Summary with How Children Develop - Siegler et al. - 5th edition

Why and how do we study the development of a child? - Chapter 1

Why are we investigating the development of a child?

How do we raise children?

The development of a child can raise various questions. A question that most parents have is how they can teach their children how to deal with anger and other negative emotions. Sometimes parents spank their children, but this has turned out to be counterproductive. However, several effective ways are known to control the anger of a child. One way is to respond sympathetically to children who show negative emotions, so children are able to cope in a better way with the situation causing the negative emotions. Another way is to help the children look for positive alternatives when they show negative emotions.

Choosing social policies?

Furthermore, the development of a child can raise questions about a responsible social policy, which is one more reason to learn about child development. Research can be done using meta-analysis, a method combining results from independent studies to arrive at conclusions based on all the studies. The question can arise whether it is better to invest in the prevention of developmental problems in children, or to invest in solving developmental problems that already exist in children.

For example, think about the reliability of a young child's courtroom testimony. It may happen that the judge believes the statement of a child, whereby an innocent person is punished, or vice versa, a guilty person can go free. Research has shown that young children tend to forget details, but what they say is largely based on the truth. It is important to know that young children are sensitive to certain questioning techniques, especially when suggestive questions are repeated. Questions to young children in a court must be neutral. Likewise, questions can not be repeated if they have already been answered. This information must be considered to ensure a reliable statement.

How to understand human nature?

Studying child development can lead to a better understanding of the nature of human. Child developmental researchers have found methods to observe, describe and explain the development of children at a young age.

An illustration of how science can help to understand human nature comes from studies on how children overcome the effects of abuse, depending on when the child got abused. It appears that children who are in an unstable environment for less than 6 months after birth do not suffer from any negative effects later in life. However, if this period lasts longer than 6 months, they may experience problems, even if they are in a stable environment afterwards. Children who live in unstable environments for more than 6 months could suffer, amongst other, from an atypical social development. Atypical social development originates from abnormal brain activity. For example, reduced activity in the amygdala, a brain area that is involved in emotional reactions.

What were the historical ideas about child development?

What was the view of early philosophers?

Plato stated that self-control and discipline are the goal of good upbringing and education. Plato also believed that children have innate knowledge. Aristotle stated that it is important to take the individual character of a child into account when it comes to child upbringing. Thus, the quality of parenting is very important. Aristotle therefore believed that knowledge is not innate, but that knowledge is gained through experiences.

Two thousand years later, Locke believed that the most important goal of child upbringing is the growth of character. Locke stated that the parents should initially raise the child through discipline. He believed that one is born a blank slate, called tabula rasa, and knowledge is gained through experience. Rousseau thinks that children, first and foremost, need maximum freedom. From their twelfth year of life (the so-called 'age of reason'), children must receive formal education from their parents and school. Darwin has developed the so-called 'baby biography', in which he observes the developments of a baby day to day. This includes motor, sensory, and emotional development. Darwin inspired other researchers to conduct further research on the development of a child and the associated aspects.

What are social reform movements?

The current field of child psychology also has its roots in early social reform movements, which have helped to improve the lives of children by changing the conditions in which they lived. For example, it got forbidden, for children younger than 10 years, to work.

What is the influence of Darwin's theory of evolution?

Darwin's work led to the view that intensive study of the development of children could lead to important insights into human nature. Darwin's theory of evolution, based on variation, natural selection and heredity as fundamental concepts, still influences the thinking of modern develop mentalists.

What is the origin of research-based theories?

Freud's psychoanalytic theory was one of the first theories based on research findings. Freud argued that biological drives, especially sexual ones, have a crucial influence on development. The theory of behavior by John Watson stated that the development of children is determined by environmental factors, mainly the rewards and punishments that follow the children’s action. Nowadays, these theories are still influential.

Which aspects of a child’s development are important?

How do 'nature and nurture' contribute to the development of a child?

Nature includes the genes that we receive from our parents. In other words: the innate aspects of a person. Nurture means the environment in which both physical and social aspects influence the development. In other words: the learned aspects of a person. Nature and nurture interact with each other. It appears that the genome (the total set with hereditary information) influences behavior and experiences, but the behavior and experiences also influence the genome. This discovery has led to the rise of epigenetics, the study of stable changes in gene expression mediated by the environment. Evidence for the lasting epigenetic impact on experiences and behaviors comes from research of methylation, a biochemical process that reduces the expression of a variety of genes and is involved in the regulation of stress reaction. It can be concluded that both the genes and the environment are important in the development.

How do children shape their own development?

It is known that the active role of a child is underestimated. The older the child becomes, the more active the child becomes. At a young age, parents determine what the child does in daily life. When the child grows up, he or she chooses his or her own activities, friends, environment and so on.

In what way is the development of a child continuous and in what way is the development discontinuous?

Continuous development means age related changes gradually occur in small steps. Quantity is important. A discontinuous development means that changes related to the age occur suddenly and with great steps. Quality comes first.

According to the stage theories, the development happens in a progression of distinct, sudden age related stages. One of the most famous stage theories is Piaget's cognitive development theory, the development of thinking and reasoning. This theory states that children go through four phases of cognitive growth, which are characterized by different intellectual skills and ways of understanding the world. However, there are also many researchers who argue for a gradual development.

Whether development can be called fundamentally continuous or discontinuous depends on how often and for how long observations take place ,or so it seems. In other words: it depends on the perspective and how you observe changes. If you look at a child for a long time, changes are often experienced as continuous. But if you look at a child various times at different moments, changes are often experienced as discontinuous.

How does a child change?

Brain activity, genes and learning experiences play a role in the development of effortful attention. Effortful attention is the voluntary control of the emotions and thoughts. Difficulty with effortful attention can cause all kinds of behavioral problems.

An important example of effortful attention are the connections between the limbic system, a part of the brain that plays an important role in emotional reactions, and the anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex. These connections develop during childhood. Neurotransmitters are chemicals that are involved in communication between brain cells. Specific genes influence the production of important neurotransmitters. Variations in these genes between children are associated with variations in effortful attention. These genes are influenced by environmental factors.

Learning experiences can change the connections of the brain system involved with effortful attention. Exercise improves the skills. Hereby, the development of the hippocampus, a brain structure important for learning and remembering, is influential. During sleep, older children and adults replay memories in the hippocampus. Damage to the hippocampus causes difficulty with learning. In younger children, the cortex is responsible for memories.

How does socio-cultural context influence the development of a child?

Socio-cultural context contains the physical, social, cultural, economic and historical aspects that determine the environment of a child. This context therefore depends on the culture in which you live, who you deal with, the environment in which you live and what your socio-economic status (SES) is. SES is a measurement based on the social class in which someone lives, with a certain income and level of education. A low SES can have negative consequences: living in dangerous neighborhoods, poor education, malnutrition and underdevelopment. These negative effects together are often referred to as the cumulative risk.

Why do children differ from each other?

There are four factors generating differences between humans, even though you come from the same family: genetic differences, difference in how parents and others interact, difference in response to the same experiences (subjectivity), and difference in the choice of own environment / friends.

How can research promote the well-being of a child?

Research always has practical advantages. For example, when a child is born with bad eyes, it is possible to immediately operate leading to less suffering later in life. Research can also provide better education by understanding how children reason, remember, form concepts and solve problems.

Can children learn to become more intelligent?

People that think intelligence can increase through learning, respond to failure different than people who think intelligence is stable. It turns out that they give up less quickly. In a study, children were given information about the fact that learning changes the brain and that learning improves and makes you smarter. These children performed better than children who did not receive the same information. Another way is to provide information about the failure of well-known people, such as Einstein.

What methods are used to study the development of a child?

What does the scientific method entail?

The scientific method is an approach aimed at testing beliefs by means of the following steps: formulating a question, formulating a hypothesis (testable predictions about the presence or absence of phenomena or relationships), testing the hypothesis and finally making a conclusion. Various measuring instruments are available to test a hypothesis. These measuring instruments must be reliable, valid and relevant. Reliability refers to the extent to which independent measurements are consistent. There are two types of reliability, namely interrater reliability, how much agreement there is in the observation of different raters and test-retest reliability, the extent to which there are similarities in the behavior of a child in different situations. Validity refers to the extent to which a test measures what it aims to measure. There are two types of validity, namely internal validity, the extent to which effects measured by researchers are caused by the variables manipulated by the researcher, and external validity, the extent to which results can be generalized.

What are ways to collect data about children?

The first way to collect data about children is through interviews. Interviews can be divided into structural interviews, research in which all participants are asked the same questions, often with the help of questionnaires, and clinical interviews (in which the questions are adapted to the answers of the participant). The second way to collect data is through observations. These can be divided into natural observations, observation based on a child's behavior in his / her natural environment, not manipulated by the researcher. Structured observations are observation based on a child's behavior in a manipulated environment, for each child the same environment has been created.

What are correlation and causation?

There are also two types of designs in research: correlational research and experimental research. Correlational research is intended to see to what extent certain variables are related to each other. A correlation is the association between two variables. Variables are characteristics that vary between people and situations. A correlation coefficient shows the degree and direction (positive or negative) of the correlation.

Correlation research has its advantages. It is the only way to measure different groups at the same time and to determine the relationships between different variables. There are, however, some drawbacks to this method: the directional causality problem and the third-variable problem. The direction-of-causality problem: a correlation between two variables does not indicate which variable causes the other. The third-variable problem: a correlation between two variables can come from the influence of a third variable.

Experimental research is intended to measure certain effects and causes. There are two techniques that are important for an experimental study: random assignment of participants, whereby each child has an equal chance of being classified in each group and experimental control, the ability of the researcher to determine which stimuli the child experiences during the research. For experimental control an experimental group and a control group are needed. The experimental group is exposed to the independent variable, while the control group is not. The dependent variable is the behavior displayed by both groups. The comparison between the behavior of the two groups is used to see if the behavior is caused by the independent variable. The independent variable is the experience that participants in the experimental group receive and the control group not. This design also has its advantages, it makes it possible to investigate causal relations, because it does not suffer from directional causality problem and no third variable problem. This design has other drawbacks, for example, experimental control can lead to artificial experimental situations. In addition, not many different variables can be used to study.

Which research designs are there to measure the development of children?

There are three types of research designs to measure the development of a child over time: cross-sectional designs, longitudinal designs and microgenetic designs. Cross-sectional research is a method that focuses on the behavior of children of different ages over a short period, these behaviors are then compared. An advantage of this method is that the data is useful to discover differences between different age groups. However, there are also drawbacks to the method: the information about the differences between age groups obtained may not be stable over time. Also, the information obtained does not say much about the patterns of change over a longer period.

Longitudinal research is a method that focuses on the behavior of children of the same age over a longer period with repeated measurements. An advantage of this method is that the degree of stability can be determined over a longer period. The information obtained also says something about the patterns of change over a longer period of time. However, this method also has disadvantages: A lot of participants stop participating in the research ('drop-outs'), for different reasons. Also, repeated measurements can affect the external validity of the research.

Microgenetic research is a method that focuses on the behavior of children that is intensively observed over a short period, while changes occur. Advantages of this method is that by intensive observation certain processes of change can be revealed. These individual patterns of changes in short periods can also be observed and examined in detail. However, this method also has drawbacks: it does not provide information about patterns of change over a longer period and therefore does not show individual patterns of change. A microgenetic study was used to investigate the counting-on strategy in children. The strategy is to sum up from the largest number on. The research showed that the generalization of a new strategy is slow.

What ethical issues are there?

There are certain ethical issues that researchers must consider for every research with people. In this way, potential risks are minimized and it is ensured that the benefits of the research outweigh the disadvantages for the test subjects.

• It must be ensured that the investigation does not cause physical or psychological damage.

• So-called informed consent must be completed by the participant of the research. In the event that the participant is underage, one of the parents must sign.

• The anonymity of the participant is guaranteed.

• Discuss certain information that may be important for the participant's well-being with parents or caregivers (provided a participant is underage).

• Avoid negative consequences that may arise throughout the study. If these do occur, the procedure must be changed in such a way that these negative consequences will disappear.

• Inform the participant about the results of the research in such a way that the participant understands them.

The researcher, who knows most about the research and is able to prevent / improve potential problems, is responsible for achieving the highest possible ethical standards.

How does prenatal development work? - Chapter 2

What is prenatal development?

Throughout history, many differences can be seen in the way people think about prenatal development. Aristotle rejected the idea of epigenesis, the emergence of new structures and functions during development.

Example: the Beng in West Africa believe that every baby is a reincarnation of an ancestor. The spirit of the ancestor, the wru, does not yet want earthly life and retains a double existence, traveling back and forth between the present and the wrugbe, the spirit world. If the child dies before the umbilical stump has dropped of, there is no funeral, because it is assumed that the child is not yet a person and has returned to the spirit world.

What is conception?

Gametes are reproductive cells (ovum or sperm) that contain only half of the genetic material of all other cells in the body. Gametes are produced by meiosis, a special type of cell division where the egg cell and sperm cell receive only one member from each of the 23 chromosome pairs. An egg cell and a sperm cell together form a complete set of 23 chromosome pairs.

Conception is the coming together of an egg cell from the mother and a sperm cell from the father. During the ejaculation, the sperm cells travel through the uterus to the egg for 6 to 7 hours. Only 200 of the 500 million sperm cells survive this journey. It is a process like in Darwin's theory: survival of the fittest. There are several reasons why sperm cells can not make it to the egg cell. First, there may be problems with the sperm cells themselves, which is sometimes based on a genetic defect. It is also possible that sperm cells get entangled with each other during the trip. Finally, it is possible that the sperm cells go into the fallopian tube that does not harbor an egg. One sperm cell fertilizes the egg cell. A fertilized egg is called a zygote. By a chemical reaction, which occurs when a sperm cell reaches the egg cell, a layer is formed around the egg, so that other sperm cells can no longer reach or fertilize the egg cell. In the first two weeks, the fertilized cell is a zygote.

What kind of development processes are there?

From 3 to 8 weeks the fertilized egg is called an embryo, from the 9th week on it is called a fetus.

The development process of the fertilized egg cell consists of four processes:

1. Mitosis: cell division, starts 12 hours after fertilization;
2. Cell migration: the movement of new shaped cells away from their original location;
3. Cell differentiation: all embryonic stem cells can develop in any type of cell, these cells will specialize in structure and function;
4. Apoptosis: cell killing, for example, the membranes between fingers and toes are removed.

For a long time it has been thought that more male than female embryos were conceived. Male fetuses are more vulnerable to early abortion and more often have a low birth weight than female. Recent research shows that the chance of a male or female embryo is the same.

What does early development look like?

The fourth day after conception, the cells organize themselves in a hollow ball with a number of cells (inner cell mass) on one side. This is the stage where identical twins most often originate because the inner cell mass splits by half, so they have the same genes. Fraternal twins, on the other hand, result when two eggs are released from the ovary into the fallopian tubes and are both fertilized.

The inner cell mass (also called embryoblast) is eventually formed into a fetus. In the second week after fertilization, the inner cell mass folds into three u-shaped layers. The first layer contains the nervous system, nails, teeth, inner ear, eyes, and the upper skin layer. The second layer contains muscles, bones, the circular system, inner layers of the skin, and internal organs. The third layer contains the digestive system, lungs, the urinary tract, and the glands. Then the neural tube is formed, which consists of the brain and the spinal cord. The cells that do not belong to the inner cell mass (the trofectoderm) form the placenta and the amniotic sac. The placenta transports materials through the blood stream between mother and fetus, protects the fetus from toxins, and produces progesterone and estrogen. The amniotic sac is a membrane that is filled with water that protects the fetus. The blood vessels that connect the placenta and the embryo are collected in the umbilical cord. The development of the fetus is a so-called 'cephalocaudale' development, where the parts of the body close to the head develop faster than parts of the body that are further away from the head.

How does the fetus behave?

The fetus starts to move after 5 to 6 weeks. The first movements are hiccups and swallowing. After twelve weeks almost all movements are present that are present after birth. From 10 weeks onward, the fetus starts to 'breathe'. There is not really air in the lungs, but the fetus moves the chest up and down to kind of exercise.

How does the fetus experience the pregnancy?

The visual experience of the fetus is minimal. The fetus, however, does experience tactile stimulation through its own movements, which affects its own body parts and the uterine wall. The amniotic fluid has different flavors, the fetus can detect it and also has a preference for different flavors. The amniotic fluid can also bring smells of what the mother has eaten, these smells give the fetus the opportunity of olfactory experience. The fetus also hears everything, the heartbeat of the mother, her breathing, her swallowing, but also her voice. In the last trimester the fetus can record sounds from the environment.

How does the fetus learn?

In the last three months, the fetus learns from experiences. At that time the central nervous system has been developed far enough to support learning. Habituation is a simple form of learning in which a decrease in response is caused by repeated or permanent stimulation. Dishabituation arises when there is a perceptual change in the stimulus, so that the infant is interested again. These two forms of learning both occur in the womb and memories of it continue to exist after birth.

Phylogenetic continuity is the idea that, because of our common evolutionary history, people share many characteristics, behaviors and developmental processes with other animals, especially mammals. This assumption is the basis for animal research. Thanks to mouse research, for example, we know that alcohol can cause a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder during pregnancy. It has also become clear that baby mice can smell the amniotic fluid on the nipples of their mothers, that is how they find the nipples.

What kind of accidents are possible in prenatal development?

It is possible that something goes wrong during pregnancy, such as a miscarriage. Genetic factors can also play a role in a pregnancy that does not go well.

Environmental factors play an important role during pregnancy. Teratogens are external substances that can damage the unborn baby during pregnancy. It may even be the case that these harmful substances kill the unborn baby. However, it is a question of timing, because when these toxic substances come into the picture during the so-called sensitive period, they can cause more damage than when these toxic substances are present outside the sensitive period. The sensitive period is a period in which the development of the baby is most susceptible to the effects of external factors. Different sensitive periods exist for different systems. For example, the sensory period for the development of the central nervous system is mainly between 3 and 5 weeks, after which it develops further. Whereas, the sensitive period for the development of the palate is between 7 and 8 weeks, and also develops further after. In addition to timing, the duration of exposure and quantity of toxic substances is also important for problems with the pregnancy. Most teratogens show a dose-response relationship. This is a relationship in which the effects of exposure to toxic substances increase with the degree of exposure. In other words: the more exposure to teratogens the fetus has, the more serious the effect on the fetus are. The effects may also depend on individual differences. These effects sometimes only become visible after years.

Depression during pregnancy can lead to disability of the child, such as social and cognitive problems. However, drugs to treat depression, especially SSRIs, can have adverse effects on the baby, such as a later diagnosis of autism. This makes it very difficult. Behavioral interventions have promising effects to treat perinatal depression.

The use of opioids for pain can seriously damage the fetus. Fetuses can have the neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), where a form of withdrawal symptoms is seen, because the fetus has become addicted to the opioids.

Illegal drugs are dangerous for prenatal development because they affect the developing brain of the fetus. Marijuana is a drug that is often used and associated with problems with attention, learning and memory in later life.

Smoking also has negative effects on the fetus. The fetus gets less oxygen. The child is more likely to have problems at a later age such as lower IQ, hearing problems, ADHD and cancer.

The consumption of alcohol during pregnancy may result in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), which may lead to the fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) where the baby is characterized by facial malformations.

Pollution of the environment can also cause damage to the fetus. For example, the bodies and blood of most American women contain a mixture of toxic metals, synthetic hormones, plastic, pesticides and herbicides that may be teratogenic.

Maternal characteristics can also influence prenatal development, including age, nutritional status, health and stress levels.

Children with teen mothers of 15 years or younger are 3-4 times more likely to die in the first year of life than children of mothers between 23 and 29 years of age. If a mother does not get enough of certain vitamins or nutrients, it can have serious consequences. Some diseases also affect the fetus. This way, HIV can be transmitted to the child. The Zika virus is another well-known example, this virus leads to microcephaly in the child. If the mother displays high stress levels during pregnancy, the risk the child shows behavior problems is higher. It is difficult to determine whether this is only due to the stress, as there are often several factors involved. However, yoga and meditation prove to be good for both the child and the mother.

The sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the sudden, unexpected death of a child younger than 1 year without identifiable reason. One hypothesis is that there is an inadequate reflexive response to blocking of the breath. Recommended is to let babies sleep on their back and ensure a firm mattress without a pillow. Parents should not smoke either. Children who are breastfed and / or sucking a pacifier are less likely to have SIDS. In addition, it may be wise to let the child sleep in the same room.

How does the birth take place?

The muscles of the uterus start to contract at about 38 weeks of pregnancy. It is called labor pain. Mothers are often treated with medications during birth to cope with the pain, but this doesn't affect the baby, however it can extend the duration of the delivery and more tools may be needed. During the birth the flexing/ squeezing does not hurt the baby, but the mother experiences the stretching as painful. Squeezing removes the uterine fluid in the baby's lungs. This allows the baby to breathe right after birth for the first time. This is what babies do by crying.

There are many differences in behavior around birth between cultures. All cultures provide survival and health for the child and social integration.

How does a newborn baby behave?

The state of arousal involves the level of mental alertness or consciousness, such as very deep sleep or intense activity. There are two newborn 'states' that are mainly interesting: sleeping and crying. Sleep consists of REM sleep and non-REM sleep. REM sleep involves an active sleep characterized by rapid eye movements behind the eyelids. In adults, it is associated with dreaming. Non-REM sleep involves a quiet and deep sleep characterized by slow brainwaves, quiet breathing, a quiet heartbeat and absence of motor activity and eye movements. The older a child becomes, the less sleep the child needs.

Babies cry for various reasons, illness, pain and hunger may be reasons. A much used tranquilization technique is swaddling, whereby the baby is tightly wrapped in a blanket or clothing. This ensures continuous tactile stimulation and warmth. Putting something sweet in the baby's mouth also has a calming effect. Research shows that it does not matter whether an immediate reaction is made to the crying of a child or that the crying is ignored, in both cases the child will cry less in the future. When an infant cries excessively and inconsolably, without any reason, it is called colic.

In most cases, babies are delivered healthy into the world. Sometimes this is not the case. The most serious case is the death of a born baby in the first year of life. This is called infant death. Due to improvements in health care, however, this has become less and less the case in recent years. Another negative consequence of birth can be a low birthweight. This low birth weight (LBW) is characterized by a weight of 2.5 kg or less. Reasons for low birth weight can be: a premature baby (pregnancy of 35 weeks or shorter instead of 38 weeks, also called premature), or the baby is born too small (small for gestational age). This can have consequences in the longer term, for example social problems or learning disabilities. To prevent these consequences, physical contact with the newborn baby is often avoided because of the risk of infections. However, the majority of babies with low birth weight survive, without showing problems later in the development. Often babies with low birth weight receive massage therapy. Another negative influence after birth is poverty or a low SES (socio-economic status). This can lead to a less positive development of the baby. According to the multiple risk model, the baby has more problems with development if several risk factors are present at birth. However, if there are different risk factors, this does not mean that there is always a negative development. This is the developmental force. In other words: successful development despite the multitude of risks that affect the birth.

What is the relationship between biology and behavior? - Chapter 3

How do nature and nurture play a role?

The first studies on development were trying to answer the question of which of the following is more influential on the child’s development: the genes or the environment. Since the discovery of the DNA, the basic component of heredity, enormous advances have been made in deciphering the genetic code. Researchers have mapped the entire genome, the complete set of genes of an organism. Later studies on development found both, the genes and the environment, as important influences in the development of a child. The genes and the environment interact continuously with each other, therefore both influence the development of a child.

Which genetic and environmental influences are there?

There are three elements that are important in the development of a child: genotype, phenotype and the environment. Genotype is the inherited genetic material of an individual. Phenotype is the observable expression of the genotype, namely the body characteristics and behavior. The environment is an all-encompassing aspect of an individual and his / her surrounding aspects, unlike the genes.

These three elements are involved in five relationships that are fundamental to the development of every child:

1. The parents genetic contribution to the child's genotype.

Chromosomes are molecules of the DNA containing genetic information. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is made of molecules containing all biochemical instructions involved in the formation and functioning of an organism. These instructions are packaged in genes, sections of chromosomes that are the basic heredity unit of all living beings. People normally have 46 chromosomes, 23 pairs, in each cell nucleus. Except in the germ cells, these only contain 23 chromosomes.

Every person has o ne pair of sex chromosomes. Sex chromosomes transmit the genetic information. A man has an X chromosome and a Y chromosome. A woman possesses two X chromosomes. For this reason, always the father determines the sex of a child. When the man transmits a Y chromosome to the child, it becomes a boy (XY) and when the man passes an X chromosome to the child, it becomes a girl (XX).

A child shows similarities on the general human level (the child has feet and arms) and on an individual level (the child shares similarities with family members). Different mechanisms ensure the genetic diversity between people. One is mutation. Mutation is a change in the components of the DNA. Another mechanism is crossing. Crossing over is a process where parts of DNA swap from one chromosome to another chromosome. Crossing over promotes the variability between individuals.

Thousands of disorders have a genetic origin. These can be inherited in different ways:

• Dominant-recessive pattern of inheritance: the disorder only occurs when an individual has two recessive alleles of the condition. If a dominant gene causes a disease, the disease always occurs. Often a gene is not responsible for a disease, but triggers a whole process that leads to certain symptoms.

• Polygenetic inheritance: many disorders arise from interactions between multiple inherited genes.

• Sex-linked inheritance: Sex-linked recessive diseases most often occur in males as they are linked to the X chromosome. Males have only one X chromosome. A single recessive gene on that X chromosome will cause the disease.

• Chromosomal anomalies: if there are errors in the germ cell division, this may result in the zygote having more or fewer chromosomes, such as it is with Down syndrome.

• Genanomalities: if there are more, fewer or abnormal genes, disorders can arise.

• Defects in regulatory genes: these genes regulate the expression of other genes. Errors in these genes can lead to disruptions in development.

• Unidentified genetic basis: some disorders are clearly inherited, but the specific gene is unknown.

2. The genetic contribution of the child to its own phenotype.

Endophenotypes are intermediate phenotypes influencing physical and behavioral characteristics, including unobservable aspects as the brain and the central nervous system. Regulatory genes regulate the switching on and off of genes. A gene never functions alone. There is a so-called network in which the expression of a gene in turn provides for the expression of another gene. In other words: the expression of a gene is controlled by regulatory genes. This concept could become clearer through a metaphor. The alphabet consists of 26 letters (= genes). Not every letter (= gene) is used in every word (= expression). But there are millions of words, and also millions of types of gene expressions.

Some genes never express themselves because 1/3 of a person's genes have two or more different forms. These are called alleles. The pattern of a gene expression (found by Mendel) is called the dominant-recessive pattern. Some genes contain two alleles: a dominant allele and a recessive allele. A dominant allele is always expressed when present (and is indicated with a capital letter, for example B). A recessive allele is not expressed when there is a dominant allele (and is indicated with a lowercase letter, for example b). When a human being has two identical alleles (two dominant alleles -BB- or two recessive alleles -bb-), the person is homozygous for a certain trait. When a human being has two different alleles (a dominant allele and a recessive allele -Bb-), the person is heterozygous for a specific character trait. Concluding in the following: if someone is homozygous for a certain character trait, the corresponding character trait will express itself, but if someone is heterozygous for a specific trait, the dominant gene for the trait in question will express itself.

It is called polygenetic inheritance when certain traits are regulated by multiple genes.

3. The contribution of the environment of the child to its own phenotype

Because there is constant interaction between genotype and environment, the genotype will develop differently in different environments. In other words: a given genotype can result in different phenotypes, depending on the environment. This is called norm of reaction. Norm of reaction refers to all phenotypes that can arise from the interaction between a certain genotype and all environments in which it can survive and develop.

An example of how genotype environment interactions work is the disease phenylketonuria (PKU). This disorder is related to a defective recessive gene on chromosome 12. It stops the metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine. If individuals with PKU are put on a diet free of phenylalanine, they can lead a very normal life, otherwise severe intellectual disabilities would arise.

Often the environment of the parents also influences the child, such as reading or music. The interaction between parent and child thus influences the environment of the child, and also affects the phenotype of the child.

Genetic testing is used to diagnose diseases and sometimes to determine what kind of treatment is appropriate. Carrier genetic testing is offered to specific target groups to check whether there are carrying genes of a certain disorders. Prenatal testing is done during pregnancy. To see if the child has the condition, when there are certain risk factors for a genetic disorder. The screening of babies is often done to check for numerous genetic disorders.

4. The contribution of the phenotype of the child to its own environment

It is about the active child. First, because of their nature and behavior, children evoke certain types of reactions from others. Secondly, the child chooses and creates his / her own environment, for example in the form of activities and friends.

5. The contribution of the child's environment to its own genotype

Epigenetic factors can help explain why identical twins do not have the same life path: different environments can change gene expression in subtle ways during development. This happens, for example, through methylation.

What are behavioral genetics?

According to behavioral genetics, the interaction between genes and the environment causes variation. Why do people differ from each other? Traits are initially hereditary, but mostly multifactorial. Hereditary refers to every trait or characteristic that can be transmitted through genes. Multifactorial refers to traits and characteristics that are influenced by both environmental factors and genetic factors.

Which research designs exist in behavioral genetics?

Family studies focus on measurements of differences in characteristics between individuals (family members and non-family members). These studies examine whether family members are more similar than non-family members. If this is the case, one can conclude that for this trait the genetic contribution is greater than the contribution of the environment.

Twin studies focus on differences in characteristics between identical twins and also between fraternal twins, and then examine whether the genes are responsible for the differences. In fact, identical twins share 100% of the same genes and fraternal twins share 50% of the same genes. When identical twins are more alike than non-identical twins, it can be concluded that the studied trait is more genetic than non-genetic.

Adoption studies focus on measurements of differences in characteristics between adopted children and biological children, and then examine whether the adopted children are more like their biological parents than on the adoptive parents.

Adoption of twin studies focus on measurements of characteristics between identical twins that have grown up separately and identical twins that grew up together, and then examine whether the differences are due to genetic or environmental influences.

Studies on IQ show surprising results: the genetic influence on intelligence increases with years.

Which genetic influences are there?

Heredity is a statistical measurement of the proportion of the measured variance of a given trait between individuals in a given population, attributable to the genetic differences between individuals.

Genome-wide association studies show that genetic effects are cumulative, individual chromosomes do not correlate with certain characteristics.

There are a number of misunderstandings about heredity:

• It is often assumed that heredity says something about individuals. Heredity, however, only says something about populations.

• It is also often assumed that high heredity has something to do with immutability. High heredity, however, does not imply anything about the immutability of a child.

• The equal-environment assumption states that identical twins and fraternal twins share environments that are roughly equal. If this is not true and identical twins are more genetically equal and have more equal environments than fraternal twins, the disruption of equality of genes and environments would distort heritability estimates.

The genome-wide complex trait analysis (GCTA) uses genetic similarity based on large groups of individuals rather than families. In this way aspects of genes and environment which could be disrupted in families can be unraveled more easily.

Which environmental influences are there?

The amount of variance determined by the environment is calculated automatically through the 100 heredity (%). In studies comparisons are made between shared environmental influences and non-shared environmental influences. Shared environment has to do with having the same experiences that are a result of growing up together in the same family. Non-shared environment mean that children grew up in the same family, but do not share the same experiences with each other. These experiences can take place within the family or outside the family.

How does the brain develop?

What are the brain structures?

The brain is kept active through information exchanges. These information exchanges are regulated by neurons. Neurons are cells that specialize in sending and receiving information between the brain and all other body parts. Sensory neurons exchange information from the sensory receptors of the environment (both external and internal stimuli) or within the body itself. Motor neurons exchange information between the brain and the muscles and limbs. Inter-neurons exchange information between sensory neurons and motor neurons.

A neuron consists of three main elements: the cell body, the dendrites and the axon. The cell body is the nucleus of the neuron, which keeps the neuron working. The dendrites receive information from other neurons through the synapses and transmit them to the cell body. The axon transmits information from the cell body to other neurons via synapses. A synapse is the space between the dendrites of the one neuron and the axon of the other neuron.

Glial cells are cells that fulfill all sorts of supportive functions. They ensure the formation of a myelin sheath around axons. The myelin sheath is a greasy sheath that increases the speed and efficiency of information exchange.

The cerebral cortex is seen as the most human part of the brain, the so-called 'gray matter'. The cerebral cortex takes up 80% of the brain. The large areas of the cerebral cortex are called the lobes. The lobes are characterized by the general categories of behavior that each lobe specializes in. The occipital lobe is mainly important in the processing of visual information. The temporal lobe is specialized in memory, visual recognition, auditory information, and the processing of emotions. The parietal lobe is specialized in non-verbal processing, sensory input integration, and information about emotions. The frontal lobe is important for planning ahead and organizing behavior to achieve a certain goal. Information from different sensory systems is processed in the association areas that lie between the large sensory, and motor areas. Areas are mostly not functionally specific, often different areas work together.

The cortex is divided into two halves. These two halves are called cerebral hemispheres. Information coming in from the left side of the body is processed in the right hemisphere. Information coming in from the right side of the body is processed in the left hemisphere. The two brain halves communicate with the help of the corpus callosum. Each hemisphere has its own specialization. This division of specialization over the two hemispheres is called cerebral lateralisation. For example, the left hemisphere specializes in verbal aspects such as language, logic, and sequential tasks, and the right hemisphere specializes in non-verbal aspects as visual information.

Which developmental processes take place in the brain?

Neurogenesis is the proliferation of neurons by cell division, this process begins 42 days after conception. The second development process is cell migration, which is followed by cell differentiation. First an axon grows, and then a 'bunch' of dendrites are forming. The biggest change in dendrites is 'arborization', an enormous increase in the size and complexity of the dendrites through growth, branching and the formation of so-called spines that increase the capacity to form connections with other neurons.

Myelination is the process whereby myelin sheaths are formed around the axons. Synaptogenesis also takes place, where neurons form synapses with other neurons, resulting in trillions of connections. There is also synaptic pruning where redundant synapses (which almost never be activated) are removed.

There are different techniques for mapping the functioning of the brain. These techniques have led to a better understanding of the brain and its development. Electroencephalography (EEG) is a technique that measures the electrical activity generated by neurons using electrons on the skull. Event-related potentials (ERPs) are changes in electrical activity that arise from the presentation of a particular stimulus. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) detects magnetic fields generated by electrical currents in the brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a technique in which fluctuations in cerebral blood flow are measured by means of an electromagnet, with which activity in brain areas can be measured. Positron emission tomography (PET) measures brain activity by detecting metabolic processes; radioactive material is injected. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is an optical imaging technique in which metabolic changes are observed that lead to different absorption of infrared light.

What is the importance of experience?

Certain processes in the brain are indeed dependent on experiences. This is made clear by the degree of plasticity. This refers to the capacity of the brain that will be influenced by experiences. There are distinct forms of plasticity: experience-expectancy-plasticity and experience-dependent plasticity. The experience-expectancy-plasticity is a process in which the brain forms as a result of contemporary experiences in a normal environment. Experience-dependent plasticity is a process in which the neural connections are laid and reorganized as a result of individual experiences.

How does the brain recover after damage?

Because of the plasticity, the brain can be rewired to a certain extent. Children would therefore have a better chance of recovery after damage, because a lot of reorganization can still take place. On the other hand, this depends on how serious the damage is and at what point in the development this takes place. In severe damage, the brain can no longer develop properly.

How does the growth and development of the body proceed?

The variability in physical growth depends on genetic and environmental factors. The genes mainly influence growth and sexual maturation through the production of hormones. The environmental factors mainly influence the secular trends, in which changes in physical development occur over the years, such as growing in length or the menstrual cycle. Failure to thrive is a condition in which babies become malnourished and do not grow or gain weight without a clear medical reason. This has to do with a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

Nutrition is an important aspect in physical developments. Breastfeeding has many advantages for the baby, it is good for the immune system and for cognitive development. Babies have a strong preference for sweet tastes. Young children often do not want to eat unfamiliar things. The preferences are influenced by associative learning; positive associations with the food lead to positive feelings about the food.

Overeating leads to obesity. This is mainly due to the Western style of eating with a lot of fats and sugar. As children grow older, they retain the problems with their weight, which in turn leads to an unhealthy lifestyle, (mental) health problems, and social problems. On the other hand, malnutrition is prevalent around the world. This is strongly related to poverty and therefore mainly occurs in underdeveloped countries. Poverty is often the cause and the consequence of malnutrition.

Babies in different socioeconomic groups do not differ in brain development until the age of 12 months. Subsequently, however, a lower SES leads to reduced brain growth. Children who live in poverty are also more likely to have health problems and benefit less from treatment than children from richer families.

Which cognitive development theories are there? - Chapter 4

There are five different theories about the cognitive development of a child that will be discussed in this chapter.

What is the focus in Piaget's theory?

Piaget's theory remains the best known cognitive development theory. Piaget focuses on the way children think at different ages. He sees the child as a researcher: the child acquires knowledge through experiences. Children are motivated to learn without instructions or rewards from others. Piaget is therefore seen as a constructivist.

Which are the central developmental aspects?

Piaget believed that genes and environment interact in order to produce cognitive development. Piaget saw the development as both a continuous process and a discontinuous process. The main aspects of continuity are: assimilation, accommodation, and balance. Assimilation is a process in which incoming information is processed on basis of the knowledge the child already has. Accommodation is a process in which new incoming information is processed on the basis of knowledge the child did not have before. Balance is a process in which a balance is created between the first two processes in order to understand new information. When a child does not understand something, it is in a phase of non-equilibrium.

Many of the important aspects of Piaget's theory are discontinuous aspects, which he named stages of cognitive development. The following stages are the central characteristics of Piaget's theory of urbanism: qualitative change, broad applicability, brief transitions and invariant sequence. Qualitative change means that the older a child becomes, the more the interpretations of certain behavior change. Broad applicability means that the thinking about certain subjects is influenced by the general way of thinking. Brief transitions explains the period of transition in the way of thinking. By invariant sequence is meant that each child runs all stages in the same order.

Piaget's theory consists of the following four stages: the sensorimotor phase, the preoperational phase, the concrete operational phase, and the formal operational phase.

The sensorimotor phase

The sensorimotor phase occurs between the birth and the child's second year of life. The development of intelligence happens through sensory perceptions and motor actions. Important concepts in this phase are object permanence, the A-not-B-error and deffered imitation. Object persistence means that the child understands that an object does not disappear and still exists when covered by a cloth. Children are only able to understand this from the age of 8 months. The A-not-B-error is a process in which an object is hidden under a cloth (cloth A). Then the object is clogged under another cloth (canvas B). Then the child must search for the object (in this case, in place B). Children up to and including 12 months do not understand this process and will search at location A. Deffered imitation implies that children in the last six months of the sensorimotor phase (18 to 24 months) are able to imitate certain behaviors of other people.

The preoperational phase

The preoperational phase takes place between the second and seventh year of a child's life. What they experienced in language (verbal) and pictures (non-verbal) is expressed and processed. Important concepts are symbolic representation and egocentrism. By symbolic representation is meant that children from an age of 3 years use an object for a purpose other than the one it is intended for. For example, they use the phone as a pistol. Egocentrism is a limitation of thinking, children are only perceiving the world from their own point of view and are not able to imagine the perspectives of others. Children also have difficulty with centration during this phase. Centration is the focusing on a single observable object or event. Children in this phase do not yet have the conservation concept. It means that they are not able to estimate quantities yet. If, for example, water is poured from a low, wide glass into a tall, narrow glass, they think it is now more water, because it is 'higher'.

The concrete operational phase

The concrete operational phase takes place between the seventh and twelfth year of life. In this phase, it is taught to reason logically about concrete (non-abstract) things.

The formal operational phase

The formal operational phase starts from the twelfth year of life. During this phase abstract and hypothetical situations/ objects are deliberated and understood.

What are the criticisms of Piaget's theory?

The following points of Piaget's theory are criticized:

• Piaget's theory is unclear about the mechanisms that arise in a child's thinking and how they advance in cognitive growth.

• Babies and small children are cognitively much more competent than Piaget believes.

• Piaget underestimates the influence of the social world on the children's cognitive developments.

• In Piaget's model, the thinking behavior of children seems more consistent than it actually is.

Some implications of how children should receive education are influenced by Piaget's concept. Firstly, different ways of thinking at different ages need to be considered in education. Secondly, children learn the best through physical and mental interaction with their environment. Children's learning can be promoted by combining physical activity with asking questions.

The next four theories are alternative theories for Piaget's theory. They address the weaknesses of Piaget's theory and hope to improve it.

What do the information processing theories say?

Information processing theories focus on the structure of the cognitive system and the mental activities used to solve problems by using attention and memory. Task analysis is the identification of goals, relevant information in the environment and potential problem solving strategies. Job analysis helps to get a better understanding of behavior. In some cases a computer simulation can be formulated, a mathematical model that forms precise ideas about mental processes.

How is the nature of the child seen?

According to Klahr, the child is a limited capacity processing system. Humans are compared with a computer processing systems. The limitations of the hardware have to do with the memory of the computer and the efficiency in carrying out basic operations. The limitations of software are related with strategies and information available for certain tasks. Human thinking is limited by similar factors: memory capacity, efficiency of thought processes, and the availability of useful strategies and knowledge.

Klahr also sees the child as a problem solver. Problemsolving is a process of reaching a goal by using a strategy to overcome obstacles/ problems.

Which are the central development aspects?

Information processing theories differ from other theories, because they also address how change takes place. Hereby, memory is a crucial aspect. Most theories distinguish between working memory, long-term memory and executive functions.

Working memory is a memory system responsible for actively paying attention, collecting, retaining, storing and processing information. Working memory is limited in capacity and limited in duration of storing information without updating. Long-term memory consists of remaining knowledge that people gather during their lives. This is factual knowledge, conceptual knowledge, procedural knowledge, attitudes, reasoning strategies, and so on. Executive functions control cognition. Here the prefrontal cortex plays an important role. Three important types are inhibition, improving working memory through strategies and cognitive flexibility. The quality of the executive functions at a young age often predict outcomes later in life. Training programs can help improve the executive functions.

There are three types of capacities explaining the quality and development of memory: basic processes, strategies and content knowledge.

1. Basic processes are the simple and most used mental activities, such as recognizing objects. Encoding is a basic process in which specific and important characteristics of objects are represented in the memory.

2. The collection of strategies develops memory in another way. Between 5 and 8 years, children will use rehearsal, the repeating of information to remember. Another strategy is selective attention, the focusing on the most relevant information for the current goal.

3. In addition, content knowledge is important. The multiplication of knowledge makes it easier to understand new material by integrating it into the existing knowledge. Knowledge can be increased with the help of improving encoding and providing associations.

The development of the problem solving capacity can be explained on the basis of the overlapping wave approach, an information processing approach that emphasizes the variation in the children's way of thinking. With age and experience the strategies that turn out to be more successful are used more often. Planning prior to taking action has an advantageous effect on problem solving. The older children become, the better they can plan before they take action.

Children from poorer families often lag behind children from richer families in terms of numerical knowledge. An information processing analysis shows that playing games with numbers can be an important factor. By playing more games with numbers, the knowledge of children with a disadvantage can also be increased.

What are the characteristics of knowledge theories?

Knowledge theories state that children have innate knowledge in areas with special evolutionary importance and domain-specific learning mechanisms for quickly and effortlessly acquiring information. Studies show two important characteristics of these theories. Firstly, they focus on areas of knowledge that have proved important through evolutionary history, such as understanding and manipulating the thinking of others. Secondly, the theories assume that in certain areas children and babies think in more developed ways than Piaget thought.

How is the nature of a child seen?

Knowledge theories see children as active pupils. Piaget and information processing theories state that children enter the world with a general learning ability that gradually improves their knowledge. However, knowledge theorists believe that children are able to enter the world with both a general learning ability and specialized learning mechanisms, in order to obtain knowledge quickly. Piaget sees a child as a researcher, while knowledge theorists see a child as an adapted product of evolution.

The basic concepts proposed by knowledge theories are assumed to be domain-specific, which means they are limited to a certain area.

Which are the central development aspects?

Knowledge theoretics do not agree in how far the knowledge is innate. There are two movements: nativism and constructivism.

1. Nativism is the theory that babies have a substantial amount of innate knowledge of evolutionary relevant domains. Spelke stated that babies start their lives with four knowledge systems: a system for lifeless objects and their interactions, a system for the mind of people and other animals able to generate purposeful actions, a system for numbers and a system for spatial divisions and geometrical relations.

2. Constructivism is the theory that babies develop an increasingly advanced understanding by combining basic, inborn knowledge and experience. This theory shares three important characteristics with formal scientific theories:

Basic units are identified to distribute relevant objects and events into basic categories.

• They explain many phenomena in terms of a few fundamental principles.
• They explain events in terms of non-observable causes.

Supporters of the knowledge theories recognize that many fundamental concepts develop later in life. One of these concepts is natural selection, which is difficult to understand even with aging. It is mostly hard to understand because young children are essentialists, they believe that members of a race have a fixed inner essence that makes them what they are. Essentialism interferes with learning about natural selection, because having a fixed essence excludes the formation of new species from other species. According to research fictional stories can help young children to understand such concepts.

What do socio-cultural theories consist of?

In Sociocultural theories other people and the cultural environment are seen as an important contribution to the development of a child. Often the parents help to obtain knowledge. This is called controlled participation, a process in which more informed individuals (here: the parent) organizes activities to teach a less informed individual (here: the child). The cultural context of a child also influences it's thinking, called cultural tools, for example certain values ​​and skills.

How is the nature of the child seen?

There are quite a few differences between the theory of Piaget and the theory of Vygotsky. Vygotsky's theory sees the child as a social learner, while Piaget's sees a child as a researcher. Vygotsky's theory says a child experience quantitative changes in thinking, while a child experiences qualitative changes in thinking according to Piaget's theory.

Vygotsky's theory consists of three phases: in the first phase the behavior of a child is controlled and determined by others. In the second phase, the behavior of a child is determined by private speech. Private speech is a phase in which internalization of thoughts takes place. Children develop a self-regulation system and a problem-solving capacity by telling themselves aloud what they have to do, as the parents actually did for them in the first phase. In the final phase the behavior of a child is determined by internal private speech.

People have two unique characteristics crucial to our ability to create complex, fast-changing cultures. First, the tendency to teach others and secondly the tendency to pay attention to and learn from such education.

Sociocultural theorists believe that many of the processes that produce development, such as controlled participation, are the same everywhere. However, the content children learn is different from culture to culture.

Which are the central development aspects?

Intersubjectivity describes a process in which people share mutual understanding about a topic or situation. At a given moment this leads to a joint attention focusing on a specific object or situation. Joint attention is a process in which social partners focus intentionally on a common object in the external environment. Through joint attention children can also learn a lot from others.

Social scaffolding is a process in which more competent people give a temporary framework to children, to help them think at a higher level than if they would alone. For example by helping to create autobiographical memories. Meaning, the parents help the child to learn how to make a narrative (causal) link between their own action and the reaction in the world.

Instructions should be aimed at helping children to gain a better understanding, where learning is a cooperative activity and learning creates a desire to learn more. The community-of-learners program tries to meet this goal, while children at school worked in groups on sub-topics, where they needed each other for the whole picture. This is also called the jigsaw approach. Children were trained to come up with good solutions for problems they had to solve.

What are dynamic system theories?

Dynamic system theories focus on how change takes place over time in complex physical and biological systems. According to these theories, there is continuous change.

How is the nature of the child seen?

Dynamic system theories state that children are internally motivated to learn about the world around them, which is also the motivaton for development.

Which are the central development aspects?

Dynamic system theories see development as a self-organizing process bringing together components that, if necessary, adapt to a continuously changing environment. Dynamic system theories therefore focus on the thinking and development of the action, instead of thinking alone. Thinking is the action, but thinking is also shaped by the action itself. Children develop skills at different ages and in different ways. In other words: just like variation and selection cause biological evolution, they also cause cognitive development. The older a child becomes, the more attention the child has, the better the memory becomes, and the better the movements become.

What is the connection between seeing, thinking and doing? - Chapter 5

How does perceptual development work?

There is a difference between perception and sensation. Sensation is the processing of basic information from the external world, through sensory receptors in the sensory organs and the brain. Perception is a process focusing on organizing and interpreting sensory information.

How does visual development work?

In the past the visual capacity of babies was underestimated. Research shows that babies have a greater visual capacity than previously believed. Research was done through preferential looking technique and habituation. The preferential looking technique is a method for research of the baby's visual attention, whereby babies are presented with two patterns or two objects at the same time and eventually one pattern/ object is preferred. Habituation is a method of researching the sensory and perceptual development. The baby is repeatedly presented a stimulus until it gets used to it and shows a reduced response. Then a new stimulus is presented. If the reaction of the baby suddenly increases, one can conclude that the baby is capable of differentiating between old and new stimuli.

By using the preferential viewing technique, researchers are able to assess various visual aspects of babies. Visual acuity is the degree of visual discrimination. Normally babies prefer strong visual contrasts, such as black and white. The preference arises through the low contrast sensitivity of babies. Contrast sensitivity is the ability to distinguish between light and dark areas in visual patterns. Babies have low contrast sensitivity because the cones in the eyes are not well-developed yet. Cones are light-sensitive neurons, which are concentrated in the fovea of ​​the eye. The fovea is the central area of the eye. The cones of babies capture only 2% of the light entering the fovea, while adults absorb 65% of the light that enters the fovea. The brains of babies respond to a color change to another category, but not to a color change within a certain category.

Babies scan the environment for moving objects, this is called visual scanning. The objects/ people have to move slowly, otherwise babies are quickly distracted. They cannot follow rapid movements because their eye movement is quite jerky.

Perceptual constancy is the perception of objects constant in size, shape, colors, etc., despite a change of the retinal image of the object. Babies are able to experience perceptual constancy.

Another crucial perceptual skill is object segregation. Object segregation is the perception of boundaries between the objects. Through the movement of different objects together, babies can see if there is only object or multiple objects. As babies grow older, they use general knowledge of the world to distinguish objects.

Optical expansion occurs when an object comes closer and appears to gets bigger and bigger. Babies are sensitive to this cue at an early stage. When this phenomenon is presented, the babies start to blink their eyes. Another phenomenon is binocular inequality: the difference between the retinal image of an object in one eye and the retinal image of an object in the other eye. Resulting in two different signals send to the brain. The closer we are to the objects we view, the greater the inequality in location between the two images of both eyes. The further away the objects are, the more the images of both eyes match in location. This process is called stereopsis, the perception of depth. When babies are between 6 and 7 months old they become more sensitive to a variation of monocular depths cues, also called pictorial cues. These are perceptual depth cues, such as relative size, see-able with only one eye.

From birth on, the attention of babies is drawn to faces. Babies prefer the face of their mother. Then they develop a preference for faces with the same gender as their primary caretaker. In the first year of life, babies develop facial perception with the help of perceptual narrowing: learning to discriminate between the types of faces they regularly encounter in their environment. The other-race effect proofs this, it means that individuals find it easier to distinguish between faces of their own race than between faces of another race. This has nothing to do with your own gender, but with the characteristics in the immediate environment of the child. Babies also seem to prefer handsome faces. Facial perception can provide important information about autism spectrum disorders, because the individuals often show difficulty with facial perception and memory of faces.

How does auditory development work?

A lot of babies, when hearing sounds, turn in the direction of the sound. Locating a perceived sound is called auditory localization. Babies are mainly sensitive to music. They have a preference for consonant music instead of dissonant music. Babies also react to the rhythm of music. They try to move their feet and stamp to the rhythm of the music. Babies have a different sense of rhythm than adults. After two weeks of listening to Balkan music, babies could detect changes in complex rhythms, while adults could not. Showing that, with experience a process of perceptual narrowing starts: development changes in which experience fine-tunes the perceptual system.

Babies recognize two-dimensional versions of three-dimensional objects. However, sometimes they pick up pictures, which could suggest that they do not understand that the pictured object is not the real object. After 19 months and enough experience with pictures, children stop examining pictures with their hands. It seems as if they understood that pictures are not to be picked up, but to look at. Children from cultures that grew up without pictures have more difficulty understanding the relationship between two-dimensional pictures and three-dimensional objects. Experience is crucial for this.

When does the ability to taste and smell develop?

Tasting and smelling develops before birth. They show a preference for sweet and natural nutrients, such as breast milk. Babies before birth, already have a very strong sense of smell. Smell plays a big role in recognizing your own mother.

Why is touch important for babies?

Touch is very important for the development of a newborn baby. The first few months the development mainly happens through oral exploration. Think about the fact that babies put everything they see in their mouths. After four months, babies begin to gain more control over their hand and arm movements.

What is intermodal perception?

Intermodal perception is the combination of information gathered by two or more senses. Research has shown that babies have different forms of auditory-visual intermodal perception. The following study investigated it: two screens are presented to the baby and through the boxes a certain sound that matches the images on one of the screens is played. It is shown that the baby looks longer at the screen corresponding to the sound. A demonstration of auditory-visual mixing is the McGurk effect. A video is shown on which a person says 'go', while the word 'ba' is audibly spoken. A person who both looks and listens will say that he or she hears 'da'. This effect can already be seen in children aged 4.5 months.

How does the motor development progress?

Which reflexes does a baby have?

After birth, the baby's movements are quite uncoordinated, mostly because they experience the full effects of gravity. A baby has different reflexes. Reflexes are innate and unchangeable patterns of actions that arise in response to certain stimuli. Examples of reflexes are: grasping, sucking and swallowing. A not present reflex can indicate a brain damage.

What are the so called motor milestones?

When the baby gets older, it learns to lift his/ her head, crawl, stand, and eventually walk. There are some cultural differences here. In some countries (e.g. China and Paraguay) motor movements are not encouraged and the child is kept close to the parents for safety reasons. On the other hand, in some African cultures, motor development is strongly promoted.

What is the modern view of motor development?

Previous theories argued that motor development is governed by brain maturation. However, current theories emphasize that motor development results form a confluence of many factors, such as the development of neural mechanisms, proliferation of strength, more control over posture and balance and perceptual skills.

The stepping reflex is a neonatal reflex in which a baby first lifts one leg and then the other in a coordinated pattern that looks like walking. It normally disappears after two months, which was attributed to cortical development. However, a study showed that practicing the walking reflex caused it to continue. Follow-up research shows that it is probably due to rapid weight gain in babies, where the legs become heavier but not strong enough.

How to expand the world of a baby?

Babies are initially limited to pre-reaching movements: clumsy swiping towards the general vicinity of objects they see. Finally, when they're around 3-4 months old, they are successfully able to reach an object. However, the movements are still somewhat jerky and uncontrolled. About 7 months in, when babies gain the ability to sit, their reaching is reasonably smooth and straight to the target. By 8 months babies reach an object faster if an adult is present.

When babies are 8 months old, they are competent enough to move themselves through the environment for the first time in their lives. This is called self-locomotion. However, it also creates challenges: there are slippery floors and other obstacles. Sometimes things go wrong. Think of scale errors: the attempt of a child to try to perform an action with a miniature replica, which is impossible due to the large discrepancy in the size of the child and the object.

To test the depth perception of babies, researchers designed a visual cliff. It is a cliff with firm plexiglas over it. The mother stands on the other side of the cliff and calls the child. Babies do not cross the 'cliff', which indicates that they understand the significance of depth cues and relative size. In another study, babies were stimulated to crawl or walk on different ramps. It turned out that children can not yet properly assess what they can and can not do. It also mattered whether the parent stimulated the child. Through stimulation a child could walk down a steep hill faster. This is also called social referencing: the child uses the emotional response of another person to decide how to behave in an uncertain situation.

How do babies learn?

There are different ways of learning that babies use to gain knowledge with the help of personal experiences and the world around them:

• Habituation: recognizing a previous situation/ object leads to habituation. In other words: the reaction to an earlier experience/ object leads to a reduced reaction when this object is presented more often. When a new situation/ object is presented, the response increases and attention is paid to the relevant new stimuli.

• Perceptual learning: through differentiation and affordances. Differentiation is the extraction of the relationships that remain constant from the ever changing environment. For example an angry face with an angry sound. Affordances hold the possibilities for actions, through certain objects and situations.

• Statistical learning: simply picking up information from the environment, through associations that arise between stimuli in a statistically predictable pattern.

• Classical conditioning: classical conditioning is a form of learning that consists of making associations between a neutral stimulus and a stimulus that always provoked a certain reaction. An unconditioned stimulus (UCS) in classical conditioning is a stimulus that provokes a certain reaction. An unconditioned reaction (UCR) in classical conditioning is a certain reaction triggered by the unconditioned stimulus. The conditioned stimulus (CS) in classical conditioning is a neutral stimulus that is repeatedly combined with the unconditioned stimulus, in order to ultimately trigger the unconditioned response. The conditioned reaction (CR) in classic conditioning is a certain reaction that is combined at a given moment with the conditioned stimulus. So: first the UCS leads to a UCR, then a CS from a UCS leads to a UCR, and eventually a CS leads to a CR.

• Instrumental conditioning or operant conditioning: operant conditioning is a form of learning that consists of the relationship between a person's own behavior and the consequences that arise from the behavior. By means of rewards and punishments the behavior is influenced in a positive or a negative way. Positive reinforcement is a reward that follows certain behavior and thus increases the likelihood that the behavior will be shown again in the future. Punishments reduce and eventually make certain behavior disappear.

• Observational learning / imitation: someone learns by observing/ imitating other people. Also someone's intentions for the particular behavior can be learned. Important brain systems for imitation is the mirror neuron system. This system becomes active when others are observed and shows brain reactions as if the person observing carries out the action himself.

• Rational learning: the use of previous experiences to predict what will happen. One way to investigate are the violation-of-expectation paradigms. Here the astonishment of babies is looked at, when unexpected outcomes arise.

• Active learning: active learning is learning through reacting to the world, instead of passively observing objects and events.

How does cognition develop?

Theorists of cognitive developments have different opinions on the influences of innate knowledge structures and special purpose learning mechanisms. Nativists believe that babies are born with existing knowledge about the physical world. Constructivists believe that babies are born with specialized mechanisms ensuring that the babies are able to obtain knowledge about the world quickly and efficiently. Empiricists believe that babies are born with generalized mechanisms that ensure the acquiring of gradual knowledge.

What do babies know about objects?

Piaget stated that young children do not search for objects they can not see. However, it has been shown that children do it anyway, because for example, they search for objects in the dark. Other evidence comes from the violation-of-expectancy paradigm where babies are exposed to an event that evokes surprise or interest, even if it violates something the baby sees as the truth.

What do babies know about the physical world?

Research shows that babies are already aware of concepts such as gravity and relationships between objects.

What social knowledge do babies have?

Babies, who are few months old, seem to understand that behavior has a purpose. Children eventually learn to understand the intentions of others by finding out what kind of objects can have intentions. If objects 'react' appropriately, a baby is more inclined to view the object as something with an intention. Even, if it is a blob moving on the basis of instructions from a researcher. Before their first year of life, children already learned a lot about how people behave and how their behavior is related to their intentions and goals.

How does the development of language work? - Chapter 6

How does language develop?

We use symbols to communicate with other people and to reflect or exchange our thoughts, feelings, and knowledge. Symbols are a tool when communicating with other people. Using language includes language comprehension and language production. Language comprehension is the understanding of what other people say, write or portrait (passive). Language production is speaking, writing or portraying to other people (and is active). Language comprehension leads to language production.

Which components does language have?

Generativity is a concept showing how important communication is. Generativity refers to the idea that through the use of an infinite set of words in our vocabulary, an infinite number of sentences can be formulated, and an infinite number of ideas can be expressed. Language consists of different terms. First, phonemes: the smallest pieces of sound that a language can produce. Then follows a phonological development, which reflects the acquisition of knowledge about sounds of language. Second, morphemes: the smallest pieces of language still having a meaning. Morphemes are composed of one or more phonemes. Here follows a semantic development, which is the knowledge of the meaning of certain expressions in a language. Thirdly, there is syntax: the rules of a language that specify how words of different categories (e.g. verbs, nouns) can be combined. This results in a syntactic development: the knowledge of the rules of a language. Ultimately, there is also a pragmatic development, which means how to learn to use a language.

What are the requirements for language?

Full use of language is only achieved by humans. Therefore, one of the requirements is the brain. A second requirement is to realize that a language can be learned it must be seen and heard.

Language is species-specific, because only people can speak a language. And language learning is species-universal, because in general humans are able to learn any language, except people with cognitive impairments. Dogs, parrots and mainly monkeys can also learn to understand our language to a certain extent. Monkeys can be taught to communicate using a lexigram board. The human brain builds a communication system with the complexity, structure and generativity of language.

For almost everyone, the left hemisphere is dominant in language. The left hemisphere controls and presents language-related stimuli. The critical period for learning a language is between the fifth year of life and puberty. The critical period for language is a period in which language develops easily. After the critical period, it becomes much more difficult to learn a language and it is nearly impossible to learn to speak the language perfectly.

Not only the brain, but also other people are important in the development of language. Children need to be exposed to language. Already early on, babies identify language as something important and prefer listening to language rather than other sounds. The so-called infant-directed speech (IDS) is a special way of talking to babies and small children. Characteristics of IDS are: emotional, exaggerated, slow, clear and accompanied by exaggerated facial expressions. The intonation of words helps small children to interpret the meaning of the word more easily. The brain also reacts more to IDS than to full-language. Yet IDS is not universally used. Some people think that children cannot understand language and so they do not need to talk to them. It is often that case that when children are able to say their first words of their own their parents directly try to ensure that the child learns the language by saying words/ sentences and giving the child instructions to repeat it.

Bilingualism is the ability to use two languages. There is a growing number of bilingual children. Learning can already begin in the womb. Children who grew up bilingual show no confusion between the two languages, they build up two different language systems. Making mistakes is completely normal and does not indicate confusion, rather a knowledge gap that is filled with the other language.

How does the process of language acquisition work?

How does speech perception develop?

The first step to learn language is the perception of speech. The basis of this process is prosody. The characteristic of languages that make them sound different, like rhythm, tempo, cadence, melody, intonation patterns, etc. Both adults and babies perceive certain speech sounds belonging to a certain category. This is called categorical perception. The voice onset time (VOT) is the time between the moment that air passes through the lips and the moment that the vocal cords begin to vibrate. The VOT determines which letter is spoken. Studies on VOT show that in comparison to adult’s babies have a better ability to differentiate between speech sounds, which helps them learn any language. When children are a year old, their perception of speech has already become 'grown-up' and they can no longer distinguish the different speech sounds as good as before.

How does word segmentation develop?

Word segmentation is the process of discovering in fluent speech, where the words begin and end. It starts in the second half of the first year of life. Babies are good at picking up regularities in their mother tongue helping to find word boundaries. In addition, they are sensitive to the distribution characteristics of speech. Explaining the phenomenon that in each language, certain sounds occur more often than other sounds. Another regularity is the return of the own name.

How to prepare for language production?

After the word segmentation, the second step is the preparation of language production. First, these are uncontrolled sounds, such as crying, shouting, burping, or smacking. Then follow the simple sounds, such as 'oooh' or 'aaah'. This early way of language production is called babbling. The babies get more and more control over it. Then they realize that they get reactions to their sounds and they enter into dialogue with others, usually their parents. Babies also use many non-verbal interactions to communicate, such as pointing to objects or people.

How are the first words formed?

As a third step, the first words develop. However, to really be able to learn words and use them, children must recognize that words have meanings. Therefore, the first step is to focus on the problem of reference. Reference in language and speech is the association between the words and the meaning of them. It is difficult for a parent to determine the first word of a child. In the first period, children only use one word at a time to make something clear. This is called the holophrastic period. It can sometimes cause problems. It can lead to something called over-extension. This is a form of generalization, for example a child can call every four-legged animal a dog.

Children learn the meaning of words mainly from the parents, through the usage of IDS. But also through other means, such as when parents emphasize new words. The child is active enough to learn the meaning of words. They do it through fast mapping: a process in which a new word is learned quickly by hearing the contrasting use of a familiar word and the unfamiliar word. Words are also learned through pragmatic cues, which are aspects of the social context. Another tool is syntactic bootstrapping: a strategy to use grammatical structures of whole sentences to learn the meaning.

Differences in the number of words children know can have different reasons. The number of words a child knows is related to the number of words they hear. One of the main determinants for this is the SES of the parents. The higher the social class of the family, the more words a child knows. It also predicts the amount of words a child will learn in the future. The quality of the spoken language is also important. The physical environment is of importance here. In noisy environments, a child will learn new words less easily. In order to reduce differences between children, interventions can be applied. Such as reading more books and increasing the time that parents talk to their child.

There are concerns about the use of technology in children under the age of 2. It reduces the time that children are actively involved with the best sources of learning, namely caregivers and objects. It appears that children can learn from active communication via live video interactions. But the so-called 'educational values' of certain games or programs must be always looked at with a skeptical view.

How are words combined?

In the fourth step, the words are put together into complete sentences. Children start with composing words to kind of telegram style sentences. They use two or a few more words. Each language has a certain set of rules and exceptions that determine how elements of language can be combined. This is the grammar. Children learn it by generalizing what they have heard before. Evidence for it is over-regularization: speaking errors in which children treat irregular forms of words as if they were regular (breaked-broked).

How do conversational skills develop?

Finally, the conversation capacities are developed. This starts with collective monologues. Collective monologues are conversations between children who have nothing to talk to each other. They do not react to what the other person said, and only talk about themselves. Still, they do talk to each other. Later they start talking through narratives: descriptions of past events that have the basic structure of a story. The development of perspective in a conversation is related to the executive functioning of a child. The more control they show about their own perspective, the easier they can take the perspective of someone else. At the age of about 5 to 6 years the basic language elements are present.

What are the theoretical problems in language development?

There is evidence for both nature (the brain) and nurture (experience with language) in the process of language development.

What is the nativists view on language development?

Chomsky countered Skinner's theory that language is learned through punishment and reward processes. Chomsky stated that it is not possible because we are able to understand and produce sentences that we have never heard before. The explanation for it is that we have innate knowledge of language structures that was not taught. According to Chomsky, people are born with Universal Grammar: a set of abstract and unconscious rules known in all languages.

What are the ongoing debates about language development?

Current theories acknowledge part of Chomsky's observations. The question, however, is to what extent explanations could be found in the genes or in the environment. And to what extent does the child contribute? Did the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie language learning only evolve to support language learning (domain-specific) or are they used for learning all kinds of things (domain-general). Children are motivated to interact with others and hereby gradually discover regularities in language. On the other hand, it can also partly be explained according to Skinner's principles, for example, parents laugh in response to the babbling of the child (positive reinforcement). Concerning the second question, nativists argue that the brains of children contain an innate language model that is different from all other aspects of cognitive functioning. This is called the modularity hypothesis. An alternative view suggests that there are general mechanism underlying language learning. For example, the ability to select small pieces of information is also useful in other domains. Additionally, language development disorders not only language aspects are affected, but also aspects of more general cognitive functioning. Connectionists handle kind of information processing that emphasizes the equal activity of a number of pieces that are connected to each other. They mainly believe in the general language mechanisms, in contrast to the other two types of theoreticians who believe in language-specific mechanisms.

Gesturing is something that often goes together with speaking. Gesturing starts early. The more gestures children make at an early age, the greater their vocabulary will be when they are older. Deaf children can develop their own sign language. In a school in Nicaragua where the children and teachers did not know the sign language, their own sign language was soon developed. Children who later attended school quickly learned this language, which slowly changed into a complete, complex language with its own grammar.

The most important individual differences fall under the category of language development disorders. Many disorders are only discovered when a child goes to school. Approximately 7% of school-age children in the US are diagnosed with specific language impairment (SLI). These children have difficulty with language-related tasks. Children with genetically inherited developmental disorders are often lagging behind on various aspects of language development. The language skills of children with autism spectrum disorder, are an indication for outcomes later in life. Deaf children can also develop language disorders if they do not early learn sign language. These children can also receive a cochlear implant that stimulates the auditory nerve.

How does the use of non-verbal symbols work in development?

To use symbols in non-verbal language, dual representation is required. This is an idea that symbolic artifacts must be mentally presented in two different ways similarly: both in a realistic and symbolic way. As children grow older, they learn to understand symbols better and better. For example, a child going to school understands that a red line on a map does not mean that the road is red in real life, whereas younger children think so. Drawing is also a symbolic way of non-verbal language. The first drawings of children have no specific purpose. When children are 3 to 4 years old, they try to draw something specific, like a person.

How does conceptual development work? - Chapter 7

Concepts are general ideas or terms that can be used to group objects, situations, qualities, or abstractions, that let them become equal in a certain way.

How to understand the who and what?

How to divide objects into categories?

Children use categorical hierarchy to distinguish between categories. The categories are classified into set-subset relation, such as animal-dog-poodle. Small children especially use perceptual categorization: grouping objects that are similar. It can already be seen in children from 3 to 4 months old. As children grow older, they also understand hierarchical and causal relationships between categories. The categorical hierarchies’ children are forming often contain three levels: the superordinate level (for example a plant), the subordinate level (for example an oak tree), and the basic level (for example, a tree). Children mainly learn the basic level first, after the parents help them to gain understanding of the higher levels. In an older age, children establish causal relationships between objects through explanations or the idea of cause and consequences between objects. This helps the child understand the categories and form more categories.

How to understand others and ourselves?

The naive psychology focuses on the level of intellect needed to understand other people and themselves. To understand human behavior, three concepts are used: desire, beliefs and actions. There are three remarkable features of these concepts: First, the concepts refer to invisible mental states. Second, the concepts are linked to a cause-effect relationship and third, these concepts develop early in life.

At the end of the first, and beginning of the second year of life, babies learn to understand the following four aspects:

1. understanding other people's intentions,

2. self-awareness, a child understands that it is an individual,

3. to focus joint attention on an object or situation,

4. inter-subjectivity.

At a later age, children develop theory of mind (TOM). TOM is the understanding of how the mind works and how it affects behavior. It develops strongly between the third and fifth year of life. An important component of TOM is to understand relationships between desire and actions. Children develop this at the end of their first year of life. It is well-developed when children are two years old. In their third year of life, children develop a certain understanding of the relationship between beliefs and actions. At the same time, the concept is limited. It can be seen through children’s false-belief problems. These are tasks that test whether a child understands that other people behave in accordance with their own beliefs, even though the child knows that these beliefs are incorrect. It shows if children understand that actions of other people are determined by their thoughts in their heads rather than by the objective truth about the situation. Most children have this understanding when they are about five years old.

Nativists believe in the so-called theory of mind module (TOMM). This is a hypothetical brain mechanism, dedicated to understand other people. The researchers believe that certain areas of the brain are constantly activated in representing beliefs across different tasks, and that this brain areas differ in other complex cognitive processes, such as understanding grammar. The idea of ​​TOMM is supported by studies with autistic children. These children have problems with false-belief problems. The problem is related to the limitations in social interactions of these children. This is partly because they have different sizes of and activity in certain areas of the brain. Empiricists believe that TOM develops through interactions with other people. From this point of view, the tendency in autism to not have many conversations with others contributes to the difficulty of understanding others. Another group of empiricists argue that the growth of general information processing is essential for children to understand others. This view states that children with autism lack the necessary information processing skills.

Eventually, children learn to understand someone else's 'mind' through play. Children around 18 months old first play a pretend game. Here they create activities, in which they make new symbolic relations between certain objects, for example pretending that a tree is a horse. Children behave as if they are in a different situation than in reality. Then they use object replacement: a form of pretending, an object is used for something other than what it is meant for. As children grow older, they start with sociodramatic play. They pretend to be someone else in a dramatic situation. For example, playing doctor. Playing with age becomes more complex and social.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty with social interactions, communication and other intellectual and emotional functions. Children with a severe form of it, often show repetitive behavior, barely interact with others, troubles with forming close relationships, barely speak and are more interested in objects than in people. Children with ASD have difficulties with joint attention and are less concerned when others are suffering. They have limited TOM, which makes it difficult for them to understand others. This is also due to more general limitations in planning, adjusting and working memory. If treatment is started at a young age, a lot of progress can be made.

Many children have an imaginary friend with whom they play, talk, and even argue. This is completely normal. Children with imaginary friends (1) are often the first child or only child, (2) barely watch television, (3) are often socially skilled, and (4) often have advanced TOMs. Reasons for creating an imaginary friend are: companionship, entertainment, enjoyment of fantasy, shifting the blame on the friend, venting out, pronouncing things that children would not immediately speak out and comfort when they are sad.

How to get knowledge of living things?

When children are 4 to 5 years old, they have an impressive amount of knowledge about living things. However, they have many immature views and types of reasoning. Firstly, children often do not understand the distinction between artifacts (made by people with a certain purpose) and living things (which are not made by people). Another weakness is that they cannot yet properly determine which things do or do not live. Some researchers say that children under 7 to 10 years have a superficial knowledge about living things. Other researchers state that children from 5 years of age can understand essential characteristics of living things and what separates them from non-living things, but some points sometimes bring confusion. A third view is that young children have both full-grown and immature understanding at the same time.

Children can make a distinction between humans and animals in their first year of life. Then also follows the distinction between these two terms (people and animals) and nonliving objects. However, it is difficult to investigate whether children build a general category for living things and which things this category contains. Culture and experience influence the knowledge. For example, children living in rural areas know very well that plants are alive, in contrast to children living in cities.

Children not yet in school understand the difference between biological processes and psychological processes through invisible processes such as heredity, growth, illness and recovery. Of course, young children still do not understand DNA, but they do understand that there is a big chance that a baby mouse will get the same hair color as its parents. One of the most basic view of children is related to the importance of heredity: essentialism. A perspective saying that living things have an essence in them that makes them who they are. Children who are not yet in school already have an understanding of growth: they know that growth often happens in one direction, from small to large. They also know that a tomato plant that has been scratched can recover again.

Nativists and empiricists have different opinions about the development of a child's biological understanding. Nativists believe that people were born with a so-called biological module, which is similar to TOM. They have three arguments for this:

1. During earlier periods in our evolution, it was crucial for the survival that children quickly learned about animals and plants.
2. Children around the world are fascinated by plants and animals and learn about it quickly and easily.
3. Children around the world organize information about plants and animals in more or less the same way.

Empiricists believe, however, that the biological understanding of a child arises from personal experiences and information they receive from their environment (parents, teachers and culture). Empiricists also note that the knowledge of children reflects the view of their culture.

In conclusion, it seems that nature and nurture both play an important role in obtaining biological understanding. Young children are naturally fascinated by animals, but their learning is also influenced by the environment. Nature always responds to nurture.

How to understand the why, where, when, and how much?

First, children develop categories through questions about 'who' and 'what'. Later, children develop categories through questions about 'where', 'when', 'why', and 'how much'.

How does an understanding of causality develop?

The nativists and empiricists also disagree on the development of causality. According to the nativists, babies have an innate causal module, or core theory, making it possible for them to observe the causal relations between events. According to the empiricists, babies understand the causal relationships between events through innumerable observations of events in the environment and through observation of the effects of their own actions. What both sides agree on is that from infancy on children show impressive causal reasoning.

From 6 months onward, babies can observe causal relationships between physical events. Babies from 9 to 11 months can often reproduce consecutive actions if there is a causal relationship between the actions. At the end of their second year of life, children can derive the causal impact of a variable on the basis of information about another variable. Children aged 4 seem to understand that, if a variable has a certain effect, this effect must be consistent. If inconsistency occurs, they deduce that there must be another variable that has caused a certain effect. When children are about 5 years old, they are also interested in, for example, magic tricks, because they know that there is no clear causal mechanism that can cause the effect.

Children live in a world where fantasy and reality are more entangled than it is the case for adults. Children believe in fantasy and magic, children aged 4 to 6 think that they can influence others by 'effectively wishing'. How can this be combined with the fact that children do have a certain understanding of physical causes and effects? It is important to remember that children may have some conflicting ideas. The more children learn about real causes, the less they explain events in magical terms. The world of fantasy is the most present between 3 and 6 years but can continue until the 9th year of life.

How does understanding of space develop?

Nativists believe that children possess an innate module that specializes in spatial representations and learning about space. They think that spatial information differs from other information processing processes. Empiricists believe that children acquire a spatial representation through the same learning mechanisms and experiences originating through cognitive growth. They also believe that children adapt to the changing environment, and that language and other cultural resources form the spatial developments. Ultimately, the nativists and empirists agree on certain aspects. One aspect is that children understand some spatial concepts, such as up, down, right, left, and turn away. A second aspect is that self-generated movement stimulates the processing of spatial information. Another aspect is that certain parts of the brain are specialized in coding a certain type of spatial information. A fourth aspect is that geometric information is very important in spatial information processing.

Children can code the location of objects in relation to their own body. According to Piaget, children are only able to form representations during the sensorimotor period, namely: egocentric spatial representations. This is the coding of spatial locations in relation to one's own body, without paying attention to the environment.

Babies aged 6 months can already use landmarks to locate objects that are hidden. For such young children, however, it must be the only clear point of reference and it must be close to the hidden object. Children, like adults, have difficulty in forming a spatial representation when they walk around in an environment with no noticeable landmarks or when the landmarks are far from the target location. The extent to which people develop spatial skills depends strongly on the importance of these skills in their culture.

In addition, spatial thinking can not only be based on seeing, but also on other senses, such as hearing. It is true that absence of visual experience in the first months of life creates a limited and changed spatial development. Still, the blind have an impressive good feeling for space, even though they have never seen the world.

How does the understanding of time develop?

Babies have a sense of time in their first year of life. Even of sequence and duration of certain situations/ events. Small children can also distinguish between short-term and long-term events. At the age of about 4 years, children realize the sequence of events a long time ago. During the middle of childhood, children become more and more adept at reasoning about time.

How does an understanding of numbers develop?

Again, nativists and empiricists have different opinions. Nativists believe that children are born with a core concept about figures, containing a special mechanism. The mechanism allows a child to learn about the numbers and numbers of objects in a set, count, or simply add and subtract. Empiricists believe that children learn about numbers and counts through the same experiences and learning mechanisms that acquire other concepts. According to them, the innate numerical competence of children is not nearly as big as nativists state.

The most basic concept in numbers is the so-called numerical equality. This is the realization that a number of objects has something in common. Babies already have a certain understanding of it, but in non-linguistic. Distinction between numbers is becoming more and more precise during the first year of life and beyond.

There are five principles about counting that young children develop to count a certain number of objects:

1. One-one correspondence: each object must be labeled with one number.

2. Stable order: the numbers must always be listed in the same order.

3. Cardinality: the total number must correspond to the last number.

4. Order irrelevance: objects can be counted from left to right, from right to left and in any other order.

5. Abstraction: every set of discrete objects can be counted.

Piaget stated that babies only have a general, undifferentiated concept of size and no specific concepts of space, time and numbers. In some research, children show both the general undifferentiated concept of size and the more specific concepts of space, time and numbers.

What are the aspects of intelligence and how does it develop? - Chapter 8

What is intelligence?

The concept of intelligence is difficult to describe. One way, is to describe intelligence through three levels of analysis:

1. Some see intelligence as one factor called general intelligence, g. General intelligence are cognitive processes influencing the ability to think and learn on all intellectual tasks.

2. There are also good arguments for intelligence to consist of two types of intelligence. Namely: fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. Fluid intelligence is the ability to solve new problems at a certain moment, for example by drawing conclusions and understanding relationships between concepts that have never been encountered before. Fluent intelligence usually peaks in early adulthood and then slowly decreases. Crystallized intelligence is the actual knowledge about the world. Crystallized intelligence starts early in life and continues to multiply. Thurstone divides intelligence in a complex way into seven skills. These are the so-called seven primary mental abilities crucial for intelligence: word fluency, verbal meaning, reasoning, spatial visualization, numbering, rote memory and perceptual speed. The division of intelligence into seven abilities equals the distinction between fluid and crystallized intelligence. Some scores on certain abilities correlate more with each other than with scores of other abilities.

3. The third view sees many different processes involved in intelligence. This leads to more specification of processes in intellectual behavior than the other two levels.

The perspectives can be brought together. According to Carroll, there is a model for intelligence: the three-stratum theory of intelligence. This model contains general intelligence in the top layer of the hierarchy, then several moderately general abilities in the middle layer, and at the bottom layer numerous specific processes. In short: all three levels are necessary to understand and measure intelligence.

How can intelligence be measured?

Measuring intelligence is difficult because it is an invisible capacity. Measuring observable behavior is the only way to measure intelligence. For different ages, there are several tests to measure intelligence. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale (WISC) is used for children from six years and older. The design that underlies the WISC-V is consistent with Carroll's three-layer theory.

What is the intelligence quotient?

In most intelligence tests, a general quantitative measuring instrument is used to measure the intelligence of a child. Like this it is comparable with other children of the same age. It is called the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). Many characteristics, including intelligence, are normally distributed. This normal distribution is a pattern of data in which scores fall around the average, with most scores being close to the average and scores that occur less frequently far from the average. The average of the intelligence quotient is 100, where the standard deviation is 15. A standard deviation (SD) is a measure of the variability of scores in a normal distribution. In a normal distribution, 68% of the scores within 1 SD fall from the average, and 95% of the scores fall within 2 SD of the average. The older a child gets, the higher the scores will be on intelligence tests.

Which factors have an influence on the IQ scores?

There are certain aspects influencing the intelligence tests: the alertness (for example if you have slept little, you are less alert), the knowledge of the tests (for example if you do not understand the test procedure, you will score worse), and environmental factors (for example if you have just moved or your parents are just divorced).

How to predict important outcomes?

There are several things that can be predicted on the basis of the intelligence quotient. IQ scores are a strong predictor for academic, economic and, work-related successes. If you have a high IQ score, there is a big chance that later you will earn more, perform better at school and get promoted more often.

However, additionally to IQ scores, there are other predictors that lead to success, namely: the motivation to succeed, awareness, creativity, physical and psychological health and social skills. Self-discipline is a stronger predictor of scores than the IQ score. Self-discipline the ability to inhibit actions, adhering to the rules and avoiding impulsive reactions. Practical intelligence is the mental possibility not measured by intelligence tests, but important for success in many situations. Such as being able to read other people's emotions and intentions and motivating others to work together effectively.

There are examples of 'gifted children' that score exceptional in different intellectual areas. The talents are often seen very early in the development. Exceptional qualities are often a pre-announcement of exceptional performance later in life.

What are the influences of genes and environment?

There is a great debate about the factors that influence intelligence. To reflect on the genetic and environmental influences, a useful starting point is the bio-ecological model of Bronfenbrenner. This model represents the life of a child embedded in a series of increasingly comprehensive environments. The child is in the middle, surrounded by the immediate surroundings, which is surrounded again by the general environment.

How do the characteristics of the child affect the intelligence?

The genome has a great influence on intelligence. This influence increases with age. The correlations between individual alleles of genes and IQ are very small, which shows that genetic influences on intelligence consist of all small contributions from many different genes and interactions between these genes.

The environment is influenced by the genotype. This can have different effects: passive, evocative, and active effects. Passive effects of the genotype arise when children are raised by their biological parents because of the overlap in genes between the parents and the child. Evocative effects of the genotype arise when children influence someone else's behavior. Active effects of the genotype arise when children choose their own environment that they like.

How does immediate environment affect intelligence?

The immediate environment also affects the intelligence of a child. A measuring instrument has been designed to measure the influence of the home environment: the HOME (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment). This measuring instrument measures various aspects of a child's home situation, such as the organization and safety in the home, the intellectual stimulation by the parents, whether children have their own books, the degree of parent-child interaction and the emotional support that children receive from their parents. It has been shown that the measurements of HOME correlate positively with the IQ scores. The environment of the family (HOME) is also a good predictor for the IQ of a child.

Going to school also makes a child smarter. Through education, specific cognitive skills are improved.

How does the society influence intelligence?

The wider environment (or society) also influences the intelligence of a child. In many countries, the average IQ scores increased over the last 80 years. This is called the Flynn effect. Poverty in certain countries can have a major impact on intelligence. People living in a poor population generally have a lower IQ compared to the richer population. Because people in poverty eat little or even skip meals, brain development is influenced and also intellectual functioning in everyday life is affected.

There are influences of differences in race and ethnicity. A study showed that the average IQ scores of children from different races and ethnic groups are indeed different. Namely, the average IQ score of European-Americans is about ten points higher than the average IQ score of African Americans. These differences refer to group differences in IQ scores and not to individual differences in IQ scores. There is much more variability within a race or ethnic group than between the groups. The third fact is that the differences in IQ and achievement of test scores are only described as the performance of the environment in which the child lives. In other words: the scores do not show the potential intelligence, nor do they reflect what had happened to the children's intelligence if they had lived in a different environment.

There are always different risk factors that can lead to a low IQ score. The environmental risk scale measures ten characteristics giving children a risk for low IQ scores. The more characteristics are present, the more risk a child runs. The risks that arise from poverty can be compensated by a high-quality education.

Research of interventions designed for underdeveloped families show a consistent pattern. Initially, the IQ of the children participating in the intervention becomes higher, but then the IQ decreases. Fortunately, it has also been found that fewer participants ended up in special education. This is apparently not due to an increase in the IQ, but probably due to the intervention's long-term effects on the motivation of the child.

The Head Start program is offered to many children. Children who participated in this program show better pre-read and pre-writing skills, improved social skills, better health, are less likely to sit, are more likely to finish high school and fewer drugs use.

The Carolina Abecedarian Project is a comprehensive and successfully enriching program for children from low-income families. Children entered the program at the age of 6 months. It is based on seven principles: (1) stimulating exploration, (2) guiding basic skills, (3) celebrating advances in development, (4) repeating and generalizing new skills, (5) protecting children from inappropriate disapproval, bullying and punishment, (6) communicating richly and responsively, and (7) guide and limited behavior. This program proved to have lasting positive effects on the IQ and on performance in reading and mathematics. This program shows that it is important to start early with interventions, that caregivers must communicate in a positive, responsive manner with the children, that the improvements are probably mainly due to improvements in self-control and perseverance, and finally it showed that there are possible interventions having lasting positive effects on the intellectual development of children who grow up in poverty.

What are the alternative perspectives?

Some aspects are measured by the IQ test: verbal, mathematical, and spatial skills. However, other aspects are not measured by the IQ test: creativity, social insight, knowledge about own weaknesses and strengths, etc. This led to the development of a theory that is broader than the traditional theories about intelligence. Namely the multiple intelligence theory, designed by Gardner. This theory is based on a perspective that people have at least eight types of intelligence: the linguistic, arithmetical, and spatial skills already measured in traditional theories of IQ testing, but also the musical, naturalistic, physical, interpersonal, and intra-personal skills.

Sternberg also criticizes the traditional theories of IQ testing. Yet his theory differs from that of Gardner. Sternberg’s theory of successful intelligence is based on a perspective that sees intelligence as an opportunity to become successful in life. According to Sternberg, there are three types of skills that can lead to success in life: the analytical, the practical, and the creative skills. The analytical skills include language, arithmetic, and spatial skills measured by traditional IQ tests. The practical skills contain reasoning about daily problems, such as solving conflicts with other people. Creative skills include intellectual flexibility and innovation, which lead to effective reasoning in new circumstances.

How to acquire academic skills?

How does the ability to read arise?

Reading develops in five stages:

• Stage 0: from birth to group 3. Here the alphabet and phonemic awareness is learned. The phonemic awareness is the ability to identify sound components into words.

• Stage 1: children in groups 3 and 4. Here, children set up phonological recoding skills. These are skills to translate letters into sounds and to mix sounds in words. This is also called 'sounding out'.

• Stage 2: children in groups 4 and 5. Here children learn to read simple texts fluently.

• Stage 3: children from the 6th group to the 2nd class. The children become skilled enough to obtain complex, new information from written text. As Chall says, "children learn to read in the lower classes, but in the higher classes children read to learn."

• Stage 4: 2nd class to 6th class. Here children learn to understand information from multiple perspectives, rather than from a single perspective.

Before children go to school, they already acquire basic information about reading. Things like having to read from left to right and from top to bottom. Phonemic perception is correlated with reading performance later in life and it is also a cause of it. It appears to be a stronger predictor than IQ or social class. Children with a larger phonemic sensation read more and better, which in turn leads to an even greater phonemic perception and improvement in the quality and quantity of reading.

Words can be identified in two ways: phonological recoding and visually based retrieval. The visually based retrieval is a procedure in which the meaning of a word is directly derived from the visual form of a word. Most young children use both approaches to identify words. From group 3 on, the child usually chooses the way that is most suitable for a specific situation. This is called strategy choice process.

To understand a text, a mental model is formed of the situation or event that is continuously updated while reading the text. Basic processes such as encoding, and automation are crucial for reading comprehension. Comprehension monitoring helps to distinguish good and bad readers. Therefore, one looks at the understanding of a text. The path to good or weakly reading comprehension starts before children go to school, for example by listening to told or read stories. If children can read for themselves, the more they read, the better their reading comprehension.

Dyslexia is the inability to read and write well, despite having normal intelligence. The cause of dyslexia is not entirely known, but it is clear that genes play a role. Dyslexia is mainly due to a weak ability to discriminate between phonemes, weak short-term memory for verbal material, a limited vocabulary and a slow recall of the names of objects. Determining which sound belongs to which vowel is difficult for children with dyslexia. Problems often persist in adulthood. In children with dyslexia, two areas of the brain are less active than in children without dyslexia. One area is involved in discriminating between phonemes and the other in integrating visual and auditory information. The best interventions improve the reading comprehension of dyslexic children by increasing their vocabulary and by teaching them more general knowledge about the world.

How does the ability to write arise?

Even before children go to school, they try to write. This indicates that they expect that there is a meaning in a print. The collecting of strategies contributes to improvements in writing. A well-known strategy is organizing a sequence of goals, also called a script: a sequence of actions used to organize and interpret repeated events (such as eating in a restaurant and writing a report). Metacognitive understanding plays a crucial role in writing. The most basic form of metacognitive understanding is to be aware of the fact that the readers may not have the same knowledge as the writer. Therefore, a text must contain all the information necessary for the reader to fully understand the text. Another important type of metacognitive understanding is that a writer must have a plan before he / she actually starts writing a text. Good writers spend much more time planning before they actually start writing. Finally, knowledge of the content is an important factor in writing. Familiarity with a topic creates better written documents.

How does the ability to calculate arise?

There is a wide variety of strategies used to solve problems. Children start counting at a young age. Later children use different strategies to solve certain arithmetic situations. Numerical magnitude representations are mental models of the sizes of numbers, arranged along a little-to-more dimension. For example, young children have no idea if 4 is larger than 8 and adults sometimes have no idea if 3/5 is greater than 5/11. These are examples of a lack of accurate representations of numerical sizes. The accuracy of these representations differ with age, which is related to the mathematical knowledge of children. At school, children create arithmetic concepts, such as arithmetic equality. This is a concept stating that the values ​​of one side of a sum must be equal to the other side of a sum by means of the '=' sign. Children can make mistakes in this, such as the so-called gesture-discrepancy, in which the gestures that children make express a different idea than their verbal statements.

Arithmetic knowledge differs per country. These differences can be seen before children go to school and seem to be related to cultural emphasis on mathematics, the quality of mathematics teachers and textbooks and the time spent on mathematics in the classroom and at home. Another important factor is language. In Chinese, Japanese and Korean, for example, numbers are much clearer than in English, making them easier to learn in these languages.

Many children experience a fear of mathematics, a negative emotional state that leads to fear and avoidance of mathematics. This fear can reduce the performance of the working memory, which is necessary to solve mathematical problems. For the children with the fear, it can be helpful to write down their emotions prior to an exam, for example.

Between 5% and 8% of children perform that weakly in mathematics, that they are said to have a mathematical disorder. These children have average IQ scores. Their performance does improve with age, but even later in life they have difficulty with mathematical skills. In severe cases, brain damage is the cause in areas that are responsible for, for example, the processing of numbers. In other cases, for example, minimal exposure to numbers in early childhood may be the cause. Various interventions are available for improving mathematical skills.

Which theories of social development exist? - Chapter 9

What are psychoanalytic theories?

Psychoanalytic theories have had the greatest impact on western cultures. These theories have had a major influence on the way of thinking about personality and social developments. This is mainly due to Sigmund Freud. Erik Erikson later accounted on the ideas of Sigmund Freud. Both theories are based on biological ripening. According to Freud, the behavior is motivated by the need to satisfy basic drifts. The resulting instincts and motives usually arise unconsciously. According to Erikson, development is motivated by crises in the development related to age and biological maturation. The individual must successfully complete all crises in order to achieve healthy development. The theories of Freud and Erikson are stage theories.

How does Freud see the development?

Freud is the founder of the psychoanalytic theory. His theory about the development of children is also called the theory of psychosexual development. He thought that even very young children have a sexual nature that motivates their behavior and influences their relationships with other people. Children go through five phases of universal developments. According to Freud, psychic energy focuses on different erogenous zones. Psychic energy consists of the biological urges that feed the behavior, the thoughts and the feelings. The erogenous zones are areas of the body that are erotically sensitive, such as the mouth, the anus, and the genitals. According to Freud, every child encounters conflict with his erogenous zones. He states that their success or failure of this conflict, influences the development in their lives.

The psychic energy consists of the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the first and the most primitive of the three personality structures. Id is unconscious and is driven by the gratification principle, the goal of finding maximum satisfaction as quickly as possible. During the first year of life, the baby is in the first phase of psychosexual development, the oral stage, in which the primary source of satisfaction and pleasure comes from oral activities. Later in the first year of life develops the second personality structure, the ego. Ego is the rational, logical, problem-solving component of the personality. During the second year of life, the child gains more control over body processes such as urination and at that point the child enters the second phase: the anal stage, in which the primary source of satisfaction and pleasure comes from defecation. Third phase is the phallic stage, which is present from the age of 3 to 6 years. In the phallic stage sexual pleasure is focused on the genitals. This is how the superego develops, the third personality structure driven by the consciousness and internalization of moral standards. Internalization is the adoption the rules, beliefs, and standards of the parents for acceptable and unacceptable behavior as one's own.

Boys and girls experience the development of the superego in different ways. The boys experience the so-called Oedipus Complex. This is a term by Freud, which describes a period in which boys have a sexual desire for their mother and see their father as a threat. This occurs in the phallic phase. The girls experience a so-called Electra Complex. This is a term set up by Freud, for the period in which girls create romantic feelings for the father and see the mother as a threat. This also occurs in the phallic phase in girls.

The fourth phase of the development is the latency period, which takes place from the age of 6 to 12 years. This is mainly a time of relative calm. Sexual desires are hidden away in the subconscious, and children start to focus more on their social and intellectual development. Genital phase starts with puberty. A central theme is sexual maturation. Sexual energy has been stored away for a few years, but now that it is coming out again, it directs toward peers.

If a phase is not successfully completed and fundamental needs are not met, the child may suffer from it later in life and may become fixated on these needs. For example, if the child has not successfully completed the oral phase, it is more common that it engages in certain oral habits, such as nail-biting or smoking.

How does Erikson see the development?

Erikson is the successor of Freud. Erikson has added social factors to Freud's theory. That is why Erikson's theory of child development is called the theory of psychosocial development. His theory consists of eight phases of development. Only the first five stages of development will be discussed: they run from birth to adulthood.

• Trust versus mistrust: this phase occurs in the first year of life. In this phase, the child must develop an idea of ​​trust, facilitated by a good relationship with the mother. If during this phase the child does not develop the ability to trust others appropriately, the child might experience troubles forming intimate relationships later in life.

• Autonomy versus shame and doubt: this phase happens from the first to 3.5 years of life. At this stage, the child develops an idea of ​​autonomy. It has the skills and desires to explore the environment. If parents provide a supportive atmosphere, the child will develop autonomy. However, if children are punished or mocked, they will start to doubt their skills.

• Initiative versus guilt: this phase takes place from the fourth to sixth year of life. This is a period in which the child identifies with and learns from the parents. The challenge is that the child develops a balance between initiative and feelings of guilt.

• Industry versus inferiority: this phase occurs from the sixth year of age until puberty. The child acquires cognitive and social skills. The phase is crucial for the development of the ego.

• Identity versus role confusion: this phase takes place from adolescence to early adulthood. The phase is crucial for the development of the sense of identity.

What are current perspectives?

Freud's most important contributions are his emphasis on the importance of early emotional relationships and his recognition of the role of subjective experiences and unconscious mental activity. Erikson's emphasis on the search of identity also has a lasting impact.

What is the focus of learning theories?

Freud focuses on internal forces and subjective experiences. The learning theories focus on the external factors in forming a personality and social behavior. Current learning theoreticians emphasize the theme of the active child, the role children play in their own development.

How does Watson see the development?

Watson is the founder of behaviorism. He focuses on the development determined by the social environment through conditioning. He showed the power of conditioning through a study with a child named 'Little Albert' as a test subject. Little Albert got a rat in front of him that he reacted positively to. Then a loud noise was made during the presentation of the rat. Little Albert reacted negatively to the sound. After many repetitions, Little Albert became afraid of the rat.

With classical conditioning, Watson laid the foundation for a treatment based on the opposite process, namely: deconditioning, or eliminating anxiety. In order to decondition fear, the researcher gave a favorite snack to Peter (the participating child in the study), who was very afraid of white rabbits. Then the researcher slowly and gradually moved the rabbit closer to Peter. After many repetitions and exposure to the fear in combination with the absence of negative consequences, the fear of the rabbit disappeared. This approach became known as systematic desensitization. It was used worldwide for the elimination of all kinds of fears and phobias, like dogs and dentists.

How does Skinner see the development?

Skinner was the founder operant conditioning. The behavior could be influenced by means of rewards and punishments. Desired behavior was repeatedly rewarded, and undesirable behavior was repeatedly punished. The intention of rewarding the desired behavior is to reinforce it. The intention of punishing the unwanted behavior is to reduce or eliminate it. Also, two discoveries were made: first, the fact that attention is an important amplifier for the behavior of children and that the best strategy for a child's taming therefore is to ignore the behavior. Intermittent reinforcement is an inconsistent rewarding or punishing of a person's behavior, only sometimes it comes to rewarding or punishing when the target behavior is shown. This leads to learned behavior remaining longer, because no constant reward is needed. Operant conditioning led to a form of therapy: behavioral modification. The therapy focuses on encouraging a more adapted and useful behavior through operant conditioning.

What is the social learning theory?

Bandura is the founder of social learning theory. Bandura focuses on learning behavior through observations and imitations instead of reinforcement. The theory has a different name: social cognitive theory, because of the cognitive processes involved. Namely: the attention is focused on the behavior of another person, encoding what is observed, storing the information in the memory and retrieving it at a later time in order to be able to reproduce the behavior. Bandura also found the active role of children in their own development very important. This development was described as reciprocal determinism. This is a concept conceived by Bandura saying that the interaction between child and environment works in two directions. Children are influenced by aspects of their own environment, but they also influence the environment itself.

In a series of studies by Bandura and colleagues, school-age children were shown videos showing an adult portraying unusual aggressive behavior towards a Bobo doll. There were three conditions: group 1 was shown how the adult received a reward after the aggressive behavior, group 2 was shown that the adult was being punished for the behavior and in group 3 there were no consequences associated with the behavior. The question was whether vicarious reinforcement, observing someone else received a reward or punishment, would influence the behavior of the children. The children who had seen the adult being punished imitated the behavior less than the other two groups. However, all children learned from the observed behavior. Boys were more physically aggressive than girls.

What are the current perspectives?

Learning theories have inspired a lot of research because of the possibility to test these theories empirically. Learning theories have important practical applications, such as systematic desensitization and behavioral modification. However, there is a lack of attention to biological influences and (except for Bandura's theory) to cognitive influences.

What is the core of social cognition theories?

Social-cognitive theories differ from psychoanalytic theories and learning theories emphasizing external forces as the main source of development. The social-cognitive theories mainly focus on the process of self-socialization. Self-socialization is the idea that children play a very active role in their own socialization through their preferences for activities, choice of friendships, and so on.

What is the theory of role taking?

Selman focused on the development of role taking. Role taking means that one is aware of the other person's perspective, and is able to understand someone else's behavior, thoughts, and feelings in a better way. Selman states that the social cognition of children is limited because of their inability of role taking. He suggests that children younger than six are unaware of other perspectives except their own. According to Selman, a child goes through four stages increasing in complexity of thinking about other people. In the first phase (ages 6 to 8 years) children accept that other people can have a different perspective, because they possess different information than themselves. In the second phase (age 8 to 10 years) children also realize that you can think about other people's perspectives. In the third phase (age 10 to 12) children can compare their own perspective with someone else's perspective. In this phase they can even understand a third perspective. In the fourth phase (age 12 years and older), adolescents can make an attempt to compare other people's perspectives with a general perspective, and whether they are the same as those of most others in their social group. By going through these stages, children become less self-centered and more capable of considering other and multiple perspectives at the same time.

What is the information processing theory of social problem solving?

Dodge's information processing theory focuses on social problem solving. He found that children have a hostile attribution bias. A hostile attribution bias, according to Dodge's theory, is a tendency to assume that other people's ambiguous actions have hostile intentions. This leads to children seeking evidence for hostile intentions, which in turn leads to self-fulfilling prophecies: an aggressive reaction of a child to an assumed hostile act of another, causes the same effect on the other which can respond an aggressive or rejective, confirming the child that others have hostile intentions. Rough upbringing or physical abuse leads to a greater chance of information processing biases. Directly addressing children's thoughts about social behavior can reduce antisocial behavior.

What does Dweck's theory say?

Dweck's social cognition perspective shows that different ways of responding to a particular situation depend on a person's achievement motivation. Achievement motivation refers to whether children are motivated by learning objectives, seeking to improve their competencies and mastering new material or performance goal, seeking to receive positive assessment of their competences or avoiding negative assessments. Differences in attributions are the root of these two different patterns, mainly with respect to self-esteem. Children with an entity/ helpless orientation tend to base their self-esteem on approvals they receive (or not) from other people about their intelligence, talents, and personal qualities. These children give up if they fail. Children with an incremental or mastery orientation tend to not base their own efforts and learning processes on how other people evaluate them. Either they think success or failure is based on aspects of the efforts they made themselves, and they continue when they have failed.

The cognition of older children about themselves and others contain more complex concepts and explanations than those of younger children. Some show an entity theory of intelligence. This means the way of thinking about themselves is rooted in the idea that intelligence is fixed and unchangeable. These children often feel helpless and are more inclined to the hostile attribution bias. Others show an incremental theory of intelligence, it is rooted in the idea that intelligence can grow as a function of experience. These children feel hopeful. Parents and teachers can influence these internal theories. It is good to be aware which prices are indeed helpful and which are not. For example, it is better to reward the effort of a child than saying a child is good at something. This can undermine the motivation for improvement.

What are the current perspectives?

Social-cognitive theories have made important contributions to the study of social development. It is important to emphasize that children are active information seekers of the social world. It also contributed the insight that the effect of children's social experiences is dependent on their interpretation of these experiences. Still, social cognitive theories have little to say about biological factors. However, this seems to change.

The emerging field of social development neuroscience deals with questions such as how the social environment influences the developing brain and which neural mechanisms underlie the development of social behavior. Based on animal studies, certain experiments are carried out 'in nature' in which human children are exposed to different conditions. For example, it appears that children who do not experience emotional and physical contact with their caregivers during their first years of life show abnormal hormonal responses in social situations, which was also proven earlier in animal research. Other research has shown that children who grow up as orphans and still live in orphanages have less white matter in the brain than children who had left the orphanage. Current research shows the beneficial effects of mindfulness meditation on the brain. Neuroimaging studies suggest that this effect happens mainly in the prefrontal cortex, in areas responsible for, among other things, emotion regulation.

What is the focus of ecological theories?

Ecological theories of development focus on behavior as an adaptive function. The role of the environment is central to the development of the child. Etiology and evolutionary psychology focus on the development of the child, in relation to the context of the evolutionary history of our species. The bio-ecological model focuses on the multiple levels of environmental influences that simultaneously influence development.

Which ethological and evolutionary theories exist?

Ethology focuses on the evolutionary basis of behavior. Imprinting is a form of learning in which newborns of certain species of birds and mammals become attached to an adult member of their species (which they usually see first) and follow them. Often this is the mother. Imprinting mainly occurs during a critical period very early in life. An application of the ethological perspective on human behavior is that many boys prefer to play with objects that require action and that many girls prefer dolls, for example. It is argued that it happens because parents give their children toys that 'fit' with their gender. However, other studies show that this preference already exists very early, which indicates genetic preferences depending on a child's gender rather than on learned gender norms.

Evolutionary psychology is based on the ideas of natural selection and adaptations to human behavior from Darwin. Certain genes predispose individuals to behave in a certain way, which makes them more likely to survive. Many evolutionary psychologists suggest that playing is one of the most striking forms of behavior and an evolved platform for learning.

Parents have to spend an enormous amount of time and energy on their children in parenting. According to parental investment theory, the primary source of their motivation is the perpetuation of their own genes, which is only achieved if their children survive long enough to pass these genes on to the next generation.

What is the bio-ecological model?

The bio-ecological model is based on the idea that the environment consists of a set of structures. Each structure represents a different level of development. The bio-ecological model of Bronfenbrenner looks like the following:

• The first level is the micro system: consisting of the immediate environment a child personally experiences and in which it participates directly.

• The second level is the meso system: including the interconnections between the microsystem, such as the family, peers, and schools.

• The third level is the exosystem: it consists of circumstances the child does not participate directly, for example the dismissal of a parent. However, these circumstances indirectly influence the development of the child.

• The fourth level is the macro system: including culture, subcultures, and/ or social groups embedding the other systems.

• The fifth level is the chronosystem: this consists of convictions of society, society itself, norms and values, etc. influencing the development of the child.

One of the biggest threats to the development of a child is abuse, intentional abuse or neglect, risking the well-being of any person under the age of 18. At the microsystem level of certain parental characteristic can increase the risk of abuse, such as a weak impulse control. In addition, it is associated with additional factors in the meso- and exosystem increasing stress in parents, such as unemployment. An important exosystem contributor is social isolation of the family. Maltreatment has several negative consequences, which can be seen at a very young age. Abused children are at a greater risk of unusual attachment patterns, psychological disorders, physical health problems.

Media belongs to the exosystem, but is influenced by the chronosystem, the macro system, the micro system and other elements in the exosystem. Screens have recently been found everywhere. Statistics show that children and adolescents spend many hours on media. Even very young children are already active in the media immersion.

There are many concerns about media exposure, from violence to pornography. One concern is that children show more violent behavior by regularly watching violent television shows or listening to violent music. The exposure can have an effect in four ways: (1) impersonation behavior of the actors, (2) if aggression is observed, one's own aggression is activated, with repeated exposure this may result in it becoming part of the normal internal state of a person. (3) it provides physiological arousal, which increases the risk of violent reactions to provocation and (4) frequent, long-term exposure to media violence slowly leads to emotional desensitization. The second concern is that children who are stuck to screens do not proceed in physical activity. There appears to be a negative relationship between the time that children sit behind a screen and the time of physical activities. Children are more likely to get obese if they watch a lot of television. In addition, children seem to spend less time on school-related issues when they spend more time on media, which has a negative impact on school performance. Pornography is another concern of both parents and children themselves. Porn can lead to more aggression towards women and more acceptance of sex before marriage and extramarital sex. Pornography is also a concern of both parents and children themselves.

The SES of the family has profound effects on the development of a child. These effects are based on many different factors, such as low parental education and wrong food and drinks, but also factors of the meso system, such as the quality of the school. It is important to remember that it is often the sum of several factors. In addition, children differ in how susceptible they are to environmental influences. Growing up in very well-off families can also have negative effects on development. These children show more substance use than less well-off peers. In addition, more jealousy occurs. This may be because well-off parents put pressure on their children to be excellent in both academic and extracurricular activities but give their children less emotional support.

What are the current perspectives?

The contribution of etiology and evolutionary psychology comes from the emphasis on the biological nature of children, with the genetic tendencies that are grounded in evolution. Ideas of evolutionary psychology, however, are not testable and often have a relationship with social learning or a different perspective. Evolutionary psychology also seems to overlook the capacity to change our environment and ourselves. The bio-ecological model has made important contributions to the idea about development and how many factors contribute and interact in development. However, this model lacks biological factors.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a syndrome characterized by the difficulty of focusing attention. Children have a normal intelligence and show no emotional disturbances. They have difficulty holding on to plans and following rules. Many are hyperactive. They have difficulty acquiring certain skills, such as reading, because it requires focusing attention for a longer period of time. The symptoms are based on the difficulty of inhibiting impulses. ADHD has several causes. Genetic factors play a role, but all sorts of environmental factors also appear to have an influence, such as prenatal exposure to alcohol. Social factors also have an influence, such as the SES of the parents. It is difficult to determine which factors are causal. The current treatment of ADHD focuses on resources in the environment, such as the family doctor (microsystem), the drug industry (exosystem) and the government (macro system). The most commonly used treatment is the prescription of medication such as Ritalin, a stimulant that stimulates neurotransmitter systems. Unfortunately, there are also side effects, such as loss of appetite. A combination of medication and psychosocial interventions also appears to be effective.

Because of the large number of factors that influence ADHD, it is difficult to prevent abuse. However, a promising program has been developed. Research has shown that parents often find themselves involved in a power conflict with their child, in which they see themselves as victims. The aim of the program was to help parents to obtain more realistic interpretations of their difficulties in caring for their children. While parents developed a better understanding of their child's needs, their investment in their children improved, and they later showed significant health benefits.

How does emotional development work? - Chapter 10

How do emotions develop?

Emotions are often equated with feelings. Development ideologists have a more complex approach to look at emotions. They see emotions as consisting of multiple components: neural responses, the physiological factors (heartbeat, breaths, hormone levels), subjective feelings, emotional expression and the desire to take action (flee, approach, or change people or things in the environment). However, there is a lot of discussion about whether emotions are innate or have been learned.

What are the theories regarding the nature and emergence of emotions?

The discrete emotions theory states that emotions are innate, and it is possible to distinguished between them from birth. Also, they state that each emotion is accompanied by a specific set of physical reactions and facial expressions. This is derived from the idea of ​​Darwin. According to his theory, emotional reactions are mainly automatic and not based on cognition. Babies have a set of recognizable emotions, without being able to actively learn about these emotions. Also, certain expressions of emotions around the world are the same. The functionalist perspective, however, states that emotions depend on the environment, and the function of emotions is to take actions to achieve a certain goal. Emotions can not be distinguished discrete of each other here and are partly based on the social environment. The two approaches agree that cognition and experiences influence emotional development.

How do emotions arise?

Researchers agree that there are several universal basic emotions in all human cultures. These basic emotions have important survival and communication functions. They can be seen very early in life, which supports discrete emotion theory.

In the first month, a baby sometimes smiles during sleep. These early smiles are reflexive and are not generated by social interaction. From the third to the eighth week, a baby smiles due to external stimuli. When they are about 6-7 weeks they start laughing at others, this is called social smiles. The seventh month, babies laugh at familiar people. This is intended to strengthen the bond. At the end of the first year of life, babies show that they enjoy unexpected things, like mommy with a crazy hat on.

From the fourth month, babies seem to be aware of unknown objects and events. When they are 6-7 months old, the first signs of fear start to occur. Mainly fear of strangers. This normally disappears around the second year of life. In the eighth to the thirteenth month, babies show fear when they are separated from the primary caregivers. This is called separation anxiety. It also decreases as they age.

Anger is the reaction of a child to frustrating or threatening situations and is often an interpersonal experience. In babies, anger often appears fused with grief. Only from the children's first year of life anger is seen as a separate emotion. The reasons for anger change as children develop. Because they earn more understanding about the intentions and motives of others. Young children show that they are upset when they have no control over certain situations. As children grow older, they show sadness when, for example, separated from their parents.

At about 6 months of age, most babies show the sensation of surprise for the first time. Often this emotion is short and quickly changes into a different emotion. Disgust is said to have an evolutionary basis because it would prevent you from eating poisoned things. However, individuals learn what is considered disgusting.

The above emotions are thought to be innate. Self-conscious emotions develop during the second and third year of life. Self-conscious emotions are emotions such as pride, shame, guilt and shyness. These self-conscious emotions are related to our self and our awareness of other people's reactions to us. Guilt is associated with empathy for others and other people's feelings. One regrets one's own behavior and one wants to undo the consequences of one's own behavior. Shame, however, arises when the attention goes to ourselves. We feel that we are exposed and want to hide. These self-aware emotions differ per culture. The situations that generate these emotions and the frequency with which they occur are different.

To determine whether emotions are innate or learned, researchers have investigated whether babies show recognizable emotions in response to external stimuli. AFFEX is a system for coding emotions in babies. Therefore, certain facial expressions and movements of facial muscles are linked to certain emotions. This system has shown links between emotional expressions of children and their emotion regulation skills and social behaviors. A recent study found that the more children showed anger and grief, the more mental health problems and behavioral problems they showed six months later.

How can we understand emotions?

How are we able to identify emotions of others?

The first step in understanding emotions is the recognition of different emotions in others. Already at the age of 3 months, babies can distinguish between different facial expressions. Social referencing is the use of facial expression or vocal cues of a parent or other adult to decide how to deal with new, ambiguous or potentially threatening situations. The ability to differentiate between emotions and to identify different emotions helps children to respond appropriately to their own emotions and those of others.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to cognitively process information about emotions and use this information to guide both thoughts and behavior. It also contains the ability to understand one's own emotions and emotions of others through facial expressions, body language and speaking tone. Children with high emotional intelligence are better in regulating their emotions and less often show aggressive behavior. Also, emotional intelligence predicts self-confidence, personality and cognitive intelligence. This has led to the promotion of emotional intelligence as an intervention for aggressive and antisocial behavior.

How can we understand the causes of emotions?

Knowing the causes of emotions is important for understanding one's own behavior and one's own motives and those of others. It is the key to regulating your own behavior and therefore, for social competence. From the age of 4-6 years, children can provide accurate explanations for why their peers show negative emotions. With age, children also understand that people can feel certain emotions because things from the past are remembered. They become aware of cognitive processes that are related to emotion and the fact that emotional intensity decreases after a while. They also learn that people can experience multiple emotions at the same time.

How can we distinguish true from false emotions?

Understanding real and false emotions is an important developmental process. A child must learn to understand that the emotions people show do not necessarily show their true feelings. To understand false emotions, there needs to be a growing understanding of display rule. These are the norms in a certain social group about when, where, and how often someone shows their emotions and when someone has to suppress or mask them. Children of one and a half years can already recognize exaggerated and fake emotions. With age, children learn to follow display rules. Children of four years are not yet able to do so, while more than half of the eight-year old’s can.

How does emotion regulation work?

Regulating emotions is very important to achieve your own goals. Emotion regulation is a set of both conscious and unconscious processes that are used to monitor and modulate emotional experiences and expressions.

How does emotion regulation develop?

The emotional states of young babies are externally regulated by means of co-regulation. The caregiver shows the necessary comfort or distraction to the child, so that grief is reduced. When children are about 5 months old, they show superficial emotion regulation through, for example, self-comforting behavior. These are repetitive actions that regulate arousal by providing a positive physical sensation, such as sucking on the fingers. Another strategy is self-distraction, looking away from the disturbing stimulus to regulate the arousal level. From 9-12 months, children become aware of parents' demands and behave accordingly. Their compliance is growing rapidly in the second year of life. Whereas young children mainly use behavioral strategies to regulate their emotions, older children mainly use cognitive strategies and problem solving.

Children learn by time which cognitive strategies or behavioral strategies are suitable to use in a given situation. Older children, for example, are more aware than younger children that there are situations where they have no control and in that case, it is easier to regulate their emotions by adapting to the situation instead of changing the situation.

How does emotion regulation relate to social competence and adaptation?

Social competence is the ability to achieve personal goals in social interactions while at the same time maintaining a positive relationship with others. Research shows that children who have the ability to inhibit inappropriate behavior, to postpone satisfaction and to use cognitive methods for emotion regulation, are better adapted and more liked by their peers and adults.

Which role does temperament play?

There are individual differences in emotions and their regulation. There are many similarities, but also many differences in the development of emotions and self-regulation capacities. Some people are very superficial in emotions, while others are very emotional. This has led researchers to develop the concept of temperament. Temperament refers to individual differences in emotion, activity level and attention. Those are seen in different contexts. Also, they are present from the age of babies, so that it is thought to be genetically determined. Environmental factors also partly influence the temperament.

Thomas and Chess came up with an experiment in which babies are divided into groups, based on the degree of temperament: easy babies (40%) adjust quickly in certain situations or routines. Difficult babies (10%) adapt slowly in certain situations or routines and often show negative reactions more quickly. '' Slowly warming up '' babies (15%) first have difficulty adjusting to certain situations or routines, but due to repeated contact with new objects, people or situations, they adapt more and more quickly. The remaining percentage of babies do not fit into any of the groups above.

Nowadays, instead of using a between person approach, researchers try to use a within-person approach to understand development. Based on this approach, each child has a certain level of every dimension of temperament. Not all researchers agree on how many dimensions there are, but Rothbart is a leading expert in this field and has identified five main dimensions of temperament: anxiety, stress / anger / frustration, attention span, activity level and smiling/ laughter.

Ratings of temperament appear to be fairly stable over time and situations and predict later development in areas such as behavioral problems, anxiety disorders and social competence. Ratings of temperament appear to be fairly stable over time and situations and predict later development in areas such as behavioral problems, anxiety disorders and social competence. Attention span, activity level and (smile) laugh. Ratings of temperament appear to be fairly stable over time and situations and predict later development in areas such as behavioral problems, anxiety disorders and social competence.

Children with different temperaments show differences in heart rate. EEG measurements show that activation in the left frontal lobe is associated with approaching behavior, positive affect, exploration and socialization. However, activation in the right frontal lobe is associated with withdrawal, insecurity and anxiety. Children with more activity in the right frontal lobe react with more anxiety and avoidance than individuals with more activity in the left frontal lobe.

Changes in how much and when temperament is expressed at different ages is probably due to genes that are turned on and off during development.

What are the determinants of temperament?

The idea that temperament has a genetic component gets evident from many studies, such as twin studies. They show that identical twins are more equal in terms of emotion (regulation) than fraternal twins. However, the environment also plays an important role after birth. The behavior of the parents is of strong influence. Children who grow up in unstable family situations and receive a less warm upbringing, have more problems with self-regulation and emotion expression. However, children also influence their parents, children who are more social and have more regulation can generate more warmth in their parents.

A combination of genetic factors and environmental factors contribute to individual differences in the emotions of children and related behavior.

What is the role of temperament in social skills and inappropriate behavior?

One of the reasons temperament is of interest, is its important role in determining the social adjustment of children. The way children adapt to new situations depends not only on the type of temperament that children have, but also on how well that temperament fits in a certain environment they find themselves. This is also called goodness of fit and is the extent to which the individual temperament fits the expectations of the child's social environment or the behavior of the parents. Some temperaments make children highly reactive in both positive and negative family environments. These children show a characteristic of differential susceptibility, which means that the same characteristic that children run a high risk of negative outcomes when exposed to a harsh environment also causes them to flourish when the home environment is positive.

What is the role of the family in emotional development?

What is the influence of the quality of the parent-child relationship?

The relationship the child has with the parents influenced the sense of security and how the child feels about himself and others. These feelings in turn influence which emotions are expressed. Children who are securely attached and therefore have a trusted high-quality relationship with parents, will show more joy and less social anxiety and anger than children who are unsafe attached and therefore have little trust and support in the relationship with the parents.

The parent’s emotion expression influences how children see themselves and others in their social world. They learn which emotions are appropriate and effective. If little emotions are shown, for example, a child can get the idea that emotions are bad and should be avoided. In homes where many positive emotions are present, children are happier and, among other things, less aggressive. If there is a great deal of anger, children are less socially competent and experience more negative emotions themselves.

How does the socialization of the parents influence the emotional responses of children?

The emotional development of children is also influenced by emotional socialization, which is the process teaching children the values, standards, skills, knowledge and behaviors that are appropriate for their current and future role in their culture. In this process, the social competence of the children is also influenced.

How parents respond to the emotions of their children influences the emotion expression of the children, their social competence and their social adaptation. Emotional support is important for the healthy development of emotions and the expression of emotions. Parents who are critical about expressions of sadness and fear communicate to their children that these emotions are not valid.

Having family conversations about emotions is another important aspect of emotional socialization. By talking about emotions, parents teach children the meaning of emotions, when emotions should and should not be expressed and the consequences of whether or not to express emotions. In addition, the children can be taught how to deal with emotions. These children are more socially competent, more empathetic and show less problem behavior and depression.

There are cultural differences in emotional expression. European-American culture is independent, assertive and encourages the expression of emotions. This leads to children showing more negative emotions in these countries. In China, for example, people are interdependent, children of this culture want to belong to a group and work towards harmonious interpersonal relationships. This means that they show fewer negative emotions. In China negative emotions are avoided and shame is seen much more often than in Western cultures.

What are the problems that can arise in emotional development?

Mental health is an important component of emotional development. It reflects the well-being of the child, both internally (emotions and stress) and externally (relationship with family and friends).

What influence does stress have?

When children come into situations or environments perceiving them as frightening, threatening or overwhelming, they can experience stress. Stress is a physiological response to changes or threats in the environment. The heart rate increases, stress hormones are released, more blood is brought to the brain and there is an increased feeling of anxiety and alertness. Stress can be useful to mobilize the child to take action and, for example, to learn well for a test. However, if stress is chronic, it can become problematic. Children experience a lot of negative emotions. Sometimes a single violent negative event can cause a traumatic stress.

Toxic stress is the experience of overwhelming levels of stress without the support of adults to help mitigate the effects. When a child has so much stress, the brain areas that regulate anxiety become overloaded, causing atrophy and shrinkage. Some changes are permanent and can cause long-term changes in stress reactions. There are various sources of stress: abuse, poverty and war. The more of such experiences, the more chance of high stress levels, depression, anxiety, obesity, smoking and alcoholism. There is some evidence that exposure to non-stressful environments and treatment can reverse these effects somewhat.

How does the internalizing of mental disorders occur?

If a child is repeatedly exposed to stress or experiences traumatic stress, it can lead to the development of mental disorders. These are chronic conditions that are permanent in childhood and adulthood, it is a state of having problems with emotional reactions to the environment and with social relationships in a way that affects daily life. There is no specific path to a particular disorder. Equifinality is the concept that different causes can lead to the same mental disorder. Multifinality is the concept that certain risk factors do not always lead to a mental disorder.

Depression is a mental disorder characterized by a sad or irritated mood associated with physical and cognitive changes affecting daily life. For a child to get the diagnosis the following symptoms must be present: sad or irritated mood for at least two weeks, physical and cognitive symptoms such as sleep problems, significant changes in weight, inability to concentrate or loss of interest in activities. Some also have suicidal tendencies or thoughts. Both genetic factors and environmental factors influence the likelihood that a child will get depression. Children whose parents have a history of depression are more likely to have depression, and heritability is 40%. The environment also has influence, little sensitivity, support and acceptance of the parents lead to higher levels of depression in children. Often it is a combination of personal vulnerability and external stressful factors.

Anxiety disorders are a set of mental disorders characterized by the inability to regulate fear and worry. The fear persists for days or months, affecting the daily functioning of the person. In young children, the most common disorder is separation anxiety disorder, which is a persistent fear of being separated from a caregiver or that a caregiver is in danger. This is normal to a certain extent, but if it remains and interferes with behavior, it is seen as a disorder. Also, in anxiety disorders both genetic influences and environmental influences are contributing.

Drug therapy for depression in children and adolescents in combination with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) seems to be effective for reducing depressive symptoms. Drug therapy alone can also help for depression, but serious side effects could be present, such as increasing the risk of suicidal behavior. CBT alone is effective both for treating depression and anxiety, it teaches children to recognize maladaptive thoughts and to learn how to modify these thoughts.

As children grow older, the risk of depression increases. Girls, however, have a faster increasing risk than boys. At the age of 17 girls have a 2-3 times higher chance of depression. One reason for this gender difference is that girls show more internalizing emotions in the younger years than boys. Another reason is that the biological changes in puberty are more difficult for girls than for boys. Girls are also more affected by chronic stress from social interactions, which predicts depressive symptoms. Important stressors are concerns about the body and the appearance. One risk factor for boys is a later onset of puberty compared to their peers. Rumination is the focusing on one's own negative emotions and negative self-esteem and on the causes and consequences of it without putting effort to improve the situation. The more the behavior occurs, the higher the chance of depression, this is more common in girls. Co-rumination is the extensive discussion of emotional problems with another person. This is also more common in girls.

In what way does attachment and the self develop? - Chapter 11

Children develop certain forms of attachment. Attachment is an emotional bond with a specific person, a bond that remains constant over time. Attachment is often discussed as the relationship between a child and his/her caregiver, but attachment can also occur in adulthood.

Which attachment styles are there?

What is the attachment theory?

The attachment theory was proposed by Bowlby. This theory states that children have a biological predisposition to attach themselves to the caregivers, in order to increase the chance of their own survival. Later, Ainsworth expanded and tested Bowlby's ideas. According to Freud, children's development is shaped by their early relationship with their mothers. Bowlby agreed on this, but changed the idea of ​​Freud's "needy, dependent infant" into a "competence - motivated child" that uses his/her caregiver as a secure base. This secure base is based on the idea that the presence of a trusted caregiver can provide a child with a sense of security and makes it possible for the child to explore the environment.

The attachment process has an innate basis, but its development and quality depend on the experiences of the child with their caregivers. According to Bowlby, the development of attachment takes place in four phases:

1. Pre-attachment takes place from birth to the age of 6 weeks. Here babies produce innate signals, such as crying. The baby is reassured by the comforting action of the caregiver.

2. Attachment-in-the-making takes place between the age of 6 weeks and 6-8 months. Babies react to familiar people, for example by smiling, laughing out loud, or babbling. They calm down more quickly and build up a sense of trust in the caregivers.

3. Clear-cut attachment takes place between the ages of 6-8 months and 1.5 years. In this phase babies actively seek contact with the caregiver. Babies greet the mother when she appears, but may experience stress when she leaves: separation anxiety or distress.

4. Reciprocal relationships take place from the age of 1.5/ 2 years on. Children develop cognitive and language abilities to understand the feelings, goals and motives of their parents. This creates a mutual relationship in which the child plays an active role. In this phase, the separation anxiety becomes less.

The outcome of these phases is an emotional bond between child and caregiver(s). The child develops an internal working model of attachment. This is the mental representation the child has of himself, of the attachment figure and of relationships in general. This mental representation has developed through experiences with the caregiver(s). The internal working model guides the interactions of the child with other people, even when the child grows older.

How is the attachment security measured?

Ainsworth did research in both the USA and Uganda, where she studied the mother-child relationship during infants' explorations and separations from the mother. In this way she measured the quality of the child's attachment with the parent/ caretaker. Based on her observations, she came to the conclusion that two main factors provide insight into the quality of the attachment: the extent to which the child uses the caregiver as a secure base, and the child's reaction to separation and reunification with the caregiver. Later, Ainsworth designed a test based on these factors: The Strange Situation test. This test consists of seven situations, each three minutes long. The child will experience alternating situations like separations of the mother, return of the mother, and arrival of an unknown person. From this study, Ainsworth identified three attachment categories:

• secure attachment style: the child has a positive, trusting relationship with the attachment figure. The child is to some degree distressed in the absence of the caregiver and happy with the return of the caregiver. These children use the caregiver as a secure base for exploration.

• insecure/resistant or ambivalent attachment style: the child is clingy and stays close to the caregiver instead of exploring the environment. The child cries intensely in the absence of the mother and is difficult to comfort on her return. To comforting attempts of the mother, it reacts with both searching for and resistance to the comforting attempts.

• insecure/avoidant attachment style: The child seems indifferent and avoiding to the caregiver before leaving and is also indifferent and avoiding when the caregiver comes back. If the child becomes upset, it can be comforted just as easily by a stranger as by a caretaker.

Because a small percentage does not fit into one of the three attachment styles above, a new attachment style was created:

• disorganized/disoriented attachment style: the child does not have a consistent way to deal with the stress of the Strange Situation Test. Their behavior is confusing and sometimes even opposing, often they seem dazed and disoriented.

Also other methods to measure attachment have been developed over the past few decades. A frequently used alternative is the Attachment Q-short. In this test parents, teachers or observers need to sort a number of cards with descriptions of child behaviors. They need to sort these cards into different piles corresponding with how well they describe the target child. This leads to a characterization of the child on a continuum from secure to insecure. Attachment is not a fixed quality: there is moderate stability in the safety of the attachment, but this can change during childhood. Measurements like questionnaires have been developed to measure attachment security in adulthood.

It has been investigated whether the absence of primary caregivers and the care by non-primary caregivers interfere with the children's ability to form a secure attachment. It has been shown that children aged between 15 and 36 months who are in childcare were just as likely to be secure attached to their mother in comparion to children who did not go to childcare. The sensitivity of the mother was an important predictor for this. High quality childcare can function as compensation for insensitive and non-responsive mothers. The only way that childcare can interfere with the attachment is when the quality is low.

Only a few cultural differences were found in the categorization of the attachment styles. However, there is a difference in percentage distribution, meaning how often certain attachment styles were found.

There are two main sources for the differences in attachment: (1) sensitivity of the parents and (2) genetic predispositions. An important aspect of education that is linked to attachment is parental sensitivity. This is caring behavior with expression of warmth and responsiveness to the child's needs. A securely attached child has parents who respond to the child's signals, who are affectionate and communicating and frequently initiate close contact with the child. An insecure ambivalent attached child has parents who are inconsistent in their reactions and seem overwhelmed with care duties. An insecure avoidant attached child has parents who are insensitive to the signals from the child, avoiding close contact and ignoring the contact attempts from the child or being angry, irritable or impatient. A disorganized/disoriented child has parents who are pushy and emotionally absent, who are dissociated or in a trance-like state, who confuse or frighten the child and who are cruel and hurtful. Other factors like for example, conflicts between the parents, will also play a role in the type of attachment style that children develop. Although parents do not show a consistent parental sensitivity, a child can still develop a secure attachment.

Various interventions have been developed for promoting secure attachment. If parents participated in an intervention, the chances were three times higher that the children would be securely attached. Especially if the intervention was already used in early infancy. A known intervention is the Circle of Security, in which parents have to reflect on their own mental representations about how parents and children should interact. After that the parents are guided by a therapist in order to change any maladaptive representations. Another intervention is the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-Up, which is especially for mothers at risk of mistreating their children. The intervention focuses on changing behavior and appears to be very effective. These interventions show that any problematic parent-child relationship can be improved with clear improvements in the security of the attachment.

The genes also influence attachment. A recent study focuses on the possible influence of allelic variants of the serotonin transporter gene, SLC6A4, on the behavior in the Strange Situation Test. Other research is showing that the DRD4 gene, involved in the dopamine system, is associated with disorganized attachment of a child in stressful environments, but also with secure attachment in a less stressful environment.

What is the relationship between attachment and social-emotional development?

The way of attachment predicts the later social-emotional development. When children are securely attached, they experience better adjustments and more social skills than insecurely attached children. An explanation for this is that children with a secure attachment are more likely to develop positive and constructive internal working models of attachment. Also, they are more likely to learn that it is acceptable to show emotions. Securely attached children among other things, show closer and more harmonious relationships than insecure attached children. Attachment can change, for example if aspects of the environment change. In these cases, parent-child interactions or parenting behaviors are a better predictor for the social and emotional competence of the child at that age than measurements of attachment at a younger age.

How does the Self develop?

How does the self-concept develop?

The self-concept definition includes your own thoughts and attitudes towards yourself. The development of the self is important because it affects the feelings of well-being and self-confidence when confronted with criticism. The development starts in babies and runs till adolescence.

The self-concept in infancy: the child has to differentiate itself from the environment, which happens by developing the feeling that they are physical beings. Children learn this by interacting with their environment. Self-concept becomes more distinct at around 8 months and recognition of the self becomes clear at around 18-20 months, when children recognize themselves in the mirror. Cultural differences found here, can be linked to differences in education.

The self-concept in childhood: understanding yourself becomes more complex. The sense of self is largely a social construction based on the observations and evaluations of others, mainly of caregivers. Children begin to refine their self-concept in primary school, partly because they engage social comparison: the process whereby a child compares aspects of their own psychological, behavioral or physical functioning with aspects of others to evaluate themselves. Changes in the self-concept of older children reflect cognitive progress in their ability to use higher-order concepts integrating more specific behavioral characteristics of the self.

The self-concept in adolescence: thinking more abstract and describing yourself, for example as extrovert or introvert. Adolescents often develop multiple selves, they show a different self when they are with their parents in comparison to when they are with their friends. Initially, in early adolescence, thinking about the self is is ego centric, this is called the personal fable. It is a form of adolescent self-centeredness including beliefs about the uniqueness of one's own feelings and thoughts. This form of self-centeredness also ensures that many adolescents are preoccupied with what others think of them, called having an imaginary audience. Imaginary audience is the adolescent belief that everyone else is focused on your behavior and appearance. Adolescents are also very introspective: they think about who they really are. As people get older, they think less about what others think about them, and they want to work more on their own goals.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have different cognitive and emotional difficulties, including limitations in the development of ToM (theory of mind) and in their ability to identify with others. The question is whether this can be partly due to limitations in self-awareness. Researchers have found that children with ASD refer to themselves in the third person and have difficulty differentiating themselves from others. Interventions that focus on improving the self-awareness of children with ASD show that the right guidance can improve self-awareness without reducing self-esteem.

How does self-esteem develop?

The self-esteem is a general evaluation of the value that an individual assign to himself and the feelings generated by this evaluation. Self-esteem first occurs when children are about 8 years old. People with a high self-esteem feel good about themselves and are generally hopeful. People with low self-esteem often feel worthless and hopeless. Low self-esteem is often associated with problems such as aggression, depression, drug use, social avoidance, suicidal ideation and various problems in adulthood.

There are various sources that cause individual differences in self-esteem. One of these is age: self-esteem seems to be high in childhood, reduces in adolescence and then revives in adulthood. Attractive people often have a higher self-esteem than less attractive people. Gender is another source: boys seem to have a higher self-esteem than girls, although this depends on the domain. Girls have a higher self-esteem when it comes to behavior and moral-ethical self-esteem and boys have a higher self-esteem when it comes to athletics, personal appearance and self-satisfaction. The most important source of self-esteem is the approval and support of others, mainly from the parents. Secure attachment and acceptance of the parents show a positive influence on self-esteem. The acceptance of peers is becoming increasingly important over the course of childhood. The tendency to evaluate the self based on the thoughts of peers is associated with, among other things, a preoccupation for approval and low self-esteem. In addition, the standards and values ​​of important people and one's cultural groups are important for self-esteem, as well as school and neighborhood environments.

Cultural differences can also be found here. For example, Western culture is mainly focused on individualism, while Asian culture is mainly focused on collectivism. For people living in a Western culture self-esteem is related to individual performances and promotions. For people living in an Asian culture, self-esteem is mainly related to people's well-being and social interdependence.

Many believe that children should be praised to ensure that they get a positive image of themselves. Researchers have done a lot of research into a specific type of praise, namely inflated praise. This exaggerated way of praising ensures that children with low self-esteem show less challenge-seeking behavior. Children with low self-esteem who were normally praised showed challenge-seeking behavior. The excessive praises can raise the bar: children start to avoid activities in which they may fail, a form of self-protection. The best thing is to praise a child for the effort it has put into something. This way they are encouraged to keep going if they face challenges.

How does the identity develop?

The identity is the description of the self that is often externally imposed, such as by being a member of a certain group. Everyone has multiple identities present at certain times or in certain situations. Erikson stated that all adolescents experience an identity crisis at the stage of development that he called the identity versus role confusion phase: during this phase the adolescent develops either an identity or an incomplete and sometimes incoherent sense of self. The successful resolution of this crisis results in identity achievement. This is the integration of different aspects of yourself that form a coherent whole and is stable over time and across situations. Later, the idea that every adolescent goes through an identity crisis was rejected. More recently, researchers have defined more additional differences in identity. During a moratorium, an individual explores various occupational and ideological choices and has not yet made a clear commitment to them. They explore these possible commitments in two ways: in breadth (trying different candidate identities before one is chosen) and in depth (continuously monitoring current commitments to make them more aware).

Identity diffusion is a period in which an individual has no firm commitments regarding certain issues and does not make any progress to develop them. Identity execution is a period in which an individual has not done identity experimentation and has established a vocational or ideological identity based on choices or values ​​of others.

A key factor influencing the identity formation is the approach of parents, warmth and support is very important. The identity formation is also influenced by the larger social context and the historical context.

Ethnic and racial identity is the view and attitudes an individual has about the ethnic or racial group they belong to. Ethnicity refers to the relationships and experiences a child has linked to their cultural or ethnic origin, while race refers to the experiences a child has as a result of their membership, which may have been attributed by others in historical racial groups such as 'whites' and 'blacks'. From birth a child has no awareness of these components, but children between five and eight years are aware that they belong to a certain, unchanging ethnicity or race. People from minority groups face a difficult choice during adolescence: whether they choose the norms and values ​​of the ethnic group they originally belong to, or they choose the norms and values ​​of the dominant culture in which they currently live. Ultimately, these young people can also become bi-cultural: comfortable identification including the majority culture but also represent their own ethnic culture.

Ethnic and racial identities are linked to self-worth. Despite the fact that African American people often experience discrimination and stereotyping, they show higher levels of self-esteem. This may be due to it being an important part of their self-concept. Often acceptance of family, neighbors and friends is more important than reactions from strangers and society in general. Thus, Latinos, despite possible poverty and prejudices, do not differ a lot in self-esteem from for example Europeans. This is partly due to the fact that parents allow the children to find their identity in the family and the larger ethnic group.

How does sexual identity develop?

The individual identity also contains the sexual identity: the sense of being a sexual being. The sexual identity contains the sexual orientation: the individual’s attraction for the opposite gender, same gender, both or neither. Most likely, young people begin to have feelings of sexual attraction in puberty. Current theorists believe whether these feelings focus on the same sex or the other sex is partly inherited and based on biological factors.

Most adolescents are heterosexual, they are attracted to people of the opposite sex. The so-called sexual minority youth are the adolescents who are attracted to people of the same sex or to both sexes. Despite the growing acceptance towards lesbians, gays and bisexuals, they often experience discrimination. They often feel different. It may take a long time before they recognize that they are lesbian, gay or bisexual. The process begins with the so-called first recognition, a first realization that one is in somewhat different from others. Then there is a period in which they test and explore, then they accept the fact that they are attracted to the same sex, and eventually they integrate it into their identity and come out to the environment.

When they come out, they often tell a good friend first, then to the mother and eventually to the father. Parents usually respond supportive to the 'coming out', but it is not unusual that threats and physical violence is involved. Often bullying by peers and others in the community occurs, explaining the higher level of truancy in these young people. Therefore, the young people are more susceptible to, among other things, depression, low self-esteem and a reduced sense of control over their romantic relationships. There is also a greater chance of suicide, which has led to the rise of the It Gets Better Project, showing that connecting with other sexual minorities helps young people.

What is the influence of family on development? - Chapter 12

Which family structures are there?

The adult family members who have the greatest effects on the development of a child are the members with whom they live together. These members are in regular contact, they support financially and raise the children. The term family structure refers to the number of and relationships between the people living in a household.

What kind of family structure changes have occurred in the US?

More and more children are living with one parent or with unmarried parents. In 2014, 46% of children lived with parents in their first marriage, compared to 73% in 1960. This is accompanied by a growth in the number of children living with a single parent. The family structure has major implications for the income. Almost half of the children living with a single parent live below the poverty line, compared to 14% of the children with two married parents. In addition, single parents often have less time for their child.

Also, the age at which women have their first child has increased. There are fewer teenage pregnancies. Getting children at a later age has clear advantages. Parents generally have more financial resources and are less like to divorce within ten years. They are also often more positive in their upbringing.

More and more children live with their grandparents. This has negative effects, because there is a long gap since the grandparents raised their own children. Families are also getting smaller, due to the fact that women more often show work ambitions and because of an improvement in birth control. Family structures are also more and more fluid, partly because of divorce.

The number of teenage mothers has decreased in the recent years. Getting a child as an adolescent is associated with negative outcomes for both the mother and the child. It has consequences on the possibilities for the mother in terms of education, career and relationships with peers. They often have weak skills in terms of parenting. Children more often show disorganized attachment and problems such as weak impulse control and delays in cognitive development, and also a higher chance of delinquent behavior and early sexual activity. Young mothers who have knowledge about the development of a child and upbringing raise children with fewer problems. The presence of the father can be beneficial for both the child and the mother.

What are the influences of parents with the same sex?

The number of gay and lesbian parents has increased significantly in recent years. Children with parents of the same gender do not differ from children with parents of different genders in terms of adaptation, personality, relationships with peers and academic performance. As in families with heterosexual parents, adaptation of children with lesbian or gay parents depends on family dynamics, the parent-child relationship, the bond between the parents, support from the parents, regulated discipline and the degree of stress that parents experience in the parenting.

What is the influence of divorce?

Divorces cause all kinds of changes in the life of a child. For example, the parents experience stress and increase of financial problems could be possible. Additionally, it could be possible that they move to a different environment, which brings a transition to a new house, a new school, a new environment and new friends. While, in the meantime they also have to get used to the new family structure. This can have a direct effect on mental health. It can also have an indirect effect through less positive upbringing and fine family interactions. A divorce can also be positive, for example when there was a high level of conflict between the parents before. Although a divorce itself can also lead to conflicts.

Children of divorced parents run a greater risk to develop problems in the long and short term, such as depression, grief, lower self-esteem and less social responsibility and competence. Adolescents with divorced parents are more inclined to delinquency, alcohol and drug abuse, stopping school and having extramarital children. They are also more at risk of having a divorce themselves. Although the risks exist and a divorce is very painful, the children of divorced parents do not suffer significantly more than children whose parents are still together. The level of stress and parental conflict, the age of the child, the degree of contact with the unwarranted parent and the contribution of long-term characteristics are predictors of the extend of children's suffering from the divorce.

What is the influence of stepparents?

The introduction of a stepparent in the life of a child can influence him or her in different ways. Remarrying can lead to less contact with the other parent. This can be stressful for a child and can lead to difficulties in adapting to the stepparent. Stepfathers often want their new family to flourish, but it happens often that they feel less attached to their stepchildren than fathers in intact families. Generally, a child over time will be just as close or even closer to the stepfather than to the real father. If the child also has a positive relationship with the real father, this predicts positive outcomes in adolescence. However, conflicts are more common in the stepfamily than in intact families. In general, stepmothers have more difficulty with stepchildren than stepfathers. For children in stepfamilies it is the best when the relationships between the non-living parent and the stepparent is supportive and the biological parents have a cordial relationship.

What does family dynamics mean?

How well the family meets the basic child-rearing functions, such as ensuring the suvival of the child, largely depends on family dynamics. This is the way in which family members interact with each other through different relationships. The family is a complex social unit, there is interdependence and mutual influence.

What forms of parenting are there?

Socialization is the process by which children learn values, norms, skills, knowledge and behaviors that are seen as appropriate to their current and future role in their culture. Two aspects of upbringing are especially important for the development of a child: discipline and the overall upbringing style.

Discipline is a set of strategies and behaviors parents use to teach their children how to behave appropriately. Discipline is effective if the child stops engaging in unwanted misbehavior and ideally wants to show desired behavior. Discipline is most effective when it leads to permanent changes in the behavior of a child, because the child has learned and accepted the desired behavior. This process is called internalization. If parents emphasize that, for example, hitting can hurt someone else, a child will understand why it is better not to show particular behavior, this is called other-oriented induction. Discipline techniques that place too much or too little psychological pressure on the child are not effective in promoting internalization. Punishment is a negative stimulus that follows behavior to reduce the likelihood of behavior in the future.

The parenting style is the constellation of behaviors and attitudes in parenting that determine the emotional climate of parent-child interactions. There are two dimensions of the parenting style that are especially important: (1) the degree of parental warmth, support and acceptance and (2) the degree of parental control and demandingness.

Baumrind identified four parenting styles:

• authoritative parenting: the parents are very demanding, show a lot of support and set clear standards and limits. They allow their children a lot of autonomy within these limits and are attentive and responsive.

• authoritarian parenting: the parents are cold, not responsive and demanding. They are very focused on control and do not tolerate contradiction.

• permissive parenting: the parents are very focused on responsiveness and little on demandingness. The children do not have to behave appropriately or mature.

• uninvolved parenting: the parents are not very demanding and not very responsive. The needs of the parents are first, and no limits are set. The parents do not offer support and no control of behavior.

The percentage of parents who beat their children has decreased. Research shows the following conclusions about spanking children: (1) spanking does not improve behavior, (2) it increases the risk of all kinds of negative outcomes, (3) spanking is linked to negative outcomes that are the same in different cultural groups.

What are the differences between fathers and mothers?

In general, mothers spend more time with their children than fathers. Mothers more often provide physical care and emotional support than fathers. But, the fathers are playing relatively more with their children. There are some cultural differences. In some countries, such as Sweden and India, fathers hardly play with their children. The extent to which fathers and mothers are involved in the upbringing and nature of interactions with children vary as a function of cultural practices and factors such as the amount of time parents are away from home.

What are the influences children have on parenting?

Children influence the parenting they receive with their behavior and personality. How children behave with their parents depends on many factors. The most prominent are the genetic factors related to temperament. Some children are more reactive to the quality of parenting they receive than others. The bidirectionality of the parent-child interaction is the idea that parents and their children are mutually influenced by each other's characteristics and behavior.

How do brothers and sisters influence each other?

Brothers/ sisters are each other's playmates and source of support, instruction, safety, help and care. But they can also be each other's rivals, a source of irritation and mutual conflict. If the parents prefer one of the children more, the sibling relationship will suffer a lot. Also, the child who is less preferred experiences stress, depression and other problems with, for example, adjusting, especially if the child has a bad relationship with the parents. Brothers and sisters can interact better if the relationship between the parents is good. The quality of the relationships between brothers and sisters therefore depends on how the parents interact with each other and the children and how others are treated in the family. Differences between families, emphasize that families are complex, dynamic social systems, with all members contributing to each other's functioning.

What is the effect of the socio-economic context?

What is the influence of the cultural context?

The views of parents about how the optimal development of a child looks and their decisions about how they behave towards their child and how to discipline their child, have a strong foundation in their culture. For example, a study shows that mothers reported high levels of positive discipline in all studied countries. Positive discipline and warm upbringing are preferred in different cultures. Differences were found between cultures in the use of certain discipline techniques and how often these are used. For example, mothers from Italy yell or scold more and mothers from Kenya more often use physical punishment. However, mothers are the same in teaching their children about good and bad behavior. Also, mothers show that they make the least use of not giving love. It seems that certain techniques are more effective in one culture than in the other culture.

What is the influence of the economic context?

Parents with a high income spend about 2.5 times more money on a child per year than parents with a low income. These parents can buy things of better quality and have money for, for example, music lessons. Low-income parents often spend less time and invest less in their children, because they have multiple jobs or have to work at night to meet the needs. Children from poor families have lower school performance and more mental health problems, behavioral problems and health problems. Often, poorer families also live in poorer quality environments. However, if high-performing parents exert a lot of pressure on their children, this can also have negative psychological effects.

Homelessness displays an increased risk of various things for children. Examples are a lack of adequate food and medical care. They also relocate more often, which leads to more absence at school, if they go to school at all. Also, more often they do show internal problems, such as depression and low self-esteem. Children who have a close relationship with their parents are better adapted. Particularly, homeless children who live alone are a risk group. Interventions require a multi-pronged approach, because there are often many different problems.

What is the influence of the work of the parents?

The work environment of parents can give a sense of success and can provide a social network, both of which improve mental health and thus the quality of parenting. However, work can also cause stress. In the recent years, mothers often do work. Research about working mothers does not show consistent negative effects on the development of a child. However, research shows the negative effects of mothers who work night shifts. Children would show problems such as aggressive behavior and depressive symptoms. These mothers spend less time with their children.

Because nowadays many mothers work, they cannot stay at home to take care of the children. This has led to a need for a family leave policy. In the US, however, this is not paid, which means that this can only be used if families can afford reduced income. The mother can recover from the pregnancy in such a period and take care of the child.

What is the impact of childcare?

Because many mothers work, many children are regularly sent to childcare. Research about the consequences of childcare show different results. A number of studies show that children in childcare do not differ in problem behavior with children being raised at home. However, the NICHD study shows that many hours a day in childcare or constantly changing caregivers in the first two years of life, predicts lower social competence and not listening to adults. However, this does not apply to children from very poor families when the quality of childcare is good. The risk of problems is greater when the children are in large groups and the quality of childcare is low.

High-quality childcare stimulating the language development of children, leads to a better cognitive development and language development in the first three years of life.

There are minimum standards for childcare ensuring that the childcare is safe and encourages the development of a child. For example, maximum group sizes were determined for different age groups and child-caregiver ratios. In addition, formal training of the caregivers is important.

What influences do peers have on each other? - Chapter 13

Peers are people of about the same age and status who are not relatives.

Why and how do friendships arise?

Relationships with peers contribute to the development of a child. Piaget stated that children are more open and spontaneous in expressing certain ideas and beliefs towards peers than towards their parents or other adults. Vygotsky stated that children learn new skills and develop their cognitive abilities through relationships with peers. A friend is a person with whom an individual has an intimate, mutual, positive relationship.

How do children choose friends?

Children usually become friends with peers who are pleasant to deal with and who behave pro-socially towards others. Another determining factor is equality of interests and behavior. For young children, proximity is an important factor, this becomes less important with age. Most adolescents report that school is the most common setting in which they spend time with their close friends. Another important factor is gender, girls are mostly friends with girls and boys with boys. In addition, there is also a tendency for children to be friends with others from their own racial or ethnic group, although this influences on a lesser extent.

Cultural differences influence how children approach their peers to form relationships. In addition, cultural differences influence the roles of peers and families as sources of support and companionship. In some cultures, children rely much more on family than on peers for support. Cultures also differ in the number of hours that children spend with their peers. Finally, differences were found in how children from different cultures interact with their peers. There are also similarities in cultures, like the fact that aggression is more acceptable for boys than for girls.

What do early friendships look like?

Really young children already show preferences for certain children. If children are 3-4 years old, they can form and keep friendships. While the amount of cooperation and positive interactions between young friends is greater than between non-friends, the amount of conflict is also greater. This is probably due to the fact that they spend more time together.

How does friendship change over time?

As children grow older their friendships change in terms of intimacy. Children between 6 and 8 years, mostly define their friends in terms of who they play the most. From this age until adolescence, things like sociability, equality, acceptance and trust become more important. In adolescence, individuals focus more on a few close friends. These changes are probably a consequence of the ever-increasing ability to take the perspective of others and of changes in reasoning about friendship.

What is the role of technology?

Social technologies, such as social media, increasingly play a role in interactions between children and their peers. Researchers have identified a number of ways in which electronic communication facilitates the formation and retention of friendships:

• Greater anonymity can help, especially for shy children, to interact with others online.
• Less emphasis on physical appearance ensures that children connect more based on shared interests and personality rather than on appearance.
• More control over interactions gives the feeling of being in charge of social life.
• Finding similar peers is easier via the internet.
• 24/7 access ensures that children can connect with their friends throughout the day.
• It's fun to connect by sharing photos and videos online.

The rich-get-richer hypothesis states that young people who already have good social skills mainly benefit from the internet when it comes to developing friendships. The social-compensation hypothesis, on the other hand, states that especially lonely, depressed and socially anxious youths benefit from social media because they can think beforehand about what to say. Unfortunately, there are also disadvantages, such as cyberbullying.

Unfortunately, cyberbullying is becoming more common. The most common form is spreading gossip online. Especially girls and LGBTQ youths are the most victims of cyberbullying. Bullies seem to benefit socially from their behavior, they are more popular. There are successful interventions to combat cyberbullying.

What effect does friendship have on psychological functioning and behavior?

Friendship provides emotional support and the validation of one's own thoughts, feelings and value. It also provides the opportunity for the development of important social and cognitive skills. Friendship can serve as a buffer for unpleasant experiences. Around the age of 16, adolescents indicate that friends are more important counselors than their parents.

Friends who discuss emotions with each other and positively interact with each other, develop an understanding of other people's mental and emotional state. Openness stimulates cognitive skills and improves creative performance. Close, mutual friendships in primary school are linked to all kinds of positive psychological and behavioral outcomes.

Friends can also have negative effects on each other. Children in elementary school and early adolescence with antisocial and aggressive friends, also show this behavior more often. It is only difficult to determine whether children choose friends who are similar to them or children start to become like their friends over time. Young people who are anti-social express aggression and deviant behavior through their talking and behavior and by making the behavior seem acceptable. This is a process called deviancy training.

Adolescents abusing alcohol or drugs often have friends who do so too. Again, it is unclear how the relationship works. In addition, these young people attract each other because of the same genetic composition giving them the same temperamental characteristics, such as risk-seeking behavior. An uninvolved or authoritarian parenting style results in an extra risk because young people are more vulnerable to peer pressure.

Girls often need more attachment and dependence in their friendships than boys. Also, they get back sooner to their friends for advice or help than boys. For this reason, girls report getting more upset when friends betray them, for example. This can lead to more vulnerable and shorter friendships. Girls more often co-ruminate than boys, which can reinforce anxiety or depression.

Which types of interactions are there?

What do social networks look like in childhood and early adolescence?

Most children are part of a clique. This is a peer group, children form voluntarily and be a part of. Often a clique consists of children of the same race and gender. A clique consists of three to ten members. Even if members of a clique do many things together, they often do not see each other as best friends. This makes a clique unstable. The functions of a clique are mainly to socialize with each other, share common interests and to belong to a group.

What do social networks look like in late adolescence?

At a later age, the idea to belong somewhere and adapt to the standards of the clique becomes less important. Adolescents are more interested in individual friendships than in group relationships.

Although children no longer belong to a clique, they form or belong to a crowd. These are groups of adolescents who have the same stereotypical reputations, such as the popular people, the loners, or the freaks. In secondary school, the groups eventually consist of men and women, and not just of the same gender as before.

What are the negative influences of social networks?

A gang is a loosely organized group consisting of adolescents or young adults who identify themselves as a group and often engage in illegal activities. A gang often encourages problem behavior, such as delinquency and drug use, sometimes it is even an obligation. The potential for susceptibility to peer pressure is influenced by family and cultural circumstances. An authoritative parenting style can serve as protection.

What is the impact of bullying and victimization?

There are four forms of bullying:

• Physical bullying: hurt someone physically or threaten to hurt.
• Verbal bullying: insulting, teasing, harassing or intimidating someone.
• Social bullying: excluding someone from conversations or activities, spreading gossip or not wanting to become friends.
• Cyberbullying: the use of technology to hurt or harass someone, by for example messages, e-mails, websites, videos, photos and fake profiles.

Bullies are often insensitive and antisocial, prone to peer pressure and higher in social status. Often, they have insensitive, rough parents. Victims are often rejected by peers, depressed, perform poorly in school and sometimes are aggressive. A small percentage is both a bully and a victim of it. These children are often aggressive and anxious. There are children who protect victims, this helps reduce bullying and protects the victim.

Romantic relationships between peers develop in early and middle adolescence. Young adolescents are drawn to characteristics that bring status, such as someone who is appreciated by peers. Older adolescents are drawn to characteristics such as kindness, honesty and intelligence. A romantic relationship is important for the feeling of belonging somewhere and for status. In late adolescence it can provide a sense of self-worth. Early dating and early sexual activity are associated with problem behavior. Another negative effect is sadness when the relationship ends. The relationship with the parents is reflected in the romantic relationships.

What kind of status could a child have in the group?

The sociometric status is a measurement that shows the extent to which children are liked or disliked by their peers as a group.

Which characteristics are associated with sociometric status?

The sociometric status is influenced by the physical appearance, social behavior, personality, cognitions about yourself and others and goals. The most common sociometric system classifies children in one of the following five groups:

• Popular children. Children who are rated as accepted and impactful by peers. These children have a high status, they are often pro social but could also be above average aggressive and therefore not necessarily the most likeable. Relational aggression can consist of excluding others, destroying relationships between others, spreading gossip, not wanting to become friends and ignoring others.

• Rejected children. Children or adolescents who disliked by many peers. Or children liked by few peers. There are aggressive-rejected children and withdrawn-rejected children. Aggressive-rejected children are inclined to physically aggressive behavior, disruptive behavior, delinquency and negative behaviors such as hostility and threatening. Withdrawn- rejected children are socially withdrawn, suspicious and timid.

• Ignored children. Children or adolescents who are disliked or liked by few peers because they simply do not notice them.

• Average children. Children or adolescents who are regarded as average likeable by peers.

• Controversial children. Children or adolescents who are liked by many peers but also are disliked by many peers.

Interventions have been developed to improve the interactions of a child with other children by helping them understand their own emotions and those of others and to help them regulate their own behavior. In the PATHS (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) program, children learn to identify emotional expressions and to think about the causes and consequences of different ways of emotion expression. In addition, it gives children opportunities to develop conscious strategies for self-control. In several studies, PATHS has proved to be effective. The improvements in social competence are expected to result in a better social status.

Which cultural differences and similarities are there?

In countries ranging from Canada, Italy and the Netherlands to Indonesia and China, rejected children are often aggressive and disruptive and in most countries popular children are described as pro-social and as having leadership skills. In China, shy, sensitive, prudent children are seen by their teachers as socially competent and as leaders and they are liked by their peers, while this is not the case for Western children with the same qualities. Chinese culture is committed to self-efficacy and withdrawn behavior, Chinese children are also encouraged to behave accordingly. Western cultures place much more emphasis on independence and assertiveness. In China, it is becoming increasingly important to be assertive.

What is the role of the parents?

Parents can play different active roles in their children's competencies of dealing with peers. Two notable roles are monitoring their children's social life and coaching them in terms of social skills. For example, young children whose parents have given opportunities to interact with peers are often more positive and social with peers. In addition, it is more easily for them to initiate social contact. Children also benefit from emotional coaching of their parents.

What is the relationship between attachment and competence with peers?

The relationship with the parents influences the social competence of the child and the quality of relationships with others. An insecure attachment often predicts a weak competence for social relationships. A secure attachment, on the other hand, predicts a strong competence for social relationships.

What is the relationship between parent-child interactions and relationships with peers?

Socially competent, popular children often have mothers who are, among other, warm and discuss feelings with their children. This stimulates the self-regulation of the child. However, strict education with low levels of monitoring is often associated with non-popular children who are victims. These effects are probably bi-directional and both environmental factors and biological factors play a role. Parents can also serve as a buffer if relationships with peers are difficult for the child.

How does moral development work? - Chapter 14

How does moral judgment develop?

The morality of a certain action is not always obvious. The reasoning behind certain behavior is crucial for determining whether that behavior is moral or immoral.

What is the idea behind Piaget's theory?

Piaget's theory on moral judgment refers to the fact that interaction with peers has a higher contribution to the moral reasoning of children than the interaction with adults. According to Piaget, there are two phases children go through in the development of moral reasoning, with a transitional period between these two phases:

Heteronomous morality: it takes place when a child is younger than seven years of age. The child is taught what is right and wrong on the basis of the consequences instead of motives or intentions. In this period, children think that rules are unchanging. Parental control is one-sided and compelling, so children have indisputable respect for the rules of adults. In addition, cognitive immaturity leads to the believe that rules are 'real' things, rather than a product of the human mind.

Transitional period: occurs when a child is between seven and ten years old. The child takes a more active role in reasoning about what is right or wrong. Interactions with peers are helpful for this transition.

Autonomous morality: this phase begins when the child is between eleven and twelve years old. The child no longer is blind adopting the rules. The child will consider motives and intentions when assessing behavior.

This vision has received support from empirical research. However, there has also been criticism. For example, there is little evidence that interactions with peers stimulate moral development. Here, the quality of interactions seems to be important. In addition, Piaget underestimated the ability of children to be aware of intentionality. Very young children can already distinguish between an adult who tries to help (but fails) and an adult who does not want to help.

What does Kohlberg's theory say?

Kohlberg's theory of moral judgment states that the development of moral reasoning takes place in a specific series of stages which are discontinuous and hierarchical. Each level is divided into two stage of moral judgment. Only very few people reach the sixth phase of post-conventional moral reasoning. People differ in how many phases they ultimately finish or achieve successfully. Here is the complete model:

Level 1: Preconventional Level

This phase is self-centered. The focus is on getting rewards and avoiding punishment.

• Phase 1: Punishment and obedience orientation. Obeying authorities and avoiding punishment. The child is not aware of the interests of others.

• Phase 2: Instrumental and exchange orientation. Do what is best for themselves or equal exchange between people, through tit-for-tat exchanges.

Level 2: Conventional Level

This phase focuses on social relations, where the focus is on compliance with social rights and laws.

• Phase 3: Mutual interpersonal expectations, relationships and interpersonal conformity. 'Being good' is important, such as having good motivations and Caring for others.

• Phase 4: Social system and conscience. Doing a good job, keep the social system going and contributing to society.

Level 3: Post-conventional or Principled Level

This phase is focused on ideals; the focus is on moral principles.

• Phase 5: Social contracts or individual rights orientation. Best interest for the group, while you also recognize some values and rights such as life, liberty and basic human rights.

• Phase 6: Universal ethical principles. Dedication to self-chosen ethical principles. If laws violate these principles, the individual acts in accordance with these principles instead of in accordance with the law.

Kohlberg's work is important because it shows that the moral reasoning of children changes relatively systematically as they develop. However, there is also criticism of the theory. Kohlberg, for example, would not have made a good difference between moral issues and issues of social conventions. In addition, there are cultural differences: this theory is based on Western norms and values. Another criticism concerns Kohlberg's argument of change to be discontinuous. Research shows that in different situations everyone uses different levels of morality. Finally, there are gender differences: men and women morally reason in different ways. This theory is mainly based on men and less on women. Men value rights and justice, while women take more account of other people and their values. However, despite the fact that the phases may not be as invariant in order as Kohlberg claims, they do describe the changes in the moral reasoning of children in many Western societies.

What does prosocial-moral judgment mean?

Kohlberg presented children with dilemmas. They had to choose between two actions that were wrong. This is called prosocial-moral dilemmas. Prosocial behavior is voluntary behavior that benefits someone else, such as helping someone, sharing something with someone else or comforting others. Children who are not yet attending school show self-reasoning in prosocial-moral dilemmas. From 2-4 years they begin to realize that certain behavior is wrong, even if authorities do not see the behavior. At the primary school, children are increasingly concerned about social approval. In late childhood and adolescence, judgments are increasingly based on explicitly taking a perspective and on morally relevant emotions that should be the consequences of certain behaviors. With age, moral justification becomes increasingly abstract and based on internalizing values ​​and norms.

How does consciousness develop?

The conscience is an internal control mechanism that increases the ability of an individual to conform to standards of behavior accepted in their culture. The conscience limits antisocial behavior or destructive impulses and promotes compliance with the rules and norms, even if no one sees the behavior. It can also promote prosocial behavior by giving a sense of guilt if, for example, certain internalized values ​​are not met. Because conscience is linked to cultural norms, for a long time the idea existed that morality has been learned. However, new evidence suggests that people have an innate drive to prefer actions that help others over actions that bother others.

When toddlers are two years old, they begin to recognize moral norms and rules and show a sense of guilt when they do something wrong. As they get older, children start to take over more of the moral values ​​of their parents, especially if they share a secure, positive parent-child relationship. Children with different temperaments develop their conscience in different ways. For example, toddlers who are easily feared of unknown people and situations show more guilt than less frightened children. The effects of parenting on the conscience of children also varies with the genes influencing temperament.

What are the different domains of social judgment?

Children make different choices every day of their lives. These choices can relate to different types of judgments:

• Moral judgments: decisions relating on what is right and what is wrong, honesty, and justice.

• Social-conventional judgments: decisions relating to regulations that ensure social coordination and social organization, such as choices about dress codes and way of greeting.

• Personal judgments: decisions relating to actions in which the preference of the individual is central.

The ability to distinguish between these three types of judgments develops around the same age in all kinds of cultures. However, what is seen as a moral, social or personal justification differs between cultures.

What is meant by prosocial behavior?

The degree of prosocial behavior at a young age predicts the degree of involvement with others at a later age. Prosocial behaviors can have different meanings. Altruistic motives describe the reasons to help someone because of empathy or sympathy for others, and later because of the desire to behave consistently with the own consciousness and moral principles.

How does prosocial behavior develop?

Prosocial behavior is based on the ability to show empathy and to feel sympathy. Empathy is an emotional reaction to other people's emotional state/ condition. Sympathy is a feeling of being worried about the other person because of his/ her emotional state/ condition. Although sympathy is often a result of empathizing with an emotion or situation, sympathy distinguishes itself from empathy by the element of care: people who experience sympathy do not only feel the emotions of the other person. To show sympathy and empathy, children must be able to take the perspective of someone else. Children can experience sympathy and empathy approximately in their second year of life. When they are about three years old, children begin to understand social norms, allowing them to act on their feelings of sympathy. Cooperation is a form of pro-social behavior that is driven by sympathy and a child's sense of honesty. In middle childhood and adolescence, the levels of moral reasoning and the ability to take perspective of others increases, leading to a more frequent expression of prosocial behavior.

What is the origin of differences in prosocial behavior?

People would be biologically predisposed to be prosocial. Also, someone helping others is more likely to receive help by others. However, this evolutionary explanation does not explain the individual differences in sympathy, empathy and prosocial behavior. Specific genes have been identified that could be responsible for these differences. In addition, genetic factors can influence sympathy, empathy and prosocial behavior through temperament.

There are three ways in which parents stimulate prosocial behavior to their children:

1. Modeling and communication of values. Predominantly, children imitate the pro-social behavior of adults with whom they have a positive relationship, whereby parents play an important role. Parents not only influence whether children are prosocial, but also to whom they are. An effective way to teach children prosocial behavior is to have discussions that appeal to their ability to sympathize.

2. Organize opportunities for prosocial activities. Parents can do this by, for example, letting children participate in the household or let them do voluntary work. This increases their self-confidence that they are skilled to help others and it teaches them to take the perspective of others.

3. Discipline and parenting style. High levels of prosocial behavior and sympathy are associated with constructive and supportive parenting, including authoritative parenting style. Physical punishment and authoritarian parenting style are associated with low levels of prosocial behavior and a lack of sympathy. Voluntary prosocial behavior is shown more often when parents use discipline with reasoning. The child learns the consequences for others of the behavior and takes perspective.

Through relationships with other children, children learn to put moral principles into practice. Children with the highest levels of moral reasoning were the best in conflict resolution.

The amount of prosocial and antisocial behavior that children show can be influenced by the culture in which they live. Children from traditional societies help, share and give more support to others (mainly family members) than children in the US, for example. Children in these cultures have learned more that they are responsible for others. Children with a lower level of abuse and reprimand often live in cultures where fathers are closely involved with their wives and children. In contrast to the US, countries such as China and Japan have a strong emphasis on teaching children how to share and to teach them responsibility. However, this emphasis seems to be reducing in recent studies.

What is meant by antisocial behavior?

Antisocial behavior is disturbing, hostile or aggressive behavior that violates social norms or rules and that damages others or takes advantage of others.

How does aggression and antisocial behavior develop?

Aggression is behavior that aims to hurt others physically or emotionally. Aggression can already be seen before the age of 12 months, for example trough like pulling others objects away. Physical aggression can be seen around the age of 18 months. An example is hitting, which increases in frequency from the age of 2-3 years. Once children can talk, they also use verbal aggression. At an early age instrumental aggression can often be observed. This is aggression aimed at the desire to reach a concrete goal. Sometimes relational aggression happens also at a young age. Older children often use a form of aggression aimed at damaging someone's peer relations or being motivated by the need to protect themselves. The relational aggression can often be hostile. Children who are most aggressive and begin to show conduct problems in middle childhood, were more aggressive and delinquent in adolescence than children who developed conduct problems at a later age. Children who are aggressive at a young age often have underlying neurological deficits, such as hyperactivity and attention problems.

A popular, effective school intervention to promote knowledge about the socialization of helping and sharing is Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support (PBIS). PBIS and other programs can be divided into three levels:

• Primary prevention aimed at everyone, for example by posters that communicate behavioral rules and the pricing of good behavior.

• Secondary prevention aimed at children at risk, by giving them extra attention and monitoring.

• Tertiary prevention aimed at children who show persistent negative behavior, by setting up a special plan for them.

An oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is a disorder characterized by persistent expressions of angry, challenging and irritating behaviors that are not appropriate of the age. Conduct disorder (CD) is a disorder characterized by serious antisocial and aggressive behavior that can hurt other people or destroy other people's properties or rights. If a child is diagnosed with several different mental disorders, it is said that the disorders are comorbid.

What are the characteristics of aggressive and antisocial behavior?

The characteristics of aggressive and antisocial behavior are temperament and personality, as well as social cognitions. Children who are aggressive or antisocial have a temperament exhibiting many negative emotions, have reduced self-control and do not show sympathy or empathy towards others.

Children who are aggressive or antisocial have social cognitions in which they process social information in a negative way. Aggressive children interpret the world through an aggressive lens or bias. Here we can distinguish between reactive aggression and proactive aggression. Reactive aggression is emotionally driven, antagonistic aggression, provoked by the fact that other people's motives are perceived as hostile. Proactive aggression is a non-emotional form of aggression aimed at fulfilling a need or desire.

What is the origin of aggressive and antisocial behavior?

There are various causes of aggressive and antisocial behavior:

• Biological factors: aggression and antisocial behavior are partly hereditary. Additionally, a difficult temperament also has a negative influence. Neurological deficits that influence attention and regulation capacities can also contribute to aggression.

• Socialization: children who receive rough education or education of low quality are at greater risk. Hard physical discipline can lead to social cognition associated with aggression. Ineffective discipline can lead to unintentional reinforcement of aggression. Failure to monitor the location and behavior of children is associated with more aggressive and antisocial behavior. In addition, children who are more often exposed to conflicts between parents are more anti-social and aggressive.

• Influence of peers: aggressive children often socialize with other aggressive children, which in turn leads to more delinquency. The susceptibility to peer pressure is mainly high in the first and second classes.

• Socio-economic status: children from low-income families are more anti-social and aggressive than more affluent children. One of the main reasons could be the number of stressors, including family stress and violence in the neighborhood.

It is difficult to separate all these factors. It is clear that children are influenced by how the parents treat them. Interventions that focus on this aspect often showed to be effective.

Interventions that adopt a positive youth development approach focus on the development and nurture of strengths and abilities instead of correcting weaknesses and shortages. Competences, confidence, connection, character and caring and compassion are emphasized. Service learning is a strategy for promoting positive youth development integrating school-based instruction and community involvement, in order to promote social responsibility and improve learning.

How does gender develop? - Chapter 15

Sex is the difference between genetic female (XX) and genetic male (XY). Gender is the social assignment or self-categorization as a woman or man (or neither). Gender-typed refers to behavior that is expected for a person's gender. Cross-gender typed refers to behavior that is expected for the different gender than the person has. Gender typing refers to the process of gender socialization.

The theoretical approaches regarding gender development?

Which biological influences are there?

There are different theories that focus on biological influences on gender.

According to the evolutionary psychological theory, gender differences are created by the reproductive benefits and helped humans survive during the course of evolution. Boys often play physical games. This would have reproductive benefits for later, namely in finding friends, hunting and competitions between men. Girls like to maintain social relationships and care for other people. The reproductive benefits for later would be for taking care of a baby.

The biosocial theory focuses more on the physical differences between man and woman, which both have social and behavioral consequences. For example, men are physically stronger and larger, while women have more nurturing capacities, such as breast milk for a baby.

Neuroscience focuses on how hormones, brain structure and brain functions are related to gender differences in development. The hormone androgen is more common in men and exists to a lesser extent in women. The hormone influences physical development and functioning from the prenatal period onward. Hormones can have organizing or activating influences on the nervous system. The organizing influences arise when certain sex hormones influence the brain differentiation and the organization during prenatal development and in puberty. An activating influence describes the fluctuations in the level of the sex hormone influence the simultaneous activation of certain parts of the brain and corresponding behavioral reactions. Men and women show small differences in brain structure. However, this has no effect on the results of cognitive performance.

Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis that can be found in the DSM-5 referring to children who experience suffering, because they cannot identify with the gender assigned to them at birth. Transgenders are individuals who do not identify with their gender at birth, they may prefer to identify with the opposite gender, with both sexes or with no gender. Cisgender refers to individuals who identify with the gender they have been assigned at birth. When women produce too much androgen during the prenatal period, this can lead to congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). This is a condition involving the formation of male or partly masculinized genitalia. Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is a condition during prenatal development in which androgen receptors do not function well in men, which hinders the formation of male external genitals. The child is then born with female external genitals.

Which cognitive influences are there?

Self-socialization is the process during development where the cognition of children lead to the perception of the world and to act in accordance with their expectations and beliefs. Self- socialization regarding gender happens when children seek to behave according to their gender identity.

There are four important cognitive theories about gender development:

1. Cognitive development theory (Kohlberg)

Cognitive development theory (Kohlberg). This theory states that understanding gender includes three phases: gender identity, gender stability and gender constancy. In the first phase, gender identity, children around thirty months old, start to label themselves as a boy or as a girl. Children at this age, not yet see it as something permanent. In the second phase, that of gender stability, children from three to four years begin to realize that their gender is stable. But children of this age do not yet understand that gender is independent of someone's appearance. In the third phase, gender consistency, children around 6 years, realize that their gender remains constant over time and in all situations. At this age they also learn to behave according to their gender.

2. Gender schema theory

Gender schema theory. This theory states that children show gender-typed behavior at a young age. Namely, as soon as they are able to label themselves and others by gender. The understanding of gender development is based on the construction of the gender schema. A gender schema is an organized mental representation (concepts, beliefs, memories) about the gender, including gender stereotypes. More often they do remember events where the gender fits the situation, than where the gender is inconsistent. Liben and Bigler stated that children use two types of filters when processing information. The first is the gender schema filter, a first evaluation of information on the basis of whether it is important information for the own gender. The second is the interest filter, a first evaluation of information based on personal interest.

3. Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner)

Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner). This theory states that gender is the most central social identity in life. Social identity theory focuses on the influence of group membership on self-concepts and interaction with others. An ingroup bias is associated with being a member of a group and is the tendency to evaluate individuals and characteristics of their own group as superior compared to another group. The ingroup bias is related to the ingroup assimilation, a process in which individuals have adapted by meeting the standards of the group and to demonstrate the group's characteristics to the outside. Gender is not the only social identity that shapes people's lives. More attempts are being made to understand how multiple identities affect a person. This is called intersectionality: the interconnection of social identities such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and class, mainly in relation to overlapping experiences of discrimination.

4. Social-cognitive theory (Bandura)

Social-cognitive theory (Bandura). This theory states that learning occurs through tuition, enactive experiences and observation. Tuition refers to direct teaching. Enactive experiences refer to learning through the reactions their own behavior has evoked in the past. Observation is the most common. This is simply learning by observing other people. This is done according to four processes: attention (noticing certain behavior), memory (storing this behavior), production (practicing this behavior) and motivation to repeat this behavior.

What are the cultural influences?

Cultural and social factors influence gender development. The macro-system of the bio-ecological model includes an important characteristic, namely the opportunity structure. These are the economic and social resources offered by the macrosystem and human understanding of the resources. Possibilities for members of a cultural group may vary depending on, for example, gender or income. According to bio-ecological perspectives, socialization focuses on certain microsystems preparing children for adulthood.

Television treats men and women differently, there is strong stereotyping in terms of appearance, personal characteristics, work and the nature of the roles of the characters. Children who watch a lot of television have stronger stereotypical views about men and women and a greater preference for gender-typed activities. Books and computer games also appear to show strong stereotypes.

How does gender development take place?

What are the milestones in infancy and toddlerhood?

Babies and toddlers distinguish between men and women, although they cannot understand what it means to be a man or a woman. Later they begin to develop expectations about the objects and activities typically belonging to men and women. At the age of three, most toddlers can label their own gender and the gender of others.

Which milestones are there in the age of 3-5 years?

Preschoolers learn stereotypicial behavior, characteristics and roles associated with each gender. A typical stereotype they learn: affiliative characteristics are associated with women and assertive characteristics with men. However, they have no awareness of gender constancy. Also, gender segregation happens a lot. This is the tendency to approach peers of the same gender and to avoid peers of the opposite gender. Gender segregation also promotes the development of behavior that belongs to one's own gender.

Which milestones are there in middle childhood?

At primary school, around the age of six, the awareness of gender constancy arises. Children become more flexible in gender stereotyping. When they are 9 or 10 years old, they learn to understand that gender roles are social conventions instead of biological outcomes. They recognize that not all children behave according to their gender. The children also develop a kind of awareness in thinking, they start to recognize gender discrimination and label it as unfair.

The gender roles in social interactions seem to reflect differences in the balance between assertion and affiliation. Assertion is the tendency to take action yourself through competitive, independent or aggressive behavior. Affiliation is the tendency to make connections with other people through emotional openness, empathy and cooperation. Boys are more often distinguished by assertion, while girls distinguish themselves through affiliation. Although, this is not exclusively determined. These two concepts are often combined in one style: collaboration. Collaboration is the mixing of assertion and affiliation, such as taking initiative for a joint activity. This is more common in girls.

Girls are more inclined to behave differently than what is expected of their gender. On the other hand, it is less common for boys to behave differently than their gender.

Which milestones are there in adolescence?

In adolescence, there is a period of increasing gender role intensification or increasing gender flexibility. Gender role intensification is the increased concern to stick to traditional gender roles. Gender role flexibility is the recognition of gender roles as social conventions and the adoption of more flexible attitudes and interests. This is more common in girls than in boys.

Cross-gender interactions become more normal during adolescence and this opens the way to romantic relationships. Adolescence is also a period in which relationships between people of the same sex become closer.

How to compare boys and girls?

If gender groups are compared in terms of behavior, it is often the case the genders differ only slightly from each other and there is a lot of overlap and similarities. In addition, there is a lot of variation within the groups, not all members of the same gender are the same. It is important to consider both the magnitude of the differences between the averages of the groups and the amount of overlap in their distributions. This statistical index is called an effect size. In various studies, contradictory results are found. To create an overall pattern, scientists use a statistical technique called meta-analysis to summarize the average effect size and statistical significance.

What are the differences in terms of physical growth?

An important factor in sexual development is the presence or absence of androgen's. In men, the Y chromosome will regulate the release. Puberty means dramatic physical changes. This period is characterized by the ability to reproduce. In this period, menstruation starts for women (menarche) and men develop the possibility to ejaculate (spermache). All these changes go hand in hand with psychological changes and behavioral changes. This often changes the body image, the perception of and feelings about your own body. More girls than boys have a negative body image. Additionally, physical ripening happens in a stage called adrenarche, this is a period in which sexual attraction begins and in which the adrenal glands mature, creating an important source of sex steroids.

What are the gender differences between cognitive abilities and academic achievement?

IQ scores are generally equal in men and women. Despite this, women get higher marks, finish their school earlier and also obtain their diplomas earlier than men. In addition, women are advanced in learning to talk and develop better in the language than men. The spatial qualities also play a role. Men perform better in some visual-spatial tasks. Boys are also somewhat better at counting than girls.

There are several explanations for these differences:

• Biological influences: research shows that there are sex differences in brain structures that are partly due to the influence of sex-related hormones in the developing brain. Androgen, for example, affects areas of the brain associated with spatial skills.

• Cognitive and motivational influences: children are mostly motivated in areas where they see themselves as competent and they find interesting and important. Gender stereotypes can influence the topics that are important to boys and girls.

• Influences of parenting: mothers have more interaction with daughters than with sons. This can explain why girls learn language a little easier than boys. The expectations of parents can be a stronger predictor of the child's later performance than the early-age performance.

• Influences of teachers: some teachers use gender stereotypes, which can influence the interactions with the students. They can expect better school performances from girls and of boys they do expect that they are better at calculating, which can lead to different assessment and attention.

• Influences of peers: the interest of children can be shaped by the activities and values ​​they associate with their classmates and peers. For example, a study shows that students whose friends were positive about science and mathematics were more likely to show interest in a science-related career.

• Cultural influences: gender differences in mathematics were less in countries with higher percentages of high educated women. Gender differences in overall academic success and verbal performance were less among children from neighborhoods with a higher income, among children of highly educated parents and among children of egalitarian heterosexual parents.

What are the differences in terms of interpersonal goals and communication?

Boys emphasize dominance and power as goals in their social relationships, while girls more often emphasize intimacy and support. Girls normally talk more about personal thoughts and feelings. Girls more frequently use collaborative statements, while boys make more direct statements. This is related to each other: boys who want to show dominance use more direct speech. It can also be seen in the upbringing, mothers more often use affiliate speech and fathers more often controlling speech. Girls more often tend to play domestic scenarios, which are structured around shared and affectionate interchange, while boys more often play competitive games, structured around dominance and power. This pattern is fairly the same in different cultures. However, in Asian cultures affiliation is seen both for boys and girls as important in communication.

A statement can be high or low in terms of affiliation and assertion. This leads to four categories of speech acts:

• collaborative statements: high in both affiliation and assertion, such as a proposal for a joint activity.

• Controlling statements: high in assertion, but low in affiliation, such as orders or negative comments.

• Obliging statements: high in affiliation, but low in assertion, such as an expression of consent.

• Withdrawal: low in both affiliation and assertion, such as not responding to another person.

In a study of children aged 5 and 7 years, collaborative statements appeared to be the most common. In the 7-year-old children, the percentage of collaborative statements was considerably higher for pairs of girls than for boys.

What are the differences in aggressive behavior?

The differences in aggressive behavior between boys and girls are not nearly as big as expected. A distinction is made between direct and indirect aggression. Direct aggression refers to the overt or verbal actions that intend to cause damage. Indirect aggression refers to attempts to hurt someone in the field of social status or group acceptance, through hidden aggression, such as someone's gossip or social exclusion. Men show more direct aggression than women, but women show more indirect aggression than men.

There are various explanations for these differences in aggressive behavior. The first is the biological influence. Men have more of the hormone testosterone. When there is danger or threat, the level of testosterone rises and therefore also the aggressive behavior, this is an indirect effect. On average girls have more empathy and sympathy than boys, which can also be related to the differences in aggression. Parents seem to be more tolerant of aggression in boys than girls. In addition, there is an association between rough parenting and physical aggression in later life, this association is stronger for boys. Boys more often engage in more aggressive sports than girls. Exposure to violent media can stimulate aggression in children who are already vulnerable to aggression. Finally, cultures differ on the level of aggression seen as normal. Exposure to violence has a greater impact on boys than on girls.

Sexual harassment can be both physical (e.g. unwanted contact) and verbal (e.g. unwanted remarks). Many people are affected by it. In a study in the US, two of the most common forms of sexual harassment were unwanted sexual comments or gestures and to be called gay or lesbian. Girls experience more negative effects of sexual harassment than boys.

What conclusions can be drawn from the previous chapters? - Chapter 16

This chapter contains an integrative framework of the seven themes that have emerged throughout the book.

Theme 1: Nature and nurture: all interactions, always

If prenatal development proceeds normally, it seems as if it is simply the development of innate potential in which the environment is not important. However, if things go wrong, it is obvious that nature and nurture interact. Consider, for example, teratogens, harmful substances the child can get in contact to in the womb. The extent to which negative effects occur depends on genes and other environmental factors, such as timing.

A certain nature also evokes a certain nurture. For example, babies that are cute, motivate people in the environment to play and interact with them. Timing is also important, normal development of certain skills is only possible when a child is exposed to relevant experiences during a specific period. If this does not happen, developmental retardation can arise in terms of perception, language, intelligence, emotions and social behavior.

Many genetically influenced characteristics only emerge during later childhood, adolescence or adulthood. Think of the physical changes that occur during puberty, or the development of nearsightedness in later childhood or early adolescence. Schizophrenia also often manifests itself later. In all these characteristics, an interaction between nature and nurture is also important.

All in all, it seems like everything affects each other. Genes, traits and behavioral tendencies interact with the nurture that children receive in different ways. In this way self-image, intellect, actions and other qualities arise.

Theme 2: Children play an active role in their own development

Even before birth, children learn to distinguish between different stimuli and when they are born, they are already able to selectively focus on certain interesting objects. Their actions also elicit reactions from other people, which further shapes their development. This ability to interact with the environment is greatly enhanced during the first year of life. The children learn to follow moving objects with their eyes, and they learn how to crawl which helps to actively explore the environment. As the development continues, children learn to talk and practice when there is no one around to hear it. Later they learn to start conversations which helps to obtain information and in which they can express their feelings. When a bit older, the choices of the child with regard to their friends determine whether they will be inclined to show criminal behavior, to drink or to use drugs.

Already during the first year of life, children develop a feeling of all the possibilities in the physical world. This indicates a desire to understand the world, motivating children to formulate informal theories regarding objects, living things and people. Characteristics of the child determine how they interpret an event and how they respond to it. So, both subjective interpretations and objective reality influence the development.

The regulation of behavior also contributes to the development. In the first months of their lives, children are completely dependent on the caregiver to regulate their emotions. Later they learn ways to deal with it themselves. At first it is physical (for example looking away), but at primary school children learn to use cognitive strategies and discuss their problems with friends. The children's way of decision making has a strong influence on their future life.

Children elicit reactions from the people in their environment. Attractive babies cause more positive reactions and are often more affective and playfull mothered than less attractive babies. Later on, interests and skills begin to influence the interactions. Children who are contrarian and aggressive can cause the parent to avoid confrontations and increasingly give in to the child, creating a negative spiral. Children who are cooperative, friendly and social are often more popular among their peers than children who behave aggressively.

Theme 3: Development is both continuous and discontinuous

It seems that many individual differences in psychological characteristics are reasonably stable over the entire development, but this stability is far from 100%. An example is intelligence. Stability of intelligence increases as the child grows older, but even at a higher age the IQ varies slightly from situation to situation. Personality characteristics also seem fairly stable over time: shy toddlers grow up to shy children, aggressive children to aggressive adolescents, and so on. But regardless of whether the focus is on intellectual, social or emotional development, stability is influenced by the environment.

Many of the most prominent development theories divide the development over different stages (think of Piaget, Freud, etc.). These stage theories have a number of things in common:

• Development proceeds according to a number of qualitatively different stages.

• When children are at a certain stage, a wide range of thoughts and behaviors reflect the characteristics of that stage.

• The stages follow each other in the same order for all children.

• Transitions between stages happen quickly.

However, development is much less organized than these stage theories implicit. There barely happens a sudden change in a wide range of tasks and skills. Often there is a continuous increase in certain skills, but this does not mean that there is no sudden developmental jump in certain specific areas. These sudden jumps could be attributed to certain underlying, continuous processes. Whether a process is seen as continuous or discontinuous depends on where the focus lies. Making statements about when a certain competence arises can therefore be quite arbitrary but mapping the milestones in the development can give an idea of ​​how far a child is.

Theme 4: Mechanisms of developmental changes

According to Piaget, development proceeds through the interaction of assimilation and accommodation. Through assimilation children interpret new experiences in terms of their existing mental structures. By accommodation they review existing mental structures according to new experiences. From this theory we have learned a lot about development mechanisms on biological, behavioral and cognitive levels.

The genotype determines a rough outline of the development, but the details are filled in by the interaction between genotype and environment. The complexity of the changes on the biological level is well represented by the development of the brain. Some 10,000 new brain cells develop per minute during neurogenesis. Many of these cells move to their final location (cell migration). Once there they go through the differentiation process and later in the process, myelination provides an isolating layer around certain axons. Synaptogenesis ensures the formation of synapses. After a period of explosive growth, there is a period of pruning, in which the number of synapses is reduced because little synapses disappear. This makes information processing becoming more efficient. Some brain areas have very specific functions, but for some functions all kinds of brain areas are needed.

Behavioral change mechanisms describe responses to environmental characteristics contributing to development and forming the behavior from the first days of life. An example is habituation: even a fetus can already get used to certain stimuli, but when it is confronted with a new stimulus, we see a reaction (increased heart rate). Habituation motivates babies to seek new stimulation and therefore helps to learn. Classical conditioning also supports learning and generalization ensures that the learned can be applied in other situations. Instrumental conditioning means that behaviors that are rewarded occur more often, while behavior that is punished diminishes. Finally, there is statistical learning, where a child (after only 2 months) learns the likelihood of a particular event following another event. This way the child learns to anticipate the actions of others. Rational learning is related to statistical learning. The previous views are integrated in what actually happens in the environment.

Social learning is learning by observing and interacting with other people. People are much better at this than other species, even when it comes to learning certain skills from other people. Important are imitation, social reference, language and guided participation. Imitation is not just mimicking; when children observe an action failing, they try to find out what the model was trying to do, not what the model actually did. Children also look at the mother's reaction to a situation to determine how they should act in this situation. Another form of social learning is social scaffolding, in which a person with the knowledge of the action gives guidance in the course of the task. As the pupil gets better, he gets more and more responsibility until he can perform the entire task alone.

Four information processing mechanisms are particularly general and omnipresent: basic processes, strategies, metacognition and substantive knowledge. Basic processes include associating certain events with each other, recognizing objects as familiar and retrieving certain facts and procedures. With age, the speed and efficiency of these processes increases. Strategies are used to achieve all kinds of goals, both in the cognitive field and in certain actions and social situations. Metacognition contributes to a greater development, as an increase in the use of memory strategies happens because of an increased realization that large amounts of material cannot be memorized without a strategy. Substantive knowledge means that the more a child knows about a certain subject, the easier it is for that child to include new information on that subject. Children can form connections between new and existing information.

Evolution seems to have provided us with specialized learning mechanisms that enable us to quickly and efficiently learn certain skills that are important for survival. For example, children already know that large moving objects will have a greater impact than smaller moving objects. Informal theories that children have about different types of entities facilitate the learning process. Basic knowledge about certain concepts helps children to act appropriately in new situations.

It is important to remember that all these change mechanisms work together to cause change, even though it is sometimes too easy to examine the different mechanisms separately.

Theme 5: The socio-cultural context forms development

Children develop within a certain context including other people: family, friends, neighbors, teachers and classmates. The context also contains historical, economic, technological and political influences, with social convictions, attitudes and values. What is 'normal' often differs per society and even things that appear to be completely biologically often differ per culture. For example, attachment is influenced by culture: in Japan dependence is welcome, while in the USA independence is preferred. This ensures strongly different attachment styles in children. Some parenting styles that often cause negative outcomes for the child in the US do not have these consequences in other cultures at all. This is probably due to the culturally directed interpretation by the child.

Although over the years the lives of children have improved more and more in the area of health, nutrition, shelter, etc., not all changes have a positive effect on their welfare. Nowadays, children more frequently grow up with divorced parents, resulting in a greater chance of depression, lower self-esteem and worse social skills. More children go to childcare, this does not necessarily have negative or positive effects. Technological changes can have both positive (communication with friends) and negative (cyberbullying) effects.

Among children who grow up in the same time and society, differences in economic circumstances, family ties and groups of friends can lead to big differences between the lives of these children. Children from poor families perform worse at school, show more insecure attachment styles, experiences more loneliness and run a greater risk of drug use, crime and depression. The cumulative effect of all these factors is the greatest threat to development. Friends and family also have a major influence on development: friendships can provide support but can also carry children into reckless and aggressive behavior.

Theme 6: Individual differences

Children differ on wide variety of dimensions. But, how do we know which are the crucial differences for understanding children and predicting their future? For this, the number of related characteristics, stability over time and predictive value are of great importance. If we take IQ as an example, a high IQ often indicates a better score in other areas (width of related characteristics), that the child will later also have a high IQ (stability over time) and that the high IQ now is predicting positive outcomes in the future (predictive value).

For a number of important characteristics - including IQ, prosocial behavior and empathy - about 50% of the differences are explained by differences in genetic makeup. This percentage increases as the development continues. Individual differences reflect the experiences of a child in addition to the genes. An important influence comes from the parents. The more stimulating and supportive the home situation is, the better is the intellectual and social development of the child. The best parenting style depends on the characteristics of the child.

Theme 7: Development research can improve the lives of children

There are a number of points of interest for good parenting:

• Choose a good partner, someone whose physical, intellectual and emotional characteristics suggest that he or she will be a good parent.

• Ensure a healthy pregnancy: pay attention to diet, little stress, and so on.

• Know which decisions are likely to affect the long term: take care, for example, that the baby sleeps on his back to prevent child death.

• Form a secure attachment.

• Provide a stimulating environment, which has a positive effect on learning.

Also, within education there are points important in improving the development of the child:

• Information processing theories state that analyzing information types in everyday activities can improve learning among children.

• Socio-cultural theories emphasize the value of classifying school classes as learning communities, where the teacher gives a minimal amount of guidance. This ensures that the children learn to use their own competences and the resources of the group.

• When children are at risk of developmental problems, it is important to start the right interventions on time. Timing is that important, because learning problems must be addressed before the child loses his self-confidence and resentment towards the teacher and the school.

• Also, of importance is early detection of child abuse. There is a higher risk when parents have little money and friends, use alcohol and illegal drugs and when they are mistreated by their partner. It is important that teachers can recognize the warning signals.

• It is impossible to determine the cause of a particular problem, because all problems have a large number of causes contributing to it. In order to be able to give effective treatment, many various difficulties have to be tackled.

Political decisions also have a major impact on the quality of children's development, particularly with regard to the school system. There is no end to social problems, understanding the development of children can help to focus on the problems affecting the future of children.

How Children Develop - Siegler et al. - 5th edition - ExamTests

Questions

Why and how do we study the development of a child? - Chapter 1

1. Which statement is true?

1. It is not possible to suppose that children tell the truth in court.
2. Specifically, young children are susceptible for suggestive questioning, when questions are repeated again and again.

• A. Only statement 1 is true.
• B. Only statement 2 is true.
• C. Both statements are true.
• D. Both statements are false.

2. Which statement is true? Children can experience negative effects when they...

• A. Have been in an unstable environment longer than 1 month after birth.
• B. Have been in an unstable environment longer than 3 months after birth.
• C. Have been in an unstable environment longer than 6 months after birth.
• D. Have been in an unstable environment longer than 1 year after birth.

3. Which general conclusion can be drawn about continuous/discontinuous development, despite some disagreement over the topic?

• A. Development is mainly a continuous process.
• B. Development is mainly a discontinuous process, as proved in the stage theories.
• C. It depends on how you look at it and how often you look.
• D. Development is sometimes a continuous and sometimes a discontinuous process.

How does prenatal development work? - Chapter 2

1. When does a fertilized egg be called 'fetus'?

• A. Directly after conception.
• B. After three weeks.
• C. After nine weeks.
• D. After three months.

2. What is cell differentiation?

• A. The process that takes place 12 hours after fertilization.
• B. The process whereby cells specialize in structure and function.
• C. The process of movement of newly formed cells away from their original location.
• D. The process whereby redundant cells are destroyed.

3. Which of the following is no consequence of being small for gestational age?

• A. Learning problems.
• B. Social problems.
• C. Increased risk of infections.
• D. Insufficient growth.

What is the relationship between biology and behavior? - Chapter 3

1. Which of the following is true?

1. Adoption studies examine whether siblings who grew up apart, are more different than siblings who were raised together.
2. Adoptive twin studies compare identical twins who grew up together versus identical twins who were raised apart.

• A. Only statement 1 is true.
• B. Only statement 2 is true.
• C. Both statements are true.
• D. Both statements are false.

2. Which statement about heritability is true?

• A. Heritability gives information about certain populations.
• B. Heritability gives information about individuals.
• C. High heritability means that a certain trait is unchangeable.
• D. Heritability gives information about differences between certain groups.

Which cognitive development theories are there? - Chapter 4

1. Which concept of Piaget is defined by the following: The process by which people process incoming information according to concepts they already understand.

• A. Modification
• B. Equilibration
• C. Assimilation
• D. Accommodation

2. Which of the following is the right order of Piaget's stages?

• A. Sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, formal operational stage.
• B. Sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, formal operational stage, concrete operational stage.
• C. Preoperational stage, sensorimotor stage, concrete operational stage, formal operational stage.
• D. Preoperational stage, sensorimotor stage, formal operational stage, concrete operational stage.

3. Which of the following is true?

1. Core-knowledge theorist propose that children are born with general knowledge and that they expand this knowledge gradually. Piaget proposes that children are born with both general knowledge and specialized learning mechanisms to acquire additional information.
2. Core-knowledge theorist see the child as scientist, Piaget sees the child as a well-adapted product of evolution.

• A. Only statement 1 is true.
• B. Only statement 2 is true.
• C. Both statements are true.
• D. Both statements are false.

What is the connection between seeing, thinking and doing? - Chapter 5

1. Which concept is defined in the following? The processing of basic information from the external world by the sensory receptors in the sense organs and brain.

• A. Perception
• B. Observation
• C. Sensation
• D. Information processing

2. Fill in: Infants have high/poor contrast sensitivity, because the cones/rods in their retinas are immature.

• A. High, cones
• B. High, rods
• C. Poor, cones
• D. Poor, rods

3. Which of the following is no reflex of a newborn?

• A. Grasping
• B. Sucking
• C. Swallowing
• D. Splashing

How does the development of language work? - Chapter 6

1. Which concept is defined by the following? The smallest units of meaning in a language, composed of one or more units.

• A. Semantics
• B. Phonemes
• C. Morphemes
• D. Syntax

2. What is the second step in learning language?

• A. The preparation for the production of speech by means of repetitive consonant-vowel sequences.
• B. The perception of speech, by means of rhythm, tempo, cadence, melody, etc.
• C. The first words.
• D. Categorical perception.

How does conceptual development work? - Chapter 7

1. Which of the following does not belong to the three categories that children use to distinguish by categoral hierarchy?

• A. Not-living things
• B. Animals
• C. Humans
• D. Living things

2. Which of the following is true?

1. An important component of false belief problems is the understanding of the relation between desires and actions.
2. Theory of mind is the understanding of how the mind works and how this influences behavior.

• A. Only statement 1 is true.
• B. Only statement 2 is true.
• C. Both statements are true.
• D. Both statements are false.

3. Which of the following concepts is not developed by children to understand the world?

• A. Space
• B. Causality
• C. Numbers
• D. Pace

What are the aspects of intelligence and how does it develop? - Chapter 8

1. Which of the following is true?

1. Crystallized intelligence is the ability to think on the spot to solve novel problems.
2. Fluid intelligence is the factual knowledge about the world.

• A. Only statement 1 is true.
• B. Only statement 2 is true.
• C. Both statements are true.
• D. Both statements are false.

2. Which intelligence test is used for children of 6 years and older?

• A. The Stanford-Binet intelligence test.
• B. Revisie Amsterdamse Kinder-Intelligentie-Test (Rakit).
• C. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC).
• D. Raven's Progressive Matrices.

3. Which of the following is true about IQ?

1. IQ scores are strong predictors of academic, economic and occupational achievements.
2. Correlations between individual alleles of genes and IQ are very small, genetic influences on intelligence reflect small contributions from each of a very large number of genes and interactions among them.

• A. Only statement 1 is true.
• B. Only statement 2 is true.
• C. Both statements are true.
• D. Both statements are false.

Which theories of social development exist? - Chapter 9

1. What is the right order of Freud's developmental stages?

• A. Oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latency period, genital stage.
• B. Anal stage, oral stage, phallic stage, latency period, genital stage.
• C. Oral stage, anal stage, latency period, phallic stage, genital stage.
• D. Oral stage, anal stage, genital stage, latency period, phallic stage.

2. During which developmental stage does the Oedipus complex occur?

• A. Anal stage
• B. Phallic stage
• C. Latency period
• D. Genital stage

3. Who is the founder of behaviorism?

• A. Albert
• B. Erikson
• C. Skinner
• D. Watson

How does emotional development work? - Chapter 10

1. Which theory is based on the idea of Darwin that emotions are innate?

• A. The functionalist perspective
• B. The dynamic systems theory
• C. The basis-affection system theory
• D. The discrete emotions theory

2. Which of the following is true?

1. Poor people experience as much depression as rich people.
2. The percentage of depression decreases when children reach puberty.

• A. Only statement 1 is true.
• B. Only statement 2 is true.
• C. Both statements are true.
• D. Both statements are false.

In what way does attachment and the self develop? Chapter 11

1. What is the third step in the attachment process according to Bowlby?

• A. Reciprocal relationships
• B. Clear-cut attachment
• C. Pre attachment
• D. Attachment-in-the-making

2. Which attachment pattern does not originally belong to the three attachment patterns of Ainsworth?

• A. Secure attachment
• B. Insecure ambivalent attachment
• C. Insecure disorganized attachment
• D. Insecure avoidant attachment

What is the influence of family on development? - Chapter 12

1. Which parenting style is described by the following? Parents are cold, nonresponsive and high in demandingness. They are oriented toward control and expect their children to comply without question or explanation.

• A. Authoritative parenting
• B. Authoritarian parenting
• C. Permissive parenting
• D. Uninvolved parenting

2. The process through which children acquire the values, knowledge, and behaviors that are regarded as appropriate in their culture is known as ...

• A. Parenting style
• B. Socialization
• C. Behaviorism
• D. Discipline

What influences do peers have on each other? - Chapter 13

1. From which of the following we cannot notice that two young children are friends?

• A. They defend each other.
• B. They can verbally tell who their friends are.
• C. They will call for help when their friend is upset.
• D. They prefer to play with their friends than with nonfriends.

2. Which term is described by the following? Peer groups that children voluntarily form or join themselves, usually of the same sex and race.

• A. A clique
• B. A crowd
• C. A gang
• D. A mob

3. Which of the following is not a sociometric status?

• A. Rejected children
• B. Average children
• C. Bullied children
• D. Neglected children

How does moral development work? - Chapter 14

1. According to Piaget, there are two stages of development in children's moral reasoning, with a transitional period between them. During which ages does this transitional period occur?

• A. From 2 – 4 years old
• B. From 4 – 7 years old
• C. From 7 – 10 years old
• D. From 10 – 12 years old

2. Which stage does not belong to Kohlberg's theory of moral judgement?

• A. Preconventional moral reasoning
• B. Conventional moral reasoning
• C. Postconventional moral reasoning
• D. Complete moral reasoning

How does gender develop? - Chapter 15

1. Which term is described? The tendency to affirm connection with others through being emotionally open, empathetic, or supportive.

• A. Assertion
• B. Collaboration
• C. Affiliation
• D. Empathy

2. Which theory that focuses on biological differences regarding gender emphasizes the physical differences between men and women that can have both behavioral and social consequences?

• A. Evolutionary psychology theory
• B. Biosocial theory
• C. Neuroscience theory
• D. Social science theory

3. Which theory on gender development proposes that children enact gender-typed behaviors as soon as they can label other people's and their own gender?

• A. Cognitive developmental theory
• B. Social identity theory
• C. Social cognitive theory
• D. Gender schema theory

What conclusions can be drawn from the previous chapters? - Chapter 16

1. When do genetically influenced characteristics become evident?

• A. Directly after birth.
• B. When children are toddlers.
• C. During preschool.
• D. During middle childhood, adolescence or adulthood.

2. Fill in:

When children encounter an unfamiliar stimulus, they accommodate / assimilate it to more familiar stimuli. At the same time, their understanding accommodates / assimilates to the experience, so that when they next encounter the unfamiliar stimulus will feel less strange.

• A. Accommodate, accommodates
• B. Assimilate, assimilates
• C. Accommodate, assimilates
• D. Assimilate, accommodates

3. Which of the following is true?

1. Children from poorer families are more often secure attached.
2. Depression is more common among poor families.

• A. Only statement 1 is true.
• B. Only statement 2 is true.
• C. Both statements are true.
• D. Both statements are false.

Answers

Why and how do we study the development of a child? - Chapter 1

1. B. Research shows that younger children forget details more often, but what they say is mainly based on the truth.
2. C. Research shows that children who have been in deprivation for less than 6 months after birth, will experience no negative effects later in life. However, if this period is longer than 6 months, they can experience negative effects later in life, despite they might be in a stable environment.
3. C. Stage theories seem to argue for a discontinuous development. Parents see their children grow up a bit every day, they see the continuity of the development of their child, whereas a friend of the family might see huge changes since he last saw the child.

How does prenatal development work? - Chapter 2

1. C. The first two weeks, it is called zygote, from 3 to 8 weeks embryo.
2. B. A is mitosis, C is cell migration and D is apoptosis.
3. D. Children that are small for gestational age are mostly left alone to decrease the risk of infection. This also prevents the emergence of social and learning problems.

What is the relationship between biology and behavior? - Chapter 3

1. B. Adoption studies examine differences in traits between adopted and biological children and examine if the children resemble their biological relatives more than their adoptive ones.
2. A. The other three answers are misconceptions about heritability.

Which cognitive development theories are there? - Chapter 4

1. C. Accommodation is the process by which people adapt current knowledge structures in response to new experiences. Equilibration is the process by which children balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding. Modification is the inclination to react to the environment in such a way to reach personal goals.
2. A.
3. D. Both statements are exactly the opposite. Piaget proposes that children are born with general knowledge and that they expand this knowledge gradually. Core-knowledge theorists propose that children are born with both general knowledge and specialized learning mechanisms to rapidly acquire additional information. Piaget sees the child as scientist, core-knowledge theorists see the child as a well-adapted product of evolution.

What is the connection between seeing, thinking and doing? - Chapter 5

1. C. Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information.
2. C.
3. D.

How does the development of language work? - Chapter 6

1. C. Phonemes are the elementary units of meaningful sound used to produce languages. Syntax are the rules in a language that specify how words from different categories can be combined.
2. A. This is also called babbling. B is the first step, C is the third step, D is the same step as B.

How does conceptual development work? - Chapter 7

1. B. Animals, these belong to the category 'living things'
2. B. False beliefs are situations in which another person believes something to be true that the child knows is false.
3. D.

What are the aspects of intelligence and how does it develop? - Chapter 8

1. D. It is the other way around.
2. C.
3. C.

Which theories of social development exist? - Chapter 9

1. A.
2. B.
3. D. Watson. Little Albert was his test subject. Erikson is the follower of Freud, Freud invented the psychoanalytic theory. Skinner invented the theory of operant conditioning.

How does emotional development work? - Chapter 10

1. D.
2. D.

In what way does attachment and the self develop? - Chapter 11

1. B. The correct order is: pre attachment, attachment-in-the-making, clear-cut attachment, reciprocal relationships.
2. C. This attachment pattern was added, because a small percentage of children did not fit well into any of the three categories.

What is the influence of family on development? - Chapter 12

1. B.
2. B.

What influences do peers have on each other? - Chapter 13

1. B. Young children cannot verbally tell who their friends are.
2. A. Crowds are groups of people who have similar stereotyped reputations, like the jocks, freaks or geeks. A gang is a loosely organized group of adolescents or young adults who identify as a group and often engage in illegal activities.
3. C. Other possible sociometric statuses are popular children and controversial children.

How does moral development work? - Chapter 14

1. C.
2. D.

How does gender develop? - Chapter 15

1. C.
2. B.
3. D.

What conclusions can be drawn from the previous chapters? Chapter 16

1. D. The interaction between nature and nurture is important here.
2. D.
3. B. Children from poorer families often are insecurely attached.