
 Freud’s theory, which emphasizes that
how parents manage children’s sexual
and aggressive drives in the first few
years of life is crucial for healthy
personality development.

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Psychosocial theory
 Erikson’s theory, which emphasizes that at
each Freudian stage, individuals not only
develop a unique personality but also
acquire attitudes and skills that help them
become active, contributing members of
their society.

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Freud’s Psychosexual Stages

 Oral
 Anal
 Phallic
 Latency
 Genital

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Oral (birth – 1 year)
 The new ego directs the baby’s sucking
activities toward breast or bottle. If oral
needs are not met appropriately, the
individual may develop such habits as
thumb sucking, fingernail biting, and pencil
chewing in childhood and overeating and
smoking in later life.

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Anal (1 – 3 years)
 Toddlers and preschoolers enjoy holding
and releasing urine and feces. Toilet
training becomes a major issue between
parent and child. If parents insist that
children be trained before they are ready,
or if they make too few demands, conflicts
about anal control may appear in the form
of extreme orderliness and cleanliness or
messiness and disorder.

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Phallic ( 3 – 6 years)
 As preschoolers take pleasure in genital
stimulation, Freud’s Oedipus conflict for boys
and Electra conflict for girls arise. Children feel a
sexual desire for the other-sex parent. To avoid
punishment, they give up this desire and adopt
the same-sex parent’s characteristics and
values. As a result, the superego is formed, and
children feel guilty each time they violate its
standards.

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Latency (6 – 11 years)
 Sexual instincts die down, and the
superego develops further. The
child acquires new social values
from adults and same-sex peers
outside the family.

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Genital (adolescence)
 With puberty, the sexual impulses of the
phallic stage reappear. If development has
been successful during earlier stages, it
leads to marriage, mature sexuality, and
the birth and rearing of children. This
stage extends through adulthood.

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Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages
Basic trust Birth–1 year Identity v. Adolescence
v. mistrust identity
confusion
Autonomy v. 1–3 years Intimacy v. Emerging
shame and isolation Adulthood
doubt
Initiative v. 3–6 years Generativity Adulthood
guilt v. stagnation

Industry v. 6–11 years Integrity v. Old Age

inferiority despair

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Basic trust >< mistrust
(oral) Birth – 1 year.

 From warm, responsive care, infants gain

a sense of trust, or confidence, that the
world is good. Mistrust occurs when
infants have to wait too long for comfort
and are handles harshly.

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Autonomy >< shame and doubt
(anal) 1 – 3 years.
 Using new mental and motor skills,
children want to choose and decide for
themselves. Autonomy is fostered when
parents permit reasonable free choice and
do not force or shame the child.

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Initiative >< Guilt
(Pahllic) 3 – 6 years.
 Through make-believe play, children
experiment with the kind of person they
can become. Initiative – a sense of
ambition and responsibility – develops
when parents support their child’s new
sense of purpose. The danger is that
parents will demand too much self-control,
which leads to over control, meaning too
much guilt.

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Industry >< inferiority
(Latency) 6 – 11 years
 At school, children develop the capacity to
work and cooperate with others. Inferiority
develops when negative experiences at
home, at school, or with peers lead to
feelings of incompetence.

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Identity >< Role confusion
(Genital) Adolescence
 The adolescent tries to answer the
questions, who am I, and what is my place
in society? By exploring values and
vocational goals, the young person forms
a personal identity. The negative outcome
is confusion about future adult roles.

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Intimacy >< isolation
Emerging adulthood
 As the quest for identity continues, young
people also work on establishing intimate
ties to others. Because of earlier
disappointments, some individuals cannot
form close relationships and remain
isolated.

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Generativity >< Stagnation
Adulthood
 Generativity means giving to the next
generation through child rearing, caring for
other people, or productive work. The
person who fails in these ways feels an
absence of meaningful accomplishment.

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Integrity >< despair
Old age
 In this final stage, individuals reflect on the
kind of person they have been. Integrity
results from feeling that life was worth
living as it happened. Old people who are
dissatisfied with their lives fear death.

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Behaviorism & Social Learning

Classical
Stimulus – Response
Conditioning

Operant Reinforcers and

Conditioning Punishments

Social Learning Modeling

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Behaviorism
 An approach that regards directly
observable events – stimuli and responses
– as the appropriate focus of study and
that views the development of behavior as
taking place through classical and operant
conditioning.

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Social learning theory
 An approach that emphasizes the role of
modeling, or observational learning, in the
development of behavior.

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Piaget’s Stages of
Cognitive Development

Sensorimotor Birth–2 years

Preoperational 2–7 years
Concrete
7–11 years
Operational
Formal
11 years and older
Operational

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Sensorimotor Birth – 2 years
 Infants “think” by acting on the world with
their eyes, ears, hands, and mouth. As a
result, they invent ways of solving
sensorimotor problems, such as pulling a
lever to hear the sound of a music box,
finding hidden toys, and putting objects in
and taking them out of containers.

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Preoperational 2 – 7 years
 Preschool children use symbols to
represent their earlier sensorimotor
discoveries. Development of language and
make-believe play takes place. However,
thinking lacks the logic of the two
remaining stages.

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Concrete operational 7– 11 years
 Children’s reasoning becomes logical.
School-age children understand that a
certain amount of lemonade or play dough
remains the same even after its
appearance changes. They also organize
objects into hierarchies of classes and
subclasses. However, thinking galls short
of adult intelligence. It is not yet abstract.

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Formal operational 11 years on
 The capacity for abstract, systematic
thinking enables adolescents, when faced
with a problem, to start with a hypothesis,
deduce testable inferences, and isolate
and combine variables to see which
inferences are confirmed. Adolescents can
also evaluate the logic of verbal
statements without referring to real-world
circumstances.

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Information-Processing Flowchart

Showing the steps that a 5 year old used to solve a bridge-building problem.
Her task was to use blocks varying in size, shape, and weight, some of which
were planklike, to construct a bridge across a “river” too wide for any single
block to span. The child discovered how to counterweight and balance the
bridge. The arrows reveal that even after building a successful counterweight,
she returned to earlier, unsuccessful strategies, which seemed to help her
understand why the counterweight approach worked.
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Information processing
 An approach that views the human mind
as a symbol-manipulating system through
which information flows and that regards
cognitive development as a continuous
process.

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Ethology & Evolutionary Dev. Psy
 Ehology is concerned with the adaptive, or
survival, value of behavior and its evolutionary
history. Lorenz and Tinbergen observed
behavior patterns that promote survival 
imprinting : the early following behavior of
certain baby birds, such as geese, which
ensures that the young will stay close to the
mother and be fed and protected from danger.
Imprinting takes place during an early, restricted
period of development. If the mother goose is
absent during this time but an object resembling
her in important features is present, young
goslings may imprint on it instead.

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Sensitive Period
Observations of imprinting led to a major concept in child
development: the critical period. It is limited time span during
which the child is biologically prepared to acquire certain
adaptive behaviors but needs the support of an
appropriately stimulating environment.

 An optimal time for certain

capacities to emerge
 Individual is especially
responsive to environment
 Later development is hard to
induce
 Boundaries less defined than a
critical period
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Attachment
 Inspired by observations of imprinting,
British psychoanalyst John Bowlby applied
ethological theory to understanding the
human infant – caregiver relationship.
 The development of attachment in human
infants is a lengthy process involving
changes in psychological structures that
lead the baby to form a deep affectionate
tie with the caregiver.

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 Evolutionary
Developmental Psychology
 Seeks to understand adaptive value of human
competencies
 Studies cognitive, emotional and social
competencies and change with age
 Expands upon ethology

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 Evolutionary psychologists are not just
concerned with the genetic and biological
basis of development. They realize that
humans’large brain and extended
childhood resulted from the need to
master an increasingly complex
environment, so they are also interested in
learning.
 Evolutionary psychologists want to
understand the entire organism-
environment system.

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Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

 Transmission of culture to
new generation
 Beliefs, customs, skills
 Social interaction
necessary to learn culture
 Cooperative dialogue with
more knowledgeable
members of society

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Ecological Systems Theory

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 Microsystem, In ecological systems theory, the
innermost level of the environment, consisting of
activities and interaction patterns in the child’s
immediate surroundings.
 Mesosystem, In ecological systems theory,
connections between children’s immediate
settings.
 Exosystem, In ecological systems theory, social
settings that do not contain children but that
affect children’s experiences in immediate
settings. Examples are parents’workplace,
health and welfare services available in the
community, and parents’ social networks.
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Dynamic Systems Perspective

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 Rather than envisioning a single line of stage
wise or continous change, dynamic systems
theorists conceive of development as a web of
fibers branching out in many direct5ions. Each
strand in the web represents a skill within the
major domains of development – physical,
cognitive and emotional/ social. The differing
directions of the strands signify possible
variations in paths and outcomes as the child
masters skills necessary to participate in diverse
contexts. The interconnections of the strands
within the vertical windows portray stagelike
changes – periods of major transformation in
which various skills work together as a
functioning whole. As the web expands, skills
become more numerous, complex, and
effective.
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Systematic Observation

Naturalistic Structured
Observation Observations
 In the “field” or natural  Laboratory situation
set up to evoke
environment where
behavior of interest
behavior happens
 All participants have
equal chance to
display behavior

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Interviews

Clinical Structured
Interview Interview
 Flexible,  Each participant is
asked same
conversational style
questions in same
 Probes for way
participant’s point of  May use
view questionnaires, get
answers from groups

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 Psychophysiological Methods
 Measures of autonomic nervous
system activity
 Heart rate, blood pressure, respiration,
pupils,
stress hormones
 Measures of Brain
Function
 EEG
 Functional brain
imaging (fMRI)

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Correlation Coefficients

Magnitude Direction
 Size of the number  Indicated by + or - sign.
between 0 and 1.  Positive (+) means, as
one variable increases,
 Closer to one so does the other
(positive or negative)  Negative (-) means, as
is a stronger one variable increase,
relationship the other decreases.

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Independent and Dependent
Variables
Independent Dependent
 Experimenter  Experimenter
changes, or measures, but does
manipulates not manipulate
 Expected to cause  Expected to be
changes in another influenced by the
variable. independent variable

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Modified Experiments

Field Natural
Experiments Experiment
 Use rare  Compare differences
opportunities for in treatment that
natural assignment already exist
in natural settings  Groups chosen to
match characteristics
as much as possible

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Designs for Studying
Development
Same participants studied repeatedly at
Longitudinal different ages

People of differing ages all studied at

Cross-sectional the same time

Same groups of different-aged people

Longitudinal-
studied repeatedly as they change
Cross-sectional
ages.
Same participant studied repeatedly
Microgenetic over a short period as they master a
task
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Children’s Research Rights

 Protection from harm

 Informed consent

 Privacy

 Knowledge of results

 Beneficial treatments

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