Summary of Life-Span Human Development by Sigelman and Rider - 9th edition

It seems children in other parts of the world are more responsible and self-sufficient than children in the US, probably because of how the US children are "pampered" and guided by their parents. What will this do for their future? 

How to think about development? 

Development means the systematic changes/continuities in a human over their life span. Systematic means they are orderly, patterned and relatively enduring.

There are three domains of interest and they affect each other:

• Physical development (body, organs, physiological systems, signs of aging etc)
• Cognitive development (language, learning, memory etc)
• Psychosocial development (emotions, personality, interpersonal skills, relationships etc)

Growth typically stands for physical changes from conception to maturity. 

The deterioration of organisms that leads to their death is called biological aging. But aging is more than biological aging, it's a range of changes in the 3 upper domains in the mature organism.

The gain-stability-loss model states you gain capacity in your younger years, are stable in your adulthood, and you lose in your elderly years. However: modern thinkers argue any age involves gain and losses (e.g. as a child you gain cognitive abilities, but lose self-esteem). 

Thus: development involves gains, losses, neutral changes, & continuities in each phase of life, and aging is part of it.

Overview of periods in the life span: (remember: age is a rough indicator of developmental status. Also, age means different things in different societies)

1. Prenatal period = conception to birth
2. Infancy = first 2 years of life (first month = neonatal/newborn period)
3. Preschool = 2-5 (toddlers = 1-3)
4. Middle childhood = 6-10 or onset of puberty
5. Adolescence = 10-18 (from puberty to relative independence)
6. Emerging adulthood = 18-25/29 
7. Early adulthood = 25-40 
8. Middle adulthood = 40-65
9. Late adulthood = 65+ 

Emerging adulthood is quite new phenomenon of a transitional period between adolescence and adulthood, from around 18-25 or even 29. In these years people get educated/save money to prepare their adult lives. Arnett says emerging adults: 

• explore their identities
• lead unstable lives (job changes, new relationships)
• self-focused
• feel "in between"
• believe in limitless possibilities 

Furstenberg says there are 5 traditional markers of adulthood: 

• completing education
• financially independent
• leaving home
• marrying
• having children

(Sub)Culture consists of shared understandings and way of life of people. It influences our development and how different age grades (socially defined age groups in a society) are treated.

The Rite of passage is a ritual that marks a person's passage from one age grade to another (e.g. body painting, instruction in sex, celebrations..) which is now less common.

Age norms basically stand for how to act your age, and they form the basis for the social clock: a person's idea of when things should be done (like having kids). Age norms are weakening lately. Socioeconomic status matters as well (e.g. poverty can be damaging to development). 

Historical changes also had their influence on the view of the life span:

• Childhood as age of innocence. The modern concept of kids as innocents to be nurtured and protected only started around 17th century, before that they were viewed more like adults & expected to be economically useful asap. 
• Adolescence. This is a quite new dinstinct life phase (since late 19th century), this had to do with the start of higher education.
• Emerging adulthood (as noted before). 
• Middle age as an emptying of the nest. This emerged in the 20th century: parents got fewer children and lived to see their children grow up and leave home.
• Old age as retirement. Before the 20th century, the elderly worked until they dropped. Now luckily retirement has come. 

In the future the aging experience will be different as well, e.g. because of the "graying" of the world (more elderly people in relation to younger ones). We must view development in its historical, cultural and subcultural context.

The nature-nurture issue: 

• Nature- believers think some aspectes of development are inborn and others occur through maturation (the biological unfolding of the person as sketched out in the genes). The maturational processes guide all of us through the same development, but individual hereditary endowment makes every person different. Nature in order: heredity, maturation, genes, innate/biological predispositions.
• Nurture- believers believe in the external conditions to cause change. Learning (thus, experience bringing the changes) is emphasized. Nurture in order: environment, learning, experience, cultural influences. 

However: it is the interplay between nature and nurture that causes developmental changes.

What does the science say?

Goals of the science of development are: describing, predicting, explaining and optimizing.

The first scientific investigations of development were baby biographies in the late 19th century, for instance by Charles Darwin. His evolutionary perspective influenced the early theories, emphasizing biological changes. But baby biographies were difficult to compare, not really objective and not generalizable. 

The founder of developmental psychology was influenced by Darwin. His name was G. Stanley Hall, and he attempted to get more objective data through a questionnaire. He characterized adolescence as a period of storm and stress and found aging is more than only decline. 

Gerontology is the process of studying aging/old age. 

First, development was mostly viewed as: happening in the infancy, childhood & adolescence, proceeding through universal stages and leading towards mature adult functioning. But in the 1960s/70s a life span perspective on human development emerged. Paul Baltes wrote 7 key assumptions: 

1. Development is a lifelong process. (and should always be looked at in the context of a whole life).
2. Development is multidirectional. Different capacities show different ways of change over time.
3. Development involves both gain and loss. And gain and loss occur jointly. 
4. Development is characterized by lifelong plasticity. This is the capacity to change in response to experience, rooted in neuroplasticity (it is the brain's ability to do this). 
5. Development is shaped by its historical-cultural context. (e.g. the Great Depression had a lot of influence on the development of children in that time, and as of now the social media etc changes development). 
6. Development is multiply influenced. It is the product of interacting nature and nurture. 
7. Development must be studied by multiple disciplines. (because so many things are influential).

How is development studied?

Through the scientific method: finding a theory, then generating hypotheses, which are tested through observation of behavior, and thus finding out if the theory is worth keeping or needs to be revised. A good theory should be internally consistent, falsifiable (thus testable), and supported by data. 

The best approach is to look at a random sample of the population of interest, because this makes it more representative. Overgeneralizing needs to be avoided! 

There are 3 major methods of data collection for developmental researchers (and the combination of multiple methods is most reliable):

• Verbal reports. Thus interviews, questionnaires, tests etc. Shortcomings include that self-report measures typically can't be used by infants or other individuals who cannot read or understand speech. Second, people of different ages may not understand questions in the same way, thus age differences can give a flawed outcome. Lastly, respondents might give socially desirable answers.
• Behavioral observations. Naturalistic observation has to do with observing people in their everyday environment. This is often used with children as they do not have the verbal skills yet. The shortcomings are that some behaviors happen too infrequently/unexpectedly to study this way, the causes are difficult to conclude because many things can happen at once, and an observer can cause the studied individual to behave differently (this may be fixed by videotaping instead or giving the individual time to get used to the observer). Structured observation gives the researcher more control over the conditions and makes it easier to capture rare events, since now the situations or stimuli are created. This way all participants can face the same situation and thus it is easier to compare the results. However, it is unsure if the participants behave naturally and if the created setting causes the same behavior as the real world would. 
• Physiological measurements. For instance, electrodes to measure brain activity, or the measuring of heart rate. An example is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which is a brain-scanning technique, using magnetic forces to study the increase in blood flow to an area of the brain, which happens when that area gets active. This is an useful way of studying with infants since they can not speak (though they have to be very still), and it's also hard to manipulate by the participants. However, it is not always clear what's happening: arousal can come from anger, but maybe from other emotions as well. 

There are different methods to look at the relationships between the variables studied:

• Case study. This is an in-depth study of an individual/small group of individuals, often done by using different methods like interviewing, observation and testing. It is a helpful method to study a rare case, but it is hard to generalize findings this way, so further study is often needed. 
• Experimental method. The researcher then manipulates something to see how this affects the participants. An experiment shows whether the different forms of the independent variable (the manipulated variable, so the effects can be seen, often the hypothesized cause) have different effects on the dependent variable (the behavior expected to be affected, the hypothesized effect). An experiment has 3 critical features: - Random assignment of the participants to a condition (when this does not happen, it is called a quasi experiment because the results can be caused by differences in the groups), - Manipulation of the independent variable, - Experimental control. This means all factors other than the independent variable are controlled so they have no influence on the results. Thus for instance the same room is used, the same researcher, etc. The experimental method can show cause and effect nicely, however they have shortcomings. Firstly, experiments are often conducted in laboratory settings or other unusual situations, so it is not like the real world. Secondly ethics are often interfering, so many experiments can not be conducted. 
• Correlational method. This involves determining whether 2 or more variables are related systematically. It's not about random assignment and manipulating, but taking people as they are and determining relationships. Statistical control can be used to get rid of the possible uncontrolled differences. In correlational research the strength of a relationship is often determined using a correlation coefficient (r), which can range from -1 to 1. Thus, a +0.90 would indicate a strong relationship between the 2, but whether its a cause-effect relationship is harder to establish than with an experiment, which is a limitation. Watch out for the directionality problem, which means the cause-effect relationship could be reversed. And watch out for the third variable problem: the relation may be caused by some third variable the researcher did not control for. Correlation is not causation! 

Again, these methods are more reliable when combined: e.g. experiments demonstrate a cause-effect, and correlational research shows the same relationship seems to be there in real life. And you need more studies on the same subject to be reliable. The results of multiple studies with the same research question can be viewed with the method of meta-analysis. 

When it comes to studying development, there are 2 types of research designs:

• Cross-sectional design: in this quick and easy design the performances of people of different age groups (or cohorts, which means a group born at approx. the same time, e.g. in the same year or in a number of years, like a generation) are compared. It provides info about age differences. If these studies feature big age differences between people, age effects (= relationships between age and an aspect of development) and cohort effects (= effects of being born as a member of a particular cohort/generation) are entangled, so a study can show how people of different ages differ but not how people normally change as they get older since the people belong to different cohorts. You have to be careful whether its an age effect or a cohort effect. A second limitation is that each person is observed at one point, so it is not found how individuals change over time.
• Longitudinal design: in this design one cohort of the same individuals is studied repeatedly over time. Thus it can provide info about age changes, instead of age differences, and show how people change as they grow older and if earlier experiences predict later behavior. In this design you have to be careful with time-of-measurement effects (the effects of historical events/trends occuring as the data is collected) getting entangled with age effects. Longitudinal studies are also costly and time-consuming, a lot of participants may drop out and the methods can seem outdated at the end of the study. 

A new design is found to overcome the limitations of the upper designs: namely the sequential design. This combines both approaches in one study, thus using different cohorts and then testing them repeatedly. A sequential design can tell researchers: 1. which age-related trends are truly developmental and show how most people (regardless of cohort) will change over time (so the true age effects), 2. which age trends differ in different cohorts and suggest that each generation is affected by its growing-up experiences (so the cohort effects), and 3. which trends suggest that events that happened affect the alive cohorts (so the time-of-measurement effects). These designs unfortunately are expensive and complex. 

What special challenges do developmental scientists face?

Joseph Henrich says psychology is the study of WEIRD people (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) since most research focuses on those. It is a challenge to carry out research in a variety of cultures and keeping the procedures meaningful for each culture. Also ethnocentrism (belief that one's own culture is superior) or other bias can get in the way. 

Also challenging is to keep living up to the research ethics, the standards that researchers have to honor to protect their participants from harm. The benefits have to be weighed against the risks. Concepts of consent, privacy and harm also differ in cultures which makes it extra challenging. Important ethical responsibilities are: the use of informed consent, debriefing afterwards, protecting from harm and treating information confidentially. 

What does evolution have to do with heredity?

As people we have similarities in the way we develop (we all have two eyes, we all get wrinkles when we get old etc.) These are a product of species heredity which is the genetic endowment that all members of a certain species have (thus one reason why certain development patterns are universal). 

Darwin's theory of evolution was meant to explain how characteristics of species change and how new species are formed. It has 3 main arguments:

1. There is genetic variation in a species: some members have different genes than others. 
2. Some genes aid good adaption more than others: genes that contribute to strength make adaptation better than genes that contribute to weakness. 
3. Genes that do aid, will be passed on to the offsping more often: thus the principle of natural selection that makes sure the "best" specie members survive. 

Evolution is about the interaction between genes and environment. The environment influences which genetic aspects are useful for the species. Cultural evolution is the process of inheriting a human environment and the ways of adapting to it, inventing better ways and then passing those on again (e.g. smoke signals turning into text messages). 

Evolutionary psychology is when the theory of evolution is used to understand why humans think/behave as they do. 

How does individual heredity work?

A zygote is a fertilized egg and it is given 23 chromosomes by each the sperm and the ovum, so 46 in total, organized in 23 pairs. Chromosomes are bodies in the nucleus of each cell and contain genes, a.k.a. the units of heredity. 

Sperm and ova have only 23 chromosomes since they are produced through meiosis, a process of cell division: a reproductive cell containing the usual 46 chromosomes splits to form two 46-chromosome cells and then these two split again into four cells, where each cell gets only 23 chromosomes, and results in either one egg or four sperm which have just one member of each of the parent's 23 pairs of chromosomes. Ova are formed prenatally and later ripen one by one during menstruational cycles and sperm production begins in puberty and continues. 

After a sperm penetrates an ovum, the sperm cell disintegrates and releases its genetic material. The nucleus of the ovum releases genetic material too and then a single-celled zygote is created from this combination. This is conception. The zygote becomes multiple-celled through mitosis: a process of cell division in which a cell divides to produce two identical cells, both containing the same 46 chromosomes. Then they become four, then eight, and so on. All human cells contain copies of those 46 chromosomes: except the sperm and ova. Mitosis continues over a life span, creating new cells that support growth or replace damaged cells. 

Both members of one chromosome pair (1 is from the mother, 1 from the father) influence the same characteristics. A chromosome consists of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). DNA is made up of different sequences of 4 chemicals: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. Some sequences form genes and there are 20000-25000 genes. Each one (there can be 2 or more different versions) provides instructions for the production of certain proteins (which build all tissues and substances like hormones, neurotransmitters and enzymes).

In the important Human Genome Project the sequence of the chemical letters that make up the DNA were mapped, in a complete set of human chromosomes. It was found only 3 % of the human genome consists of genes (DNA that transcribed into ribonucleic acid (RNA) and then helps produce certain proteins). The other DNA helps regulate the activity of genes and thus, along with environment, regulates when genes turn on and off in cells. 

A quirk of meiosis is crossing over, which captures how when chromosome pairs line up before separation, they can cross and partly exchange. This quirk combined with the fact that a single parent can produce 2^23 genetically different ova/sperm, makes sure it's almost impossible that there would be a human genetically like you. The exception is identical twins (or monozygotic twins) because then one fertilized ovum divides to form two or more genetically identical individuals. Fraternal (or dizygotic) twins come about when two ova are released at approx. the same time and they are both fertilized by sperms. Fraternal twins are as genetically alike as normal siblings. 

Of the 23 chromosome pairs, 22 are similar for males and females (autosomal chromosomes). The 23d pair contains the sex chromosomes (male XY, females XX). So, the father with his different Y chromosome determines the gender of the child. 

In sum: an individual has a genome in each of its cells, with 20000-25000 protein-coding genes & lots of regulatory DNA, on 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs. 

Genotype (the genetic makeup of a person) does not equal phenotype (characteristics of a person). For instance: a child with a genotype that supports exceptional height may not really grow tall when he's malnourished. So environment plays a role as well. And genes influence and are influenced by their biochemical environment: a cell can become part of an eyeball or a kneecap, depending on what cells surround it and what they do. All of a person's cells have the same genes on the same chromosomes, so it's not about the genes that are there; it's about which of those genes are expressed. Gene expression stands for the activation of certain genes in certain cells at certain times, and only "turned on" genes are influential. And this activation can be caused by genetics (regulatory DNA) and by the environment. 

There are three major mechanisms of inheritance:

• single gene-pair inheritance. Thus, a characteristic is influenced by just one pair of genes (one from the mother, one from the father). There is a dominant gene and a recessive one and the dominant is expressed. However the dominant can also dominate incompletely so the two traits "blend" (red and white flowers can give pink), or codomination can exist (red and white flowers can give flowers with red and white streaks). 
• sex-linked inheritance. Then a trait is influenced by genes on the sex chromosomes, instead of the autosomal chromosomes. This could also be named X-linked since the Y chromosome is shorter and contains fewer genes. For instance: males experience color blindness more often than females since colour blindness is a recessive gene on the X chromosome, so girls have a big chance that the other X chromosome has a dominant one to take charge but boys do not get another "colour blindness" chromosome. 
• polygenic inheritance. Thus, a characteristic is influenced by multiple pairs of genes that interact with multiple environmental factors. Examples are weight, intelligence and personality. When a trait is influenced by many genes, many degrees of the trait are possible; it depends on how many of the associated genes an individual inherits. 

Sometimes a new gene appears out of the blue and neither parent has it. This is a mutation: a change in structure/arrangement of a gene. The chances of mutation are increased by environmental hazards like radiation or toxic waste, but most mutations are just spontaneous faults in cell division. New research shows that fathers contribute to new mutations more than mothers and that as they grow older the odds of mutations increase since more errors are made during sperm production. 

Another discovery by the Human Genome Project is the importance of copy number variations (CNV's): another type of inherited or spontaneous errors in which part of the genome is deleted or duplicated. CNV's are more extensive than mutation: they can influence multiple genes and they can cause a person to have only one gene (deletion) or three or four genes (duplication). CNV's can increase risks of some polygenic disorders like autism and ADHD. 

Also, chromosome abnormalities can occur (too many or too few chromosomes) through errors in meiosis. This is the main cause of pregnancy loss. Down syndrome (also called trisomy 21, because it goes with three instead of two 21st chromosomes) is one form. Chance is partly responsible for this, but chances of having a child with Down increase as the parent's ages increase and/or the parent is damaged by environmental hazards as well. Examples of sex chromosome abnormalities are: - Turner syndrome: a female is born with just one X chromosome. Results in small, underdeveloped girls with usually lower-than-average spational and mathematical skills. - Klinefelter syndrome: a male gets one or more extra X chromosomes. Usually comes with long limbs/faces, more feminine characteristics and sometimes language learning disabilities. - XXY syndrome: male gets an extra Y chromosome. Results in tall, strong males with often learning disabilities. 

Examples of genetic diseases:

• Sickle-cell disease. This is a blood disease in which red blood cells take on a sickle instead of round shape, become entangled and then distribute less oxygen causing breathing problems and pain. It's common among African people since it probably started as a mutation, which protected from malaria and so was passed on. Affected people face loads of treatment. Genetic mechanism: recessive gene pair.
• Huntington's disease. This disease typically strikes in middle age and disrupts the expression of genes in the nervous system, creating issues like motor problems, personality changes and loss of cognitive skills. An awful, incurable disease caused by a dominant gene, CNV also involved. 
• Phenylketonuria (PKU). A metabolic disorder resulting in brain damage and intellectual disability, since a critical enzyme needed to metabolize phenylalanine (component of many foods) is lacked and therefore it can turn into a harmful acid attacking the nervous system. Now infants are screened for it and affected children immediately get a diet. Genetic mechanism: recessive gene pair. 
• Cystic fibrosis. A disease common among Caucasions in which a glandular problem results in mucus buildup in lungs, complicating breathing and shortening life. Genetic mechanism: recessive gene pair.
• Fragile X syndrome. A disease with a literally fragile looking X chromosome, causes intellectual disability. Genetic mechanism: dominant gene on X chromosome. A CNV in an important gene for brain development is involved. 
• Hemophilia. A disease more common in males featuring a deficiency in the blood's ability to clot. Genetic mechanism: gene on X chromosome. 
• Tay-Sachs disease. A metabolic defect results in accumulation of fat in the brain, degeneration of the nervous system and often death in childhood. Genetic mechanism: a recessive gene pair. 

What are techniques of prenatally detecting abnormalities?

• Ultrasound: easiest and most common technique, using sound waves to scan the womb and create a visual image of the fetus. 
• Amniocentesis: for detecting chromosome abnormalities and checking the presence of certain genes. Procedure: sample of amniotic fluid is taken from the abdomen and analyzed. Relatively safe from the 15th week of pregnancy.
• Chorionic villus sampling: features conserting a cathether through the vagina and cervix and then taking tiny hair cells from the chorion (the membrane surrounding the fetus) to analyze. Rest is equal to the amniocentesis, however slightly less safe and possible from the 10th week. 
• Maternal blood sampling: testing the mother's blood for chemicals that can indicate fetus abnormalities, sometimes obtaining embryonic DNA that went loose. Noninvasive, safe and usable early in pregnancy, but is usually followed up with something else to create certainty. 
• Preimplantation genetic diagnosis: costly procedure for parents who know they have high risk. Using IVF only fertilized eggs without the tested issues are placed. 

However many disorders are polygenic, so it's sometimes hard to be certain. And what if the technique shows a "damaged" baby..is it ethical to abort all those babies?

What are genetic and environmental influences?

Behavioral genetics comprises the study of how genetic and environmental differences create physical and psychological trait differences. It now is possible to estimate the heritability of traits (thus the proportion of variability in the trait in different people that can be linked to genetic differences). Experimental breeding research in animals has shown genes contribute to e.g. learning ability, aggressiveness and sex drive. For humans the research is mostly about determining whether the genetic similarity is associated with the degree of physical/psychological similarity, for instance in twin studies (identical vs fraternal twins, raised apart vs raised together). There are some limitations to twin studies: the prenatal environment could be involved and identical twins being treated more similarly than fraternal ones could interfere, A second method is adoption study to compare genetics and environment. Useful but limitations as well: again, the prenatal environment is involved as well, there is a tendency to place children in similar homes as they were adopted from, and adoptive homes are generally above-average environments. Nowadays complex family studies are being used, including all different kinds of siblings to compare and contrast, and longitudinal twin studies are assessed. 

After such a study statistics are used to estimate the degree of heredity or environmental influences. Concordance rates are calculated (percentage of pairs of people studied in which both members display the same trait, e.g. smoking) and if they are higher for more genetically related pairs, heredity is at work. For a trait that can vary in degree correlation coefficients are calculated. Concluding, three factors that contribute to individual differences can be looked at: heritability, shared environmental influences, and nonshared environmental influences. Important: when genetically identical twins reared together do not have a correlation coefficient of a perfect 1, nonshared experiences made them unique.

Molecular genetics is the analysis of specific genes and their effects. To find which genes contribute, people's entire genomes need to be analyzed to figure out which genes distinguish individuals with or without the specified trait. 

What are some behavioral genetics findings?

• Intelligence is quite a heritable trait. From infancy to adulthood, individual differences in intelligence more strongly reflect genetic makeup and nonshared environmental influences, whereas the influences of shared environmental influences wane. SES also has influence on the estimates of heritability and environmental influences for intelligence. Thus herability of a trait can differ depending on age, SES, culture..
• Living together generally does not make children more alike in temperament and personality, nonshared influences is more important than shared. Genetics also matter.
• Children can inherit predispositions to develop disorders, but experiences will interact with their genetics to determine how it turns out.
• Genes contribute to almost all traits, however some are more heritable than others. Physical and physiological characteristics are typically strongly heritable, intelligence is moderately heritable. Temperament/personality less heritable, in psychological disorders it varies from disorder to disorder. Genetics even modestly contribute to differences in attitudes and interests. 

How does the interplay between genes and the environment work?

How do heredity and environment work together to make us us? There are three important forms of gene-environment interplay:

• Gene-environment interactions: the effects of our genes depend on the environment we experience, and how we react to that environment depends on what genes we have. And it often takes a combination of high-risk genes and a high-risk environment/bad experiences to trigger psychological issues. The diathesis-stress model proclaims that psychological problems comes from an interaction of a person's vulnerability to problems, and the experience of stressful events. But some of the genes that are "risk genes" also seem to make people benefit more than others from nurturing environments. This is the differential susceptibility hypothesis: some people are more reactive to environment than others, based on their genetics. 
• Gene-environment correlations: how are genes and environment experiences interrelated? While "interactions" tell us genetics cause people to react differently to experiences, "correlations" show people with different genes have different experiences. This can happen in three ways: passive, evocative and active. Passive has to do with, for instance, parents providing their offspring with genes as well as a certain environment that's compatible with those genes: so the environments are correlated with the genotypes (e.g. social parents create a social environment, both have influence). In evocative correlations, a child's genotype evokes certain environmental reactions: a social baby gets more social attention in return. And active correlations is about genotypes influencing which environments are looked for: a genetic social kid will seek parties. In sum: in environmental influences, heredity still plays some part! Reciprocal influences are at work, meaning for example: negative parenting can contribute to antisocial children, but genetical predispositions to antisocial behavior in children also bring out the worst in parents. Genetically informed studies try to see whether genetics explain apparent environmental effects, to understand true environmental effects (e.g. comparing adoptive children and biological children, comparing identical twins). 
• Epigenetic effects on gene expression: epigenesis stands for the process through which nature and nurture co-act on development. And epigenetic effects are ways in which environment influences the expression of certain genes, found by analyzing RNA. So there is an epigenome for each genome, with epigenetic markings that alters gene expression. Example of an epigenetic effect: with rats, a nurturing mother causes genes that regulate stress response to be turned on, and a neglecting mother causes those genes to be turned off, so those rat pups can't handle stress as good (this is social transmission). And overweight fathers can pass on epigenetic marks through their sperm to create a bigger obesity chance in their kids: thus, traits acquired during life can also be passed on (this is epigenetic inheritance)! 

Gene therapy stands for altering someone's genetic makeup, brings ethical discussion and usually most issues are too complex (polygenic, epigenetic effects) to solve with gene therapy. Another thing to keep in mind: should we even be trying to separate genetic and environmental influences, when interplay makes them inseperable? 

What are the building blocks of growth and health? 

As said before, genetics and environmental factors interact to create development. Growth for instance depends partly on genetics, but a genetic predisposition to be tall cannot be realized if the environment is not nurturing enough - through malnutrition for instance, maybe through diseases like celiac disease (allergy for gluten). Treatment/bettering the environment can result in catch-up growth, thus getting back on the genetic path of growth.

Looking at the workings of systems in the body can help understanding growth:

• The endocrine (hormonal) system.  This system consists of endocrine glands that put hormones into the blood. Examples of those glands are the ovaries/testes, the hypothalamus, pancreas and adrenal glands. The pituitary gland in the brain, controlled by the hypothalamus, is critical since it triggers the release of hormones from all other glands. It also produces growth hormone. The thyroid gland is also important for physical growth and development and the development of the nervous system. Thyroid problems can lead to intellectual problems and slow growth. The endocrine glands in the sex organs are important as well. The testes give out testosterone and androgens, which stimulate growth hormone and development of sex organs and sexual motivation. The ovaries produce estrogen and progesterone, also for growth hormone, development of breasts and other female sex characteristics and menstruation. Adrenal glands give out hormones that contribute to maturation of the bones and muscles and also create sexual attraction/orientation. The endocrine system stays important through life, for example through the adrenal glands helping the body cope with stress.
• The brain and nervous system. The nervous system contains the brain, the spinal cord (central nervous system) and the neural tissue that extends into all parts of the body (periphal nervous system). They feature neurons. Neurons have dendrites that receive signals from other neurons, and the axon of a neuron transmits signals to other neurons or to a muscle cell. Neurons can make connections called synapses. Releasing neurotransmitters, neurons can stimulate or inhibit actions of other neurons. Myelination is the process of neurons becoming encased in myelin, which speeds up transmission. Myelineation causes developmental changes, like a vocabulary spurt when there is rapid myelination in the areas of the brain involved in language development.

There are three principles of growth:

• cephalocaudal principle, which states that growth occurs in a head-to-tail direction (a prenatal's head is very big compared to its body, during life a human "grows" in proportion, first the trunk and then the legs). 
• proximodistal principle, which states that muscles are developed from the center outward to the extremities (e.g. chest and organs form before hands and fingers). 
• orthogenetic principle, which states that development starts globally and undifferentiated, and moves toward differentiation and hierarchial integration (e.g. one cell becomes billions of highly specialized cells that become organized and integrated into systems). 

The life span developmental model can be applied to health, since it is a lifelong process influenced by lifelong choices, it is influenced by both genetics and environmental influences, it's multidimensional (changes in one area of the self influence other areas of the self), both gains and losses occur, and there's a sociohistorical context around all of this. 

What to learn about the infant developing in a healthy and good way?

Most brain development in infancy and childhood is about neurons making connections with each other. There is a process of synaptogenesis (growth of synapses between neurons) and synaptic pruning (removal of unnecessary synapses). The brain development is influenced both by genetics as the environment. The brain has plasticity, it responds to experiences and can develop because of them. It is also very vulnerable to damage, but can sometimes bounce back from damage by adapting (neurons taking over damaged neurons). Brain plasticity is greatest in early development, but cognitive catch-up growth is still possible when the environment improves. However the "sensitive period" for brain development is during late prenatal period and early infancy. 

A full-term newborn already has a set of reflexes (unlearned, involuntary responses to stimuli) which can be divided into two categories. Survival reflexes are for instance the breathing reflex, eye-blink reflex, pupillary reflex (pupils changing as a response to degree of light), sucking reflex (so the child can take in nutrients) and swallowing reflex. Primitive reflexes are not clearly useful then and are for instance the Babinski reflex (fanning, then curling toes when bottom of foot is stroked), grasping reflex (putting fingers around for instance mother's finger when it touches their palm), swimming reflex (moving arms and legs in water, holding breath) and stepping reflex (stepping when they are held upright and their feet touch a surface). All these reflexes let us know that the nervous system is working, and some disappear after a while and get replaced with more developed ones. 

Settling into a good sleep-wake pattern is another way to see if the nervous system is developing well and is integrating a myriad of external signals with internal states. The sleep-wake cycle gets stable around 6 months. Newborns spend half their sleeping hours in REM sleep (active sleep), and this decreases as they get older. This probably has to do with the role of REM sleep in brain maturation. 

Infant health has improved hugely since administering vaccinations. In all cases, if possible, infants should be taken to the doctor for a control visit regularly. 

What to learn about the child developing in a healthy and good way?

Growth in childhood can be characterized as slow and steady. During middle childhood (6-11 years) it seems like there's little growth, probably since the gains are small in proportion to the child's size. The brain is still developing as well. An important feature is lateralization (or assymetry and specialization of functions) of the two hemispheres of the cerebral cortex. The functions do not develop identically but diverge. The left cerebral hemisphere controls the right side of the body and is adept at the sequential processing needed for analytic reasoning, logic and language processing. The right hemisphere typically controls the left side of the body and is skilled in simultaneously processing the information needed to understand spatial information and visual-motor information. It also processes emotional content and creativity. The hemispheres communicate through the corpus callosum and they work together in all tasks. If one hemisphere is damaged the other one can take over the lost functions. The signs of brain lateralization are already visible at birth, thus it seems genetic.

Children learn to adjust to a changing environment (like catching a ball), whereas toddlers can only control their movements in a stationary world, and they refine motor skills. 

Accidents are the leading cause of death throughout childhood years. Non-fatal injuries can have a lasting influence. Also children's nutrition and eating habits should be looked at to keep them healthy, since children long for unhealthy stuff. A stressful environment can also cause "comfort eating". For instance the mother is stressed because of work, this can make children eat more (an example of Bronfenbrenner's exosystem: events in the mother's life still influence the child). Children also need enough physical activity, a challenge with the amount of "screen time" that is now usual. The environment can stimulate this physical activity, but children can also be predisposed to be "couch potatoes". 

What to learn about the adolescent developing in a healthy and good way?

The grey matter in the brain (primarly cell bodies and dendrites) increases, peaks and then decreases through the teen years. This might be because sypnatogenesis increases just before puberty, and then synapse pruning follows for a period. The white matter (clusters of axons) increases in a linear way, with myelination of axons steadily progressing. 

Adolescence is known for puberty (biological change resulting in sexual maturity and becoming capable of producing a child) and for the typical adolescent's risky behavior. This last phenomenon could come from the fact that the part of the brain involved in self-control has not yet matured. Furthermore, the reward system of the brain (e.g. in the nucleus accumbens) is very responsive in adolescence, which could lead to more reward-seeking behaviors. The frontal lobes are not fully developed yet as well, and these are essential for planning and decision making, so this could cause adolescents to not fully think through the consequences of actions. Not all teens are similar in levels of risk-taking though, depending for instance on the relationship between teen and parent. Adolescence is also known for the adolescent growth spurt which is triggered by an increase in circulating growth hormones. 

The sexual maturation process contains adrenarche, which is the increased circulation of adrenal androgens that contributes partly to sex characteristics like pubic hair. The more obvious signs emerge with increased levels of gonadal hormones (androgens produced by the testes/progesterone by the ovaries). These are primarily responsible for developing sex characteristics, and even sex feelings. The first menstruation cycle is called menarche. For boys the sexual maturation process begins with enlargement of the testes and scrotum. The first ejucatulation of a boy is called semenarche. Physical and sexual maturation are processes initated by the genes and executed by hormones, but environment also plays its part: for instance, illustrated by the secular trend (a historical trend in industrialized societies toward earlier maturation). This trend is probably explained through better nutrition, better medical care, higher obesity levels and exposure to chemicals that can alter hormone production. The role of environment is also seen in the fact that family situations can affect the timing of puberty for girls, probably since it can cause stress. 

All those adolescent changes and maturation processes can cause self-consciousness and insecurities in teens. It also influences teen-parent relationships, with more distance growing between them and conflicts arising more often.This also depends on culture. When the transition is complete, adolescents get closer to their parents gain. Parents can help adolescents through puberty by maintaining closeness and helping them accept themselves. Once again, biological changes interact with psychological characteristics and the environment to influence the experience of adolescence. 

Early-developing boys generally have a positive experience, late-developing boys find more difficulties. In contrast, early-developing girls face more difficulties and late-maturing girls seem to benefit academically. It seems pre-existing childhood differences in mental health-related factors influence whether an individual is early-maturing,  so earlier behavior problems are related to early puberty. Early-maturing girls have the greatest likelihood of experiencing long-term issues. But beliefs and attitudes play a part in how all of this is experienced, just like peer and family-member reactions.

Today's teens are unhealthier than ever, due to the "sedentary society" and eating/drinking unhealthy. The obesity rate is increasing, especially among certain ethnic minority groups, and the diabetes rate is rising too. Obesity can also influence brain function through metabolic syndrome (MeTS), a combination of risk factors associated with obesity and including high blood pressure and unhealthy cholesterol levels, since research showed adolescents with MeTS to function less good cognitively. Also, adolescents typically suffer from sleep problems, for instance through melatonin (sleep hormone) rising later at night for adolescents. However a consistent sleep-wake cycle and enough sleep time is essential for optimal cognitive skills and physical health, so it should be everyone's mission to have a good sleeping schedule.

What to learn about the adult developing in a healthy and good way?

Brain development is never really complete, since it responds to experience and is capable of neurogenesis which is the process of generating new neurons, for instance after physical or mental exercise. Even culture can alter the brain: different cultural experiences are associated with different patterns of brain activity. But though the adult brain can make new neurons, it does so at a much lower rate than a young brain.

So what happens when you age? Normal aging is associated with gradual, mild degeneration within the nervous system. This means losing neurons, other neurons functioning less well, and potentially harmful changes in the tissues surrounding neurons. Brain volume decreases over the adult years and neuron loss is greater in the areas of the brain that concern sensory and motor activities than in the association areas (linked to thought) or the brain stem and lower brain (linked to basic life functions like breathing). As an adult ages the levels of neurotransmitters decline as well, and so-called "senile plaques" are formed (hard areas in the tissue surrounding neurons, that may interfere with neuronal functioning). Also, reduced blood flow to the brain may starve neurons of the oyxgen and nutrients they need. An implication of this degeneration of the brain is that older people generally process information slower. However! Middle age comes with greater integration of the left and right hemispheres. This can increase creativity and cognitive functioning. And physical and mental exercise still means a lot for the brain. In some people the degeneration may win, but others can improve with their age through brain plasticity. There is also the scaffolding theory of aging and compensation (STAC) which says the brain may adapt to losses by compensating in other brain areas. 

Through adult life, menstrual cycles keep going. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PDD) is a severe form of "normal" PMS with severe complaints. There is much variability in how women experience their menstruation and how they experience the end of menstrual cycles, namely the menopause, in which levels of estrogen and other female hormones decline. This process is gradual, taking 5-10 years and can feature symptoms like hot flashes (sudden warmth) and vaginal irritation. Earlier, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) was viewed a cure for menopause symptoms. However it was found that HRT increased chances of breast cancer and heart attacks, so for many women the risks outweigh the benefits. Menopause does not seem to affect women's level of psychological problems. The presence of symptoms of menopause depends on having a history of menstrual problems, attitude and culture.

Men seem to experience andropause (called age-associated hypogonadism as well) which is linked to slowly decreasing testosterone and symptoms like low libido, lack of energy, erection problems and memory problems. An andropause is more gradual, more variable and less complete than a menopause.

Again, in adulthood, obesity is an increasing problem. As we all know with older age more health problems arise, like diseases or other chronic impairments. An example is osteoporosis, a disease in which loss of minerals leaves the bones very fragile. An elder person that has fallen and broken something will probably be more anxious and careful, but this can make them more vulnerable since muscle and bone then decrease further. Preventing osteoporisis can happen through dietary habits (having more calcium), weight-bearing exercises like walking, and HRT. Another thing that comes with aging is the gradual decline in the efficiency of most bodily systems so almost every physical function gets more troubling. And there's a decline in the reserve capacity of many organ systems (thus, their ability to respond to demands for extra output, like in emergencies). Through looking at things like the strength of a handgrip or walking speed in aging adults, their wellness as elderly can be predicted. Wellness of eldery varies much, depending on their fitness and activeness. Regular exercise by older adults can delay the onset of physical problems by up to 7 years. Centenarians are people who live to be 100 or older.

To answer why we age and die, two main categories of theories have emerged:

• Programmed theories of aging suggest that aging follows a predictable, genetic and species-specific timetable with a maximum life span. A promising theory of this kind discovered that cells from human embryos could only divide a certain number of times, namely 50, plus or minus 10 (this is the Hayflick limit), and cells from adults even less. And the maximum life span seems related to the Hayflick limit. The mechanism behind this is telomeres (DNA that forms the tips of chromosomes and that shortens with every cell division, so that eventually a cell can not divide anymore). Chronic/post-traumatic stress can relate to shorter telomeres, just like lack of exercise, smoking, obesity and low SES. Manipulating genetics can lengthen life according to this theory. This could for instance be done by administering the enzyme telomerase which prevents the telomeres from shortening and thus causes cells to keep replicating, however this could also cause cancerous cells to multiply more rapidly. The role of individual genetic makeup in longevity also supports these theories.
• Damage/error theories of aging suggest that an accumulation of random damage to cells and organs over the years ultimately results in death. After "use and abuse" of a certain number of years, we might just be worn out, like cars. One leading error theory states that damage to cells that compromises their functioning is done by free radicals, which are toxic and chemically unstable by-products of metabolism or the everyday chemical reactions in cells like those involved in the breakdown of food. Free radicals are created when oxygen reacts with molecules in cells. They have an unpaired electron (so can steal electrons from other cells) which can be damaging to other molecules in the body, like DNA, and the genetic code is damaged. Eventually cells lose their ability to function and the organism dies. The damage of free radicals is visibly shown in age spots on the skin, they also seem to relate to diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer and they feature in the aging of the brain. So the damage of free radical should be prevented. Antioxidants like vitamins E and C can unstable free radicals by safely pairing them with their electron. Resveratrol is an antioxidant of interest, which effects can be similar to the effects that come from caloric restriction (nutritious but restricted diet with a very big cut in caloric intake). Caloric restriction can extend length of life and slow the progression of age-related diseases, by reducing the number of free radicals and other toxic products of metabolism. A restricted diet seems to alter gene activity and trigger the release of hormones that slow down metabolism and protect cells against oxidative damage. A lot of extra research has to be done on this subject.

 Again, it seems many factors interact and again, nature and nurture both influence aging and dying. And we can't avoid the biological reality of aging, but we can make choices to better and lengthen our life, through physical and mental activity for instance, and by having a positive attiutude. 

Cognition is the activity of knowing and the proceses through which knowledge is gained and problems are solved. 

What is Piaget's constructivist approach to cognition?

Piaget was huge for his theory of cognitive development. He found children of different ages have different ways of thinking. Next to observing children, he used a question-and-answer technique that is now known as the clinical method. With this method, he interviewed different children: with a consistent initial question, but the following questions varying upon the child. Though now some see this as an imprecise way of testing, Piaget wanted to follow every unique's child way of thinking. 

According to Piaget, intelligence is a basic life function which helps an organism to adapt to the environment. He viewed children as active in their own development, learning through observing, investigating and experimenting. He thought that in response to these explorations, the brain would form schemes (organized cognitive structures/patterns that people construct to interpret their experiences). These schemes are used to adapt to different situations. In very young childhood, children just make use of behavioral/action schemes, but as they get older they also develop symbolic schemes (concepts). So as they grow up children develop new and more complex schemes and are better able to adapt to the environment. 

Piaget had an interactionist approach when it comes to nature vs. nurture. He believed children create knowledge by constructing schemes from their experience, using two innate intellectual functions. The first is called organization and means that children combine existing chemes into new, more complex ones: they reorganize simple structures in their mind to complex structures. The second is called adaption and means adjusting to the demands of environment. This happens through two complementary processes. The first is assimilation and stands for the process by which we interpret new experiences using existing schemes. We try to fit something new in an existing category. The second process is accomodation and stands for modifying existing schemes to fit a new experience. When you enter something that does not fit your schemes right, you might have to adjust your scheme. Piaget thought, as new events challenge old schemes or make them seem inadequate, we experience cognitive conflict (disequilibrium). This conflict stimulates cognitive growth. We always want to reduce conflict, through in this case equilibration (process of making internal thoughts consistence with the evidence from the outside world, hereby achieving mental stability). And so, developing, children go through the different stages that Piaget found and that are mentioned before, and that still seem accurate. 

Though Piaget's impact was huge and critical, there are still 4 common criticisms to him:

1. Underestimating young minds. Piaget maybe failed to discriminate competence (understanding something) from performance (passing a test). And Piaget may have overemphasized his idea that knowledge is all-or-nothing, while it's actually gradual change.
2. The wrongful claiming that broad stages of development exist. Individuals are often at different stages when it comes to different problems. So transitions between stages are probably lenghty and subtle, instead of swift and abrupt like Piaget suggests: maybe stages are not even possible when it comes to describing development.
3.  Failing to explain development well. Description may be adequate, however what about the explanation? He tried, but it's still vague. 
4. Giving too little attention to social influences from adults. Social and cultural influences lack in Piaget's theory but they sure influence a child. Piaget thought children do not view adults as similar to themselves, and so adults can not cause cognitive conflict as much as peers with different perspectives can: so adults can, according to Piaget, not really cause cognitive growth. 

The neuroconstructivism theory builds on Piaget's beliefs and states that new knowledge/schemes are constructed through changes in the neural structures of the brain, as a response to experience. It modernizes Piaget, connecting the patterns of thought he talked about with neural activity patterns. Development of cognition ultimately is not static, and reflects complex and ongoing interplay of different factors all throughout the lifespan. 

What is Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective to cognition?

Vygotsky's main theme is that cognitive growth occurs in a sociocultural context and evolves out of the child's social interactions. The cultural society gives children mental tools. According to Vygotsky, learning precedes development, while according to Piaget development precedes learning. 

One of the concepts of Vygotsky's theory is the zone of proximal development, which is the difference between what a child can accomplish alone and what can be accomplished with the guidance and encouragement of a more knowledgeable partner. Skills outside of this zone are already mastered or still too difficult, and thus within the zone is the opportunity for development and learning. Another concept is guided paticipation and stands for a child learning through actively participating in culturally relevant activities, with the support of knowledgeable guides. Parents can provide scaffolding for their children's development: the more-skilled person gives help to a less-skilled person but gradually reduces this help as the less-skiled person learns more. 

Adults use tools to pass cultural ways of thinking and problem solving to their children, like language or applying memory strategies. Tools depends on culture, it could either be computer skills or a set of hunting strategies. Vygotsky believes tools influence thought. Whereas Piaget believed cognitive development influences language development, Vygotsky believed language shapes thought. He believed private speech (talking to yourself) is an important step in developing mature thought, and eventually goes over into the silently thinking-in-words adults do all day. Adults first guide children with speech, and children adopt speech as a tool they first use externally, like they learned from adults. Private speech can help children solve problems and they can encourage themselves through it, like adults did to them. Thus, social speech turns into private, inner speech, meaning a social process turns into an individual psychological one. Piaget's view on this was that children talking to themselves were using egocentric speech, which eventually becomes social speech as they grow. 

Vygotsky has been criticized for emphasizing social interaction too much and leaving out the individual. However his theory of conceptual growth through interaction seems accurate. Possibly the best would be to combine individual exploration with social guidance when needed. 

What is Fischer's dynamic skill framework to cognition?

Fischer's perspective was that behavior cannot be analyzed without taking the context into consideration. He believed behavior emerges from interactions between person and context. For instance, you can sing the high part perfectly when practicing, but in front of an audience it doesn't go as well. Or maybe you thrive with the support of an audience and love feeling a bit more pressure. Consistency across different context seems like a machine instead of human. Human's performance is dynamic and changes in response to environment. So instead of Piaget's testing in artificial environments, Fischer preferred natural contexts. And whereas Piaget believed in the development of cognitive structures, Fischer believed in the development of skill levels, and skills are task-specific and context-specific. Fischer took over the zone of proximal development and believed that it represented the opportunity for growth that exists between a person's optimal ability and their actual performance, thus their current skill level. According to him the zone explains how cognition can advance from one level to another. Fischer also came up with the concept of developmental range: meaning with a supportive context, people can perform optimally, whereas with an unsupportive environment causes performance below our optimal level. Thus high levels of support can lead to large steps in learning a skill, and low support levels can result in slow and linear skill learning. So, Fischer was interested in variability of performance. 

What does cognition mean to the infant?

Piaget believed the groundwork for cognitive development occurred during the first 2 years of life. The dominant cognitive structures in this stage are behavioral schemes (action patterns that evolve as infants begin to coordinate sensory input and motor responses). So infants solve problems mostly with their actions and not their minds. This is the sensorimotor stage and it contains six substages:

1. Reflex activity (birth - 1 month): active exercise and refinement of innate reflexes. 
2. Primary circular reactions (1 - 4 months): repetition of interesting acts centered on the child's own body, typically beginning randomly but then repeated for pleasure.
3. Secondary circular reactions (4 - 8 months): repetition of interesting acts on objects. 
4. Coordination of secondary schemes (8 - 12 months): combination of actions to solve simple problems or achieve goals. The first evidence of intentionality. 
5. Tertiary circular reactions (12- 18 months): experimenting to find new ways of solving problems or producing interesting outcomes (like pinching, squeezing, and patting a cat to see what it does).
6. Beginning of thought (18-24 months): first evidence of insight, ability to solve problems mentally and the use of symbolic thought. For instance, visualizing how a stick could be used, but also imitating models that are no longer present (mental representations can be made), and learning a word can represent an object.

Piaget thought newborns lack an understanding of object permanence, thus the understanding that objects continue to exist when they are no longer detectible to the senses. Infants have to learn that reality exists apart from their experience of it. The concept of object permanence develops gradually over the sensorimotor stages. The tendency of 8-12 month olds to search for something in the place where they last found it (A) instead of in the new hiding place (B) which they know about, is called the A-not-B error. However, simplifying this task showed some understanding of object permanence in younger infants. This shows Fischer's notion that skill depends on the task demands and the context as well. Another important accomplishment of the sensorimotor period is the emergence of symbolic capacity, thus the ability to use images, words or gestures to represent objects and experiences. Now thinking can evolve! 

What does cognition mean to the child?

The greatest cognitive strength of the preschooler is symbolic capacity. Pretend play flourishes now, even with imaginary companions. The preschooler's thinking is preoperational, thus logical mental operations do not yet work. There is a focus on perceptual salience meaning preschoolers are easily fooled by appearances. For instance there's the concept of conservation which is the idea that certain properties of an object or substance do not change when its appearance is altered in a superficial way. Piaget says young children are easily fooled since they lack certain mental operations: they cannot engage in decentration (ability to focus on two or more dimensions of something at once) so they engage in centration (attenting to just one aspect of the problem). And they do not master reversibility yet: the process of mentally undoing an action. They also have limitations in transformational thought (the ability to conceptualize transformations), and instead they engage in static thought and just perceive the final states instead of the change that happens. An older child can understand conservation since it can master all these cognitive things and can think logically. Neuroconstructivists say that success on logic tasks goes with increased activity in parts of the frontal cortex associated with greater cognitive control, that inhibits responding with perceptual salience. So for logical thinking a good strategy has to be activated and an incorrect one has to be inhibited. 

Preschool children are also egocentric and can not well see other perspectives than their own, says Piaget. However again, he may have underestimated them. Another thing is that they lack the concept of class inclusion: understanding that parts are included within a whole. They also classify objects by one dimension at a time which is called single classification. Older children can classify objects by multiple dimensions (multiple classification) and can understand class inclusion. Furthermore, preoperational thinkers make use of transductive reasoning: combining unrelated facts, for instance drawing faulty cause-effect conclusions, just because two things happen at the same time. Older children, that can reason logically, make use of inductive reasoning and can draw logical cause-effect conclusions.

So eventually children get from the preoperational stage to the concrete-operational stage, and they learn to think logically and can do things like the conversation task. Logical operations also contribute to math skills like adding and subtracting things. 

Concrete-operational children are also capable of seriation which enables them to arrange items mentally, along a certain dimension like length. And they master transitivity, describing the necessary relations among elements in a series (like: John is taller than Mark, and Mark is taller than Sam. Who is taller: John or Sam?) They can logically understand this, unlike the preoperational child. They also get better at classification and can understand subclasses are included in a whole class, and they get less egocentric. They can inhibit the earlier strategies of the preoperational time. However, they can not fully understand abstract and hypothetical things yet. 

What does cognition mean to the adolescent?

The formal operations stage begins. Now it's time for mental actions on ideas instead of objects or events, and thus possibilities instead of realities. They learn to think more abstractly and hypothetically, and a more scientific and systematic approach to problem solving is adopted. Hypothetical-deductive reasoning emerges which is reasoning from general ideas or rules to their specific implications, and thus forming hypotheses and testing them experimentally. While Piaget claimed perceptual reasoning is replaced by scientific reasoning,it actually shows that the two forms coexist in older thinkers. They just have to select the appropriate strategy for the situation. 

There is still a division between early and late formal operations, so the capabilities increase quite gradually. For instance, younger adolescents can show awareness of scientific reasoning, but cannot yet produce it. Due to school education, formal-operational skills seem to improve over time (teens in 1967 showed less formal-operational thought than in 1996). Furthermore, adolescents are increasingly able to decontextualize, or in other words separate prior knowledge and beliefs from the current demands of the task.

Formal-operational thought may help the individual to gain a sense of identity, understand others better and think about moral issues differently. It may also be related to some of the painful aspects of the experience of adolescence, like confusion, doubt and disagreements or rebellion. Adolescents may become frustrated when the world does not follow their sense of logic. Furthermore, formal-operational thought can lead to adolescent egocentrism, meaning the individual has difficulty differentiating their own thoughts and feelings from other people's.  There are 2 forms. Firstly, the imaginary audience phenomenon means that your own thoughts seem like the thoughts of a whole audience: like not liking your hair and then feeling everyone else will also think your hair is ugly. This may also come from adolescence's awareness that how they are perceived by others has consequences for their lifes. Secondly, there is personal fable, which means you and your thoughts and feelings are unique, like feeling like no one else has ever been as in love as you are. High scores on measures of adolescent egocentrism are related to risky behavior. However, not all research supports the phenomenon of adolescent egocentrism. 

What does cognition mean to the adult?

Piaget did not study further than the formal-operational stage which ended around age 18. However, some adults progress to even more advanced forms of thought. At the other end, some adults do never really solve formal-operational problems (when it comes to Piaget's tasks). It seems a certain level of intelligence is essential to achieve this kind of thought, and there's a big role for formal education. So, if achieving formal-operational thought has to do with education and experience, Piaget's theory is probably not universal but culturally-biased. It also seems that adults are more likely to use formal operations in a field they have expertise in, but go back to concrete operations in a less familiar field. This could have influenced Piaget's testings results. Adopting a contextual perspective like Fischer's, helps to understand that the individual's experience and the nature of the tasks influence cognitive performance across the life span. 

Some scholars think there is a stage beyond formal operations, namely postformal thought. This could have to do with applying logic to open sets of ideas, instead of a closed set like in the formal operational stage. It may be different because of two things: relativistic thinking and dialectial thinking. Relativistic thinking is about understanding that knowledge depends on context and perspective. While an adolescent may think he is right and the teacher's stupid, adults realize there are two sides to every story. Adolescents think there is a logically correct answer for everything, whereas adults can think more flexibly and know there is not always just a good or bad answer. So, from adolescence to adulthood people turn from absolutists into relativists, and then finally commit themselves to certain positions, aware of the role of perspective and the limits of knowledge. The second term, dialectical thinking, is about detecting paradoxes and inconsistencies among ideas and then trying to reconcile them. So it's about challenging and changing your understanding of the truth. Thus: drawing a conclusion, then finding something that contradicts that conclusion and adjusting it. So in sum the features of of postformal thinking are understanding that knowledge is relative, accepting that the world is filled with contradicitions, and attempting to integrate the contradictions into a larger understanding. Whereas many research confirms that cognitive abilities keep growing in adulthood, it's not sure that this means a new Piagetian stage, since this thinking may not be qualitatively different, universal and irreversible. 

Seemingly, the cognitive abilities of elderly decrease as they age, but this could also be due to difference in style instead of due to deficits. They perform better in everyday contexts. Education and motivation might have to do with it. 

What is the definition of intelligence and creativity?

Piaget defined intelligence as thinking or behavior that is adaptive to what your situation or environment demands. Other experts often view intelligence as having to do with abstract thinking or effective problem solving. Research has shown intelligence is not entirely innate: it is changeable due to the environment. 

The psychometric approach brought the many standardized intelligence tests. According to psychometric theorists, intelligence is a trait or set of traits that characterizes some people more than others. These traits can be identified and measured. However, many researchers could not agree on whether it was one trait or more. Spearman had proposed a two-factor theory of intelligence, which involved a general mental ability (g) and special abilities (s). The first one contributes to performance on all kinds of tasks and the second one is specific to specific tasks. Cattell & Horn distinguished two dimensions of intellect. The first, fluid intelligence, is the ability to use your mind actively to solve problems, in a flexible way. It's about reasoning, seeing relationships and these things are usually not taught and seem to be a person's "raw information processing power". Crystallized intelligence is in contrast the use of knowledge that a person has gained through schooling and other experiences. 

Now, intelligence is most often seen as a hierarchy that includes:

• a general ability factor at the top, influencing how good people do on a range of cognitive tasks
• a few broad dimensions of ability, distinguishable in a factor analysis (statistical technique to identify groups of items that correlate with each other and so form one dimension)
• many specific abilities at the bottom that influence performance on specific tasks

Binet & Simon developed the forerunner of the IQ test. This test led to the finding of the concept of mental age (MA) which is the level of age-graded problems that the child can solve, since it showed that e.g. 6 year old children could pass all "6 year old items" but 5 year old children could not.  So for instance, a child that can handle all items at the 5-year old level but does worse on more difficult items, is said to have a MA of 5 (regardless of the actual age). Ultimately and with help of Terman this testing developed into the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. Terman also developed a procedure for comparing MA with chronological age (CA) by finding the intelligence quotient (IQ) (MA/CA x 100). A score of 100 indicates average intelligence. The Stanford-Binet is still used nowadays and comes with test norms (standards of normal performance, expressed as average scores and the scores around the average) that are based on a large sample of people. Nowadays, MA is no longer used: individuals receive scores that show how they do compared with others of the same age. 

Wechsler also developed intelligence tests for different ages, named the Wechsler Scales. They result in a verbal IQ score (based on items that measure vocabulary, general knowledge, reasoning etc) and a performance IQ score (based on items that measure nonverbal skills like the ability to solve mazes or rearrange pictures). Both scores combined forms the full-scale IQ. Again, 100 is average. 

Scores on all these tests form a normal distribution, which shows in a bell-shaped graph that most people get the average score and less people get extreme scores. The standard deviation measures how tightly the scores are clustered around the mean score (16 for the Stanford-Binet, 15 for the Wechsler Scales). 

Concluding, intelligence tests that are based on the psychometric theory emphasize a general intellectual ability by putting performance in a single IQ score. They assess only some of the specialized abilities. There is criticism on this that says these test not fully describe intelligence. 

Gardner did not like the idea of a single IQ score representing intelligence. He thinks there are many different intelligences. He does not like the question of "How smart are you?" but prefers "How are you smart?" by identifying strengths and weaknesses in people. He believes there are eight or nine distinct intellectual abilities and the standard IQ tests only test 2 or 3 of those. And these dinstinct intelligences have its own developmental path and are even neurologically distinct. Support for Gardners beliefs comes from savant syndrome: a person can be very good at one thing and poor at others. Some people think that this depends on memory instead of intelligences. Analyses of prodigies (those with one or more extraordinary abilities) indeed suggest that those skills are related to very good working memory and their attention to detail, and not really to intelligence. What is taken into account in modern day education, and somewhat stems from Gadner's beliefs, is that education should be adjusted to a person's learning style, e.g. some learn by seeing and some by doing. 

Sternberg proposed a triarchic theory of intelligence which emphasizes three components that contribute to intelligence:

• Practical intelligence. According to Sternberg, the definition of intelligence varies from one context to another and also changes over time. People who have high practical intelligence can adapt to the environment, and can shape it to optimize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. This is about being "street smart" and having common sense. 
• Creative intelligence. According to Sternberg, what is intelligent when a person first tries a new task, is not the same as what is intelligent after much experience with that task. The first type of intelligence, response to novelty, is about active and conscious information processing, and the individual's ability to come up with creative ideas. The second kind of intelligence reflects automatization, meaning an increased efficiency of information processing with experience. So it depends on the familiarity of a task what is intelligent. Creative intelligence is about creating, inventing, discovering and imagining. 
• Analytic intelligence. This focuses on the information-processing skills, and seems more like what is tested in traditional intelligence tests. This component is about critical and analytical thinking, planning, evaluating, filtering and monitoring. Sternberg believed it's not only the "correct answers" that make up intelligence, but also the effiency and accuracy of the processes people use. 

Sternberg also came up with the theory of successful intelligence, which shows intelligence does not always have to be the stereotype of academic intelligence. This consists of being able to:

• establish and achieve realistic goals, consistent with your skills and circumstances
• optimize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses
• adapt to the environment, by selecting a good environment and adjusting yourself or the environment so it fits
• use all three components of intelligence

IQ scores and creativity scores do not correlate well, because they measure two different types of thinking. IQ tests measure convergent thinking (what is the best answer to a problem?) and creativity is about divergent thinking (coming up with more possible answers or ideas). Responses on divergent thinking tasks can be analyzed along three dimensions: originality or uniqueness of the idea, flexibility of thinking or how many different categories are expressed by the ideas, and the fluency of the ideas. The last, ideational fluency (the number of different ideas a person can come up with) is most commonly used to assess creativity. Using divergent thinking tasks to measure creativity reflects the psychometric approach. Sternberg's investment theory of creativity is different and is about creativity emerging from the coming together of 6 factors:

• intellectual skills that include the three abilities of the triarchic model 
• enough knowledge of something to understand the current state and what might be missing
• a thinking style that enjoys mentally playing with ideas
• a personality style that is open to risk and can go outside the box
• motivation to stay focused on the task and not give up when problems arise
• an environment that supports and rewards creativity

So, the constructs of intelligence and creativity are related, but distinct. 

What does intelligence mean to the infant?

Standard IQ tests cannot be used for infants. The most commonly used infant test of intelligence is the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID), which collects information on social-emotional skills and adaptive behavior from parents and also has three parts that are given to the child:

• The motor scale measures the ability to do things like grasp a cube or throw a ball.
• The cognitive scale assesses the child'd way of thinking and how it reacts to events like reaching for a desirable object or searching for a toy.
• The language scale measures the child's preverbal communication and developing vocabulary skills.

Everything combined, the infant gets a General Adaptive Composite (GAC), a score which reflects the comparison with other children of the same age. 

Mostly, correlations between infant Bayley scores and child IQ scores have been low. The reason is probably that the tests both focus on qualitatively different abilities: the Bayley cores on sensory and motor skills and the IQ tests on abstract abilities like reasoning and problem solving. Furthermore, higher or lower test scores may be nothing more than temporary deviations from an universal developmental path, since intelligence in infancy is highly influenced by powerful and universal maturational processes like changes in the brain. From around 2 years, real individual differences emerge. 

However, speed of habituation, reaction time and preference for novelty in an infant do correlate with later IQ. So the information processing effiency can predict later intelligence.

What does intelligence mean to the child?

Starting around 4 there is quite a strong relationship between early and later IQ. This relationship grows stronger by middle childhood. So, IQ is likely quite a stable thing. However for some children this is not the case and loads of children show ups and downs in their IQ scores, so it still depends on the individual. This could also be due to factors like motivation for testing and the conditions during the test: IQ may be more changeable than the actual intellectual ability it attempts to measure.

Children whose scores are changeable tend to live in unstable environments. Drops in IQ often occur among children living in child poverty (the children's basic needs are then barely met). Gains occur due to good and stimulating home environments. Environment clearly affects the brain.

Preschool-aged children already show high levels of divergent thought. Creativity measures like ideational fluency and originality increase and then from around 6th grade begin to decline, possibly increasing again from high school to adulthood. This may reflect pressures in education to conform to the group. In education, convergent thinking is emphasized. While average IQ scores differ across different socioeconomic groups, creativity scores usually do not. And genetic influences (which are important for individual differences in IQ) seem to have little to do with creativity. However, home environment and the parents can have a lot of influence. 

What does intelligence mean to the adolescent?

Changes in the brain in early adolescence probably underlie the impressive cognitive advances that come with this age, the better IQ scores included. IQ scores become more stable and can strongly predict later IQ. 

The Flynn effect (named after James Flynn since he came up with this) means that average IQ scores have increased almost everywhere. Most researchers believe such an increase cannot be caused by genetic evolution and therefore must have to do with the environment, for instance education and improved economic conditions. IQ is also better in countries without high rates of infectious diseases (because they rob the body of important nutrients and take energy from the brain). 

General intellectual ability as measured in IQ tests is a very good predictor of school achievement. This is better for high school grades than for college grades, probably because then success is more influenced by things like motivation as every college student has the intellectual ability needed for college. So IQ is a good predictor but factors like motivation and work habits are also influential.

In general, creativity remains quite depressed in adolescence. But still there is continuity between scores on creativity tasks and later creative scores in adulthood. So, it seems like adolescents put their creativity "on hold" as they focus on other important things in this period, but it's not lost. The ability to elaborate on ideas, which is also creative, keeps increasing in adolescence, maybe because this is rewarded in education. So it seems like the tendency to conform to the group still has a big role: adolescents that do not have this tendency can keep getting more creative, especially when the environment supports this. Talent and motivation are also important for people to flourish in a creative field, and a positive attitude can help as well, just like the openness to risks as mentioned before. Furthermore, a good knowledge base in a field is a necessary component of creativity. Environment (parents and school) can play a big part for creativity to flourish.

What does intelligence mean to the adult?

General intelligence is related to income, occupation and job performance, and the gap between those with higher intelligence and lower intelligence widened over time. The reason is that it takes more intellectual ability to get a really good and rewarding job. The complexity of the work is also relevant as high-intelligence people have more demanding jobs which brings them further. Still, there is variability and some people in low-status jobs have high IQs. 

IQ also has a correlation with health and longevity. SES probably contributes, but people with higher intelligence are also probably more knowledgeable of health and therefore live a healthier life. 

Dysrationalia is the inability to think and behave rationally, despite having good intelligence. Standard IQ tests do not measure the aspect of thinking rationally, which is important in everyday life. And as we are intelligent, why don't we always solve problems in the logical or rational manner? This is because we want to go with the easiest and most obvious solution first. And this is okay, however we need to know when this is sufficient or when we need to rationally and more extensively think. This is the dual process approach to cognition and it basically says there are two ways of thinking: System 1 is automatic, we can respond to the situation almost without thinking. It's easy and quick but can lead to incorrect answers. System 2 is the way of thinking that is slow and deliberate, but rational and usually correct. Our tendency to go for System  1 is called the cognitive miser: we use heuristics (mental shortcuts) to make decisions quickly and easy. For instance, there is the availibility heuristic: what is easier to think of will be your answer. 

Intelligence seems stable over adulthood. But even when there is high group stability, there will be changes in individual's IQs. It seems that when a person was born has as much influence on IQ as age does, so there are cohort differences. Recently born cohorts outperformed older cohorts overall, but different cohorts succeeded at different areas of testing. And patterns of aging differ for different abilities. Fluid intelligence declines earlier and more than crystallized intelligence. This could be because of fluid intelligence tasks usually being timed, and older people have a slower nervous system. The working memory also weakens. However with cognitively stimulating activities the decline of fluid intelligence can be reduced. Important: declines in intellectual abilities are not universal and there's much variability.

One predictor of decline is poor health. Terminal drop means that there is a rapid decline in intellectual abilities within a few years of death due to diseases. Another predictor is an unstimulating lifestyle. Individuals who maintain or even gain in performance have higher SES, good education, good marriages with intellectually capable spouses, and physically and mentally active lives. Married adults are even intellectually affected by each other. 

Eriksons theory of life-span development features the increase in wisdom in older adults. Wisdom is not the same as high intelligence, since there are many high intelligent people that are not wise. Baltes defined wisdom as a constellation of rich, factual knowledge about life, combined with procedural knowledge like strategies for giving advice and handling conflicts. Sternberg defines wisdom as successful intelligence combined with creativity to solve problems that require balancing multiple perspectives. And common features of definitions of wisdom are knowledge of life, prosocial values, self-understanding, emotional homeostasis (balance), spirituality and acknowledgement of uncertainty. Wisdom is not universal, and age does not predict wisdom well. However what influences wisdom is the knowledge base, life experiences that sharpen their insights, and social context. Wisdom, or exceptional insight into complex life problems, seems to reflect a combination of intelligence, personality and cognitive style, with environmental factors. 

Peak times of creative achievement vary, from field to field and from person to person. This could have to do with whether the field involves fluid or crystallized intelligence. Some researchers think that creative achievement requires enthusiasm (in your young years) and experience (in your old years), and in your 30s/40s you have it all. Simonton has another theory, that says that each creator has a certain potential to create, that is realized over the adult years, and as the potential is realized less is left to express. He sais creative activity involves the process of ideation (generating creative ideas) and elaboration (executing ideas to produce things). Some kinds of work take longer to complete than others, accounting for the variability in peak performance in fields. Simonton believes that with age, the quantity of potential ideas has decreased. So he thinks it's not about mental ability, but about the nature of the creative process in a person, that determines whether a creator will seem to get "less creative". Concluding, creative behavior becomes less frequent later in life, but is still possible.

What are factors that influence IQ scores over the life span?

Individual differences in IQ exist because of an interaction between genetics and environmental factors. Of course motivational and situational factors also come to play. The influence of genes on influence increases over the life span, from 20 % in infancy to 80 % in elderly. Still, genes need environment for expression. Poverty weakens the influence of genes on intelligence. Good environment provide the opportunity for genetic influences to fully express. So SES affects IQ scores as well as rate of intellectual growth. The cumulative-deficit hypothesis describes how impoverished environments inhibit intellectual growth and how these negative effects accumulate over time. Improving the environment can help to increase IQ. 

The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) inventory assesses the intellectual stimulation of the home environment. Scores on this can predict IQs of children. The most influential factors are parental involvement with the child and opportunity for stimulation. The amount of stimulation is less important than whether that stimulation is responsive to the child's behvaior and matches the child competencies. There are gene-environment correlations: parents with greater intelligence provide more intellectually stimulating environment but also pass on genes for high intelligence. 

Racial and ethnic group differences in IQ can also be found, sparking controversy. For instance in the US Asian American and European American children tend to score higher than African American, Native American and Hispanic American children. Different groups sometimes do well on different tasks. However of course there is so much variability and therefore this is not really relevant. Still, why do these group differences exist?

• Biased tests. The culture bias in testing may be a little bit accountable for differences: tests may just fit one group better than another group. 
• Motivational factors. Minority individuals could be less motivated because they are anxious or afraid of being judged by an examiner of a different race. It helps when they can get used to a friendly examiner. Minority children may be generally more insecure and afraid of failing and falling into a stereotype (stereotype threat). Positive stereotypes can increase performance on a test. Mentors can help with this, but of course eliminating negative stereotypes should be the goal. 
• Genetic differences. Some scholars may think IQ differences between ethnic groups are a result of genetic differences, but most scholars think that the contribution of genetics to within-group differences does not say much about the reasons for between-group differences. It probably reflects environmental differences. 
• Environmental differences. Home environment and SES are, as said before, very influential and are probably the main reason for racial difference in average IQ scores. 

What are the extremes of intelligence?

At the one end is intellectual disability or significantly below-average intellectual functioning with limitations in areas of adaptive behavior, originating before age 18. An IQ score of 70-75 or lower is associated with this, and there are 4 levels of disability: mild (52-70), moderate (35-51), severe (20-34) and profound (below 19). Again, it is the product of interaction between person and environment. A person with a low IQ score in a supportive and fitting environment may not seem disabled, but in a less supportive environment he may seem disabled. There is variability between persons with intellectual disability, and they can benefit from training. There are different causes for intellectual disability. Profoundly disabled individuals are often affected by "organic" conditions (a biological cause like Down syndrome or an alcoholic mother). Most cases however have no identifiable organic cause, but seem to result from a combination of genetics and environmental factors. A lot of intellectual impaired children have other impairments as well. Often, intellectually impaired children follow the same developmental path as other children but just at a slower rate. 

At the other end is giftedness. This can mean a child with a very high IQ score (130 or more) or with very special abilities/talents. Renzulli argued that giftedness comes from a combination of above-average ability, creativity, and task commitment/motivation. Giftedness can already be visible in toddlerhood, e.g. by advanced language skills, curiosity and motivation. Silverman and colleagues used the Characteristics of Giftdness Scale to identify gifted children and found that gifted children have the following attributes:

• rapid learning
• extensive vocabulary
• good memory
• long attention span
• perfectionism
• preference for older companions
• excellent sense of humor
• early interest in reading
• strong ability with puzzles and mazes
• maturity
• perseverance on tasks

It seems there is a strong genetic influence on high intellectual ability. Now, experts can predict nongiftedness, but not so easy giftedness. Modern research shows skipping classes and thus accelerating through school is associated with better achievement and more positive social-emotional outcomes, in contrast with what was believed earlier. As adults they have better occupations and better, healthier lifestyles. However giftedness can also lead to problems in some people, like isolation or unhappiness. And still, environment has influence too.

What are concepts and theories about the self and personality?

Personality stands for the organized combination of attributes, motives, values and behaviors, unique to each individual. We often describe personalities with dispositional traits like independent, or extravert. People also differ in characteristic adaptions which are more situation-specific ways, in which people adapt to the environment and context. These include e.g. motives, goals, self-conceptions and coping mechanisms. And a third aspect is narrative identities which are life stories that we construct about our past and futures. This gives us identity and meaning. Both genes and environment influence these three aspects of personality. 

As you describe yourself you use your self-concept: your perceptions of your traits. And self-esteem is your evaluation of yourself as a person, based on the self-perceptions that constitute your self-concept. With all self-perceptions, an identity is formed: your sense of who you are, what you want and how you fit in.

There are three different views of development of personality:

• Psychoanalytic theory. With in-depth interviews the inner dynamics of a person are studied. Freud believed personality was formed in the stages of psychosexual development, in the first 5 years, and then stayed the same. Unpleasant early experiences would permanently affect the personality. The psychosocial theory by Erikson also stated that people undergo similar personality changes at similar ages, as they are challenged by different developmental stages. But he emphasized social influences as peers and cultures too and thought harmful experiences could be overcome. Thus, he believed personal growth and change could occur. 
• Trait theory. This is based on the psychometric approach, and states that personality is a set of trait dimensions and people differ in them. Researchers use personality scales and factor analysis to find distinct traits in people. Trait theorists believe that traits are pretty consistent and enduring. Most scholars believe human personalities can be described in 5 universal major dimensions of personality (The Big Five). These are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism, and are influenced both by genetics and environment. 
• Social learning theory. These theorists do not believe in stages of personality or traits of personality. They believe people's behavior is influenced by the situations they're in, and changes as the enviroment changes: thus social context is really influential. As environment changes we change. 

The Big 5: 

• Openness to experience: curiosity and interest in different things vs. preference for the same things
• Conscientiousness: discipline and organization vs. lack of seriousness
• Extraversion: sociability and outgoingness vs. introversion
• Agreeableness: compliance and cooperativeness vs. suspiciousness
• Neuroticism: emotional instability vs. stability

What is personality to the infant?

Infants quickly develop a sense of self, baed on the perceptions of their bodies and actions, which grows out of interactions with caregivers. From 2-3 months they have a sense of agency: a sense that they can cause things to happen, and slowly they differentiate themselves from the rest of the world. From 6 months on, infants realize they and their companions are separate beings with different perspectives and things like joint attention can now occur. And around 18 months infants can recognize themselves visually as distinct individuals: self-recognition. Babies ultimately also form a categorical self: and classify themselves into social categories, based on age, sex and other characteristics. Thus they know they are babies and boys, not girls, for instance. This is between 18-24 months. 

Self-awareness happens through cognitive development and social interaction (responsiveness), and the cultural context: self-awareness develops quicker in individualistic cultures than in collectivist cultures. Toddlers that recognize themselves are more able to talk about themselves and assert their wills, experience self-conscious emotions like embarrassment, understand other people and coordinate their own perspectives with other perspectives. 

Infants do have distinctive personalities from birth, through different temperaments (tendencies to respond to events in predictable ways, the basis for later personality). Though learning theorists viewed babies as blank slates and the environment as the only influence, it is now clear that babies are born with certain temperaments. 

Most infants can be placed in one of these categories (some infants share qualities of two or more):

• Easy temperament. Typically content, open to nex experiences, regular habits, and they tolerate discomforts.
• Difficult temperament. Active, irritable and irregular habits-having infants. They adapt slow to new situations. Often throw tantrums.
• Slow-to-warm-up temperament. Relatively inactive, somewhat moody, only moderately regular infants. Slow in adapting, but they respond mildly. Eventually they adjust. 

By adulthood, someone's adjustment had little to do with infancy temperament.

Another way of defining infant temperament is by dimensions. There are three major ones, made up of more specific ones. The first two are evident from infancy on, the third emerges in toddlerhood and early childhood and continues into adulthood:

• Surgency/extraversion. This is the tendency to actively, confidently and energetically approach new experiences, in an emotionally positive way. They enjoy interaction.
• Negative affectivity. Tendency to be sad, fearful, easily frustrated, irritable and difficult to comfort.
• Effortful control. This is the ability to focus and shift attention when desired, inhibit responses, and appreciate low-intensity activities. Develops quickly around age 3-4. 

Differences in temperament partly have to do with different levels of certain neurotransmitters, and prenatal influences can also influence it. Then the postnatal environment helps determine how adaptive temperamental qualities are and if they might change. Again, goodness of fit between child's temperament and the environment is important: parents have to respond well to their child. Infant's temperament and parenting reciprocally influence each other. 

What is personality to the child?

The preschool child's emerging self-concept is concrete and physical, instead of using psychological traits. From age 8 they use these more to describe themselves. First the personal traits, and then later they form social identities and define themselves in terms of their identification with groups. Then, they become more capable of social comparison: using information about how they compare with others to characterize and evaluate themselves. Very young children see themselves as super wonderful, but later through social comparisons they get more realistic views.

Self-esteem becomes more multidimensional with age. While preschoolers discriminate just two broad aspects of self-esteem (competence, both physical and cognitive, and personal and social adequacy), older children differentiate among five aspects: (1) scholastic competence (doing well in school), (2) social acceptance, (3) behavioral conduct (staying out of trouble), (4) athletic competence and (5) physical appearance. The accuracy of self-evulations increases as children age. 

Children also form a concept of what they "should" be like - the ideal self. With age, the gap between the real and ideal self increases, and a decrease in self esteem occurs, also through more social comparisons and more critical feedback from parents and teachers as children get older. 

Three things influence why some children develop higher self-esteem than others: genetic makeup, level of competence, and social feedback. Warm and democratic parents have good influence on self-esteem. However, social feedback should not get crazy: it should be related to true achievements. Thus: you should not praise a child for doing something not so difficult or good. Helping children succeed at important tasks can boost their self-esteem.

Temperament grow into a predictable personality in childhood, and this predicts later personality. During life personalities can change in response to parenting, cultural pressures and life events. The aspects of personality that characterize young children are sometimes different than the aspects/dimensions that fit adolescents and adults, and this might be why correlations between early childhood traits and adult traits are usually small. While the roots of adult personality can be found in childhood, it takes many more years for a fully formed personality.

What is personality to the adolescent?

Adolescence is a time to find yourself. Self-descriptions change a lot between childhood and adolescence. They become less phsyical and more psychological, less concrete and more abstract, more differentiated, more integrated and coherent, and more reflected upon. Adolescents can also get really self-conscious, self-esteem decreases: however this is just for some of them. This is possibly because they are learning more about themselves, are thinking a lot, face social pressures and their bodies are changing. 

According to Erikson this is the time for the stage of identity vs role confusion. With their change of bodies and sexual desires, developed cognitive abilities that make them think more, and society pressures this can be a challenging time. Our society supports youths by allowing the moratorium period (youths are relatively responsibility-free and can experiment to find themselves). This also makes finding identity hard because there are many possibilities and you can be "anything you want to be". The status of identity can be viewed in terms of "crisis" (struggling with identity and exploring) and "commitment" (resolving the questions and settling on an identity). Then, there are four identity statuses:

• Diffusion. No crisis is yet experienced, but no commitment is made. Thus, the individual has not really thought about their identity.
• Foreclosure. An commitment seems to have been made, but is based on parents or other people: the individual has not explored other things or really thought for himself. No crisis has happened yet.
• Moratorium. An identity crisis is experienced and and commitment is not yet made.
• Identity achievement. After crisis, questions to the answers have been found and identity is established.

Identity takes quite a long time to form and another identity "crisis" can be experienced later in life. It also occurs at different rates in different domains of identity. 

In adolescence the creation of a life story, or narrative identity, is also important. They will be an important aspect of our adult personalities and will be revised and reflected upon through life. In older age, there is a process called life review of looking back at your life and coming to terms with it and with dying.

Another aspect of identity development is developing an ethnic identity, through working through the same identity statuses. This is more important for minorities and multiracial youth. A positive ethnic identity has many benefits, like good self-esteem and adjustment, and the parents can help form it. 

Vocational identity is another important aspect of identity: how do we choose career paths? Young children use their fantasy. As more realistic self-concepts emerge, more realistic careers are desired, however the associated social status is also important to them. Adolescents get even more realistic and begin to think about other factors than just their wishes. They consider their interests, capacities, and values. Realism increases with age and then personal as well as environmental factors are taken into account. Ultimately, vocational choice is a search for the best fit between personality and occupation: person-environment fit. Vocational theorist Holland identified six personality types that fit different occupations:

• Investigative types: enjoy learning, solving problems and working with ideas. E.g. scientists.
• Social types: enjoy interaction and helping others. E.g. teachers.
• Realistic types: enjoy practical work with objects. E.g. car mechanics.
• Artistic types: enjoy to express themselves creatively. E.g. musicians.
• Conventional types: enjoy order and structure. E.g. librarians.
• Enterprising types: enjoy to influence and attain status. E.g. leaders of organizations.

Unfortunately some people (like minorities, lower-income people) can have limited vocational possibilities and therefore cannot always go for what actually fits them best. There is also still a difference between men and women. 

Ultimately, an adolescent's identity formation is a product of:

• Cognitive development. More developed thinking helps to form identity.
• Personality. Adolescents that explore and achieve identity tend to score low in neuroticism and high in openness to experience and conscientiousness.
• Quality of relationship with parents. Youths stuck in the diffusion status often have emotionally distant parents, while youths stuck in the foreclosure status often are overly attached to their parents. Warm and democratic parents are associated with adolescents in the moratorium and identity achievement statuses.
• Opportunities for exploration. E.g. a moratorium period with freedom.
• Cultural context. 

What is identity to the adult?

Adults differ greatly in levels of self-esteem and their self-concepts. Overall, self-esteem rises gradually through adult years and drops in old age. Males often show higher self-esteem than females, but this fades in old age. 

How can older adults maintain good self-esteem? 

• Reducing the gap between real and ideal self. Elderly scale down their ideal self and thus the ideal self and real self converge, which helps to maintain self-esteem.
• Adjusting goals and standards of self-evaluation. Our goals and standards change so we do not mind failing to achieve things that are no longer important to us or not realistic.
• Making social comparisons to others. It helps to not compare to younger people, but to people your own age and with the same possible impairments. They sometimes also select worse-off people to compare to so they feel better.
• Avoiding negative self-stereotyping. Ageism stands for negative stereotypes fuelling prejudice and discrimination against elderly. If elderly do not self-stereotype, they maintain better self-esteem and it brings a lot of other positive things. Ageism needs to stop in society.

Cultural has an influence on personal identity. For instance, whether you grow up in an individualistic country or a collectivist country has effect on how you describe yourself, from a really young age. Individualistic people also tend to feel like they have an inner self that is consistent across situations and over time, while collectivist people see situational influences and context as powerful and have a different "self" in different situations. Collectivists are also more modest and less absorbed with self-esteem, they do not emphasize their uniqueness and are self-effacing in contrast to self-enhancing like individualists. When people move from one of the kinds to the other, they seem to adjust to and take over things from the new culture.

There seems to be a good consistency in rankings on trait dimensions within a group, and this tendency increases with age. Thus: the extravert as a young adult is likely to be extravert as an older adult. 

Then: is there stability in the mean level of a trait? So does personality change generally over the years? It seems like people get more emotionally stable, cooperative, easygoing, disciplined and responsible as they age from adolescence to middle adulthood: this is the maturity principle. This principle shows up across different cultures and both nature and nurture may cause this. As people grow from middle-aged adults into older adults, personality stays quite consistent, except from activity level declining. 

What makes personalities consistent over the years? Firstly, genetic makeup contributes. Secondly, lasting effects of childhood effects play a part. Thirdly, traits will remain stable as people's environments remain stable. And fourth, gene-environment correlations promote continuity (genetics influence what kinds of experiences we have, and these may strengthen our genetically based predispositions). And what then causes the significant changes in some adults' personalities? First, biological factors like disease or dementia can contribute. Secondly, there can be changes in the environment that change personalities. And finally, change is more likely when there's a poor person-environment fit. Ultimately, the forces for continuity are often stronger than those for change. 

Erikson's theory of the psychosocial stages is important for personality and growth (chapter 2). It is a path to adulthood, and research shows indeed there is Erikson-like psychosocial growth throughout the whole life span.

Levinson believed that adults go through a repeated process of building a life structure (pattern of living) and then questioning and altering it during a transition period that happens every 7 years. The transition period from age 40-45 is especially significant and forms the midlife crisis. Research even shows that life satisfaction has an U-shaped pattern over the adult years (decreasing from early adulthood to low in middle adulthood, then increasing from middle adulthood to old age). Many scholars do not fully support Levinson and instead believe in midlife questioning: not a true universal psychological crisis, but something that can occur in response to life events and can happen at different ages. 

Early adulthood is the time for exploring careers, job changes and seeking advancement. After this, usually around their 40s, adults really settle in work and are at the peak: with much responsibilty and their job being important to them. As they get older, their work performance is not hurt, probably because have not reached the age yet when declines kick in, have much expertise, and make use of selective optimization with compensation. Personality is an important influence on how successful someone becomes and person-environment is critical too. And still, gender is influential on vocational choice and development: both through gender discrimination and traditional gender-role norms (e.g. stay at home mom). Our vocational experiences also affect our personalities. Job loss and unemployment can even really threaten adult's identities and self-esteem, and can affect people around them too. 

As people retire, they face the challenge of adjusting to the loss of their work role and the challenge of developing a satisfying, meaningful lifestyle. Atchley said adults progress through phases as they go from worker to retiree. First, there is the preretirement phase in which workers gather information about retirement and plan for the future. Just after the retiring, there is the honeymoon phase in which they love their new freedom. Then comes the disenchantment phase: they start to feel aimless and sometimes unhappy. Finally there is the reorientation phase in which they find a satisfying lifestyle. Generally, retired people fare well after a little adjustment process, but what makes for the variability among people? It seems good long-term adjustment is most likely among adults that:

• retire voluntarily and feel in control of their decision
• enjoy good physical and mental health
• have positive personality traits (like agreeableness)
• have the financial resources to live comfortably
• are married or have strong social support in another way.

There is not one path to successful aging that fits all: you have to find a good fit with your personality. 

What is social cognition?

Social cognition is thinking about the perceptions, thoughts, emotions, motivates, and behaviors of self, other people, groups and even whole social systems. 

The false belief task assesses the understanding that people can hold incorrect beliefs and that these can influence their behavior, and is usually passed by children from age 4. It involves Sally and Anne: Sally places her marble in a basket and then leaves the room. Then Anne transfers Sally's marble to the box. Sally returns and the child is asked: where will Sally look for her marble? This task is used to see if children have theory of mind: understanding that (a) people have mental states like desires and beliefs and (b) these mental states guide their behavior. We need theory of mind to predict and explain human behavior. Children with theory of mind say that Sally will look in the basket, thus guided by Sally's (though incorrect) belief, setting aside their own knowledge. This task is difficult for children with autism, who lack theory of mind. Theory of mind is the foundation for all later social cognitive development.

Theory of mind begins to form in infancy. These are early steps (and lack in children with autism):

• Joint attention. Infants from around 9 months can point to something and look toward their companions, to encourage them to look the same way. Thus, they are aware that other people have different perceptual experiences than them, and that they can share a perceptual experience. 
• Understanding intentions. By 6 months already, infants prefer a "helper" puppet who helps an actor instad of a "hinderer" puppet that disturbs the actor. Thus, they understand good and bad intentions.
• Pretend play. Between 1-2 years, they can engage in pretend play and thus show that they can discriminate pretense and reality. 
• Imitation. This shows they can mentally represent other's actions (and the goals/intentions behind them).
• Emotional understanding. In the second year of life they can already comfort or instead tease a sibling, thus they understand emotions and that they can influence them. 

Wellman said that children's theories of mind unfold in two main phases. First, around age 2, they develop a desire psychology. Toddlers talk about what they want and explain behavior in terms of desires. By 18 months, they can honor someone else's desire even though they disagree with it. By age 3-4 they progress to a belief-desire psychology: they understand that people do what they do because they desire certain things and because they believe that certain actions will help them to fulfill these desires. By now they can pass the false belief task. Theory of mind still keeps developing over time, and new challenges will come like understanding sarcasm.

Theory of mind (TOM) develops both through nature and nurture. It seems an evolutionary trait. Through life it defines when the neurological and cognitive structures mature. Autism comes with atypical brain development thus this may be the reason for their trouble with TOM. It seems social cognition involves mirror neurons: neurons that are activated both by performing an action and by watching someone else performing the same action. They help us understand another one's mental state based on our (earlier) mental states, and are also involved in empathy. Mirror neuron deficits may be a reason for the problems people with autism have with those kinds of things. 

Next to these biological things, interaction with others is critical. Evidence for this comes from:

• Language experience. Deaf children of deaf parents that use sign language develop TOM skills the same way normal children do. But deaf children of hearing parents, who usually do not converse in sign language at first, develop it more slowly.
• Mind-minded parents. Responsive parents that create secure attachments, and parents who show mind-mindedness (thinking and talking in elaborate ways about mental states) have children with better TOM.
• Interactions with siblings and peers. Gives them more opportunity to develop TOM. 
• Cultural differences. In cultures that do not talk much about mental states, children develop TOM more slowly. 

Theory of mind can also be used for bad ends: e.g bullies and liars prove to have good TOM. But well developed TOM mainly has good outcomes.

As their social cognitive abilities develop, children become more psychologically minded: e.g. they describe others more in a psychological sense instead of physical and use psychological traits to explain why people have a certain behavior. Adolescents are even more advanced at this and integrate different traits. 

Another aspect of social development has to do with replacing the earlier egocentrism with perspective-taking skills/role-taking skills: thus to adopt someone else's perspective and understand their feelings and thoughts. It seems these skills develop in a stagelike manner (as children progress through Piaget's cognitive stages):

• 3-6 year olds are still egocentric and think that others will share their views.
• 8-10 year olds understand that two people can have different points of view with the same information. 
• Around age 12, young adolescents can mentally juggle multiple perspectives.

Social skills continue to improve, even after adolescence, and seem to stay quite steady in elder adults. However, sometimes they perform less on social tasks (like understanding sarcasm or false belief tasks): especially if it challenges their cognitive capacities, by requiring fast processing or high executive control. The people with the best social skills also have social lives. 

What are some perspectives on moral development?

Morality has to do with discriminating right from wrong and act and feel accordingly. Three basic components are of interest:

• The emotional component: the feelings that surround right or wrong actions and that motivate moral thoughts and actions.
• The cognitive component: which is about how we think about right and wrong and how we make decisions on how to behave, drawing on social cognitive skills like perspective taking.
• The behavorial component: which is about how we behave when we for instance experience the temptation to cheat or are called to help someone.

Freud's psychoanalytic theory looked at the role of emotions in morality development. He thought children experience an emotional conflict over their love for the other-sex parent, and solve that conflict by identifying with the same-sex parent while taking on their moral standards. He thought the superego was like a parent inside the mind - to tell you what is wrong or right and to arouse emotions like shame or guilt if you think about doing wrong. Research has now shown that (1) moral emotions are an important part of morality and they motivate moral behavior, (2) early relationships with parents are important for moral development, and (3) children must internalize moral standards to behave morally without an authority figure there to watch them. The concept of empathy can foster prosocial behavior and keep us from antisocial behavior. 

Moral reasoning is the thinking process you have to decide if something is right or wrong. This seems to progress through stages in which we have different ways of deciding what to do. A child and adult both may decide not to steal something, but can have different reasons for it. So the following theories are really about how the decision-making goes, not even really the outcome. Piaget paved the way for the cognitive-developmental theory of moral development, and Kohlberg refined it. Piaget concluded that preschool children do not yet understand rules and are premoral. Ages 6-10 emphasize consequences more than intentions in reviewing the wrongness of acts, and tend to believe rules are handed down by authoritative figures and are not alterable. At ages 10 and 11, children are more interested in intentions, and begin to understand that rules are agreements among individuals that can be altered. Kohlberg then went on to form the highly influential cognitive-developmental theory of moral development, that progresses through an universal and invariant sequence of three broad levels, each of which has two distinct stages:

• Level 1: preconventional morality. At this level, rules are conformed to, but are external to the self and not yet internalized. The perspective of the self dominates. It consists of: Stage (1): Punishment-and-obedience orientation. The goodness or wrongness of something depends on the consequences. The chlid will obey rules to avoid punishment, but may not consider something wrong if punishment does not follow. Stage (2): Instrumental hedonism. The person then obeys rules to gain rewards or satisfy personal needs. There is some concern for other perspectives, but it's motivated by the hope of getting something back in return. 
• Level 2: conventional morality. At this level, the individual has internalized many moral values and shows respect for rules, first to win approval and later to maintain social order. The perspectives of others are taken into consideration. It consists of: Stage (3): Good boy or good girl morality. Now, what is right is what pleases, helps or is approved of by others. People are judged by their intentions and other perspectives are taken into account. Stage 3 thinking involves reciprocity, mutually giving and taking. This leads to a golden rule morality of doing to someone else what you would want done to you. Stage (4): Authority and social order-maintaining morality. What is right is now what conforms to the rules of legitimate authorities, and is good for society. It's not much about fear of punishment anymore, but about the belief that rules maintain a worthy social order. Doing your duty and respecting the law are important.
• Level 3: postconventional morality. The individual now defines what is right in terms of broad principles of justice, that have validity apart from the views of authoritative figures. The individual can now discriminate what is morally right and what is legal, and knows some laws are not moral and violate human rights. It consists of: Stage (5): Morality of contract, individual rights, and democratically accepted law. Now, there is an understanding of the underlying purposes served by laws, and a concern that rules should be made by democracy. Stage (6): Morality of individual principles of conscience. Now, the individual defines right and wrong based on broad, universal self-generated principles. The principles are abstract principles of respect for all individuals and their rights and are discovered through reflection. The person can take many perspectives and come to a solution fair for everyone. This is Kohlberg's vision of ideal moral reasoning. 

Progress through these stages is about progressing in perspective-taking skills. Moral reasoning progresses from an egocentric focus on the self at the preconventional level, to a concern with other's perspectives at the conventional level, and then to the ability of coordinating multiple perspectives and determining what is right from all perspectives at the postconventional level.

While Freud emphasized the role of parents, Kohlberg and Piaget believed cognitive growth (developments in perspective-taking skills and formal-operational thinking) and social interactions with peers (disequilibriums that cause growth) are of biggest influence on moral development. Moral growth then is facilitated by:

• Challenging discussions with peers
• Advanced schooling
• Participating in a complex, diverse, democratic society

Social learning theorists are more interested in the behavioral component. They think moral behavior is learned just like other behaviors: through observing and reinforcement or punishment. Also, situational influences are important to them: due to that, what we do is not always consistent with our moral standards. Social learning theorist Bandura thought moral cognition is linked to moral action through self-regulatory mechanisms, that involve monitoring and evaluating our actions, disapproving ourselves when we think about doing wrong, and approving as we do good. So we apply consequences to ourselves and this way exert self-control. This system of moral self-regulation needs to fight the situational influences that can push us to do wrong. Bandura also says we have devised mechanisms of moral disengagement. These allow us to avoid judging ourselves when we do wrong. So with disengaging you find a way to not feel guilty about it. The ones that have perfected these mechanisms engage in more antisocial behavior.

Evolutionary theorists say all three aspects of morality have become part of our human nature, because they helped us to adapt to the environment. So these things have come to us through evolution. Cooperation and collaboration have proved useful for example.  So, prosocial behavior is rooted in humans, but so is antisocial behavior too and so this can come out occasionally.

What do social cognition and morality mean to the infant?

We view infants as amoral: as if they not yet have a sense of morality, since they can not evaluate their behavior yet or hold moral standards. It seems they are less amoral than we believe. Infants do have capacity for selfishness and aggression, but they are also predisposed to be empathic and prosocial. During the first 2 years they learn many moral lessons and develop conscience. 

Even though many view infants as egocentric, it seems they have empathy and prosocial behavior at a very young age, and it develops as they get older. Infants engage in helping and cooperation, and show signs of having altruistic motivations, a sense of fairness and moral judgment. It also seems antisocial behavior is part of human nature, as physical and verbal aggression come quite naturally to children: however they do not really intend to hurt someone. At 1.5 years, some toddlers get more aggresive than others, which can be caused by genetic as well as environmental factors. 

Normally, as they age, prosocial behavior increases and antisocial behavior decreases. This is partly due to moral socialization: they learn from the people around us and are for example punished when they do wrong. The development of conscience involves (1) mastering moral emotions and (2) mastering self-control (often tested with the delay of gratification task: the famous marshmellow task). A secure attachment to the parents is important for good moral development. It's important to establish a mutually responsive orientation - a close, emotionally positive, cooperative and responsive relationship with each other. It also helps when the parents discuss child's behavior and its consequences. Self-control in young children predicts good outcomes in adolescents/adults, and can be trained if a kid doesn't naturally have it.

What do social cognition and morality mean to the child?

Researchers, like Piaget and Kohlberg, really underestimated children's moral thinking, and believed they just focused on consequences: but even 3-year-olds show to think of intentions as well. This gets more sophisticated as they age and as they develop their theory of mind. So, the development of morality and of TOM develop together and influence each other. 

Children distinguish between different kinds of rules (in contrast to what Piaget believed). They discriminate moral rules (focusing on the welfare and basic rights of others, like the rule of not hitting) from social-conventional rules (determined by social consensus and telling us what is appropriate in social settings, like a social etiquette: e.g. saying "thank you"). As preschoolers, children understand that moral rules are more compelling and unchangeable. 

Children's first belief about fairness is that everything should be equal. But even 3 and 4 year olds can also take into account who deserves it more, if you can get past their strong preference for equality. As they get older, their understanding of fairness develops more and they understand that sometimes the equality rule and sometimes the merit-based equity rule is more fair. They can also use the need-based rule: who needs the "reward" more? In different cultures, different fairness beliefs develop. Children still want to give themselves more than others, but they get the basic principles of fairness. 

We saw earlier that parents have influence on children's moral development through their type of attachment, mutually responsive orientation, being good models and reinforcing or punishing behavior. Hoffman believes fostering empathy is also very important in moral socialization. He compared three major approaches to disciplining children:

• Love withdrawal. Thus: when a child misbehaves, parents withold affection or attention. 
• Power assertion. This is about threatening, spankings, taking away privileges: thus using punishment.
• Induction. This is about explaining why the behavior was wrong, its effects on others, and how it should be changed.

Hoffman believed in induction to be the best method to foster moral development because it fosters empathy. Sometimes, mild power assertion tactics in combination with induction and good affection can help. Otherwise, the two other approaches can have bad effects. Effective parents also use proactive parenting strategies: tactics to prevent misbehavior and thus reduce the need for disciplining. When they discipline, it depends on the situation, child, culture, and what happened which approach they use and how effective it is. Children have to be socialized with goodness-of-fit: it has to fit their temperament and strengthen them. 

What do social cognition and morality mean to the adolescent?

Some adolescents are busy developing a moral identity: where moral values are central to their identity. This may be critical when it comes to translating moral values into moral action. Prosocial activities like community service can help this. Moral identity is more predictive of ethical behavior than the stage of moral reasoning. 

In adolescence, conventional thinking is dominant. Postconventional thinking emerges in adulthood.

Antisocial behavior generally changes from childhood to adolescence: while physical aggression decreases, non-aggressive antisocial behavior like vandalism and theft increase. Teens then engage in juvenile delinquency. Some can be diagnosed with e.g. conduct disorder (pattern of violating others' rights or societal norms), which are in adulthood sometimes referred to as psychopaths. But most antisocial adolescents do not turn into antisocial adults, thus there seem to be two subgroups of antisocial youths:

1. A small, early onset, seriously problematic group that is already recognizable in childhood and can last the whole life span.
2. A larger, late onset, less serious antisocial group that begins in adolescence, probably also due to peer influences, and outgrows this behavior in adulthood (probably because of more autonomy, less sensitivity to peers, adult responsibilities, and the maturation of the preferontal cortex that causes better self-control and a greater ability to think through consequences). 

Juvenile delinquents on average rely more on preconventional moral reasoning, and do less good at TOM tasks. But this can not explain all. They seem to have less empathy as well, they have callous-unemotional traits. Their amygdala (center of emotional experience) shows less activity. Furthermore, they process social information differently and often have certain family environments. This becomes clear in two theories:

• Dodge's social information-processing model. He believes an individual that is provoked progresses through six steps: (1) Encoding of cues. (2) Interpretation of cues. (3) Clarification of goals. (4) Response search. (5) Response decision. (6) Behavioral enactment. Through this, our reactions to provocation, anger or frustration are formed. He believes that aggressive/criminal youths show deficient or biased information processing at every step and thus they react in immoral ways more quickly. They often have hostile attribution bias: they believe that other persons mean to harm them instead of accidental causes. They often view the world as a hostile place, possibly through earlier abuse or abandonment. This model is helpful, but leaves unclear if the underlying problem is how someone thinks (if he/she has good social information processing skills), what one thinks (e.g. hostile attribution bias) or whether one thinks (acting too impulsively). 
• Patterson's coercive family environments theory. He states antisocial people have often grown in coercive family environments: environments in which family members have power struggles, and try to control the others through negative and coercive tactics. For example, parents try to discipline their children by hitting or yelling, which they learned by Skinner's negative reinforcement principle. Children in turn learn they can get their parents to lay off them by ignoring, whining and temper tantrums. It all then gets out of control: parents can not get a hold of their child, who develops conduct problems and relies on aggressive tacts to fix conflicts, as he/she has grew up with. The child is aggressive and not nice and thus has problems in school, ending up in a peergroup of other antisocial and low-achieving youths. They then reinforce each other's delinquency. 

These theories do not take genetics into account, while some people are definitely genetically predisposed to develop certain temperaments, impulsive tendencies, disorders or other traits or responses that contribute to aggressive and criminal behavior. Genetics seem to account for 40% of individual differences in antisocial behavior, and environment for the remaining 60%. Certain genes contribute and there are also epigenetic effects of harmful early experiences. Through gene-environment interaction, children with genetic predispositions for antisocial behavior will even more likely become antisocial with poor parenting or abuse. And through gene-environment correlation, children with these predispositions may actually evoke the coercive parenting. So, there is a reciprocal relation.  Other factors like SES and cultures can have influence as well. 

Many approaches to prevent or treat antisocial behavior have been tried, and had some success, but none of it can completely help. It seems prevention is most effective and should start in childhood, involving both the child and the environment. It's good to improve social-information processing and self-regulation skills. Positive youth development is a positive approach that emphasizes developing the strengths of youth. The goals are defined as five C's: competence, confidence, character, connection and caring. 

What do social cognition and morality mean to the adult?

Kohlberg believed postconventional moral reasoning could only appear in adulthood, and it did not emerge in all adults. It seems moral reasoning skills remain quite steady as people turn into older adults.

Though Kohlberg's first stages indeed seem universal, the higher stages do not: they primarily appear in Western, individualistic cultures, though moral thinking advances in other countries too: just in a different way. Our moral judgments are influenced by our sociocultural context and religion/spirituality.

Shweder states three different ethics inform moral thinking around the world, and the balance of them depends on culture:

• Ethic of autonomy: concern about individual rights and fairness or justice
• Ethic of community: emphasis on duty, loyalty and concern for group welfare
• Ethnic of divinity: emphasis on divine law and quest for spiritual purity

This leads to a cultural-developmental perspective on morality. 

Kohlberg focused on moral reasoning, and some scholars think there is a bigger role for the emotional component. We have quick moral intuitions, like "gut feelings". Some scholars believe these quick intuitions are more important than deliberate moral reasoning. Haidt says we decide intuitively when faced with a moral choice, and then think deliberately to rationalize our decision. Greene then proposed a dual-process model of morality in which there are distinct roles for deliberate thought and intuition/emotion, and they are both important and are used in different situations. We even use different parts of the brain for it (the amygdala is linked to emotions and the prefrontal cortex to reasoning) that somehow interact too. Still, much has to be learned about this. 

People in higher stages of moral reasoning are more likely to behave morally. Still, relationships are weak and this is due to different factors influencing behavior - situational factors, gut emotional reactions, culture, and so on.

Concluding, Kohlberg's stage theory has a lot of support, but it (1) underestimates children's moral reasoning, (2) does not appreciate cultural differences, (3) ignores intuition/emotion, and (4) says too little about the other many influences besides reasoning on moral behavior.

Fowler proposed stages in religion development that parallel Kohlberg's moral development stages. Fowler's stages go from concrete images of God in childhood, to internalization of conventional religious beliefs in adolescence, to soul searching in emerging adulthood, and then for some progression to a more abstract perspective on faith in middle age and older. Religious and spiritual beliefs certainly shape moral judgment and action: they affect people a lot. While religiousness is defined as sharing the beliefs and practices of an organized religion, spirituality involves a quest for meaning and a connection with something greater. So, spirituality can happen inside religion and outside. Both are important in adolescence when they are questioned and explored, and they tend to increase in later adulthood. Religiousness and spirituality are both positively associated with health and wellbeing, probably because they give a sense of meaning and give social support. 

We lead linked lives: our lives and development are intertwined with those of our family members. 

How to understand family?

The family systems theory views the family as a system: consisting of interrelated parts, and it's a dynamic one that adapts to changes in members and the environment. The nuclear family is traditionally father, mother, and at least one child. However this is not really fair to the many other forms of families so "immediate family" might be better. 

Family systems are really complex with their reciprocality and many subsystems like the couple, parent-child, and sibling subsystems. A fourth subsystem is coparenting (the ways in which two parents coordinate their parenting and function as a team). Mutually supportive coparenting can have big influence on the child, even next to the influence of a good couple relationship. Parents have indirect effects on their children by influencing their partners too. An extended family household gets even more complex, as families live with other kin. The family is by all means, and in its many forms, a system within other systems (the microsystem in larger systems), and it depends a lot on culture. And, of course, it changes throughout life: through changes in membership and changes in a person or relationship. The concept of family life cycle is the sequence of changes in family composition, roles, relationships and developmental tasks, from the time people marry until they die. Duvall for instance outlined eight stages, with each a particular set of members, different roles and different tasks. But this traditional family life cycle is experienced by increasingly less people, so it doesn't truly seem relevant anymore.

The world is changing and there have been important social changes that alter family experiences (based on the US):

1. More single adults. 
2. Later marriage.
3. More unmarried parents.
4. Fewer children. 
5. More working mothers.
6. More divorce.
7. More single-parent families.
8. More remarriages (forming reconstituted families). 
9. More yeras without children.
10. More multigenerational families. 
11. Fewer caregivers for aging adults.

Some view these changes as "decline of the family", emphasizing negative effects. But some of these changes bring positive things too. Ultimately, family is more diverse than ever. 

What does family mean to the infant?

Fathers today are more involved with their children than ever, and they have good abilities for it. Still, there is gender difference in involvement and style (this is different if the father is the primary caregiver). More fathers live apart from children than ever before too. Mothers and children benefit from a supportive father. When a system does not function well, it can be challenging to change it but it can be done with effort and support. 

What does family mean to the child?

Parental acceptance-responsiveness is about if parents are warm, affectionate, supportive and sensitive to their children's needs. Of course they act on misbehaving, but they consider their child's perspective. Parental demandingness-control is about how much control lies with the parent when it comes to decisions. Demanding and controlling parents set rules and watch their children closely to see if they obey, while less controlling and demanding parents allow more autonomy. By crossing these two dimensions, four basic child rearing patterns emerge:

• Authoritarian parenting: with high demandingness-control and low acceptance-responsiveness. A restrictive style with many rules and the parents often use power-assertion tactics to ensure their power. 
• Authoritative parenting: with high demandingness-control and high acceptance-responsiveness. A style with clear rules and consistency, but with more explaining of the rules and more perspective-taking. The approach is more democratic and reasonable, so the parents are in charge but involve the children too. This style generally has the best outcomes. 
• Permissive parenting: with low demandingness-control and high acceptance-responsiveness. Very child-centered, the child has a lot of freedom and parents exert little control. 
• Neglectful parenting: with low demandingness-control and low acceptance-responsiveness. Uninvolved parenting, with hostile, rejecting or indifferent actions. They can be overwhelmed with themselves so they do not have energy for their children. 

SES, poverty and culture influence parenting styles and whether they're effective. Why do these differences exist? There are three major explanations:

• Financial stress. The family stress model focuses on the negative effects of financial stress on parents, which leads to marital conflict and bad parenting and thus damaged child development. Poverty has many bad effects. 
• Resource investment. Low-SES parents can invest less money and time in their children's development. 
• Cultural values and socialization goals. Low-SES parents may have more concerns like their children involving in crime or teen pregnancy, and these may contribute to a more authoritarian style. They also may parent in a way that prepares their children for the kind of job the parents have (obeying a boss, instead of being the boss).

We saw that parents influence their children's development through parenting. These are four models of influence in the family that feature (other) ways of thinking about family influence:

• Parent effects model: which assumes that influences go one way - from parent to child. 
• Child effects model: which highlights the influences of children on their parents (e.g. how the child's age or personality influences parenting, and evocative gene-environment correlations). 
• Interactional model: focuses on the gene-environment interaction concept, states that it takes the child effects ánd parent effects to influence development. 
• Transactional model: focuses on the reciprocal influence of parent effects and child effects on each other. So, how they change each other in interaction: how the relationship goes bad or good as the two interact. 

When children have to share attention with a new sibling, and get less attention, some can get difficult. It brings positive things too, but it can be a bit challenging for some. Parents have to continue to provide love and attention and try to maintain the usual routines. 

Sibling rivalry is a normal part of being siblings and may be part of evolution. While living in such close proximity, they can not resolve conflicts maturely yet. Levels of conflict decrease after early adolescence. Despite its ambivalence, siblings are close too and siblings play mostly positive roles in each other's development. They have four important functions:

• Emotional support.
• Caregiving.
• Teaching.
• Social experience.

However, they can influence each other negatively when they develop a bad relationship or influence each other to do bad things. Of course they can also affect each other indirectly by affecting their parents. 

What does family mean to the adolescent?

Contrary to belief, most parent-adolescent relationships are and remain close. It is more likely for a troubled parent-adolescent relationship to already stem from a troubled parent-child relationship. However, during early adolescence conflict increases temporarily, and parents and adolescents spend less time together. The key developmental task is achieving autonomy, and the parent-adolescent relationship then typically becomes more equal. A blend of autonomy and attachment is ideal. Conflict, however not too much, can foster autonomy. How autonomy takes shape differs in each culture. Authoritative parenting, but with granting their children more autonomy, is usually the winning approach (again, also depending on culture). 

Helicopter parenting refers to developmentally inappropriate levels of control and guidance to late adolescents (overparenting), which has bad outcomes. Most are too extremely trying authoritative parents.

What does family mean to the adult?

Married adults feel great in the "honeymoon phase" but some experience a decline in satisfaction as time goes by, even in the first year after marriage. Relationships get more realistic. Couples should try to maintain a high level positive and supportive interaction. 

New parenthood is a stressful life change, involving both positive and negative sides. Marital satisfaction generally declines after a baby is born, mostly for women since they do most work (as the parental imperative happens). Self-esteem declines a bit, especially for mothers. However, it is very variable among people how this life change is experienced, due to child and parent characteristics and the social context and support. Strengthening good coparenting can help. 

More children means more work and stress, and there can be a work-family conflict (when it's hard to combine work and family life). Working parents are also subject to spillover effects: effects of work events on family life and home events on work. Puberty brings challenges of more conflicts with the child, and more conflicts with each other as partners over how to handle this. And it's hard to feel good when your child is struggling in adolescence. But of course stressed parents, or parents with marital problems, influence their child's functioning and feelings as well. Overall, children generally have a (little) negative effect on marital satisfaction, but parents will always emphasize the positives. 

The family after the last child's departure is the empty nest. Marital satisfaction then on average increases. A minority of parents has a hard time with the leaving, named the empty nest syndrome, but generally they react more positively than negatively. Boomerang children are children that later return home, due to whatever reason, and some never leave. Parents usually adapt well to this, especially if the children are taking responsibility and progressing towards flying solo.

Then, there are three major grandparenting styles:

• Remote: just seen occassionally by their grandchildren, geographically and probably therefore also emotionally distant.
• Companionate: frequently seeing each other and doing fun things together, but no parental role.
• Involved: with a parental role too. 

Relationships with siblings get better, though with less frequency of seeing each other, as we age, but some ambivalence can carry over. Siblings that had bad relationships in childhood may clash in response to big life events. The parent-child relationship can grow more equal and understanding, more friendlike, as both age. Only when parents reach very old ages or have serious problems, role reversal may occur, in which the child turns into the caregiver. 

Middle generation squeeze/sandwich generation phenomenon: this stands for how middle-aged adults are pressured by demands from both the younger and the older generations. Traditional gender-role norms cause women to be kinkeepers: the ones who keeps family close and handles family problems. Caregiver burden is when someone gets psychologically overwhelmed with caring for others. Caregiving is hardest when the recipient of care has a form of dementia, the caregiver lacks personal resourches like a secure attachment style, the caregiver lacks social support, and/or cultural and contextual factors do not support caregiving. 

What about other types of family experiences?

Divorced or widowed singles are less happy in old age than never-married people. Cohabitation (living together without being married) is on the rise, with its motivations being convenience, trial marriage, and being an alternative to marriage. On average, couples who live together and then marry are less satisfied with their marriage than people who first marry. One explanation is that cohabiters are usually younger and lower in income, and they may have less conventional family beliefs and less commitment to marriage. However, since cohabitation is rising, this seems a less good reason. A second explanation is that cohabitating adults do not get into it with the intention of always staying together, but then eventually do marry because it is normal and they've been together so long for example. Marital success rates improve as partners are engaged before living together, if they have not cohabited before, and if they do not have a child before marriage. 

Wanting and not being able to have a child is very difficult, but general childlessness does not diminish adults wellbeing and sometimes boosts it.  

In same sex couples, relationships are egalitarian (it's not like one is the wife and the other the husband). They are generally very devoted parents with the biological parent taking the lead. Children with two parents of the same sex have better developmental outcomes than children with one parent, and the same as children with heterosexual parents. 

High-risk couples for divorce are typically young adults that have been married for an average of 7 years, with often young children. It's especially likely if they married young, got a child before marriage, and with low SES. Divorce and everything that comes with it is often (but not always!) experienced as crisis for everyone involved. After 2 years, families usually begin really getting back on track. Several factors can help facilitate a positive adjustment to divorce, and prevent lasting damage:

• Financial support. 
• Good parenting by both the custodial and noncustodial parent.
• Minimal parental conflict.
• Additional social support. 
• Minimal other changes. 
• Personal resources (like intelligence, coping skills, emotional stability).

When a parent remarries, it can first bring difficulties, as a new family system has to take shape. It is often hardest for girls. Overall, adolescents in reconstituted families or single-parent families are less well-adjustment than those in warm intact families. However, it varies much, as it ultimately depends on good parenting and good relationships within the family system. Family process is way more important for wellbeing than family structure!

What about family violence?

Family violence contains child abuse and the broader term child maltreatment. Of course there are several other forms of family violence too, like sibling violence or when there's abuse in the parent's relationship. 

Child abusers tend to have been abused as children themselves. This is an example of intergenerational transmission of parenting: thus the passing on of parenting styles from generation to generation, probably due to observational learning, genetics and epigenetic effects. But this does not happen for the majority. Next, abusive mothers are often battered by their partners and learned violence is the way to solve things or let out frustration. Abusers also often have mental health problems. And, abusive parents often have distorted, ego-threathening perceptions of normal child behavior. 

Children with medical problems or difficult temperaments can be more at risk of abuse. It seems a high-risk parent and challenging child interact to create problems. And they also affect each other even more like the transactional model of family influence says. Of course, sociocultural and ecological context matter too. In short, abuse seems most likely when a vulnerable person faces overwhelming stress with insufficient social support. 

Abuse leaves much lasting damage, but some maltreated children can get back on the good developmental path; depending on genetics and environmental factors. 

What is death?

Death is a complex process; different systems die at different rates. Death cannot be said to have happened until there is total brain death which requires extensive testing. There is much controversy about it and the right-to-die vs. right-to-life issue.

Unlike coma patients who lack both awareness and wakefulness, people in vegetative states lack awareness but experience sleep-wake cycles, may open their eyes and sometimes move. Research showed that some people in vegetative states have more awareness than they are presumed to have.

Active euthanasia is deliberately and directly causing a person's death, while passive euthanasia is allowing a terminally ill person to die of natural causes (e.g. by taking away life-saving treatments). In between is assisted suicide, when the means to die are made available to a person who wishes to. 

The social meanings attached to death depend on historical era and culture. For instance, from the late 19th century, there is "denial of death" in Western societies, and death is taken from the home with loved ones to the hospital and funeral parlor. It is very dependent on culture how near-death people are handled, how they express grief after death, and what they think happens after death. 

Life expectancy is generally lower for males, and highest for Hispanics and lowest for African Americans (in the USA). Life expectancies vary a lot across different parts of the world.

Infants are relatively vulnerable to death, but children and adolescents have a pretty small chance of dying. Death rates climb steadily through adulthood. Leading causes of death depend on age, for instance in children it is unintentional accidents, for adolescents accidents, suicides and homicides, and for the 45-64 age group it is cancer and heart disease. 

How is death experienced?

Kübler-Ross, who sensitized our society to the emotional needs of the dying, came up with five stages of dying (and believed that similar reactions might occur in response to major loss):

1. Denial. This can get us through a crisis time, until we're ready to cope more constructively.
2. Anger. 
3. Bargaining. Thus: "Okay, I'm dying, but please..."
4. Depression. 
5. Acceptance. 

Through these stages, runs hope, in whatever sense. 

Problems with these stages are:

• Emotional responses to dying are not stagelike. Plus, not all reactions occur in all people. Shneidman proposed that dying patients experience a complex, changeable interplay of emotions, alternating between denial and acceptance and the many emotions that come with it.
• The nature and course of an illness affects reactions to dying. 
• There is much variation among individuals in their responses. Personality has influence: people cope with dying as they cope with living. 
• Dying people focus on living, not just on dying. Dying people still set goals, which center on controlling dying, valuing life in the present, and creating a living legacy. 

Responses to the death of a loved one have to do with three terms. Bereavement is a state of loss, grief is an emotional response to loss, and mourning is a culturally prescribed way of displaying reactions to death. When approaching death, there may be the experience of anticipatory grief: grieving before death occurs. 

Parkes conceptualized grieving in the context of Bowlby's attachment theory, because it also has to do with separation from a loved one. The Parkes/Bowlby attachment model of bereavement describes four predominant reactions, which overlap and thus should be viewed as phases, not stages:

• Numbness. First, the bereaved person is in disbelief and feels empty. Underneath the numbness is someone being on the verge of bursting, and occasionally difficult emotions break through. The bad news just has not fully registered yet, the person is struggling to defend against the full weight of the loss.
• Yearning. Now the bereaved person experiences more agony. It's like acute separation anxiety, and the person wishes to reunite with the lost one. The person feels panicky, extremely sad, restless and in pain, and searches for the loved one to feel reunited. Ultimately the quest for reunion, driven by separation anxiety, fails. Feelings of anger, frustration and guilt are common. 
• Disorganization and despair. Moments of intense grief and yearning still occur but now become less frequent. It's sinking in. Sometimes they feel apathetic. 
• Reorganization. Gradually, they're recovering and focus more on the living. They may revise their identities now that loved one is gone. 

Stroebe and Schut came up with the dual-process model of bereavement in which the bereaved go back and forth between coping with the emotional blow of the loss and coping with the challenges of living. Loss-oriented coping is about dealing with the emotions and getting through the loss, while restoration-oriented coping is about managing daily living, rethinking life and forming new identities or relationships. Both issues have to be confronted, but also avoided at times or we would be overwhelmed. A balance has to be found between confrontation and avoidance of coping challenges of both categories. This model has recently been extended to also take family dynamics into account, since that influences the individual coping (and individual coping influences family coping dynamics too). 

What does death mean to the infant?

In infancy, an understanding of concepts that pave the way for understanding death is gained. For instance, understanding "being and nonbeing" and "here and gone". They can not understand death as a permanent separation and loss yet, and though they may notice changes in the emotional climate in their home after someone died, they can not interpret it yet. Bowlby said that infants separated from their attachment figures engage in protest, and when they can not find their loved one again, despair begins. Hope is lost and the infant becomes apathetic, sad, may have poor appetite and different sleep patterns, clinginess and may regress to less mature behavior. Eventually the bereaved infant enters a detachment phase, and renewed interest emerges for toys and companions. Infants recover best if they can rely on an existing attachment figure or attach to someone new and good. 

What does death mean to the child?

Youngsters are very curious about death, but they do not fully understand it yet. A mature understanding of death has several components:

• Finality. 
• Irreversibility.
• Universality.
• Biological causality: it's the result of natural processes in the organism, even if caused by external things. This one is hardest to master.

Very young children grasp some aspects of death, but major breakthroughs in understanding occur in the 5-7 age range, as cognitive development gets better. Their beliefs are shaped by the cultural/religious context and their unique life experiences. Sometimes adults just make death scarier and more confusing to children, and it's best to handle it simply, but honestly and use events like the death of a pet to teach children. 

Dying children are surprisingly well aware that they're dying and that it's irreversible. They then experience many of the emotions that dying adults experience. They want to keep a sense of control. Parents can best follow their child's lead in how to talk about upcoming death.

Four major messages have emerged from studying bereaved children that experienced a loss: children grieve, they express their grief differently than adults, they lack some of the coping resources that adults command, and some are vulnerable to long-term damage of bereavement. Youngsters have mainly access to behavioral/action coping strategies. It's important to recognize a child's grief and to include them in the family's mourning rituals. Preschooler's grief is expressed in problems with daily routines like sleeping and eating, and possibly temper tantrums and dependency. Older children express their grief more directly, but also struggle with somatic symptoms like headaches. Some bereaved children continue to display problems after a while and a minority develops problems that carry into adulthood, but most adapt well and show resilience. This goes best when the caregiver maintains their own mental health, provides good parenting, and a secure attachment is at work. Supportive friends can help too, but this is challenging since the child is struggling and peers are sometimes insensitive. 

What does death mean to the adolescent?

Adolescents can usually think more abstractly about death, and are thinking about afterlife. A biological concept of death and a spiritual/supernatural one can exist side by side. 

Adolescents' reactions to becoming ill reflect the themes of this stage. For instance they get self-conscious about hair loss. They long to be like and be accepted by their peers. And their long for autonomy interferes with the dependence on parents/medics. 

When losing their parents, adolescents' sometimes do not express their grief, as they're scared of how it will affect other's opinions of them. The grief then comes out another way, like in delinquency or somatic problems. As they form identities, the death of their parent will become part of it. Some still experience problems a while after the loss. Losing a friend can also lead to psychological problems as peers are very important. 

What does death mean to the adult?

To really see the effects of a death, the sociocultural context, developmental perspective, and family systems perspective have to be taken into account. There's no standard reaction to bereavement, everyone follows a different grief path. Complicated grief/prolonged grief disorder is unusually long or intense grief that impairs functioning. Disenfranchised grief is grief that is not fully recognized or appreciated by other people, and thus comes with little sympathy and support: this happens sometimes for gay couples, or when people lose their ex-spouse or extramarital lover. A child's death can be devastating for a family, and how siblings adjust depends a lot on how their parents are doing. 

The view that has guided much bereavement research is called the grief work perspective: the view that to cope well with deat, bereaved people must confront their loss, experience painful emotions and work through them, and detach psychologically from the dead person. From this perspective, complicated grief as described before is abnormal, but so is lack of "normal" grief. But is there a "right way to grieve"? It varies greatly among persons, and this perspective is also culturally biased. This perspective does not really seem to work, and it also seems too much "grief work", like ruminative coping, can backfire. And truly detaching from the deceased is not always necessary or helpful, continuing bonds may exist, especially in some cultures. Internal approaches to continue the bond (like feeling they watch over you) can help adjustment, but external approaches (like seeking comfort from their possessions) may reflect continued efforts to reunite and difficulty with coping. And again culture and norms are at work. 

Coping with bereavement is influenced by personal resources (like personality and coping style), the nature of the loss (both closeness to the person and cause of death), and the surrounding context (with support and stressors). Also, attachment styles are related to responses to death:

• A secure attachment style is associated with relatively good coping with death.
• A resistant/preoccupied style, which involves being very anxious about abandonment, is linked to being overly dependent and experiencing extreme, prolonged grief after a loss. 
• An avoidant/dismissing style, associated with difficulty expressing emotions or finding comfort, relates to little visible grieving and disengagement, even from the deceased person. 
• A disorganized/fearful style, rooted in unpredictable and anxiety-arousing parenting, links to being especially unable to cope with loss, resulting in alcohol abuse for instance. 

In the dual-process model of bereavement, this means resistant individuals focus on the loss whereas avoidant individuals focus on restoration. Secure attached individuals can balance the two. 

Posttraumatic growth is the positive psychological change resulting from a heavy experience like a loss or illness (e.g. more life appreciation, more independency). Posttraumatic stress and growth can go hand in hand, and growth is most likely when distress is significant but not crushing.

How to take the sting out of death?

A hospice is a program that supports dying people and their families through a philosophy of caring over curing. It can be an opportunity to die with dignity, free of pain and surrounded by loved ones. It can be an institution or people can be visited at home by hospice workers. Hospice care is part of a larger movement to provide palliative care, that's aimed at bringing comfort to and meeting the (psychological) needs of people with serious illnesses. Hospice care has those key features:

• The dying person and their family decide what support they need and want.
• Attempts to cure the patient or prolong life are not emphasized, but death is not hastened either.
• Pain control is emphasized.
• The setting for care is as normal as possible. 
• Bereavement counseling is provided to the family before and after death.

In some cultures, death is a taboo and therefore hospice/palliative care is harder to get off the ground.

Bereaved individuals at risk for complicated grief can benefit from psychotherapy, and family therapy can work well, because death influences family systems. And support groups or self-help courses can work. 

Concluding notes

1. Nature and nurture truly interact in development.
2. We are whole people throughout the life span (advances/deficits in one area have implications for other areas of development). 
3. Development proceeds in multiple directions (gains, losses and changes happen at every age).
4. There is both continuity and discontinuity in development.
5. There is much plasticity in development. 
6. We are individuals, becoming even more diverse with age.
7. We develop in a cultural and historical context.
8. We are active in our own development. 
9. Development is a lifelong process. 
10. Development is best viewed from multiple perspectives.