General psychology

1. Sensory development
Much of the neonate’s behavior is essentially
reflexive. It has relatively little cortical control over
behavior. Examples of this kind of behavior are
breathing, sucking, swallowing, digesting and
eliminating.
Age Motor Social Speech Intellect Play
Range Control Reaction Reaction ual Reaction
Gross Fine Grasp s
0-2 Mass Eyes Focus on Cry from
Activity focus on face discomfor
light t
2-4 Chin up, Look at Watch
prone object persons
1-2 Chest up, Eyes Smile at Coos Avert Listen to
prone follow persons head voice
moving from light
object
2-3 Head Wave at Prefer “Aah” Defense Listen to
steady toy mother “Naah” movemen music
ts
3-4 Feet Reach for Touch Laugh Hand to Playing
push, rattle adults aloud mouth with own
erect hand hands
4-5 Sit Grasp, Know Babble to Discovers Scratch Y
propped hold toy stranger person the toys
fall down
5-6 Squirm, Get Enjoy Put toy in
prone moving mirror mouth
toy
6-7 Roll Transfer Stretch Call for Play with
toy R-L arms to attention toes
come
7-8 Sit alone Pat toy Pull hair Practice Knows Surge,
consonan associates sitting
ts names
frequentl
y heard-
Own,
Siblings,
Pets etc.
8-9 Stand if Pick up Exploit Scold Lifts onto
held pill adults express hands &
joy toes
9-10 Creep, Point Wave Uses a Obeys Peek-a-
hitch index bye-bye word “No” “No” boo
finger meaning
fully Pat-a-
cake
10-11 Walk if Exploit Notice
led toys babies
11-12 Pull to Draw Repeat Recogniz Pokes
stand adult into words es sounds finger in
play holes
12-14 Walk Open Name Responds
alone boxes objects to
familiar
phrases
14-16 Climb Mark Names
steps with pictures
pencil
Adj.-
noun
phrases
16-18 Run Put a Seek help Uses Obeys Exploit
block in a in trouble verbs simple cupboard
hole Uses comman , drawers
pronouns ds furniture

18-20 Climb on
20-22 furniture,
jump

22-24 Build Simple

with sentences
blocks
 Motor behavior involves muscular reactions like
walking, grasping, jumping, steering, etc., often
requiring an interaction between sensory and motor
functions, since motor development follows a sequential
pattern uniform for all individuals, it makes possible the
construction of norms for development.
 Delayed motor development may be attributed to the following
factors:
1. Illness and physical injury: Polio or other debilitating diseases may delay the development
of walking in the child.
2. Intelligence (low grade): Idiots, for instance, may be delayed for as long as four years
before they are able to walk.
3. Size of the body: Babies that are too obese may find it hard to carry their bodies in
locomotion. Fatty tissue in the thighs may impede fast movement.
4. Lack of opportunity to learn: Hopi Indians carry their babies slung across their backs while
they go about their work. The babies are deprived of opportunities to practice their legs.
5. Fear: Children who are allowed to walk too early may toddle and stumble and lose their
self confidence.
6. Hampering clothes: In the cold countries, babies are sometimes bondled in clothes w/c
impede the free use of arms and legs.
7. Nutrition: Diets w/c are not rich in the essential bone-building nutrients like calcium,
phosphorous, vitamins and others may weaken the child.
 At two to three months, an infant babbles
spontaneously and coos at others. He turns his head toward
another’s voice at four months, laughs and makes
differentiated sounds. This is evident at eight months when
the child responds to simple commands like “Close, open,”
and other simple directions. At about ten months, imitative
sounds first occur regularly like “Mum-my” and “Dad-dy”.
 Various factors aside from maturation and learning influence speech
development of infants. The standards and examples of the parents and the
adults will affect the articulation of the child. Parents sometimes use “baby
talk”, i.e., they sometimes mimic the child's speech. When used
occasionally, this gives the child some feedback experiences that may point
out errors and allow more efficient language learning.

So many factors enter into the development of language that caution

must be observed in making sweeping generalization. Children from well-
to-do families usually have the advantage of better facilities like TV,
newspapers, magazines and the association with more cultured groups as
well as the opportunities of travel and communication.
1. Sensory motor sage: From birth to two years, this is characterized by innate
responses to stimulus w/c is essentially reflexive (S-R). The child learns to anticipate
S and make R in anticipation of changes in S . For instance, in trying to reach for a
dangling toy, the child makes adjustive steps or positions to reach it in the direction
he finds most accessible.
2. Pre-operational thought period
a. Preconceptual stage: 2-4 years. The child starts to use different kinds of symbols
in play behavior and in language. Play activities may take the form of imaginary
situations and objects i.e., a girl washes dishes as she sees her mother do.
b. Intuitive phase: 4-7 years. The child is now able to respond to groups of objects.
He can classify according to increasing size( as in blocks) or in alphabet information.
3. Period of concrete operations: The child is less egocentric and groups objects and
events on concrete observations. The child is able to think of various concrete
situations relating to problems they are trying to solve. Conservation is present
because children at this stage are ale to reverse concrete operations.
4. Period of Formal Operations: The child uses formal
verbal rules of thought and logic; to formulate and test
hypothesis; to think abstractly and generalize using
abstract concepts from one another.
5. Emotional development
Specific emotions cannot be reliably identified in
early life. This is related to the fact that infants cannot
speak and is related in part to the observer’s
knowledge of what preceded the infant’s emotional
response.
Studies on the emotional responses of infants are
first attempted by John B. Watson who presented
different S to neonates and noted characteristics
changes in each.
General excitement and excitability Birth
Distress and delight (General) Three months
Fear, disgust; anger (elicited by, &/or Six months
direct toward specific events).
Elation; affection (elicited by, &/or
direct toward specific events). Twelve to fifteen months
Jealousy & joy (in the presence of
specific events) as distinguished Eighteen to twenty mmonths
from general distress or delight
 Morality is conformity to certain standards of
behavior usually imposed by society or a group.
Morality involves two phases; the development of
moral behavior, and the development of moral
concepts.
 Illustrative Behavior

LEVEL I. PREMORAL Obeys rules in order to avoid

Stage 1. punishment and obedience punishment
orientation
Stage 2. Naïve instrumental Conforms to obtain rewards to have
hedonism favors returned
LEVEL III. Morality of convention Confess to avoid disapproval,
role conformity dislike by others
Stage 3. “Good-boy” morality of
maintaining good relations,
approval of others
Stage 4. Authority maintaining Conforms to avoid censure by
morality legitimate authorities with
resultant guilt.
LEVEL III. Morality of self –accepted Conforms to maintain the impartial
moral, principles spectator judging in terms of
Stage 5. Morality of contract, community welfare.
individual rights & of democratically
accepted law
Stage 6. Morality of individual Conforms to avoid self-
principles of conscience condemnation.
 Parents now have the advantage of new scientific
“miracles” and laboratory regimentation making it
possible for them to choose the sex of their unborn
child. This method is called the Sperm Separation
Technique.
 As early as 1973, Dr. Ronald Ericson of Saudalito, California started the
experiment of the Sperm Separation Technique.
He poured layers of serum albumin (a kind of protein in the human
blood) in increasing percentages through a filter in a test tube. Because the
amle-producing sperm can swim faster thru filters than the female-producing
sperms, the bottom layer of the test tube is left with the male chromosome (Y)
while the filter is left with the female chromosome (X) which are heavier.
This process which separated the sperms enables doctors to choose the
Sperms that will be used for insemination to wouldof their-be mothers assuring
them of either a male or a female child, whichever they opt to have.
Other methods in sex determination now make it possible to predetermine the
sex of the child before it is born. This is a big boom to parents often plague
with anxiety over the sex of their unborn child. These methods include the
amniocentesis Method and the Smear Technique.
1. The amniocentesis method
This method was originally meant to determine whether the child about to born will
have any of a number of genetic or metabolic defects like mongolism and hemophilia.
This technique though, has several flaws. First, it cannot be performed until the
sixteenth of pregnancy afterwards. Thus, should the child be unwanted, as with the one
with birth defects or one which happens to be unwanted “sex” in the next offspring,
abortion cannot be done until the midpoint of the mother’s pregnancy when the fetus is
already moving or when the abortion is already dangerous to performed.

2. The Smear Technique

A less expensive, though unpleasant method involves examination of smears taken
from around the cervix.
It s said that physicians in China have successfully used this technique to determine the
baby’s sex as early as 47 days after conception.
 Scientist and moralist are now deeply involved in the social implications of these methods of sex
predetermination. Among those issues that were brought up were the following:
1. The effect on world population
It is believed that because of these methods of sex pre-determination, women will now stop
trying to have babies until they get the “wanted sex” because the admonition to stop at “two” will
be heeded provided the two are of the desired and expected sex. Thus, the world population
would now level off. (This is especially true for women in India and Korea who always opt for
male children.)
2. The threat to the “balance of the sexes”
It is expected that the population balance would tilt to “probably 55 men to 45 women”,
producing a worldwide or damaging social effect. This is because these methods of selecting the
desired sex of the child will likely increase the preference by most parents to have sons rather
than daughters.
3. The issue of sex stereotyping
It is feared that sex stereotyping, which has been frowned on in the trend towards an egalitarian
society will return. Tolerance for sex deviation will be diminished or totally obliterated.
4. The threat to real love
Couples who ordered a boy or a girl through any of these
artificial methods will conceive children not through an act
of love but though selfish, personally-motivated whims. The
wife will be artificially inseminated with either all X or all
Y of her husband’s sperms.
5. The increasing incidence of abortions
The amniocentesis method, originally intended to screen
defects in high-risk mothers as well as brain defects like
hemophilia or mongolism will increase the possibility of
more abortions because it can be exploited by parents who
may lie or cheat to their doctors to get the amniocentesis
test(which incidentally reveals the sex of the child). Women
and parents are thus able to make the decision to abort or
keep the developing child based solely on the test’s results.
6. The moral issue
How moral is it to decide which child is to live and
which is to die? How does one sit in moral judgment over
others and determine whether their decisions are moral or
not?
Lee Slak, pediatrician-psychologist says: “If people
feel so strongly that they have to abort the unwanted child,
I question their motivations for wanting a child in the first
place. They would be better off choosing a pet so they can
pre-select all the details that may be important to them –
gender, hair color, size , etc….
 If it were possible to correlate objectively and
accurately without chances of error, specific child-rearing
techniques with desirable personality characteristics, there
would not be much problem about producing a generation
of competent and self-confident youngsters.
One of the basis of an experiment made on nursery
children and an investigation of the child-rearing practices
of the parents, the following conclusions surfaced
correlating the children’s characteristics with the child-
rearing practices of the parents:
1. Most Mature and Confident Children
a. Parents were warm, loving, and they communicated
well with their children.
b. Parents respected the children’s opinions and were
generally firm and clear about behavior they considered
appropriate.
2. Moderately-Controlled and Self-reliant Children
a. Parents were only fairly-controlling
b. Parents were not very warm and affectionate or
concerned with the children’s opinion.
3. The Most Immature Child
a. Parents were affectionate but not very controlling and
demanding.
b. Parents were inefficient and disorganized in running
their household.
 c. Parents were lax in setting guidelines for
appropriate behavior-in disciplining and rewarding
behavior.
From these studies we can now identify the following
positive and negative traits in child-rearing practices.

1. Positive Child-Rearing Traits:

a. Firm and consistent in expectations of how children
should behave
b. Warm and affectionate
c. Respects children’s opinions
d. Rewards responsible behavior and to discourage
immature ones.
2. Negative Child – Rearing Practices :
a. Very controlling or demanding
b. Concerned more with their needs
than with their children
c. Very permissive
d. Fails to reward responsible
behavior and to discourage immature
ones.
Now the test-tube babies babies are on the way out if we are
to believe the research findings at the University of
Pennsylvania. In its place is the MICROCHIP BABY.
According to these researches, a certain class of silicon
chips “can analyze sperm samples to provide a venue for
fertilization.”
This is done by means of “a microscopic obstacle course
inside a silicon wafer to weed out the unhealthy sperm.”
A mouse egg in a chip was successfully fertilized this way.
The leader of his project was a certain Larry Kricks of the
university of Pennsylvania Medical Center.