Carolyn Lieberman

Psychology
Wright

VII. States of Conciousness

• Nature/Nurture: how do genetic & experience influence development
• Continuity/Stages: is development a gradual process or separate?
• Stability/Change: do our early personality traits stay the same or do we
change as we age?

A. What happens during prenatal development & what are its affects on the
newborn?
1. Conception: all eggs in woman at birth (1/500 mature and be
released), males produce sperm;
a. The sperm releases digestive enzymes to dissolve the egg’s
protective layer. The egg will block other sperm out once one sperm
penetrates the protective layer. Fingerlike projections will sprout
around the sperm and full it in. By the end of the day, they will fuse
2. Prenatal Development
a. Zygotes are fertilized eggsIn the first week, the cell divides to
produce a zygote of about 100 cells
b. After the first week, the cell will differentiate and specialize in
structure and function
c. After ten days, the zygote will attach to the mother’s uterine wall
d. The placenta and the embryo are then formed
e. After nine weeks, the embryo is known as the fetus
f. After six months, the organs like the stomach will be able to
function and perform
g. The fetus starts to respond to noise during the sixth month
h. Both genetic and environmental factors can affect the prenatal
development
i. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is usually seen with children born with
mental as well as physical deformities. Over 1 in 750 kids are born
with this syndrome; FAS is the leading cause of mental retardation
j. Pregnant women who have been stressed during their pregnancy
have children who are less competent in motor skills, emotional as
well as learning deficiency. Increased proclivity of depression
3. The Competent Newborn
a. rooting reflex is when newborns are prompted to open their mouth
and turn towards the nipple when touched on the cheek
b. William James presumed that newborns experiences where similar
to that of buzzing confusion
c. Janine Spencer and Paul Quinn did a study which revealed that 4
year olds like adults focused on the faces of animals. (cat and dog
experiment)
4. Close Up: Research Strategies for Understanding Infants’ Thinking
B. What occurs during infancy & childhood?

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 Carolyn Lieberman
Psychology
Wright

1. Physical Development
a. Over 23 billion neurons were produced in the child by birth; From
age 3-6, the brain’s neural system starts to grow in the frontal
lobes, enabling rational planning
b. Maturation sets the basic course of development. It is the
genetically designed biological growth process. Maturation is
uninfluenced by experiences while genetic growth tendencies are
inborn
c. The order in which physical coordination occurs like crawling before
walking is due to the maturing of the nervous system and has
nothing to do with imitation
d. Individual differences in timing occur
e. Genes play a role in the timing of each coordination. Identical twins
would be able to walk more or less on the same day
f. Biological maturation includes the rapid development of the
cerebellum at the back of the brain; Experiences will not have a
major effect on the child’s physical skills until after age 1
2. Cognitive Development
a. Jean Piaget’s works revolved around the errors give by children by
each age. Before Piaget, people thought that children “simply knew
less, not differently than adults.”Later it was discovered that
“children reason in wildly illogical ways about problems whose
solutions are self-evident to adults.”
b. A child’s mind also develops through many stages; Piaget revealed
that schemas develop when the brain builds concepts. The schemas
are mental molds into which we pour our experiences.There are two
ways which we could adjust our schemas. By assimilating as well as
accommodating them.
c. When we assimilate new schemas, we interpret them into our
current schemasWhen we accommodate our schemas, we adjust
our present schemas to fit the particulars of new experiences. You
refine the category.
3. Social Development
a. Stranger Anxiety- fear of strangers, starting at around 8 months.
They have schemas for similar faces.
b. The intense mutual infant-parent bond develops by 12 months
C. What occurs during adolescence?
1. Physical Development
a. Puberty paves way to a surge of hormones, creating mood swings;
The primary sex characteristics (reproductive organs) develop
dramatically
• Menarche- first menstrual period; Spermarche-first ejaculation
b. Early developing boys become stronger and more athletic, as well

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 Carolyn Lieberman
Psychology
Wright

as more popular and have a higher self esteem.

c. Hereditary and environmental interaction plays a major role of how
both boys and girls feel about puberty; During puberty, unused
neural connections are weakened
d. Myelin also grows in the frontal lobe during puberty;The frontal lobe
maturation slows down the emotional limbic system. This explains
why teenagers can be impulsive
e. Younger teens are more likely to smoke or do drugs since they are
unable to plan ahead.
2. Cognitive Development
a. Adolescents are more likely to worry about what others think about
themselves. Since this is when they start to think about how others
perceive them
b. During the early teenage years, reasoning is often self-focused.
They feel that their private experiences are unique. They think that
others can not understand their unique experiences
c. Formal operations is the shift from preadolescents thinking
concretely to adolescents becoming more capable of abstract logic.
This is Piaget’s theory
d. The teenager’s ability to reason hypothetically and deduce
consequences allows them to detect inconsistencies in other’s
reasoning and to spot hypocrisy
3. Social Development
a. Erik Erikson exclaimed that individuals go through eight stages in
life, each with a psychosocial task.
• Till age 1, the issue was that of trust and mistrust
• Till age 2, it becomes autonomy vs. shame and doubt
• Till age 5, the issue is initiative and guilt
b. Till puberty, the child is given the issues of inferiority and
competence; From adolescence till becoming a young adult, it
becomes about finding one’s identity. For young adults, the issue is
between intimacy and isolation
c. From 50-60 years old, it becomes generativity vs. stagnation.
d. From 60s up, the issue becomes integrity vs. despair.
4. Emerging Adulthood
a. Emerging adulthood are people who are no longer teenagers but
are not ready to take on adulthood responsibilities.
b. Due to this emerging adulthood, marriage has been delayed by
several years.
D. What occurs during adulthood?
1. Physical Development
a. Menopause is the ending of the menstrual cycle beginning around
when a woman hits her 50th birthday. Estrogen is reduced during

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 Carolyn Lieberman
Psychology
Wright

this period.Menopause usually does not create psychological

problems for women.A woman’s attitudes reflect on how she will
perceive and go through menopause
• Bernice Neugarten went around and asked women who had their
menopause how they felt. The majority felt at the prime of their
lives.
b. Life expectancy has increased from the average 49 years to 67
years; Women outlive men and after the stage of infancy,
outnumber them
c. After age 70, hearing, distance perception, reaction time, stamina,
muscle strength, sense of smell all decrease. Neural process slow
their rate
d. Around age 80, 5% of the brain shrinks; Physical exercise however,
can stimulate the development of some new brain cells and
connections. Older adults who exercise regularly become smart
thinkers due to the oxygen and nutrient circulation.
e. The risk of dementia increases, doubling every five years from age
60. It is not a normal part of the aging process.
f. Alzheimer’s disease affects over 3% of the world’s population by
age 75. They are not part of the normal aging process. It is the loss
of brain cells and deterioration of neurons that produce the
neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Memory and thinking thus decrease.
g. Men experience a more gradual decline of sperm production over
age. Testosterone levels, erection and ejaculation are also at a
declining rate.
2. Cognitive Development
a. Aging and memory
• Recalling new information declines during the early and middle
adulthood years.
• Older adults are able to recall meaningful information more
easily than meaningless information, they may however take
longer to produce words to describe these memories
• Thomas Cook and Robin West discovered that younger adults
were more likely to recall names after one introduction, while
older age groups had a poorer performance.
• When asked how they heard a certain event or news , many
could recall instantaneously upon a few moments, while asking
after a couple of months prompted variations in their recalls.
• David Schonfield and Betty-Anne Robertson found that
recognition memory is better for older adults early in the day
rather late.
• Being able to recognize a set of words via multiple choices had a
minimal decline when compared to the results of each age. It

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 Carolyn Lieberman
Psychology
Wright

was the recall of the words which had a greater difficulty

• Time based tasks as well as habitual tasks decline over age
b. Aging & intelligence
• Phase 1: cross sectional studies: test/compare people of various
stages
• Phase 2: Longitudinally: retesting the same people over a period
of yearsdecrease in intelligence
• Phase 3: crystallized intelligence: accumulated knowledge
− Fluid intelligence: ability to reason speedily and abstractly
3. How do we socially develop?
a. Adult’s ages & stages: midlife crisis hot gf & sportscar);
20’s=divorce; 70’s/80’s=suicide; social clock: cultural prescription
of “right time” to get married, get job, leave home, children, etc.
(Brides that are teens: 40% Jordan, 3% China)
b. Life Events & Chance Encounters: marriage, parenthood, vocational
changes, divorce, relocation, retirement, etc= life stages.
Chance=romance (ex: twinsonly ½ of twins liking twin’s partner)
c. Adullthood’s commitments: Intimacy and Generativity.
d. Love: intimacy, attachment, commitment: central to healthy &
happy adulthood
E. Reflections on Two Major Developmental Issues
1. Continuity & Stages
a. Distinct growth stages in psychological development like physical?
(cognitive development =Piaget; moral=Kohlberg;
psychosocial=Erikson)
2. Stability & Change
a. 1st 2 years of life=poor basis for predicting eventual traits; children
involved with crime/abuse/drugs…grow to become successful,
mature adults
b. Temperament=more stable than social attitudes; goals, seeking
status, pleasure, close relationships, etc., are more stable & become
more stable with age
c. We all change with age (ex: 20 yr-old goof off40 yr-old
business/cultural leader)