Chapter 14 Introduction

Development 14

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CHAPTER OUTLINE

  • Cognitive Development

    The Psychology of Jean Piaget

    Domain-Linked Cognitive Development

    • RESEARCH TOOLKIT: Looking-Time Methods

      Alternatives to Piagetian Theory

      Cognitive Development and the Brain

  • Social Development: Biological and Social Foundations

    Biological Foundations: Temperament

    Social Foundations: Bonding Between Parent and Child

    Social Settings for Development

    The Development of Self-Concept

  • Social Development Across the Life Span

    Adolescence

    • CULTURAL OPPORTUNITIES: Ethnic and Racial Identity

      Emerging Adulthood

      Midlife Development

  • Older Adulthood

    Well-Being in Older Adulthood

    Goals, Strategies, and the SOC Model

    Motives and Socioemotional Selectivity Theory

    Accentuating the Positive

  • Moral Development

    Moral Stages

    • THIS JUST IN: Moral Babies

      Gender and Moral Thinking

  • Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Interviewer:
Child Age 5:

Do you see this stone? Why is it round?
Because it wants to be round.

Interviewer:
Child Age 6½:

Have you seen the clouds moving?
Yes.

Interviewer:
Child Age 6½:

Can you make them move yourself?
Yes. By walking.

Interviewer:
Child Age 6½:

What happens when you walk?
It makes them move.

Interviewer:
Child Age 7:

Do you see this stone? Do you think you could make a bigger stone with it?
Oh, yes, you could take a big stone then you could break it and that would turn it into a bigger stone.

Interviewer:
Child Age 12:

What is the moon like?
Round.

Interviewer:
Child Age 12:

Always?
No.

Interviewer:
Child Age 12:

What else does it look like?
It’s cut through the middle. In the evening it’s round, and in the day it’s cut in two.

Interviewer:
Child Age 12:

Where is the other half?
Gone away.

Interviewer:
Child Age 12:

Where to?
To another country where it’s night.

— All statements from Piaget (1929/1951)

THESE KIDS’ IDEAS ARE WEIRD: NOT JUST factually wrong, but illogical. Objects don’t “want” things or get bigger when broken.

Where do you think they got such ideas? No first-grade lesson plan includes “How walking controls clouds.” They might have learned them from other kids—but then where did the other kids get the ideas?

Psychologists have another explanation. These ideas were not learned from teachers or other children. They were generated by the minds of the children themselves. The “weirdness” of the ideas is key to the nature of psychological development.

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COMPARE YOURSELF TODAY to yourself as a child. You were different back then—maybe more impulsive and spontaneous, or less self-conscious and opinionated. Yet you probably were similar in some ways, too. If you’re a fun-loving joker now, you might have been like that in grade school. If you’re shy when meeting strangers today, you might have been shy around strangers years ago.

The ways people change, and remain the same, across the course of life are explored in developmental psychology. This chapter will introduce you to three main areas of study in developmental psychology: cognitive, social, and moral development.

  1. Cognitive development is growth in intellectual capabilities, particularly during the early years of life. The interviews that opened this chapter, which were conducted by the Swiss cognitive-developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, illustrate the remarkable ways in which children’s thinking differs from that of adults.

  2. Social development is growth in people’s ability to function effectively in the social world, both in childhood and across the life span. Developing abilities to control one’s emotions, maintain relationships with others, establish a meaningful personal identity, and cope with the challenges of older adulthood are all aspects of social development.

  3. Moral development is growth in reasoning about personal rights, responsibilities, and social obligations, especially regarding the welfare of other people. Questions about rules, laws, and circumstances in which it may be acceptable to challenge existing laws are the types of topics studied in moral development.

All three aspects of psychological development occur as people develop physically. The chapter thus also reviews aspects of physical development, including changes in brain structure that accompany growth in children’s intellectual abilities; motor development (i.e., ability to move one’s body skillfully) and the way it can be affected by the social environment; and the many biological changes that occur when adolescents reach puberty.

Let’s begin with cognitive development.