Human Development

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Human development is a lifelong, multidirectional, and multidimensional process shaped by biological, environmental, historical, and cultural forces across physical, cognitive, and psychosocial domains.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What the field studies: changes and stability from conception to death across physical, cognitive, and psychosocial domains.
• Shift from childhood-only to lifespan: the field now recognizes that development continues throughout adulthood and old age, not just until age 25.
• Baltes's lifespan principles: development is lifelong, multidirectional, includes both gains and losses, is characterized by plasticity, and is embedded in historical and cultural contexts.
• Common confusion: development is not just gains in childhood and losses in old age—every age involves both growth and loss.
• Multiple influences: development is shaped by normative age-graded, normative history-graded, and non-normative influences, plus socioeconomic and cultural contexts.

🔬 The field of human development

🔬 What developmental science studies

Human Development or Lifespan Development: the scientific study of the ways in which people change, as well as remain the same, from conception to death.

• The field examines changes and stability across multiple domains.
• Domains include:
  • Physical and neurophysiological processes
  • Cognition, language
  • Emotion, personality, moral development
  • Psychosocial development, including relationships with others
• Originally focused on infants and children; now expanded to adolescence, aging, and the entire lifespan.

📚 How the field has evolved

• Old assumption: once you are 25, development is essentially completed.
• Current understanding: growth and change continue throughout life; experience continues to shape who we are.
• Adulthood is now recognized as a dynamic period marked by continued cognitive, social, and psychological development.
• The assumption that early childhood experiences dictate our future is being questioned.
• Less research exists on adulthood than on childhood, but adulthood is gaining increasing attention (especially with the baby boomer cohort entering late adulthood).

🔍 Key questions developmental psychologists investigate

• Are children qualitatively different from adults, or do they simply lack experience?
• Does development occur through gradual accumulation of knowledge or through qualitative shifts from one stage to another?
• Are children born with innate knowledge, or do they figure things out through experience?
• Is development driven by the social context or something inside each child?

🌐 Connections to other fields

• Applied fields: educational psychology, developmental psychopathology, intervention science.
• Basic research fields: social psychology, cognitive psychology, cross-cultural psychology.
• Scientific fields: biology, sociology, health care, nutrition, anthropology.

🧩 Baltes's lifespan perspective principles

🧩 Development is lifelong

• No single age period is more crucial or dominates human development.
• Change is apparent across the entire lifespan, not just in childhood.
• The term "lifespan development" reflects this principle.

🔀 Development is multidirectional and multidimensional

• Multidirectional: different people follow different developmental pathways and proceed at different rates.
• Multidimensional: even within the same person, different dimensions or domains can change in different ways.
• Example: one person may show cognitive gains while experiencing physical losses at the same age.

⚖️ Development includes both gains and losses

• Don't confuse: the traditional view (childhood = gains, old age = losses) is rejected.
• At every age, we may show gains in some areas while showing losses in others.
• Every change (finishing school, getting married, becoming a parent) entails both growth and loss.

🧠 Development is characterized by plasticity

Plasticity: malleability, or our potential to change and to follow a wide range of developmental pathways.

• Illustrated by the brain's ability to learn from experience and recover from injury.
• We are not locked into a single developmental trajectory.

🌍 Development is embedded in historical and cultural contexts

• Development is influenced by the many social contexts in which it unfolds.
• How people develop depends on:
  • Societal and cultural contexts
  • The historical period during which their development takes place
• Example: someone born in 1946 (Baby Boomer) experiences different historical changes than someone born in 1997 (Generation Z).

🔗 Development is multiply determined

• Development is caused by multiple factors.
• Always shaped by both biological and environmental factors.
• The individual plays an active role in their own development (not passive).

📖 Development is multidisciplinary

• Human development requires theories, research methods, and knowledge from many academic disciplines.
• No single field can fully explain development.

🌐 Contextualism: three systems of influence

📅 Normative age-graded influences

Age-grade: a specific age group, such as toddler, adolescent, or senior.

• Humans experience particular age-graded social experiences (e.g., starting school).
• Also includes biological changes (e.g., puberty).
• These are organized by age and are typical for most people in a society.

🕰️ Normative history-graded influences

Cohort: a group of people who are born at roughly the same period in a particular society.

• The time period in which you are born shapes your experiences.
• Cohort members travel through life often experiencing similar historical changes at similar ages.
• Includes:
  • Environmental determinants (e.g., historical changes in the job market)
  • Biological determinants (e.g., historical changes in life expectancy)

Generation	Born between
Silent Generation	1928 and 1945
Baby Boomers	1946 and 1964
Generation X	1965 and 1980
Millennials	1982 and 1996
Generation Z	1997 and 2009
Generation Alpha	2010 and 2024

🎲 Non-normative influences

• Development is also shaped by specific influences that are not organized by age or historical time.
• Examples: immigration, accidents, death of a parent.
• Can be environmental (e.g., parental mental health issues) or biological (e.g., life-threatening illness).
• These are unique to individuals or small groups, not typical for everyone.

🧬 Domains of development

🧬 Three general domains

We change across three general domains/dimensions:

Domain	What it includes
Physical	Changes in height and weight, sensory capabilities, the nervous system, propensity for disease and illness
Cognitive	Changes in intelligence, wisdom, perception, problem-solving, memory, and language
Psychosocial	Changes in emotion, self-perception, and interpersonal relationships with families, peers, and friends

🔄 How domains interact

• All three domains influence each other.
• A change in one domain may cascade and prompt changes in the other domains.
• Example: an infant who starts to crawl or walk will encounter more objects and people, fostering developmental change in the child's understanding of the physical and social world.

🏛️ Socioeconomic and cultural contexts

💰 Socioeconomic status (SES)

Socioeconomic status (SES): a way to identify families and households based on their shared levels of education, income, and occupation.

• Members of a social class tend to share:
  • Similar privileges, opportunities, lifestyles
  • Patterns of consumption, parenting styles, stressors
  • Religious preferences and other aspects of daily life
• All of us born into a class system are socially located.
• We may move up or down depending on a combination of socially and individually created limits and opportunities.

🏢 Higher vs. lower SES occupations

Higher SES families:

• Occupations: attorneys, physicians, executives
• Better pay
• Greater freedom and control over their job
• Autonomy/control is a key factor in job satisfaction, personal happiness, health, and well-being

Lower SES families:

• Occupations that are more routine, more heavily supervised, require less formal education
• More subject to job disruptions, including lay-offs and lower wages

📉 Poverty level

Poverty level: an income amount established by the federal government based on a set of thresholds that vary by family size.

• If a family's income is less than the government threshold, that family is considered in poverty.
• Poverty is associated with:
  • Poorer health and lower life expectancy
  • Poorer diet, less healthcare, greater stress
  • Working in more dangerous occupations
  • Higher infant mortality rates, poorer prenatal care, greater iron deficiencies
  • Greater difficulty in school
  • Many other problems
• Those at or near poverty may find it extremely difficult to sustain a household.
• Members of higher income status may fear losing that status, but the poor may have greater concerns over losing housing.

🌏 Culture

Culture: the totality of our shared language, knowledge, material objects, and behavior.

• Includes:
  • Ideas about what is right and wrong, what to strive for, what to eat, how to speak, what is valued
  • What kinds of emotions are called for in certain situations
• Culture teaches us how to live in a society.
• Allows us to advance because each new generation can benefit from solutions found and passed down from previous generations.
• Learned from parents, schools, houses of worship, media, friends, and others throughout a lifetime.

🔍 Ethnocentrism vs. cultural relativity

Ethnocentrism: the belief that our own culture is superior.

• A normal by-product of growing up in a culture.
• We tend to believe that our own culture's practices and expectations are the right ones.
• Becomes a roadblock when it inhibits understanding of cultural practices from other societies.

Cultural relativity: an appreciation for cultural differences and the understanding that cultural practices are best understood from the standpoint of that particular culture.

• Allows us to understand development in different cultural contexts.

🧩 Culture and developmental theory

• Culture is an extremely important context for human development.
• Understanding development requires identifying which features are culturally based.
• This understanding is somewhat new and still being explored.
• Much of what developmental theorists have described in the past has been culturally bound and difficult to apply to various cultural contexts.
• There is still much that is unknown when comparing development across cultures.

⏳ Conceptions of age

📆 Chronological age

Chronological age: the number of years since your birth.

• The most common way we answer "How old are you?"
• But years since birth is not the only way to conceptualize age.
• We might "feel" older than our chronological age if we are not feeling well, are tired, or are stressed out.
• A peer might seem more emotionally mature or physically more capable than us, even if they are the same chronological age.

🧬 Biological age

Biological age: how quickly the body is aging.

• Examines the rate at which our body ages.
• Several factors determine this rate:
  • Nutrition
  • Level of physical activity
  • Sleeping habits
  • Smoking, alcohol consumption
  • How we mentally handle stress
  • Genetic history

🔄 Lifespan vs. life expectancy

Lifespan (or longevity): the maximum age any member of a species can reach under optimal conditions.

• Example: grey wolf can live up to 20 years in captivity, bald eagle up to 50 years, Galapagos tortoise over 150 years.
• The longest recorded lifespan for a human was Jean Calment, who died in 1994 at the age of 122 years, 5 months, and 14 days.

Life expectancy: the average number of years a person born in a particular time period can typically expect to live.

• Don't confuse: lifespan is the maximum possible; life expectancy is the average for a population.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Meta-theories of human development are deeply held sets of assumptions about human nature and developmental processes that shape how researchers ask questions, conduct studies, and interpret findings, yet these assumptions often remain implicit and lead to miscommunication across research paradigms.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What meta-theories are: sets of assumptions about the nature of humans and what development looks like, how it happens, and what causes it—often implicit and unexamined.
• Why they matter: meta-theories influence everything in research (questions asked, methods used, data interpretation) and are often deeply held convictions researchers defend fiercely.
• Six key assumptions: human nature (blank slate vs. inherent qualities), nature vs. nurture, active vs. passive role, stability vs. change, continuity vs. discontinuity, and universal vs. context-specific pathways.
• Common confusion: researchers holding different meta-theories often argue past each other because they use different truth criteria and ask different questions, leading to discrepancies and misunderstandings.
• Four guiding meta-theories: Maturational (humans as seeds), Mechanistic (humans as machines), Organismic (humans as butterflies), and Contextualist (humans as participants in a tennis game/conversation/dance).

🌱 Understanding meta-theories

🔍 What meta-theories are

Meta-theories (or world views or paradigms) of human development are sets of assumptions people hold about the nature of humans and the meaning of development—what it looks like, how it happens, what causes it.

• "Meta" means "above" or "beyond," like "meta-physics."
• Other terms: world views, cosmologies, perspectives, or paradigms (as in "paradigm shifts").
• Everyone has them, including researchers, but they are often implicit—we are not always consciously aware of them.
• These are not just cold cognitions; they are often deeply held convictions researchers will fiercely defend.

⚠️ Why meta-theories matter

Impact on research:

• Influence everything about how research is conducted: questions asked, measures and methods used, interpretation of data.
• Example: if researchers assume development ends at 18, they do not look for developmental changes after that age.
• Example: if researchers assume aging is a process of decline, they never look for characteristics that might improve as people get older.

Communication challenges:

• Researchers holding different meta-theories can have difficulty communicating with each other.
• They ask different questions and use different truth criteria for research.
• They often argue past each other or misunderstand each other.
• One group offers what they consider irrefutable proof, which other researchers dismiss as irrelevant.
• Discrepancies, inconsistencies, arguments, and furor often characterize areas where researchers from multiple meta-theories are working.

Don't confuse: Meta-theories with explicit theories—meta-theories are often unacknowledged and researchers typically think their assumptions are self-evident truths, convinced they are right and everyone else is wrong.

🧩 Six key assumptions

🧬 Human nature

What is the nature of humans?

• Beliefs about underlying qualities of our species.
• Are people born as blank slates (tabula rasa) or do they bring intrinsic human characteristics into the world?
• Example: theories of motivation differ—some assume motives are all acquired, others assume humans come with intrinsic motivations.

🌿 Nature vs. nurture

Why are you the way you are?

• Nature side: heredity plays the most important role in bringing about features.
• Nurture side: environment is most significant in shaping the way we are.
• The debate continues in all aspects of human development.
• Most scholars agree there is a constant interplay between the two forces.
• It is difficult to isolate the root of any single behavior as solely nature or nurture.

Example: Consider features like height, weight, personality, or being diabetic—both heredity and environmental factors (lifestyle, diet) contribute.

🎯 Active vs. passive role

How much do you play a role in your own developmental path?

View	Description	Example theorist
Active	Humans play a much more active role in their own development	Piaget: children actively explore their world and construct new ways of thinking
Passive	Humans are more passive in the developmental process, at the whim of genetic inheritance or environment	Behaviorists view humans as more passive

🔄 Stability vs. change

How similar are you to how you were as a child?

• Some theorists: personality traits of adults are rooted in behavioral and emotional tendencies of the infant and young child.
• Others: these initial tendencies are modified by social and cultural forces over time.
• The question is whether traits, characteristics, and experiences early in life have permanent effects or whether people are malleable and open to change throughout life.

📊 Continuity vs. discontinuity

Is development slow and gradual, or characterized by abrupt change?

Discontinuous development (stage theories): assume developmental change occurs in distinct stages that are qualitatively different from each other, and that unfold in a set, universal sequence.

Continuous development: a more slow and gradual process.

Approach	View	Example theorists
Discontinuous/Stage theories	At each stage, children and adults have different qualities and characteristics; development involves qualitative shifts	Freud, Erikson, Piaget, Kohlberg
Continuous	Adults use more advanced skills that were already present in some form in the child; development involves quantitative incremental change	Behaviorists, Vygotsky, information processing theorists

Metaphor from excerpt: The tree represents continuous development while the ladybug represents discontinuous development.

Don't confuse: The answer often depends on which developmental theorist you ask and what topic is being studied—it's not one-size-fits-all.

🌍 Universal vs. context-specific

Are developmental pathways the same for everyone?

View	Description	Example theorists
Normative and universal	All people pass through the same pathways in the same sequence	Piaget, Erikson: everyone progresses through the same stages in the same order
Differential and specific	A variety of different patterns and pathways are possible depending on the individual and context	Lifespan or ecological systems approaches: development depends on specific cultural, historical, and societal contexts

🌳 Four guiding meta-theories

🌱 Maturational meta-theory (humans as seeds)

Metaphor: humans develop like plants

Key assumptions:

• The important thing to study is people's "seeds"—their genetic make-up.
• People are assumed to be passive, the product of their genes.
• The environment can provide support and nutrition (rain, sun, soil), but can't change a person's nature.
• Example: poppy seeds will always produce poppies; acorns always grow into oak trees.
• The role of the person is to be reactive—to their genes.
• Development will be continuous or discontinuous depending on the genetic program.

🤖 Mechanistic meta-theory (humans as machines)

Metaphor: humans as machines

• (The excerpt mentions this meta-theory but does not provide detailed explanation in the provided text.)

🦋 Organismic meta-theory (humans as butterflies)

Metaphor: humans as butterflies

• (The excerpt mentions this meta-theory but does not provide detailed explanation in the provided text.)

🎾 Contextualist meta-theory (humans as participants)

Metaphor: humans as participants in a tennis game, conversation, or dance

• (The excerpt mentions this meta-theory but does not provide detailed explanation in the provided text.)

Note: The excerpt references a chart [pdf] for an overview of these guiding meta-theories, but the detailed explanations for Mechanistic, Organismic, and Contextualist meta-theories are not included in the provided text.

🔬 Implications for studying development

📐 How assumptions shape research

• If researchers assume development ends at 18 → they do not look for developmental changes after that age.
• If researchers assume aging is decline → they never look for characteristics that might improve as people get older.
• All researchers have meta-theories, since assumptions are baked into the theories and methodologies they use.
• Researchers are often unaware of them, so these assumptions are rarely acknowledged.

🗣️ Communication across paradigms

Why researchers from different meta-theories struggle to communicate:

• They are asking different questions.
• They use different truth criteria for research.
• They offer what they consider irrefutable proof, which others dismiss as irrelevant.
• They often argue past each other or misunderstand each other.

Don't confuse: Disagreement based on different meta-theories with disagreement about facts—the root issue is fundamentally different assumptions about what counts as evidence and what questions matter.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Meta-theories in human development cluster around four root metaphors—seeds (maturational), machines (mechanistic), butterflies (organismic), and tennis games (contextualist)—each making different assumptions about whether development is driven by nature or nurture, whether people are active or passive, and whether pathways are universal or context-specific.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Six basic assumptions cluster into four meta-theories, each organized around a metaphor: seeds (maturational), machines (mechanistic), butterflies (organismic), and tennis games/dance (contextualist).
• Nature vs. nurture: maturational theories emphasize genes and innate traits; mechanistic theories emphasize external environmental forces; organismic and contextualist theories emphasize interaction.
• Active vs. passive: maturational and mechanistic theories assume people are passive (reactive to genes or environment); organismic and contextualist theories assume people are active participants.
• Common confusion: researchers may claim to endorse interactionist or contextualist meta-theories but their actual work may reflect maturational or mechanistic assumptions (e.g., treating the brain as sole cause, or treating social forces as automatic programming).
• Why it matters: meta-theories shape what gets studied, funded, and published; they also guide everyday decisions by parents, teachers, and policymakers about how to structure development.

🌱 The four meta-theories and their metaphors

🌱 Maturational meta-theory: humans as seeds

Maturational meta-theories use the plant as a metaphor—humans develop the same way as plants, with genetic "seeds" determining their nature.

• Core assumptions:
  • People are passive, the product of their genes.
  • The environment provides support (rain, sun, soil) but cannot change a person's nature (poppy seeds always produce poppies).
  • Development is reactive to genes; the course may be continuous or discontinuous depending on the genetic program.
• Examples of theories: behavioral genetics, sociobiology, evolutionary, ethological, neuroscience, temperament, and personality theories.
• Signal concepts: "trait," "the aggression gene," brain systems or hormones as sole causes, any terms suggesting development is solely innate or immutable.
• Don't confuse: theories that place all active ingredients "inside the head" (e.g., social cognitions) are cousins of maturational theories even if not directly descended, because they focus exclusively on the individual.

⚙️ Mechanistic meta-theory: humans as machines

Mechanistic meta-theories use the machine as a metaphor—humans change the same way as machines, made up of pieces that can be studied separately.

• Core assumptions:
  • People are passive; energy comes from outside (like gasoline for a car).
  • Development is continuous; people do not develop into something else (a car stays a car).
  • People can only react to the environment controlling them (like a car responding to gas pedal or brake).
  • All causes come from outside, from environmental forces.
• Examples of theories: behaviorist, operant, classical conditioning, social learning theory; newer versions use computers, robots, and automatons as prototypes (e.g., "the brain is a computer").
• Surprising applications: some progressive analyses of poverty, oppression, racism, and discrimination can embed mechanistic assumptions if they imply these external forces are sole determinants and people passively internalize them (the "Xerox machine" metaphor).
• Don't confuse: the "cognitive revolution" was supposed to overthrow behaviorism, but some cognitivistic theories still treat humans as information-processing machines.

🦋 Organismic meta-theory: humans as butterflies

Organismic meta-theories use the butterfly as a metaphor—humans develop through discontinuous, qualitatively different stages, like caterpillar → chrysalis → butterfly.

• Core assumptions:
  • People are made up of structured wholes; their nature is to be curious, interested, and open to growth.
  • People are active and develop through discontinuous stages.
  • People construct their own next steps based on affordances and opportunities provided by the environment.
  • Development is caused by imbalances that lead to structural reorganizations.
  • Development is progressive (gets better) and unidirectional (from caterpillar toward butterfly, not the reverse).
• Examples of theories: Piaget's constructivist theory, neo-constructivist theories (e.g., Kohlberg's moral reasoning), Werner's comparative psychology, Erikson's universal age-graded developmental tasks, theories of intrinsic motivation.
• Under attack: theories of "universal" anything (stages, psychological needs, developmental tasks) have come under increasing criticism with the rise of radical contextualism and cultural relativism.

🎾 Contextualist meta-theory: humans as participants in a tennis game or dance

Contextualist meta-theories use the tennis game or dance as a metaphor—development is the back-and-forth between person and context, both proactive and acting on their own agendas.

• Core assumptions:
  • The important thing to study is the interaction between person and context.
  • Both person and environment are active partners in the system.
  • Development can be continuous or discontinuous depending on how the "game is played."
  • The system can lead to transformations in both person and environment.
• Examples of theories: Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model, lifespan approach.
• Historical context: these perspectives arose in reaction to dominant meta-theories (experimental child psychology, Piagetian psychology) that focused almost exclusively on the child as a developing individual.
• The "contextualist" label: reflects insistence that development unfolds within and is shaped by multi-level ecological forces outside the individual (microsystem settings, societal, cultural, historical contexts).

🔍 Six basic assumptions underlying meta-theories

🔍 Universal vs. context-specific pathways

• Universal and normative: all people pass through the same stages in the same sequence.
  • Example: Piaget or Erikson assume everyone progresses through the same stages of cognitive development or negotiates the same developmental tasks at about the same ages.
• Differential and specific: a variety of different patterns and pathways are possible depending on the individual and context.
  • Example: lifespan or ecological systems approaches believe development takes on many patterns depending on cultural, historical, and societal conditions.

🔍 Nature vs. nurture, active vs. passive, continuous vs. discontinuous

The excerpt mentions these as part of the six basic assumptions but does not elaborate on them in detail beyond their role in the four meta-theories.

Meta-theory	Nature vs. Nurture	Active vs. Passive	Continuous vs. Discontinuous	Universal vs. Context-specific
Maturational	Nature (genes)	Passive (reactive to genes)	Depends on genetic program	Often universal
Mechanistic	Nurture (environment)	Passive (reactive to environment)	Continuous	Often universal
Organismic	Interaction (person constructs)	Active (curious, interested)	Discontinuous (stages)	Often universal
Contextualist	Interaction (person ↔ context)	Active (both partners)	Either, depending on interaction	Context-specific

🏛️ Historical context and dominance of meta-theories

🏛️ Different periods, different dominant meta-theories

• 1940s–1950s: Behaviorism (mechanistic) held sway.
• 1960s: Piaget's theories (organismic) were introduced to the U.S. and captured the field's attention; fierce battles were fought between behaviorists and Piagetians.
• Today: "Cognitivism" is a guiding meta-theory—the assumption that all causal factors are inside the mind or belief system (e.g., self-efficacy, self-esteem, attributions, perceived social support, values, sense of purpose, goal orientations, internal working model, identity).
• Currently taking over: Neuroscience—"the brain is in charge of behavior, and neurobiology is destiny."
  • Some branches are predominantly maturational (brain systems responsible for actions and characteristics).
  • Other branches are more contextual (e.g., neuroplasticity, examining how social contexts shape the developing brain).

🏛️ Consequences of a dominant meta-theory

• When a specific meta-theory governs the field, researchers from opposing meta-theories face difficulties:
  • Trouble getting funding.
  • Trouble getting research published.
  • Marginalization by other researchers.
• Example: when behaviorists dominated motivation research (believing all behavior was motivated by rewards and punishments), it was very difficult to study and publish research on intrinsic motivation.

🏛️ News flash: most of psychology assumes people don't develop

• In personality, social, cognitive, and industrial-organizational psychology, researchers largely examine individual differences as indicators of people's permanent characteristics.
• This contrasts with developmental psychology's focus on change over time.

🧑‍🏫 Practical implications and personal meta-theories

🧑‍🏫 Everyone has meta-theories

Parents, teachers, nurses, social workers, doctors, business people, artists, politicians—everyone holds assumptions about human nature and development.

Examples:

• Doctors: assume weight loss is all about diet and exercise (nurture), so no one can do research on physiological differences in metabolism (nature).
• Teachers: have assumptions about whether students come with motivation (nature) or have to be motivated from the outside (nurture), and organize their classrooms accordingly.
• Parents: often argue about whether a child's behavior is just personality (maturational), a normal stage (organismic), or the result of rewarding the wrong behavior (mechanistic).

🧑‍🏫 Discovering your own meta-theory

• Yes, you have one: you can figure it out by thinking about which assumptions make the most sense to you, which theories you prefer, and what recommendations you would make about parenting, teaching, or policy.
• The hardest part: realizing your meta-theory is made up of assumptions based on your experiences and societal messages—that aren't necessarily true. Our meta-theories sure seem true to each of us!
• You can't get rid of it: it's not really possible to eliminate all assumptions. The goal is to be aware of your own assumptions, realize they are working models (not absolute truth), and be explicit about how they guide your actions.
• Goal of the class: help students figure out their own assumptions and become (or remain) open to alternative viewpoints.

🧑‍🏫 The meta-theory guiding this class and book

• The class endorses a lifespan perspective on human development, a contextualist perspective.
• This perspective fought its way through dominant perspectives in child psychology (e.g., "development ends at age 18") starting in the 1980s to become one of the dominant meta-theories today.
• Note: instructors chose the book, so their meta-theory influences the filter through which students learn about development.

❓ Is there a correct meta-theory?

❓ No single correct answer

• There is no single correct definition of development or meta-theory. Even the lifespan approach has its drawbacks.
• However: as research accumulates, many theories from certain meta-theories have been found incomplete—so far, no significant aspect of development has been found to be caused only by nature or only by nurture.
• Current consensus: most researchers say they favor interactionist meta-theories, like contextualist or systems meta-theories.

❓ Watch what researchers do, not just what they say

• It is important to look carefully at researchers' actual work, because sometimes they say they have one meta-theory but their work seems guided by assumptions from a different meta-theory.
• Example: a researcher may claim to be interactionist but treat the brain as the sole cause (maturational) or treat social forces as automatic programming (mechanistic).

📜 Historical theories of development (brief overview)

📜 Preformationist view (well into the 18th century)

Preformationism: the belief that a tiny, fully formed human is implanted in the sperm or egg at conception and then grows in size until birth.

• Children were thought of as little adults.
• Children were believed to possess all their sensory capabilities, emotions, and mental aptitude at birth; these abilities unfolded on a predetermined schedule.
• The environment was thought to play no role in determining development.

📜 John Locke (1632–1704)

• Locke, a British philosopher, refuted the idea of innate knowledge.
• He proposed that children are largely shaped by their social environments, especially their education as adults teach them important knowledge.
• He believed that through education a child learns socialization (what is needed to be an appropriate member of society).
• Tabula rasa (blank slate): Locke advocated thinking of a child's mind as a blank slate; whatever comes into the child's mind comes from the environment.
• Locke emphasized that the environment is especially powerful in the child's early life because he considered the mind most pliable then.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Historical and contemporary theories of development differ fundamentally in whether they emphasize innate biological unfolding, environmental shaping, or the interaction between the two, and these assumptions guide how we understand children's growth and learning.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Meta-theories shape interpretation: Our assumptions about development (often unconscious) guide how we see children and what we consider "true," even though these are working models, not absolute truths.
• Historical shift from preformationism to environmental influence: Early views saw children as miniature adults with predetermined traits; Locke introduced the idea that environment and education shape the child (tabula rasa), while Rousseau emphasized natural, stage-based biological unfolding.
• Psychodynamic vs. psychosocial: Freud focused on early childhood experiences and unconscious drives shaping personality; Erikson reframed development as a series of social relationship challenges (psychosocial crises) across the entire lifespan.
• Behaviorism vs. social learning: Behaviorists (Skinner) studied only observable behavior shaped by reinforcement; Bandura's social learning theory added that children learn by watching others and that individuals and environments influence each other (reciprocal determinism).
• Common confusion: Don't confuse "stages unfold naturally" (Rousseau, Gesell) with "environment shapes everything" (Locke, behaviorism)—many modern theories recognize interaction between biology and environment.

🧠 Meta-theories and assumptions

🧠 What meta-theories are

Meta-theories: underlying assumptions (based on experiences and societal messages) about how development works—they seem true to each person but are not necessarily universal truths.

• These assumptions guide our actions and interpretations, even when we're unaware of them.
• The excerpt emphasizes that we cannot fully eliminate our assumptions, but we can become aware and explicit about them.
• Goal: recognize that our current models are working hypotheses, not absolute reality, and remain open to alternative viewpoints.

🔍 Why awareness matters

• Being cognizant of our assumptions helps us understand how they guide our actions.
• The excerpt states that a key goal is to help students figure out their own assumptions and stay open to other perspectives.
• Example: If you assume children are blank slates, you'll emphasize teaching and environment; if you assume development unfolds naturally, you'll emphasize readiness and maturation.

🕰️ Historical theories of development

🕰️ Preformationist view

Preformationism: the belief that a tiny, fully formed human is implanted in the sperm or egg at conception and then grows in size until birth.

• Well into the 18th century, children were thought of as little adults.
• All sensory capabilities, emotions, and mental aptitude were believed present at birth, unfolding on a predetermined schedule.
• The environment was thought to play no role in determining development.
• Example: A 17th-century illustration showed tiny people inside sperm, reflecting the belief that development was simply enlargement, not transformation.

📖 John Locke (1632–1704)

Tabula rasa (blank slate): Locke's idea that a child's mind is blank at birth, and whatever enters it comes from the environment.

• Locke refuted innate knowledge and proposed that children are largely shaped by their social environments, especially education.
• Through education, a child learns socialization—what is needed to be an appropriate member of society.
• The environment is especially powerful in early life because the mind is most pliable then.
• How the environment works: through associations between thoughts and feelings, behavioral repetition, imitation, and rewards and punishments.
• Locke's ideas laid the groundwork for the behavioral perspective and later learning theories (Pavlov, Skinner, Bandura).

🌱 Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)

• Like Locke, Rousseau believed children were not just little adults.
• Unlike Locke, he did not see them as blank slates; instead, children develop according to a natural plan that unfolds in different stages.
• He opposed teaching children the "correct" way to think; instead, children should think by themselves according to their own ways and an inner, biological timetable.
• This focus on biological maturation led to Rousseau being considered the father of developmental psychology.
• Followers include Gesell, Montessori, and Piaget.

🧬 Arnold Gesell (1880–1961)

Maturation: Gesell's term for the process by which development is activated by genes.

• Gesell spent 50 years studying neuromotor development at the Yale Clinic of Child Development.
• He believed development unfolds in fixed sequences.
• He opposed efforts to teach children ahead of schedule, believing they will engage in behaviors only when their nervous systems have sufficiently matured.
• Don't confuse: Gesell's maturation (biological readiness) with Locke's blank slate (environmental shaping).

🧠 Psychodynamic and psychosocial theories

🧠 Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)

• Freud emphasized the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping personality and behavior.
• In our natural state, we are biological beings driven primarily by instincts; during childhood, we learn to manage instincts and transform them into socially acceptable behaviors.
• Key assumptions:
  • Personality forms during the first few years of life.
  • How parents or caregivers interact with children has a long-lasting impact on emotional states.
• His beliefs formed the psychodynamic perspective and theories of psychosexual development and psychopathology.

⚠️ Criticisms of Freud

• Difficult to test scientifically: Much of what determines our actions is unconscious and cannot be measured.
• Case studies not validated: Freud's case studies cannot be used as evidence for his theories.
• Many later theories (behaviorism, humanism) arose as challenges to Freud's views.

🌍 Erik Erikson (1902–1994) and psychosocial theory

Psychosocial crises: unique challenges or crises that a person must face at each period of life, according to Erikson.

• Erikson presents eight developmental stages that encompass the entire lifespan.
• He broke with Freud's emphasis on sexuality and instead suggested that social relationships foster development.
• How it works: Successful development involves resolving the goals and demands of each crisis in a positive way.
• If a person does not resolve a stage successfully, it may hinder their ability to deal with later stages.
• Example: A person who does not develop trust (first stage) may find it challenging to form positive intimate relationships as an adult (sixth stage).
• However, most individuals successfully complete the eight stages.

📊 Erikson's eight stages

Age range	Psychosocial crisis	Positive resolution
Birth to 12–18 months	Trust vs. Mistrust	Child develops trust in caregivers
18 months to 3 years	Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt	Child learns what can/cannot be controlled; develops free will
3 to 6 years	Initiative vs. Guilt	Child becomes independent by exploring, manipulating, taking action
6 to 12 years	Industry vs. Inferiority	Child learns to do things well according to standards set by others
12 to 18 years	Identity vs. Role Confusion	Adolescent develops a well-defined, positive sense of self
19 to 40 years	Intimacy vs. Isolation	Person develops ability to give/receive love and make long-term commitments
40 to 65 years	Generativity vs. Stagnation	Person develops interest in guiding the next generation
65 to death	Ego Integrity vs. Despair	Person develops acceptance of how one has lived

⚠️ Criticisms of Erikson

• Focuses heavily on crises and assumes completion of one crisis is a prerequisite for the next.
• Focused on social expectations found in certain cultures, but not all.
• Example: The idea that adolescence is a time of searching for identity may fit middle-class U.S. culture but not cultures where transition to adulthood coincides with puberty through rites of passage and fewer adult role choices.

🎯 Learning theories

🎯 Behaviorism (Learning Theory)

Behaviorism: the premise that it is not possible to objectively study the mind, so psychologists should limit attention to the study of behavior itself.

• The most famous behaviorist was B. F. Skinner (1904–1990).
• Skinner used the ideas of stimulus and response, along with rewards or reinforcements, to train animals.
• He applied general principles of behaviorism to develop theories about teaching children and creating peaceful, productive societies.
• Contributions: Behaviorists identified principles of learning and provided insights into the nature-nurture debate and the question of free will.
• Limitation: Behaviorists were incorrect in believing it was not possible to measure thoughts and feelings.

👀 Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura, 1977)

Social learning theory: learning by watching others.

• Bandura's theory emphasizes that many actions are not learned through conditioning (as Skinner suggested).
• Young children frequently learn behaviors through imitation or modeling—copying the behavior of others, especially when they don't know what else to do.

🔄 Reciprocal determinism

Reciprocal determinism: the concept that there is interplay between the environment and the individual—we influence our surroundings, and our surroundings influence us.

• We are not just the product of our surroundings; there is interplay between our personality, how we interpret events, and how they influence us.
• Example: Parents and children influence each other. Parents may intentionally use reinforcement to shape their child's environment, but children also influence parents. Parents may respond differently to their first child than to their fourth—perhaps trying to be perfect parents with the firstborn, but having very different expectations by the time the last child arrives.
• Don't confuse: Reciprocal determinism (mutual influence) with one-way environmental determinism (Locke's blank slate) or pure biological unfolding (Gesell's maturation).

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Evidence-informed best practices for promoting development emerge from the intersection of scientific research, expert practitioner knowledge, and culturally-attuned implementation, while recognizing that science—despite its strengths as a systematic way of knowing—has significant limitations rooted in its social and historical context.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What shapes development: All of us influence development daily through "developmental practices"—decisions and actions in both professional and personal life (parenting, teaching, friendships, self-care).
• Sources of knowledge: Personal experience, professional experience, and science each contribute to understanding best practices, but personal and professional experience carry implicit biases from their cultural and historical contexts.
• Evidence-informed best practices: These emerge from bodies of scientific evidence combined with expert practitioner wisdom, and must be culturally attuned rather than one-size-fits-all.
• Science's strengths: Science is a public, open, self-critiquing process that builds cumulative knowledge through systematic observation and testing.
• Common confusion—science vs. other ways of knowing: Science is powerful but not the only valid source; humanities, arts, and cultural knowledge offer important insights that scientists often dismiss or exclude, and science itself is embedded in societal biases that can distort research on marginalized groups.

🌱 Developmental practices and ways of knowing

🌱 What are developmental practices?

Developmental practices: all the decisions and actions we take in our professional and personal lives that shape our own and others' development.

• Not just formal professional roles (teachers, social workers, nurses).
• Includes personal roles: how we parent, choose vocations, nurture friends, and care for ourselves.
• From this perspective, everyone is a developmental "practitioner" even without formal training.
• Example: A person raising a child is making daily decisions (how to respond to crying, what foods to serve, how to discipline) that shape that child's development.

🧠 Personal experience as a way of knowing

• Includes intuition, emotions, observations, family beliefs, peer opinions, religious/political authorities, and media messages.
• We form opinions about "normal" development, causes of healthy/unhealthy development, and what makes a good parent or friend.
• Limitation: Embedded in particular cultural and historical contexts with implicit biases.
• Don't confuse: Personal convictions feel compelling because of a lifetime of experience, but they rest on "naïve meta-theories" that may not be accurate.
• Example: The way we were raised seems "right" to us, even though none of us had perfect caregivers and we absorbed implicit biases.

💼 Professional experience as a way of knowing

• Callings and professions (parenting, education, nursing, social work, coaching) come with trainings, traditions, and practices.
• Some practices are research-based, others come from "what has worked in the past" or "the way things have always been done."
• Example: Classroom practices (groups, a teacher leader, readings, assignments, grades) are based on society's history and reinforced by educational institutions.
• Limitation: Professional experience is also embedded in institutions with their own implicit biases and baked-in assumptions.
• Historical examples of flawed practices: blood-letting in medicine, corporal punishment in schools, exclusion of women from certain professions.

🔬 Evidence-informed best practices

🔬 What are evidence-informed practices?

Evidence-informed (or evidence-based) practices: practices that come from the scientific study of alternative ways to care for people and support development, continually updated with new evidence.

• Most visible in medicine, where centers compile best medical practices and doctors are expected to adhere to them.
• Emerge at the intersection of scientific study and expert practitioner knowledge.
• Not from individual studies, but from bodies of evidence—whole lines of work that replicate findings from multiple perspectives over time.
• Example: In the 1950s, pediatricians warned that picking up crying babies would spoil them; a body of attachment research revealed this was wrong—infants cry less and are more secure when caregivers respond consistently and sensitively.

👥 Expert practitioners as knowledge sources

• Experts include wise elders, teachers, caregivers, coaches, social workers from everyday life.
• Bring knowledge about what works in practice.
• Example: Many cultural traditions highlight children and the elderly as treasures to be cherished, and emphasize family, community, and cultural heritage—insights that can critique current practices where caregivers are undervalued and underpaid.

🔄 Implementation science

Implementation science: research that studies methods to promote the adoption and integration of evidence-based practices, interventions, and policies into routine settings.

• Sometimes practitioners need support because evidence-informed practices run counter to conventional practice, require more effort to learn, or are introduced in alienating ways.
• Key insight: Respectful and collaborative partnerships with parents, professionals, and stakeholders help everyone contribute to and learn about best practices.
• Long-term goal: Help all practitioners (including those not usually considered "practitioners"—caregivers, romantic partners, friends) become more reflective and effective.

🌍 Culturally-attuned practices

• Core principle: Best practices must be culturally attuned to the people and places where they are adopted.
• "Good" practices are sometimes narrowly defined from studies of white middle-class participants—it doesn't make sense to treat these as universal modules.
• Interventionists identify "essential ingredients" in effective practices and study how those ingredients can be incorporated in different ways by people from different cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Don't confuse: Cultural attunement does not mean every common practice from every culture is good for development.

Aspect	What it means	Example from excerpt
Essential ingredients	Core elements that support development	All humans need essential nutrients
Cultural variations	Many different ways to incorporate those ingredients	Many variations of healthy diets across cultures
Critique of practices	Not all common practices are good	Sugary soft drinks and fast food are common but not nutritionally good

• The tension between science, practice, and culture is productive: science finds specific explanations, cultures offer critiques and variations, practitioners integrate strategies wholistically.
• Applied science: Purpose-driven research that aims to study and help solve important social problems, pushed by wise practitioners.

⚠️ Pseudoscience

• Many people claim scientific backing when it does not really exist—this is "pseudoscience" or bad popular science.
• Not all recommended practices are based on good science.

🔍 Science as a powerful way of knowing

🔍 The process of science

Science: a way of knowing—a set of practices for learning about the world, based on the assumption that careful and systematic observation and thought can help us better understand ourselves and our world.

• Scientific knowledge is built by testing ideas using evidence from the social and natural world.
• Ideas start as tentative intuitions, then cycle through testing and examination in different ways, increasing confidence in their validity.
• Through this recursive process, ideas are clarified, revised, and integrated into more powerful understandings.
• Over time, constructs complex knowledge used to solve problems, address societal issues, develop tools, and make informed decisions.

💪 Strengths of science

💪 Public enterprise

• Science takes place as part of an international scientific community that scrutinizes, questions, and evaluates everyone's work.
• Composed of peer experts charged with thinking through research quality, validity of findings, and interpretations.
• Scientists are trained to be skeptical problem-solvers; bad science is usually detected and called out by experts.
• When independent scientists worldwide come to the same conclusion, this strengthens confidence in the evidence.

💪 Inherently open

• Informed by deep reservoirs of accumulated knowledge, but challenged daily by new ideas and updated with new evidence.
• Scientists develop expertise, learning everything about their areas of study, constructing dense, detailed, rich understandings.
• At the same time, scientists question everything and remain skeptical, looking for flaws and limitations.
• Ethical science: The goal should not be to prove one's own theories right, but to find out what is really happening, even if that means proving ideas wrong.

💪 Continually critiques and reinvents itself

• Scientists create new tools and strategies (new devices, laboratory experiments, simulations, ways to learn about infant thinking).
• Exciting breakthroughs come from new tools for collecting and integrating information.
• Leads to scientific revolutions or paradigm shifts—major shifts when accepted theories are overturned and we must reconsider everything.

⚠️ Shortcomings of science

⚠️ Exclusion and distortion from sociohistorical context

Science is embedded in particular sociohistorical contexts and is subject to all the shortcomings of any social enterprise.

⚠️ Dominance of western perspectives

• Science today is dominated by researchers from the United States, Canada, and northern Europe.
• Most prestigious journals are published in English, the "international language" at conferences.
• Psychologists routinely study phenomena from a Eurocentric perspective but assume this is the default—both normal and universal.
• Often unaware of or dismiss knowledge from non-western researchers.
• Problem: Research from other regions is labeled "African psychology" or "Turkish psychology" without labeling western science as "Euroamerican psychology."

⚠️ Dismissal of other ways of knowing

• Scientists often assume science has a monopoly on ways of knowing.
• Humanities and arts reveal important insights: creative writing (memoirs, novels, science fiction), theatre arts (plays, motion pictures), music (songs, drumming, choral singing), and dance.
• These are illuminative tools useful for capturing and sharing insights about human experience.
• Cultures have accumulated knowledge about teaching, rearing children, supporting families—often more wholistic, systemic, and better attuned to humanistic values like environmental stewardship and social justice.
• Scientists often dismiss or exclude this knowledge from teaching and learning.
• Systemic practices exclude specific groups from science and universities, narrowing the range of talent, cultural expertise, and lived experience.

⚠️ Biased assumptions about marginalized groups

• Scientists from the dominant culture often unknowingly accept entrenched societal myths about marginalized groups.
• Example: Until 1973, homosexuality was classified as a mental illness in the APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.
• Deficit framing: Research programs explain achievement gaps and differential drop-out rates for ethnic and minority children by arguing for "deficiencies" in children or "cultural disadvantage" in families.
• These issues are framed as individual or family problems instead of as results of systemic societal inequities.
• Resilience and strengths of families and communities are often dismissed or relied upon as the sole intervention, rendering discriminatory institutions invisible.
• Don't confuse: These are not isolated incidents—such biased research has a long history, continues to appear in mainstream outlets today, and is used to justify anti-Black racist policies and institutions.
• Important to reflect on individual prejudices and on the larger scientific and academic systems that sponsor, publish, and amplify this work.
• Alternative sources: Interdisciplinary work in Black/Africana Studies, Indigenous Nation Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies, Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies offers critical sociohistorically-informed accounts by decentering the dominant culture.

⚠️ Meta-theoretical assumptions in methods

Epistemology: the branch of philosophy concerned with ways of knowing—theories of knowledge about what can be known, what qualifies as valid knowledge, how knowledge is gained, what methods can be used, who can be a knowledge builder, and so on.

• Theories and research methods have been critiqued from inside developmental science based on their underlying assumptions about humans and development.
• Research methods have meta-theoretical assumptions baked into them—we call them research methodologies to acknowledge that all methods bring their own epistemologies.
• Example: Bringing children into the lab assumes we can remove a person from their natural context and still understand their functioning.

Meta-theory	Epistemological assumption	Implication for methods
Mechanistic	People and contexts are made up of parts	Can take them apart and study separately
Contextual	Person-context interactions are the basis of development	Must be studied together; taking them apart destroys the target phenomenon

• Scientists and the research community must regularly and actively reflect on and critique methods to understand their role in shaping our understanding.

🔄 Paths forward

• Developmental science will be stronger when scientists intentionally and openly discuss, criticize, and improve the process of science itself.
• Must open collective minds to international researchers, multiple disciplines, and a wide range of cultures as important sources of knowledge.
• Universities must open collective doors by actively welcoming, recruiting, nurturing, and learning from researchers from a broad range of backgrounds, especially those historically marginalized and excluded.
• As inclusion efforts succeed, researchers should be ready to participate in cultural transformations within the scientific enterprise.
• Encouragement: Incorporate knowledge from developmental science into everyday decision-making and practices; consider a career in developmental science.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Developmental practices—the decisions and actions shaping our own and others' development—should be informed by scientific evidence and expert practitioners' knowledge, not just personal or professional experience, though best practices must be culturally attuned to be effective.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Developmental practices: all decisions and actions (professional and personal) that influence development, making everyone a "developmental practitioner."
• Three sources of knowledge: personal experience (intuition, family beliefs, media), professional experience (training, traditions), and developmental science (systematic research).
• Limitations of experience alone: personal and professional experience contain implicit biases and outdated assumptions (e.g., blood-letting, corporal punishment).
• Evidence-informed best practices: emerge from bodies of scientific evidence combined with expert practitioners' insights, not single studies.
• Common confusion: best practices are not one-size-fits-all modules; they must be culturally attuned while still meeting evidence-based criteria (e.g., nutrition needs universal nutrients but allows cultural dietary variations).

🌱 What are developmental practices

🌱 Definition and scope

Developmental practices: all the decisions and actions we take in our professional and personal lives that shape our own and others' development.

• Includes obvious roles: raising children, teaching preschoolers.
• Also includes less obvious influences: how we treat friends, romantic partners, parents, and ourselves.
• We are all developmental "practitioners" whether we realize it or not.

🔍 Why awareness matters

• In explicit caregiving roles, we think carefully about our responsibilities and training.
• In everyday relationships, we may not consider our developmental impact as carefully.
• Example: A person may reflect deeply on teaching methods but not think about how they nurture or disparage themselves or their friends.

📚 Three ways of knowing about development

🧠 Personal experience

• What it includes: intuition, emotions, observations, family beliefs, customs, peer opinions, religious/political authorities, media messages.
• Forms our opinions about what is "normal," causes of healthy/unhealthy development, and how to be good parents/educators/friends.
• Embedded in particular cultural and historical contexts with strengths but also implicit biases.
• Naïve meta-theories: the gripping assumptions underlying our personal convictions based on lifetime experiences.

👔 Professional experience

• What it includes: trainings, traditions, and practices from callings like parenting, education, nursing, social work, coaching.
• Sources: some from research, some from past successes, some from "the way things have always been done."
• Example: Classroom practices (groups, teacher-leader, readings, assignments, grades) based on society's history and reinforced by educational programs.
• Also embedded in institutions (schools, health care, human services) with their own implicit biases and baked-in assumptions.

🔬 Developmental science

Science: a way of knowing—a set of practices for learning about the world.

• Uses multiple methodologies, ways of collecting information, and designs.
• Each method has strengths, limitations, and hidden assumptions.
• Contributes to understanding "best developmental practices" but has its own limitations.
• Must be thoughtful and critical about scientific processes and tools.

⚠️ Limitations of experience-based knowledge

📜 Historical examples

• Past practices now recognized as ineffective or harmful:
  • Doctors using blood-letting to treat patients.
  • Schools employing corporal punishment.
  • Women excluded from certain professions.

🔄 Personal repetition patterns

• Ways we were raised often seem right to us, even though:
  • All of us absorbed implicit biases.
  • None of us had perfect caregivers.
• We sense our caregivers made mistakes yet find ourselves repeating the same practices.
• Professionally and personally, we struggle to break free from our past and improve.

💡 The rise of evidence-based approaches

• Growing recognition of experience limitations led to evidence-based or evidence-informed practices.
• Most visible in medicine: scientific study of alternative care methods and treatments.
• Whole centers dedicated to studying and compiling best medical practices.
• Doctors expected to adhere to these practices as professionals.
• Best practices continually updated with new evidence as knowledge progresses.

🎯 How best practices emerge

🤝 The intersection of science and expertise

• Best practices emerge where scientific study meets expert practitioners' knowledge.
• Not from individual studies, but from bodies of evidence: whole lines of work that replicate findings from multiple perspectives over time.
• These bodies converge on insights about most effective ways to support development.

👶 Example: Infant crying and attachment

• 1950s pediatrician advice: Picking up crying babies reinforces crying and spoils them.
• Body of evidence on attachment: Infants cry less and are more secure if caregivers respond consistently and sensitively to their needs.
• The scientific evidence revealed the earlier advice to be wrong—that's why practices are "evidence-informed."

👴 Expert practitioners' contributions

• Who they are: wise and skilled elders, teachers, caregivers, coaches, social workers from everyday life.
• Bring knowledge about what works in practice.
• Example insights: Many cultural traditions highlight children and elderly as treasures to be cherished; emphasize centrality of family, community, and cultural heritage.
• These insights can critique current practices (e.g., undervaluing and underpaying those who care for children and elderly).

🔄 Implementation science

🛠️ What implementation science studies

Implementation science: research area studying methods to promote adoption and integration of evidence-based practices, interventions, and policies into routine settings.

• Practitioners sometimes need support to adopt new practices because:
  • Evidence-informed methods run counter to conventional practice.
  • Require more effort to learn or more work to execute.
  • Can be introduced in ways that alienate practitioners.

🤝 Collaborative partnerships

• Implementation scientists create respectful, collaborative partnerships with parents, professionals, and other stakeholders.
• Together they contribute to and learn about best practices.
• Long-run benefit: helps all practitioners (including non-traditional ones like caregivers, romantic partners, friends) become more reflective and effective.

🌍 Culture and best practices

🎨 Cultural attunement requirement

• Best practices must be culturally attuned to the people and places where they are adopted.
• Problem: "good" practices sometimes narrowly defined, reflecting evidence from white middle-class participants only.
• Does not make sense to treat practices as modules to insert everywhere.
• Many different cultural variations on a given practice can be "good."

🧩 Essential ingredients approach

• Interventionists identify "essential ingredients" in effective practices.
• Study how those ingredients can be incorporated in different ways by people from different cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
• Important caveat: Not every common practice from every culture is good for development.

🍎 Example: Nutrition and diet

Aspect	What it means	Implication
Universal nutrients	Science identifies essential nutrients all humans need	Provides criteria for healthy development
Cultural variations	Many variations of healthy diets across cultures	Any diet providing all micronutrients = best practice
Critical evaluation	Not all common foods are healthy	Can identify practices (sugary drinks, fast food) that are NOT good for development

• Shows complexity: universal standards + cultural flexibility + critical scrutiny.

🔄 Productive tension

• Vigorous debate exists about what best practices really are.
• Tension between science, practice, and culture is productive:
  • Science: good at finding narrow, specific explanations and optimization strategies.
  • Cultures: offer critiques and many implementation variations.
  • Practitioners: create wholistic ways to integrate specific strategies with other practices into daily interactions.

🔬 Applied science

• Wise culturally-attuned practitioners push science to ask more relevant questions.
• Applied science: purpose-driven research aiming to study and help solve important social problems.
• Applies more directly to problems practitioners are trying to solve and people they are trying to support.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Science is a powerful but imperfect way of knowing that requires ethical guidance, cultural attunement, and ongoing self-critique to avoid exclusion and distortion, especially when studying human development across diverse populations.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Science as a public, open, self-correcting process: scientific knowledge is built through systematic observation, peer scrutiny, accumulated expertise, and continual reinvention of methods and theories.
• Cultural attunement in best practices: effective interventions must identify "essential ingredients" that can be adapted across cultures, while recognizing that not all common practices are developmentally beneficial.
• Shortcomings of dominant science: exclusion of non-western perspectives, dismissal of humanities/arts and cultural knowledge, and distortion through biased assumptions about marginalized groups.
• Common confusion: "science-backed" claims vs. pseudoscience—many popular recommendations lack genuine scientific support.
• Epistemology matters: research methods carry meta-theoretical assumptions (e.g., whether people can be studied apart from context) that shape what we can know.

🔬 Strengths of the scientific process

🌐 Science as a public enterprise

Science takes place as part of a scientific community that scrutinizes, questions, and evaluates everyone's work.

• The international community is composed of peer experts who assess research quality, validity of findings, and interpretations.
• Scientists are trained as skeptical problem-solvers; bad science is usually detected and called out.
• When independent scientists worldwide reach the same conclusion, confidence in the evidence strengthens.
• Example: A researcher's claim is reviewed by experts from multiple countries who replicate the study and verify or challenge the findings.

🔓 Openness and expertise combined

• Science is informed by deep reservoirs of accumulated knowledge but remains inherently open to new ideas and evidence.
• Scientists develop expertise by learning everything about their study areas, constructing dense, detailed understandings.
• At the same time, they question everything and look for flaws in their own and others' work.
• Ethical science goal: not to prove one's own theories right, but to find out what is really happening, even if that means proving ideas wrong.

🔄 Self-critique and reinvention

• Science continually critiques and reinvents itself through new tools and strategies.
• In human development research, innovations range from daily data collection devices to laboratory experiments and new ways to learn what babies are thinking.
• New tools for collecting and integrating information produce exciting breakthroughs.
• Scientific revolutions or paradigm shifts: major shifts when accepted theories are overturned and everything must be reconsidered.

🌍 Culture and best practices

🧩 Essential ingredients vs. cultural variation

• Interventionists are pressed to identify "essential ingredients" in effective practices and study how those ingredients can be incorporated differently by people from different cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
• This does not mean every common practice from every culture is good for development.
• Example: Nutrition and diet—science identifies essential nutrients all humans need, but there are as many variations of healthy diets as there are cultures; any diet providing all micronutrients represents best practice, but not all common foods (e.g., sugary soft drinks, fast food) are developmentally beneficial.

⚖️ Tension between science, practice, and culture

• Almost everyone agrees practitioners should use culturally-attuned evidence-informed practices, but vigorous debate exists about what these really are.
• The tension is productive:
  • Science finds narrow, specific explanations and optimization strategies.
  • Cultures offer critiques and many implementation variations.
  • Practitioners create wholistic ways to integrate specific strategies into daily interactions.
• Wise culturally-attuned practitioners push science to ask questions that apply more directly to problems and people they support.
• This is called applied science: purpose-driven, aiming to study and help solve important social problems.

⚠️ Pseudoscience warning

Pseudoscience or bad popular science: many people claim scientific backing for ideas and advice when it does not really exist.

• There are many ways to recognize bad popular science.
• Don't confuse: genuine scientific backing vs. claims that merely sound scientific.

🚧 Shortcomings and critiques of science

🌏 Exclusion: Dominance of western perspectives

• Science is embedded in sociohistorical contexts and subject to shortcomings of any social enterprise.
• Science today is dominated by researchers from the United States, Canada, and northern Europe.
• The most prestigious journals are published in English, the "international language" at conferences.
• Psychologists routinely study phenomena from a Eurocentric perspective but assume this position is the default—both normal and universal.
• They are often unaware of non-western psychologists' perspectives and dismiss knowledge from non-western researchers.
• Such research is labeled "African psychology" or "Turkish psychology" without labeling western science as "Euroamerican psychology."

🎭 Dismissal of other ways of knowing

• Scientists often assume science has a monopoly on ways of knowing, but many disciplines reveal important insights about humans.
• Humanities and arts (creative writing, theatre, music, dance) are sometimes called illuminative tools, useful for capturing and sharing insights about human experience.
• Many cultures have accumulated knowledge about activities like teaching, rearing children, and supporting families—often more wholistic, systemic, and attuned to humanistic values like environmental stewardship and social justice.
• Scientists often dismiss or exclude this knowledge from teaching and learning.
• Systemic practices that exclude specific groups narrow the range of talent, cultural expertise, and lived experience researchers can bring to important issues.

🔍 Distortion: Biased assumptions about marginalized groups

• Scientists from the dominant culture often unknowingly accept entrenched societal myths about marginalized groups.
• Example: Until 1973, homosexuality was classified as a mental illness in the American Psychological Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
• Deeply troubling research programs explain achievement gaps and differential drop-out rates for children from ethnic and minority backgrounds by arguing for "deficiencies" in children or "cultural disadvantage" in families.
• These issues are explained as individual or family problems instead of being studied as accumulated results of systemic societal inequities.
• The resilience and strengths of families and communities facing inequities are often dismissed or relied upon as the sole intervention avenue, rendering discriminatory institutions invisible.
• Such biased disinformation has a long history and continues to appear in mainstream scientific outlets today, used to justify and protect anti-Black racist policies and institutions.
• Important critique sources: interdisciplinary work in Black or Africana Studies, Indigenous Nation Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies, and Women, Gender, and Sexualities Studies—these fields decenter study from the dominant culture, surface and challenge default assumptions, and offer alternative critical sociohistorically-informed accounts of development.

🔬 Internal critique: Meta-theoretical assumptions in methods

Epistemology: the branch of philosophy concerned with ways of knowing—theories of knowledge including what can be known, what qualifies as valid knowledge, how knowledge is gained, what methods can be used, and who can be a knowledge builder.

• Current theories and research methods have been critiqued from inside developmental science based on underlying assumptions about humans and their development.
• Research methods have meta-theoretical assumptions baked into them; we refer to research methodologies instead of "research methods" to acknowledge that all methods bring their own epistemologies.
• Example: Bringing children into the lab assumes we can remove a person from their natural context and still understand their functioning.

Meta-theory	Epistemological assumption	Implication for methods
Mechanistic	People and contexts are made up of parts	Can be taken apart and studied separately
Contextual	Person-context interactions are the basis of all development	Must be studied together; taking them apart destroys the target phenomenon

• Individual scientists and the research community must regularly and actively reflect on and critique methods to understand their role in shaping understanding of developmental processes.

🔮 Moving forward: Improving science

🌈 Intentional inclusion and transformation

• Developmental science will be stronger when scientists intentionally and openly discuss, criticize, and improve the process of science itself.
• Scientists must open their collective minds to international researchers, multiple disciplines, and a wide range of cultures as important knowledge sources.
• Universities must open their doors by actively welcoming, recruiting, nurturing, and learning from researchers from a broad range of backgrounds, especially those historically marginalized and excluded.
• As science and universities succeed in inclusion efforts, researchers should participate in cultural transformations within the scientific enterprise.
• Global and multidisciplinary hubs along with university-community partnerships are important directions.

🎯 Applied science and practitioner partnership

• Science is good at finding narrow, specific explanations; cultures offer critiques and variations; practitioners create wholistic integration.
• Practitioners push science to ask questions that apply more directly to real problems and people.
• This recursive process—cycling ideas through testing, examination, clarification, revision, and integration—builds increasingly confident and powerful understandings over time.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Infants develop motor skills, sensory capacities, cognitive understanding, and language through a combination of biological maturation and active interaction with their environment, progressing from reflexive behaviors to symbolic thought and meaningful communication by age two.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Motor development follows predictable patterns: gross motor skills (large movements) develop before fine motor skills (precise finger/hand control), following cephalocaudal (head-to-tail) and proximodistal (midline-outward) principles.
• Sensory systems mature at different rates: vision is poorly developed at birth and improves gradually, while hearing, touch, taste, and smell are functional early and guide infant learning.
• Piaget's sensorimotor stage: infants construct knowledge through six substages (0–24 months), moving from reflexes to intentional actions to symbolic thought; they develop object permanence and use schema, assimilation, and accommodation.
• Language emerges in stages: from cooing and babbling to holophrasic speech, telegraphic sentences, and eventually grammar; both biological readiness (LAD, critical periods, brain areas) and social interaction (imitation, reinforcement, pragmatics) drive language acquisition.
• Common confusion—nature vs. nurture in language: it is not purely innate (nativist) or purely learned (behaviorist); current evidence supports an interactionist view where biological predispositions and environmental input work together.

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🏃 Motor Development Milestones

🏃 Gross motor skills

Gross motor skills: focus on large muscle groups that control our head, torso, arms and legs and involve larger movements (e.g., balancing, running, and jumping).

• These develop first, beginning with head control, then sitting, crawling, and walking.
• Development is orderly: babies hold heads up (~6 weeks), sit alone (~7 months), crawl, pull up, cruise (walk holding on), then walk unassisted.
• Example: an infant may rock on hands and knees or move backward when trying to crawl forward because arm muscles are stronger than leg muscles.
• Developmental delays: if a child misses several milestones, early intervention can identify and address problems.

✋ Fine motor skills

Fine motor skills: focus on the muscles in our fingers, toes, and eyes, and enable coordination of small actions (e.g., grasping a toy, writing with a pencil, and using a spoon).

• Newborns wave arms toward objects but cannot grasp voluntarily.
• By ~4 months, infants reach with both arms, then one arm.
• Palmer Grasp (~4–9 months): using fingers and palm, no thumb.
• Pincer Grasp (~9 months): using forefinger and thumb, greatly enhancing control and manipulation.
• Example: infants delight in picking up small objects and placing them in containers once they master the pincer grasp.

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👁️ Sensory Capacities in Infancy

👁️ Vision

• At birth: vision is poorest sense; newborns see only 8–10 inches away; acuity is ~20/300 at 8 weeks, improving to 20/200 by 3 months.
• Why poor?: the fovea (central retina for sharp detail) is immature at birth and develops until ~15 months; some cones are still growing at 45 months.
• Color perception: infants can see vivid basic colors early; full spectrum by 5 months.
• Face preference: newborns prefer face-like stimuli, especially upright and mother's face; 1-month-olds fixate on outer edges, 2-month-olds focus on inner features (eyes).
• Tracking and attention: newborns have jerky (saccadic) eye movements that lag behind moving objects; smooth tracking emerges by 3–4 months; binocular vision (depth perception) develops around 3–6 months.
• Don't confuse: early visual limitations are not cognitive deficits—infants are learning to coordinate eyes and brain.

👂 Hearing

• Hearing is keen at birth (functional from 7th month prenatally).
• Newborns prefer mother's voice and recognize sounds heard in utero (e.g., stories read prenatally).
• Infants distinguish very similar sounds by 1 month and prefer infant-directed speech.
• By 6–9 months, they show preference for their native language; ability to distinguish non-native phonemes diminishes rapidly.

🤚 Touch, pain, taste, and smell

• Touch/pain: newborns are sensitive to touch and temperature; they feel pain (e.g., circumcision without anesthesia causes stress responses).
• Taste: newborns distinguish sour, bitter, sweet, salty; they prefer sweet.
• Smell: 6-day-olds turn toward their own mother's breast pad; newborns prefer mother's smell and face within hours of birth.

🔗 Intermodality

Intermodal perception: the ability to perceive the world through stimulation from more than one sensory modality.

• Infants are born with this ability: e.g., they match a pacifier's texture (felt by mouth) to its visual appearance.
• By 4 months, they match lip movements with speech sounds.
• Motor development (reaching, crawling) enhances sensory integration.

🧪 Testing infants: Habituation procedures

Habituation: measuring decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations.

• Used to study perception and memory: e.g., infants suck faster when a new sound ("ma") replaces a habituated sound ("da"), showing discrimination.
• Speed of habituation predicts later language and intelligence; slower habituation is linked to developmental delays (e.g., Down syndrome, prematurity).

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🧠 Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage (0–24 months)

🧠 Core Piagetian concepts

Intelligence: not knowledge or facts, but the processes through which we adapt to our environment.

• Children think in different ways than adults, not just know less.
• Piaget used the clinical method: close, long-term observation of individual children in natural settings.

🧩 Schema

Schema: frameworks for organizing information; mental models of how the world works.

• Infants construct partial, incomplete models through active interaction.
• Example: a baby's schema for "doggie" might initially include all four-legged animals.

🔄 Assimilation

Assimilation: fitting new information into an existing schema.

• Example: calling all four-legged animals "doggies" because the child has a "doggie" concept.

🔄 Accommodation

Accommodation: expanding the framework of knowledge to accommodate a new situation.

• Example: learning that a horse is different from a zebra, so the child now has separate schemas for each.

🔄 Organization and equilibration

• Organization: combining existing schemas into new, more complex ones.
• Disequilibration: detecting contradictions between models and experiences, producing confusion but leading to growth.
• Equilibration: readjusting actions and models to restore alignment.

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🪜 Six Substages of Sensorimotor Development

🪜 Substage 1: Reflexes (0–1 month)

• Newborns learn through reflexes: sucking, reaching, grasping.
• Use becomes more deliberate and purposeful over time.

🪜 Substage 2: Primary Circular Reactions (1–4 months)

• Infant repeats actions involving their own body (e.g., making a vocalization, finding it interesting, repeating it).
• "Circular" = repetition; "primary" = centered on own body.

🪜 Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions (4–8 months)

• Infant interacts with objects in the environment (e.g., shaking a mobile).
• Accidental contact becomes deliberate and repeated.
• Takes delight in making things happen (e.g., banging lids together).

🪜 Substage 4: Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions (8–12 months)

• Infant combines behaviors to achieve a planned goal (e.g., crawling under a table to grab a toy).
• Can anticipate events and imitate others' actions.
• Prefrontal cortex maturation enables goal-directed activity.

🪜 Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions (12–18 months)

• Toddler is a "little scientist," experimenting in trial-and-error fashion (e.g., throwing a ball down stairs to see what happens).
• Active experimentation teaches about the world.

🪜 Substage 6: Beginning of Representational Thought (18–24 months)

• Toddler understands that objects can be used as symbols.
• Can solve problems mentally, remember things heard days before, and engage in pretend play.
• Marks transition to preoperational thought.

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🎯 Object Permanence

🎯 What it is

Object permanence: the understanding that even if something is out of sight, it still exists.

• A critical milestone during the sensorimotor period.
• Piaget tested this by hiding a toy under a blanket: infants with object permanence reach for it; those without appear confused.
• Typically acquired by ~8 months.

🎯 Implications

• Once mastered, toddlers enjoy hide-and-seek and understand that people who leave the room still exist.
• Around the same time, stranger anxiety emerges: fear of unfamiliar people because the child cannot assimilate the stranger into an existing schema.

🎯 Critique of Piaget's timeline

• Piaget believed object permanence was not fully mastered until substage 5 (~12–18 months).
• Modern research (Baillargeon, 1987; Diamond, 1985) shows infants understand object permanence much earlier if tested with shorter delays or different methods.
• Example: 6-month-olds retrieve a hidden object if the wait is ≤2 seconds; 7-month-olds if ≤4 seconds.

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🧠 Memory Development in Infancy

🧠 Infantile amnesia

Infantile amnesia: the inability to recall memories from the first few years of life.

• Why?: Hypotheses include immature brain (especially hippocampus), lack of linguistic skills to encode memories, different retrieval cues (visual vs. linguistic), and lack of "self" understanding needed for episodic memory.

🧠 Rovee-Collier's mobile studies

• Demonstrated that infants can remember, even if memories are short-lived.
• Method: 3-month-olds learned that kicking made a mobile shake; one week later, most remembered and kicked immediately; two weeks later, memory had faded.
• Reminder effect: showing the mobile (without tying it to the foot) helped infants remember after two weeks.
• Context-dependent memory: infants only remembered if retrieval conditions closely matched original conditions (e.g., same mobile design).

🧠 Older infants

• Infants >6 months retain information longer and need fewer reminders.
• Deferred imitation (imitating actions after a delay) occurs as early as 6 months if infants practice; by 12 months, no practice is needed to retain memory for 4 weeks.

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🗣️ Language Components

🗣️ Phoneme

Phoneme: the smallest unit of sound that makes a meaningful difference in a language.

• Example: "bit" has three phonemes.
• English has ~45 phonemes; other languages have 15–60+.
• Infants are born able to detect all phonemes but lose this ability by ~10 months, becoming specialized for their native language.

🗣️ Morpheme

Morpheme: a string of one or more phonemes that makes up the smallest units of meaning in a language.

• Includes prefixes (e.g., "re-") and suffixes (e.g., "-est").

🗣️ Semantics

Semantics: the set of rules we use to obtain meaning from morphemes.

• Example: adding "-ed" makes a verb past tense.

🗣️ Syntax

Syntax: the set of rules of a language by which we construct sentences.

• Each language has different syntax.
• English requires a noun and verb; word order matters (e.g., "The man bites the dog" ≠ "The dog bites the man").

🗣️ Pragmatics

Pragmatics: how we communicate effectively and appropriately with others.

• Includes turn-taking, staying on topic, volume, tone, eye contact.

🗣️ Contextual information

Contextual information: the information surrounding language that helps us interpret it.

• Includes knowledge, facial expressions, postures, gestures.
• Misunderstandings arise when contextual information is missing (e.g., text messages, headlines).

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🗣️ Language Developmental Progression

🗣️ Before birth and at birth

• Babies begin developing language prenatally.
• At birth, they recognize mother's voice, discriminate native from foreign languages, and prefer faces moving in sync with audible language.

🗣️ Cooing (0–4 months)

Cooing: a one-syllable combination of a consonant and a vowel sound (e.g., "coo" or "ba").

• Begins almost immediately after birth.
• Babies replicate sounds from their own language (tone varies by language).
• Serves as vocalization practice; infants hear their own voice and repeat entertaining sounds.
• Infants learn the pace and pause of conversation by alternating vocalizations.

🗣️ Babbling (~7 months)

Babbling: intentional vocalizations that lack specific meaning and comprise a consonant-vowel repeated sequence (e.g., "ma-ma-ma," "da-da-da").

• By 1 year, babbling uses primarily the sounds of the native language.
• Has a conversational tone that sounds meaningful.
• Helps children understand the social, communicative function of language.
• Deaf babies babble in sign language with hand movements.

🗣️ Gesturing

• Children communicate through gestures long before speech.
• Gesture usage predicts later language development.
• Deaf babies also use gestures to communicate.
• Sign language is sometimes taught to enhance communication, taking advantage of the ease of gesturing.

🗣️ Receptive language (~10 months)

Receptive language: the infant can understand more than he or she can say.

• One of the first words understood is the child's own name (~6 months).
• By 10–12 months, infants understand common words ("bottle," "mama," "doggie").
• Infants shake head "no" (~6–9 months) and respond to verbal requests ("wave bye-bye") by 9–12 months.
• Children use contextual cues (what people are looking at, emotional expressions) to help learn language.

🗣️ Holophrasic speech (~12–13 months)

Holophrasic speech: one-word expressions (e.g., "ju" for "juice").

• The listener must interpret the meaning.
• Example: "ju ga da" might mean "I want some milk when I go with Daddy."

🗣️ Language errors

• Underextension: a word is used only for one particular object (e.g., only the family dog is "doggie").
• Overextension: a label applies to all similar objects (e.g., all animals are "doggies").
• Underextension often results from learning a word in a specific context; overextension reflects a smaller vocabulary.
• Pronunciations improve between 1–3 years, but some problems persist until school age.

🗣️ First words and cultural influences

• English-speaking children's first words tend to be nouns (objects).
• In verb-friendly languages (e.g., Chinese), children may learn more verbs.
• Cultural emphasis matters: Chinese children may be taught to notice action and relationships; U.S. children may focus on naming objects and their qualities.

🗣️ Telegraphic speech (~2 years)

Telegraphic/text message speech: occurs when unnecessary words are not used (e.g., "Give baby ball" instead of "Give the baby the ball").

• Vocabulary of ~50–200 words.
• Words needed to convey messages are spoken; articles and grammatical words are omitted.
• Sounds like a telegram or text message.

🗣️ Infant-directed speech

Infant-directed speech: exaggerating vowel and consonant sounds, using a high-pitched voice, and delivering phrases with great facial expression.

• Universal tendency; also called "baby talk."
• Infants are more attuned to tone than content and listen longer to infant-directed speech.
• May help infants hear sounds clearly and pay attention to the speaker, setting up a pattern of interaction.

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🧬 Theories of Language Development

🧬 Nativism (Chomsky)

Language Acquisition Device (LAD): a brain mechanism that includes a universal grammar underlying all human language.

• Chomsky argued that human brains are hardwired for language.
• Children are born with knowledge of general syntax rules.
• Language develops as long as the infant is exposed to it; no teaching or reinforcement is required.
• Deep structure: how an idea is represented in universal grammar (common to all languages).
• Surface structure: how an idea is expressed in any one language.
• Critique: Evans & Levinson (2009) found that none of the presumed universal features (e.g., noun/verb phrases, tenses) were entirely universal across all languages.

🧬 Brain areas for language

• For ~90% of right-handers, language is in the left cerebral cortex.
• Broca's area (front of left hemisphere, near motor cortex): responsible for language production.
• Wernicke's area (next to auditory cortex): responsible for language comprehension.

🧬 Critical period

Critical period: a time in which learning can easily occur.

• For language, this appears to be between infancy and puberty.
• Evidence: case studies (Victor, Genie) show that children deprived of language early never fully develop it, but these cases have confounds (malnutrition, isolation).
• Better evidence: studies of hearing-impaired children show that earlier diagnosis and treatment (by 6–18 months) lead to normal language development by age 2–6; delays until after 18 months result in lower language performance, though improvement is still possible.
• The critical period is not exclusive to infancy; the brain remains receptive to language in early childhood.

🧬 Learning theory (Skinner, Bandura)

• Language is learned through association, reinforcement, and imitation.
• Children learn the language they hear and gradually improve through practice and feedback (e.g., parental praise, being understood).
• Critique: children learn words too fast for pure reinforcement (~10 new words/day between 18 months–5 years); language is more generative than imitative (e.g., "swimmed" is created, not imitated); deaf children can invent language even without good models.

🧬 Social pragmatics

• Language is not only cognitive but also social: a tool to communicate, connect, influence, and inform.
• Language emerges from a need to cooperate.
• Children use pre-linguistic skills (pointing, gestures) to communicate their own and others' needs.
• Example: 18–30-month-olds make linguistic repairs when another person doesn't understand them, even if they get the desired object, suggesting they want to be understood in the other person's mind.

🧬 Interactionist view (current consensus)

• Language acquisition is partially inborn and partially learned through environmental interactions.
• Both biological predispositions (brain structures, sensitive periods) and social input (imitation, feedback, pragmatics) are necessary.
• Don't confuse: it is not purely nature (nativist) or purely nurture (behaviorist)—both work together.

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📊 Summary Table: Theories of Language

Theory	Key claim	Evidence for	Evidence against
Nativism (Chomsky)	Language is hardwired; LAD contains universal grammar	Children learn language without explicit teaching; all languages share some features	Not all presumed universal features are truly universal; some languages lack noun/verb phrases or tenses
Learning theory (Skinner, Bandura)	Language is learned through reinforcement, imitation, and association	Children learn the language they hear; gradual improvement with feedback	Children learn words too fast; language is generative (e.g., "swimmed"); deaf children invent language
Social pragmatics	Language is a social tool for cooperation and communication	Children use gestures and repairs to be understood; pre-linguistic communication predicts language	Does not fully explain grammatical structure or speed of acquisition
Interactionist (current)	Language is both innate and learned through interaction	Combines biological readiness (brain areas, critical periods) with environmental input (imitation, feedback)	—

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Parenting styles, defined by the balance of control/expectations and warmth/responsiveness, shape children's competence and self-confidence, with authoritative parenting—high expectations combined with warmth and reasoning—generally producing the best developmental outcomes.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What the model measures: Baumrind's framework examines two dimensions—level of control/expectations and warmth/responsiveness.
• Four parenting styles emerge: the model produces four distinct styles based on combinations of these two dimensions.
• Authoritative parenting is most effective: high but reasonable expectations + warmth + reasoning (not coercion) → greater child competence and self-confidence.
• Common confusion: authoritative vs overbearing—authoritative parents show interest and set expectations but are not controlling; they allow autonomy.
• Developmental context: as children mature and gain preferences, parent-child conflict naturally increases, making how parents manage conflict crucial.

👨‍👩‍👧 Parent-child relationships in early childhood

🌱 How relationships change as children mature

• During early childhood (preschool and grade-school years), children become more capable and develop their own preferences.
• Children may refuse parental expectations or seek to compromise, which is a natural part of development.
• This maturation leads to greater parent-child conflict.
• Why it matters: how parents manage this conflict shapes the quality of the parent-child relationship going forward.

🔄 The shift from dependence to negotiation

• Parent-child relationships naturally change as children gain autonomy.
• The excerpt emphasizes that conflict is not abnormal—it arises because children are developing their own agency.
• Example: a preschooler who previously complied may now say "no" or propose alternatives to a parent's request.

📐 Baumrind's parenting style model

📏 The two dimensions

Baumrind (1971) identified a model based on two key dimensions:

Dimension	What it measures
Control/Expectations	How much parents demand or expect from their children's behavior
Warmth/Responsiveness	How warm, loving, and responsive parents are to their children

• These two dimensions combine to create four distinct parenting styles.
• The excerpt does not list all four styles but focuses on the most effective one.

✅ Authoritative parenting defined

Authoritative parenting: a style characterized by high but reasonable expectations, good communication, warmth and responsiveness, and use of reasoning rather than coercion.

• High expectations: parents set standards for behavior, but these are reasonable and age-appropriate.
• Warm and responsive: parents are loving and attentive to their children's needs.
• Communication: parents communicate well with their children, explaining rules and listening.
• Reasoning over coercion: when children misbehave, authoritative parents prefer to explain and reason rather than force compliance.

🎯 What authoritative parenting produces

• Children develop greater competence: they become more skilled and capable.
• Children develop greater self-confidence: they feel more assured in their abilities.
• The excerpt states this outcome is "in general," meaning it is a typical pattern, not a guarantee in every case.

🚫 What authoritative is NOT

• Don't confuse authoritative with overbearing:
  • Authoritative parents show interest in their children's activities.
  • They are not overbearing—they do not micromanage or control excessively.
  • They allow (the excerpt cuts off here, but implies they allow autonomy or independence).
• Example: an authoritative parent sets a bedtime and explains why sleep is important, but listens if the child has a reasonable request to adjust it; an overbearing parent would enforce the rule rigidly without discussion.

🧩 Why parenting style matters

🧩 The link between style and child outcomes

• The excerpt emphasizes that how parents respond to misbehavior and conflict is critical.
• Using reasoning rather than coercion helps children internalize values and develop problem-solving skills.
• Warmth and responsiveness provide emotional security, which supports confidence.

🔍 Implications for managing conflict

• As children mature and conflict increases, the parenting style becomes even more important.
• Authoritative parents manage conflict through communication and reasoning, which maintains relationship quality.
• Example: when a grade-schooler refuses to do homework, an authoritative parent discusses the importance of schoolwork and listens to the child's concerns, rather than simply punishing or ignoring the refusal.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Development unfolds through the interaction of person and context, and understanding the meta-theoretical assumptions that guide theories of development helps us recognize how different perspectives shape our views of human nature, change, and the role of environment.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Six basic assumptions organize developmental theories: nature vs. nurture, active vs. passive, continuous vs. discontinuous, qualitative vs. quantitative, cumulative vs. transformational, and universal vs. context-specific.
• Four meta-theories cluster these assumptions around metaphors: Maturational (seeds), Mechanistic (machines), Organismic (butterflies), and Contextualist (tennis game/dance).
• Common confusion: researchers may claim one meta-theory but their work reflects assumptions from a different one; also, no significant aspect of development has been found to be caused only by nature or only by nurture.
• Current dominance: cognitivism (all causes inside the mind) and neuroscience (brain as destiny) are the dominant meta-theories in psychology today, though contextualist perspectives have gained ground in developmental science.
• Everyone has meta-theories: parents, teachers, doctors, and all people hold assumptions about human nature and development that guide their actions, even if they are unaware of them.

🌱 The six foundational assumptions

🧬 Nature vs. nurture

• What it asks: Are developmental changes caused by forces inside the person (genes, biology) or outside (environment, learning)?
• The excerpt notes that research has not found any significant aspect of development caused only by nature or only by nurture.
• Example: doctors assuming weight loss is all about diet and exercise (nurture) may ignore physiological differences in metabolism (nature).

🎭 Active vs. passive

• What it asks: Do people actively shape their own development, or are they passive recipients of forces acting on them?
• Active: people are curious, interested, and construct their own development.
• Passive: people are products of their genes or environment, like machines responding to input.

📈 Continuous vs. discontinuous

• What it asks: Does development proceed smoothly and gradually, or through distinct stages?
• Continuous: steady accumulation of skills (like a car moving forward).
• Discontinuous: qualitatively different stages (like caterpillar → chrysalis → butterfly).

🔄 Qualitative vs. quantitative

• What it asks: Does development involve changes in kind (qualitative) or just changes in amount (quantitative)?
• Qualitative: transformations into something fundamentally different.
• Quantitative: more or less of the same thing.

🧱 Cumulative vs. transformational

• What it asks: Do earlier skills remain as building blocks, or do they get reorganized into new structures?
• Cumulative: earlier skills contribute to more developed skills.
• Transformational: earlier structures are reorganized into qualitatively different forms.

🌍 Universal vs. context-specific

• What it asks: Do all people follow the same developmental pathway, or do pathways vary by individual and context?
• Universal: everyone passes through the same stages in the same order (e.g., Piaget, Erikson).
• Context-specific: development takes many patterns depending on cultural, historical, and societal conditions (lifespan, ecological systems approaches).

🎨 The four meta-theories and their metaphors

🌱 Maturational meta-theory: humans as seeds

Maturational meta-theories use the plant as a metaphor; humans develop the same way as plants, with genetic make-up as the "seeds."

• Key assumptions: passive, product of genes; environment provides support but can't change nature; development follows genetic program.
• Example: "poppy seeds will always produce poppies"—a person's nature is fixed by their genes.
• Modern forms: behavioral genetics, sociobiology, evolutionary theories, neuroscience, temperament, and personality theories.
• Signal concepts: "trait," "the aggression gene," brain systems or hormones as sole causes.
• Don't confuse: theories that place all active ingredients "inside the head" (social cognitions) are cousins of Maturational theories, even if not directly descended, because they focus exclusively on the individual.

⚙️ Mechanistic meta-theory: humans as machines

Mechanistic meta-theories use the machine as a metaphor; humans change the same way as machines.

• Key assumptions: made up of pieces that can be studied separately; passive, with energy from outside; continuous development; people only react to controlling environment.
• Example: a car stays a car and responds to the gas pedal or brake—all causes come from outside.
• Prototypic theories: behaviorist, operant, classical conditioning, social learning theory.
• Modern forms: information processing theories, "the brain is a computer," theories treating humans as automatic responders.
• Surprising application: some analyses of poverty, oppression, racism, and discrimination imply external forces are sole determinants, treating humans as "Xerox machines" that passively internalize societal prejudices.
• Don't confuse: the "cognitive revolution" was supposed to overthrow behaviorism, but some cognitivistic theories still treat humans as information-processing machines.

🦋 Organismic meta-theory: humans as butterflies

Organismic meta-theories use the butterfly as a metaphor; humans develop the same way as butterflies.

• Key assumptions: structured wholes; curious, interested, open to growth; active; discontinuous qualitatively different stages; people construct their own next steps; development is progressive and unidirectional.
• Example: caterpillar → chrysalis → butterfly—development only goes in one direction, not the reverse.
• Prototypic theory: Piaget's constructivist theory of cognitive and affective development.
• Other examples: Kohlberg's moral reasoning, Werner's orthogenetic principle, Erikson's universal age-graded tasks, theories of intrinsic motivation.
• Key mechanism: development is caused by imbalances that lead to structural reorganizations.
• Current challenge: theories of "universal" anything (needs, stages, tasks) have come under attack from radical contextualism and cultural relativism.

🎾 Contextualist meta-theory: humans in a tennis game or dance

Contextualist meta-theories use the tennis game or dance as a metaphor; humans' development is like a game of tennis or a dance.

• Key assumptions: focus on back-and-forth between person and context; both are proactive with their own agendas; development can be continuous or discontinuous depending on how the "game" is played; both person and environment are active partners; transformations in both are possible.
• Better-known examples: Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model, lifespan approach.
• Historical context: arose in reaction to dominant meta-theories (experimental child psychology, Piagetian psychology) that focused almost exclusively on the child as a developing individual.
• Core insight: development unfolds within and is shaped by multi-level ecological or contextual forces outside the individual (microsystem settings, societal, cultural, historical contexts).

🔬 Meta-theories in psychology and society

📚 Historical dominance in psychology

Period	Dominant meta-theory	Impact
1940s–1950s	Behaviorism (Mechanistic)	Held sway over the field
1960s	Piaget's theories (Organismic)	Captured the field's attention; fierce battles with behaviorists
Today	Cognitivism + Neuroscience	Cognitivism assumes all causes are inside the mind; neuroscience assumes the brain is in charge

• Consequences of dominance: when a specific meta-theory governs the field, researchers from opposing meta-theories have trouble getting funding, publishing research, and are marginalized.
• Example: when behaviorists dominated motivation research (all behavior motivated by rewards and punishments), it was very difficult to study and publish research on intrinsic motivation.

🧠 Cognitivism as today's guiding meta-theory

Cognitivism is the assumption that all the causal factors that shape human behavior and development are inside the mind or belief system of the person.

• Signal concepts: self-efficacy, self-esteem, attributions, perceived social support, values, sense of purpose, goal orientations, internal working model, identity.
• These terms reveal the assumption that causes are located within the person's cognitive system.

🧬 Neuroscience as the emerging paradigm

• Core assumption: the brain is in charge of behavior, and neurobiology is destiny.
• Two branches:
  • Maturational: brain systems responsible for certain actions, predilections, and characteristics.
  • Contextual: neuroplasticity research examines how social contexts and interactions shape the developing brain.

🚨 Important note about psychology outside developmental

• News flash: in personality, social, cognitive, and industrial-organizational psychology, most researchers assume that people don't develop.
• These fields largely examine individual differences as indicators of people's permanent characteristics.

👥 Everyone has meta-theories

• Parents, teachers, nurses, social workers, doctors, business people, artists, politicians—all hold assumptions about human nature and development.
• Examples from the excerpt:
  • Teachers have assumptions about whether students come with motivation (nature) or have to be motivated from outside (nurture), and organize their classrooms accordingly.
  • Parents often argue about whether a child's behavior is just personality (maturational), a normal stage (organismic), or the result of rewarding the wrong behavior (mechanistic).

🧭 Discovering and working with meta-theories

🔍 How to discern your own meta-theory

• Think about which assumptions make the most sense to you.
• Notice which kinds of theories you prefer.
• Examine what kinds of recommendations you would make about how to structure development (parenting, teaching, policy-making).
• The hardest part: realizing that your meta-theory is made up of assumptions based on your experiences and societal messages—that aren't necessarily true.
• Our meta-theories sure seem true to each of us!

🎯 The goal: awareness, not elimination

• It's not really possible to get rid of all our assumptions.
• The goal: be aware of our own assumptions or meta-theories; realize they are not the truth but our current working models of how the world operates and people develop.
• Most important: be explicit about our assumptions and cognizant of how they are guiding our actions.
• The class aims to help students figure out their own assumptions and become (or remain) open to alternative viewpoints.

⚖️ What is the correct meta-theory?

• There is no single correct definition of development or meta-theory. Really. Even the lifespan approach has its drawbacks.
• However: as research accumulates, many theories derived from certain meta-theories have been found to be incomplete.
• Key finding: researchers have not found any significant aspect of development that is caused only by nature or only by nurture.
• Current consensus: most researchers say they favor interactionist meta-theories, like contextualist or systems meta-theories.
• Important caveat: look carefully at researchers' actual work—sometimes they say they have one meta-theory, but their work seems to be guided by assumptions from a different meta-theory.

📖 The meta-theory guiding this class and book

• The class endorses a lifespan perspective on human development, a contextualist perspective.
• Historical context: this perspective fought its way through dominant perspectives in child psychology (e.g., development ends at age 18), starting in the 1980s, to become one of the dominant meta-theories governing developmental science today.
• Note: instructors chose the book, so their meta-theory is influencing the meta-theoretical filter through which students are learning about development.

📜 Historical theories of development

🔬 Preformationist view (well into the 18th century)

Preformationism is the belief that a tiny, fully formed human is implanted in the sperm or egg at conception and then grows in size until birth.

• Children were merely thought of as little adults.
• Children were believed to possess all their sensory capabilities, emotions, and mental aptitude at birth, and as they developed these abilities unfolded on a predetermined schedule.
• Key assumption: the environment was thought to play no role in determining development.

📝 John Locke (1632–1704)

Locke proposed that children are largely shaped by their social environments, especially their education as adults teach them important knowledge.

• Refuted: the idea of innate knowledge.
• Key concept: thinking of a child's mind as a tabula rasa or blank slate—whatever comes into the child's mind comes from the environment.
• Emphasis: the environment is especially powerful in the child's early life because he considered the mind the most pliable then.
• Socialization: through education a child learns what is needed to be an appropriate member of society.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Divorce typically creates short-term difficulties for children—including behavior problems, stress from family conflict, and financial hardship—but most children adjust successfully over time, especially when parents limit conflict, provide warmth and support, and maintain adequate resources.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Changing family structures: By 2017, only 65% of U.S. children lived with two married parents, compared to 92% in 1960, with increases in solo-parent and cohabiting households.
• Short-term vs long-term effects: Children show elevated problems (behavior, school performance, peer difficulty) peaking around one year post-divorce, but small effects persist into adulthood (lower achievement, more relationship difficulties).
• What makes adjustment easier or harder: Financial resources, custodial parent's adjustment, child temperament, age, intelligence, and reduced parental conflict all influence outcomes.
• Common confusion: Not all negative outcomes are caused by divorce itself—some stem from pre-existing problems, financial hardship, or ongoing conflict rather than the separation per se.
• Protective factors: Most children of divorce lead happy lives when parents provide warmth, limit conflict, maintain economic stability, and allow access to social support.

📊 Trends in family structure

📊 Shift from married to unmarried households

• 1960: 92% of children lived with married parents; 5% with divorced/separated parents; 1% with never-married parents.
• 2008: 70% with married parents; 15% divorced/separated; 14% never-married.
• 2017: 65% with two married parents; 32% (24 million children) with an unmarried parent; 3% not living with any parent.

🏠 Types of unmarried-parent households (2017)

• 21% of all children lived with a solo mother.
• 7% lived with cohabiting parents.
• 4% lived with a solo father.
• The increase is attributed to overall declines in marriage and increases in divorce.

💰 Economic disparities by family structure

Family type	Poverty rate
Married couples	8%
Solo mothers	30%
Solo fathers	17%
Cohabiting couples	16%

Children living with a single parent are more likely to experience reduced socioeconomic circumstances.

🌪️ Short-term consequences of divorce

🌪️ Immediate behavioral and emotional problems

• Children from divorced families show significantly more behavior problems than matched samples from non-divorced families.
• Problems are evident immediately after separation and persist into early and middle adolescence.
• About 20–25% of children show severe problems following divorce, compared to a normative base rate of 10%.
• Common issues include:
  • More unruly and demanding behavior at home.
  • Poorer school performance.
  • More difficulty with peers.
  • Loss of confidence, trust, and security in relationships.

📉 Peak difficulty and recovery timeline

• Difficulties typically peak at about one year post-divorce.
• Some researchers conclude that divorce consequences are second only to parental death in terms of familial problems.
• However, not all children suffer negative consequences; some gain independence and self-esteem, and may feel relief if divorce reduces family conflict.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Role of the custodial parent

The primary factor influencing children's adjustment is how well the custodial parent adjusts.

• If the custodial parent is adjusting well, children benefit.
• This explains much of the variation in outcomes among children of divorce.

💸 Financial and practical disruptions

💸 Income loss and economic stress

• Custodial mothers experience a 25–50% drop in family income immediately after divorce.
• Even five years later, they reach only 94% of pre-divorce income.
• Financial constraints lead to:
  • New limits on spending, toys, clothing, entertainment.
  • Less eating out or recreational activities.
  • Stress over child support reliability.
  • Decisions about healthcare, vacations, rent, and mortgages affected.

🏡 Other life changes

• Children may have to move to a new home, change schools, or leave friends and neighborhoods.
• The custodial parent may take on more work and be less available to children.
• These disruptions add to the overall stress and adjustment burden.

🔍 Why financial factors matter

• Children from families with fewer financial resources before separation exhibit more externalizing behaviors.
• Lower income and lack of educational/community resources contribute to divorce-related stress.
• Don't confuse: Some negative outcomes attributed to divorce are actually due to economic hardship rather than the separation itself.

🧒 Child characteristics that influence adjustment

🧒 Temperament and coping skills

Children adjust better when they have:

• An easygoing temperament.
• Good problem-solving skills.
• Ability to seek social support.

Children with a difficult temperament experience more difficulties.

🧠 Intelligence as a protective factor

• Children with higher IQ scores appear buffered from the effects of divorce.
• Intelligence helps children understand and cope with the changes.

👦👧 Gender differences

• Boys typically display more overt problems and may act out more during the transition.
• Girls may show more internalizing behaviors (e.g., withdrawal, sadness).

🎂 Age and developmental stage

Age group	How divorce affects them
Infants and preschoolers	Suffer heaviest impact from loss of routine; may not understand what is happening.
School-aged children	Most difficult age—old enough to understand separation but not the reasoning; may blame themselves or promise to "be good" to reunite parents.
Older teenagers	More likely to recognize conflict that led to divorce but still feel fear, loneliness, guilt, and pressure to choose sides; may turn to peers to escape home situation.

Don't confuse: Younger children's self-blame with older children's understanding—each age group faces unique challenges.

🕰️ Long-term consequences into adulthood

🕰️ Persistent small effects

Although children show much recovery, small effects persist compared to children from never-divorced families:

• Lower achievement in school.
• Lower self-esteem and social competence.
• Slightly elevated emotional and behavioral problems (boys: externalizing; girls: internalizing).

💔 Adolescent and adult relationship difficulties

• During adolescence: slightly higher rates of sexual activity and pregnancy, less likely to graduate high school, more troubled romantic relationships.
• As adults: children of divorce have more difficulty forming and sustaining intimate relationships, are more dissatisfied with marriages, and more likely to divorce themselves.
• One long-term study found 25% of adults whose parents divorced experienced social/emotional/psychological problems, compared to 10% from intact families.

🎓 Education and occupational status

• Children of divorce may have lower levels of education and occupational status.
• This may be a consequence of lower income and fewer resources for funding education rather than divorce itself.
• In households without economic hardship, there may be no impact on long-term economic status.

Don't confuse: Effects of divorce per se with effects of financial hardship—some outcomes are due to reduced resources, not the separation itself.

🛡️ Factors that help children adjust

🛡️ Parental behavior and family environment

Children manage better when:

• Parents limit conflict and avoid putting children in the middle.
• Parents provide warmth, emotional support, and appropriate discipline.
• The post-divorce home is more supportive and stimulating.
• The custodial parent (especially mother) is more sensitive and less depressed.

🤝 Social and economic support

• Children cope better when they reside with a well-functioning parent.
• Access to social support from peers and other adults helps.
• Higher socioeconomic status leads to better outcomes, as some negative consequences result from financial hardship rather than divorce itself.

🌟 Positive changes after divorce

• Some children gain more opportunity to discover abilities and develop independence that fosters self-esteem.
• If divorce reduces family conflict, children may feel relief.
• Relationships between mothers and children can become closer and stronger.
• Children from single-parent families talk to their mothers more often than those from two-parent families.
• Greater equality and less rigid, more democratic parenting can be beneficial after divorce.

⚠️ Pre-existing problems

It is important to consider all factors that influence outcomes, as some negative consequences associated with divorce are due to pre-existing problems.

• Not all difficulties are caused by the divorce itself—some families had issues before separation.

✅ Overall outlook

Long-term harm from parental divorce is not inevitable, and children can navigate the experience successfully.

• Most children of divorce lead happy, well-adjusted lives and develop strong, positive relationships with their custodial parent.

🏠 Cohabitation, remarriage, and blended families

🏠 Remarriage challenges

• Remarriage may be a more difficult adjustment for children than the divorce itself.
• Parents and stepparents often see the stepparent's role as "parent," but children may disagree.
• A more democratic parenting style may become more authoritarian after remarriage.
• Biological parents are more likely to stay jointly involved when neither has remarried; least likely if the father remarried and the mother has not.

🔄 Cohabitation instability

• Cohabiting relationships in the U.S. tend to be short-lived: about 50% last less than 2 years.
• Children may form a relationship with a parent's live-in partner, then have to sever it later.
• Even in long-term cohabitation, continued contact with the child after breakup is rare.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Blended families

• One in six children (16%) live in a blended family (as of 2015).
• Hispanic, Black, and White children are equally likely to live in blended families; Asian children are more likely to live with two married parents in their first marriage.
• Historically, blended families resulted from parental death; today, they result from divorce and remarriage, creating new complexities.

🧩 Unique challenges of blended families

• Children may be part of two households with different rules, causing confusion.
• Members may require more demonstrations of affection for reassurance (e.g., stepparents expect more gratitude; stepchildren fear being seen as sources of tension).
• Stepparents may feel guilty for lack of initial feelings toward partner's children.
• Children forced to respond to a stepparent as a "real" parent often react with hostility, rebellion, or withdrawal, especially if the relationship hasn't developed organically.

Don't confuse: Blended families with intact families—blended families are more complex and require different strategies for successful relationships.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) like maltreatment can produce serious long-term harm through neurobiological pathways, but developmental systems show remarkable resilience and capacity for recovery when children receive positive experiences and support.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What adversity and resilience mean: Adversity acknowledges the genuine harm of early trauma; resilience highlights the strength and healing capacity of developmental systems even after severe stress.
• Maltreatment is common and serious: About 3.5 million U.S. children were subjects of abuse reports in 2017; neglect is the most common form (78%), followed by physical abuse, sexual abuse, and psychological maltreatment.
• ACEs framework counts cumulative risk: The ACEs approach tallies multiple adverse experiences (e.g., abuse, neglect, family dysfunction) and shows that higher counts—especially 4 or more—predict worse physical and psychological health outcomes.
• Common confusion—adversity vs. inevitability: Frameworks emphasizing harm can make effects seem toxic and unavoidable, but research shows enormous capacity for healing at every age; neuroplasticity means positive experiences can reshape the brain just as negative ones can harm it.
• Societal responsibility matters: Poverty is the single biggest predictor of family dysfunction and maltreatment; reducing ACEs requires addressing systemic inequities, not just treating individual families.

🧩 Child maltreatment: definitions and prevalence

🧩 What counts as maltreatment

Child Abuse and Neglect: Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation; or an act or failure to act, which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.

• Federal law provides the baseline; each U.S. state has its own definition.
• Most states recognize four major types: neglect, physical abuse, psychological maltreatment, and sexual abuse.
• These forms can occur alone or in combination.

📊 How common is maltreatment?

Statistic	2017 U.S. data
Referrals received by Child Protective Services	~4.1 million (involving ~7.5 million children)
Rate per 1,000 children	31.8
Children subject to at least one report	~3.5 million
Who reports?	65.7% professionals (law enforcement, educators, social workers); 17.3% nonprofessionals (friends, neighbors, relatives)

• Neglect is by far the most common form (78%), followed by physical abuse (18%), sexual abuse (9%), psychological maltreatment (8.5%), and medical neglect (2.3%).
• Most perpetrators are parents (80.3%) or other relatives (6.1%).
• Infants (first year of life) have the highest victimization rate (25.3 per 1,000).
• In 2017, an estimated 1,720 children died from abuse/neglect; 71.8% were younger than 3 years old.

🔍 Sexual abuse specifics

Childhood sexual abuse: Any sexual contact between a child and an adult or a much older child.
Incest: Sexual contact between a child and family members.

• Research estimates 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 10 boys have been sexually abused.
• Median age for abuse: 8–9 years for both sexes.
• Most abusers are male; girls are more often abused by family members, boys by strangers.
• Boys may underreport due to cultural expectations and stigma around homosexual encounters.
• Effects: Feelings of self-blame, betrayal, shame, guilt; small increased lifetime risk for depression, anxiety, intimacy problems, and suicide.
• Don't confuse severity with inevitability: Long-term effects depend on nature, duration, co-occurrence of other maltreatment, and subsequent support; most survivors experience much recovery once abuse stops, and some show no lasting harmful effects.

🧠 Neurobiological impacts of toxic stress

🧠 What is toxic stress?

• Normal stress (everyday challenges) helps children build coping skills and poses little risk.
• Manageable stress (e.g., changing schools, losing a loved one) can be handled fairly well.
• Toxic stress: Chronic neglect or abuse over long periods that produces long-lasting neurobiological effects.

⚙️ How toxic stress harms the brain and body

The excerpt describes a cascade of impairments:

System affected	What happens	Developmental consequence
Stress regulation systems (endocrine, immune, amygdala, nucleus accumbens, hippocampus, prefrontal cortex)	Chronic overwhelm compromises healthy development, often at the epigenetic level	Impaired stress regulation interferes broadly with cognitive, social, emotional, and physical development
Neurophysiology	Higher stress reactivity, emotional dysregulation (anxiety, depression)	Poorer self-regulation, lower empathy/sympathy, poorer social skills and peer relationships
Cognition	Impaired working memory and executive functioning	Lower academic motivation and performance
Behavior	Increased impulsivity, vulnerability to substance abuse	By adolescence: aggressive/antisocial behavior, delinquency, gangs, violent crime

• Young children may blame themselves for neglect or abuse.
• Maltreatment can also cause attachment disturbances and delays in cognitive/language development.
• Important caveat: Given the complex nature of abuse, it is often difficult to sort out the precise mechanisms of effects.

🌱 Neuroplasticity and recovery

• The same brain malleability that makes children vulnerable to adversity also enables resilience.
• Neuroplasticity means the developing brain can be reshaped by subsequent positive experiences (enriching, healing social/physical/psychological environments).
• Example: Studies of infants from Romanian orphanages show the healing power of stable, loving, enriched homes (Audet & Le Mare, 2011).
• Research on reversal and recovery from biobehavioral impairments is especially encouraging.

📋 The ACEs framework: strengths and critiques

📋 What are ACEs?

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): A framework that gathers various sources of early stress—neglect, verbal/physical/sexual abuse, and family dysfunction (mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence)—and considers them together.

• Researchers created a scale listing common risks and asked adults to report experiences before age 18.
• Cumulative risk index: Count the number of ACEs; examine whether people with different counts show differences in functioning.

📊 Key findings from ACEs research

Finding	Detail
ACEs are common	~70% of adults have experienced at least one; ~25% at least three
Cumulative effects	The number of ACEs, especially 4 or more, strongly predicts psychological and physical health problems
Co-occurrence	ACEs tend to cluster (e.g., intimate partner violence often accompanied by maternal depression, neglect, physical abuse)
Common pathways	Many adverse experiences influence development through shared mechanisms: (1) increased behavioral risk (substance abuse, risky behaviors); (2) biological vulnerability to health conditions (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune conditions)

• Researchers sometimes estimate the cost of ACEs in years subtracted from average life expectancy.
• ACEs are found across all demographic groups but are higher among those who are Black, multiracial, lesbian/gay/bisexual, low income, unemployed, or have less than high school education.

🩺 Early prevention and intervention

• The ACEs framework has captured pediatricians' attention, who view early adversity as a major public health crisis.
• Many pediatricians call for routine screening for ACEs starting in infancy (well-baby visits).
• Two-generation treatment: Screen mothers retrospectively for ACEs and treat effects in mothers to prevent traumatization of young children.
• Multicomponent interventions (parenting education, mental health counseling, social service referrals, social support) targeting children aged 0–5 have been shown to improve parent-child relationships and reduce/reverse many neurophysiological effects.

⚠️ Critiques of the ACEs framework

Researchers point out several oversimplifications:

Critique	Explanation
What qualifies as an ACE?	Controversy about which experiences should be included
Counting is too simple	Tallying ACEs doesn't account for interactions among different types or their severity/chronicity
Excludes positive experiences	The framework ignores protective factors that could buffer children from neurobiological impacts
Retrospective bias	People currently in a negative state can more easily recall negative childhood events
Lumps together different events	Effects of divorce vs. sexual abuse may be quite different; more differentiated studies are needed

• Researchers call for more prospective longitudinal studies that examine different adverse experiences separately, considering severity, chronicity, and combinations with positive/negative experiences.
• The ACEs perspective could eventually provide an integrative framework to compare and weave together these differentiated strands of work.

🌟 Resilience and positive experiences

🌟 What resilience research reveals

• No matter the adversity, there is always room for recuperation, gains, and work-arounds to foster improvement.
• The same brain characteristics that contribute to early vulnerability (malleability) also contribute to later resilience.

🌈 HOPE framework: Health Outcomes from Positive Experiences

Four broad categories of experiences that buffer early adversity and promote healthy development:

Category	Description
Nurturing, supportive relationships	Stable, caring connections with adults
Safe, stable, protective, equitable environments	Places to live, develop, play, and learn without threat
Constructive social engagement and connectedness	Opportunities to participate meaningfully in community
Social and emotional competencies	Learning skills for self-regulation, empathy, problem-solving

• Continued exploration of the most effective treatment components and whether they are age-graded is an important research topic.

🏛️ Societal responsibility for ACEs

• Research on ACEs and maltreatment typically fails to acknowledge the role of societal factors in creating harmful childhood experiences.
• Poverty is the single biggest predictor of family dysfunction and child maltreatment.
• In the U.S., poverty is overrepresented in ethnic/racial minority families and female-headed households, which face additional stressors from prejudice and discrimination.
• Poverty exerts downward pressure on parents' capacity to provide for and protect children; although most poor/minority parents succeed, it is very challenging to buffer children from all risks.
• Societally-sanctioned conditions: Society has agreed that children receive only as many developmental basics (food, shelter) as their families can afford.
• Policy implication: One way to significantly reduce ACEs would be to enact policies that reduce poverty; such policies would protect child health/development and save money by preventing long-term behavioral and medical costs.

🔑 Key takeaways for practice and understanding

🔑 Balancing adversity and resilience

• Adversity frameworks are useful for survivors: They verify that what happened is real and serious, not the survivor's fault; they explain side-effects (stress reactivity, emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, substance abuse vulnerability) as consequences of early experiences, not character defects.
• Resilience frameworks are equally important: They counter the message that early adversity inevitably leads to poor outcomes; they highlight the hardiness of developmental systems and capacity for healing at every age.
• Most useful: Frameworks that consider both adversity and resilience as two sides of the same coin.

🛡️ Protective factors and prevention

• Early detection and treatment are critical; the younger the intervention, the better.
• Multicomponent interventions that provide parenting support, mental health services, social services, and social support are effective.
• Addressing systemic inequities (poverty, discrimination) is essential to reducing the prevalence of ACEs at the population level.

🧭 Don't confuse: Vulnerability vs. inevitability

• Vulnerability: Early adversity can produce serious, long-lasting harm through neurobiological pathways.
• Not inevitability: Most survivors experience much recovery; neuroplasticity means positive experiences can reshape the brain; many people show no lasting harmful effects.
• Images and messages that highlight long-term risks of ACEs are helpful for prevention but can unintentionally make it seem like early adversity inevitably leads to poor outcomes—which is not the case.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

During early childhood, children develop self-regulation—the ability to control their behaviors and emotions—which predicts academic success, social competence, and prosocial behavior throughout life.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What self-regulation includes: both behavioral control (modifying actions to fit context or goals) and emotional control (recognizing, naming, and constructively expressing feelings).
• Two types of behavioral regulation: "do" regulation (performing actions you don't want to do) and "don't" regulation (stopping yourself from doing something you want to do).
• Internalization process: compliance shifts from externally motivated (needing reminders and assistance) to internally motivated (independent, self-directed behavior).
• Common confusion: self-regulation is not just stopping bad behavior—it also involves initiating desired actions and staying in touch with genuine goals while making intentional decisions.
• Why it matters: better self-regulation predicts school success, peer relationships, fewer behavioral problems, and higher prosocial behavior.

🌱 Developmental context: Initiative vs. Guilt

🎯 The preschool task

Initiative vs. guilt: the developmental task preschool children (ages 3–6) must resolve by learning to plan and achieve goals while interacting with others.

• Children at this stage want to take initiative—think of ideas and start actions (building forts, opening lemonade stands, getting ready for bed alone).
• Initiative = a sense of ambition and responsibility; develops when parents allow exploration within limits and support the child's choices.
• Guilt and inadequacy develop when initiative misfires or is stifled by over-controlling parents.
• Caregivers should praise efforts, avoid criticizing messes or mistakes, and celebrate children's projects (e.g., displaying drawings, admiring block towers).

🔗 Connection to self-regulation

• The task of initiative vs. guilt is negotiated through preschoolers' struggles to learn to control their behaviors and emotions.
• Self-regulation is one of the central tasks of early childhood, though it takes many years to fully develop.

🧠 Behavioral self-regulation

🎭 What it is

Behavioral self-regulation: the self-control individuals use to modify their actions so they are socially appropriate to the context or better meet an individual's own goals.

• Adaptive regulation involves staying in touch with genuine goals while making intentional decisions about actions.
• Example: modifying behavior to mind parents, follow preschool rules, build a fort successfully, or join a pretend game.

✅ "Do" regulation

• Performing actions desired by others that you don't really want to do.
• Example: "Put away your toys."

🛑 "Don't" regulation

• Stopping yourself from doing something you really want to do.
• Example: "Don't eat that cookie!"

🧩 Executive function

Executive function: self-regulatory processes (such as inhibiting a behavior or cognitive flexibility) that enable adaptive responses to new situations or reaching a specific goal.

• Gradually emerges during early childhood and continues developing throughout childhood and adolescence.
• Brain maturation (especially the prefrontal cortex) and experience influence development.
• As executive function improves, children become less impulsive.
• Higher executive function when parents are warm, responsive, use scaffolding during problem-solving, and provide cognitively stimulating environments.

📈 Development of behavioral self-regulation

👶 When it starts

• Infants begin with physiological regulation and consistency in sleeping and eating patterns.
• Toddlers face the challenge of regulating behavior in social situations.
• Self-regulation typically not seen with consistency until a child's second year.

🧬 What affects development

Four factors influence when and how self-regulation develops:

Factor	How it affects self-regulation
Cognitive development	Progress in cognition and working memory helps children become aware of acceptable social behavior
Temperament	Both reactivity and effortful control matter
Parent-child interactions	Quality of interactions shapes regulation skills
Environment	Quality of home and/or school (day-care) environment

🎯 Why it's important

Better behavioral self-regulation (vs. difficulty regulating) is associated with:

1. More success transitioning to school and better academic achievement
2. Higher social competence and greater success developing school-based peer relationships
3. Fewer externalizing behaviors (anger, impulsivity)
4. Higher levels of prosocial behaviors from toddlerhood through childhood

🍬 The Marshmallow Test

• Classic study by Mischel and colleagues: children choose between a small immediate reward (one marshmallow) and a larger delayed reward (several marshmallows).
• Ability to delay gratification at age four predicted better academic performance and health later in life.
• Don't confuse: this tests self-control in service of the child's own goal (getting more marshmallows), not just following rules.

🔄 Internalization: From external to internal control

📊 Studying self-regulation through compliance

Compliance: a child's cooperation or "going along with" the rules and standards of behavior for their immediate environment (e.g., home or school).

• The developmental trajectory can be investigated by directly observing the nature and frequency of compliant behaviors.

🪜 Stages of internalization

Using getting ready to eat a meal as an example:

Stage	Nature of compliance	Example
1. Emerging self-regulation	High caregiver support required	Very young child needs assistance with hand washing, putting on bib, getting seated
2. Developing self-regulation	Less support needed but reminders required	Two-year-old can perform tasks with less or no assistance but needs reminders and supervision
3. Maturing self-regulation	Very little direct support needed	Child performs tasks with minimal prompting
4. Self-regulatory competence	Independent, internally motivated	Older child gets ready for meal without prompting or assistance

🌟 What internalization means

Internalization: a child's acceptance and understanding of, and willingness to behave in accordance with, the rules and standards of their environment.

• Compliance shifts from assisted, externally motivated behavior to independent, internally motivated behavior.
• Represents the development of independent, internally motivated compliance.

💭 Emotional self-regulation

🎨 What it is

Emotional self-regulation: an individual's ability to recognize and name how they are feeling, and to express their emotions constructively.

• Adaptive emotion regulation involves staying in touch with genuine feelings while making intentional decisions about how to express them.
• Don't confuse: it's not suppressing emotions, but expressing them constructively.

🛠️ Strategies preschoolers learn

Three- and four-year-olds develop new ways to cope with negative emotions:

• Verbal expression: learning new ways of expressing feelings with words
• Sensory reduction: putting heads down to reduce overwhelming or unpleasant sensory input
• Self-reassurance: talking out loud to reassure themselves that things will be okay
• Goal recalibration: adjusting goals or desires to match available options rather than continuing to ask for something they cannot have

These strategies reduce the frequency and severity of tantrums, loneliness, and other unpleasant emotional responses, and help children remain calm when very excited or happy.

🧠 Cognitive processes involved

The same cognitive processes related to self-control and executive function are responsible for regulating emotions:

• Response initiation
• Response inhibition
• Delayed gratification
• Effortful control
• Cognitive flexibility

👨‍👩‍👧 How caretakers can help

Caretakers facilitate adaptive emotion regulation by:

• Using goal-focused language (want, need, don't like) in everyday conversations
• Validating children's goals and preferences as real and important
• Explaining prosocial strategies that allow everyone's goals and preferences to be considered (e.g., taking turns, sharing)
• Being patient

📊 Outcomes

Compared with children with poor regulation skills, those who learn adaptive behavioral and emotional regulation strategies:

• Learn more and like school better
• Are disciplined less frequently
• Are less anxious and stressed
• Are more empathetic
• Get along better with parents, teachers, and peers

🌐 Social and emotional competence

🎯 What it includes

Social and emotional competence encompasses developmental outcomes that matter to children, parents, and society:

• Capacity to engage in socially constructive actions (helping, caring, sharing)
• Ability to curb hostile or aggressive impulses
• Living according to meaningful moral values
• Developing a healthy identity and sense of self
• Developing talents and achieving success

🧭 Example: Conscience development

Conscience: the cognitive, emotional, and social influences that cause young children to create and act consistently with internalized standards of right and wrong.

How conscience emerges:

• From experiences with parents, particularly mutually responsive relationships that motivate children to respond constructively to parents' requests and expectations
• Biologically-based temperament matters: some children are temperamentally more capable of motivated self-regulation (effortful control); some are more prone to fear and anxiety from parental disapproval
• Influenced by "goodness of fit" between child's temperamental qualities and how parents communicate and reinforce behavioral expectations

Representational development:

• Young children begin to represent moral values and think of themselves as moral beings
• By end of preschool years, children develop a "moral self": thinking of themselves as people who want to do the right thing, feel badly after misbehaving, and feel uncomfortable when others misbehave
• Provides a foundation for later moral conduct

🧩 Multiple influences

Social and personality development is built from:

• Social influences: parent-child relationships, communication, reinforcement
• Biological influences: temperament, effortful control, reactivity to fear and anxiety
• Representational influences: how children think about themselves and moral values

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Cognitive development in early childhood involves the emergence of symbolic thought, language, and social understanding through both individual mental operations (Piaget) and culturally-guided participation (Vygotsky), with quality early education playing a crucial role in supporting these advances.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Piaget's preoperational stage (ages 2–7): children use symbols to represent objects and ideas but show limitations like egocentrism, perceptual salience, and inability to conserve.
• Vygotsky's sociocultural theory: cognitive development originates in social interactions, with language as the primary tool and learning occurring in the zone of proximal development through scaffolding.
• Theory of mind emerges: children develop the ability to understand that others have different thoughts, beliefs, and perspectives, typically mastering false-belief tasks around age 4–5.
• Language explosion: vocabulary grows from ~200 to over 10,000 words between ages 2–6; bilingualism offers cognitive advantages in executive function and word learning.
• Common confusion—Piaget vs Vygotsky: Piaget believed development precedes learning (wait until the child is ready), while Vygotsky believed learning drives development (guide the child to new skills with support).

🎭 Piaget's Preoperational Stage

🎭 What defines this stage

Preoperational stage: the second stage of cognitive development (ages 2–7) organized around symbolic regulations, where children use symbols to represent words, images, and ideas.

• Children can now engage in pretend play—a stick becomes a sword, arms become airplane wings.
• The term "operational" refers to logical manipulation of information; children are "pre-operational" because they cannot yet perform mental operations or use adult logic.
• Their reasoning is based on personal knowledge and perception rather than conventional logic.

🧩 Two substages

Substage	Age range	Key characteristics
Symbolic function	2–4 years	Gains in symbolic thinking (mentally representing absent objects); dependence on perception in problem-solving
Intuitive thought	4–7 years	Greater use of intuitive thinking rather than just perception; many "why?" questions; reasoning without evidence

🎨 Symbolic representation advances

• Children can now use two-dimensional representations like photographs and computer screens.
• They develop memory for autobiographical events and can discuss past and present.
• Mental representations support executive function—children hold goals in mind that differ from immediate desires, using representations of what they're "supposed to do" to manage what they "want to do."
• Example: A child can plan how to build a castle before starting, or figure out how to comfort themselves when sad.

🚧 Key limitations

🚧 Egocentrism

Egocentrism in early childhood: the tendency of young children not to be able to take the perspective of others; the child thinks that everyone sees, thinks, and feels just as they do.

• Children cannot infer others' perspectives and instead attribute their own perspective to everyone.
• Example: Three-year-old Kenny picks an Iron Man toy for his sister's birthday because he likes it, assuming she will too.
• Piaget's mountain experiment: Children shown a 3D mountain model choose a picture representing their own view rather than a doll's view from a different angle.
• Don't confuse: Even young children adjust their speech when talking to younger children or adults, showing some awareness of others' views.

👁️ Perceptual salience

Perceptual salience: children reason not based on what they know, but based on what they perceive (see and hear) in the present local context.

• Understanding is halfway between sensorimotor (action-based) and concrete operational (logic-based) reasoning.
• Example: When a parent wears a Halloween mask, the child may react as if the parent is a stranger, even if they recognize the parent's voice—the mask is so perceptually dominant it overwhelms other information.

🧸 Animism

Animism: attributing life-like qualities to objects.

• The cup is alive, the chair that hurts them is "mean," toys are "tired."
• After age three, children rarely refer to objects as alive unless the objects move.

🎯 Centration and conservation

🎯 Centration

Centration: understanding is dominated (centered on) a single feature—the most perceptually salient one.

• Children cannot hold or coordinate two features of an object simultaneously.
• This leads to failure on conservation tasks.

💧 Conservation experiments

Conservation: the ability to recognize that aspects like quantity remain the same even when there are transformations in appearance.

• Liquid conservation: Child agrees two glasses have the same amount of liquid. Experimenter pours one into a taller, thinner glass. Preoperational child says the taller glass now has more because it is taller—they center on height and fail to conserve.
• Pizza example: Kenny's slice is cut into five pieces while his sister's remains whole. Kenny thinks he has more pizza because he focuses only on the number of pieces, not total amount.

🔢 Classification errors

• Children have difficulty understanding an object can be classified multiple ways.
• Example: Shown three white buttons and four black buttons, asked "Are there more black buttons or buttons?", the child says "more black buttons"—they compare black vs. white instead of part vs. whole.
• Their reasoning is transductive: making faulty inferences from one specific example to another.
• Example: Piaget's daughter said she hadn't had her nap, therefore it wasn't afternoon—she didn't understand afternoons are a time period containing many events.

🔍 Critique of Piaget

• Research shows Piaget underestimated preoperational children's abilities.
• Specific experiences influence when children can conserve—pottery makers' children in Mexico understand reshaping clay doesn't change amount at younger ages.
• Under certain experimental conditions, preoperational children can think rationally about math and science tasks.
• Theory of mind research shows some children overcome egocentrism by ages 4–5, earlier than Piaget indicated.
• Piaget was right about the sequence and processes, but current research provides more accurate age estimates when barriers to performance are removed.

🌍 Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

🌍 Core principles

Sociocultural theory: Vygotsky's theory emphasizing that cognitive development proceeds as a result of social interactions between members of a culture and relies on cultural tools like language.

Three key themes:

1. Human development and learning originate in social, historical, and cultural interactions.
2. Psychological tools, particularly language, mediate the development of higher mental functions.
3. Learning occurs within the Zone of Proximal Development.

🤝 Social origins of thinking

• "Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level (interpsychological), and later, on the individual level (intrapsychological)."
• Children adopt socially shared experiences through working with others on various tasks.

Guided participation: a learner actively acquires new culturally valuable skills and capabilities through meaningful, collaborative activity with an assisting, more experienced other.

• Development is a "transformation of participation in a sociocultural activity," not just transmission of knowledge.
• Example: Young children learn problem-solving not by sitting alone at a desk, but by working alongside parents or siblings on real tasks like preparing a meal or repairing a fence—they encounter problems together, discuss solutions, and take action.

🗣️ Language as a developmental tool

• For Vygotsky, children interact with the world through the tool of language (not schemas as in Piaget).
• Language, a social medium, is the mechanism through which we build knowledge of the world.
• With development, language becomes internalized as thought (cognition, reasoning).
• Children use this internalized language to guide their actions.

🎯 Zone of Proximal Development and scaffolding

Zone of Proximal Development: what a learner can do with help from more competent others; sits in the gap between what a learner can do alone without help and what the learner cannot yet do.

Scaffolding: a process in which adults or capable peers model or demonstrate how to solve a problem, and then step back, offering support as needed.

• A person has both actual abilities and potential abilities that can be realized with proper guidance.
• Example: Teaching a child to brush teeth—you talk through what you're doing, demonstrate, let them work along with you, provide assistance when needed, then step back once they know what to do.
• In education: Rather than assessing what students are doing, understand what they're capable of doing with proper guidance and mentoring.

🔄 Piaget vs Vygotsky on learning and development

Aspect	Piaget	Vygotsky
Relationship	Development precedes learning	Learning drives development
Instructional approach	Follow the child's lead; introduce activities when child is ready	Provide guidance in the zone of proximal development; learning occurs before full developmental readiness
Primary mechanism	Individual construction of schemas through interaction with world	Social interaction and cultural tools (especially language)
Emphasis	Universal stages toward cognitive complexity	Culturally-embedded, situated participatory learning

• Don't confuse: Both emphasized interactions with social and physical world as sources of change, but Piaget focused on universal stages while Vygotsky emphasized cultural context.

🧠 Theory of Mind

🧠 What it is

Theory of mind: the ability to think about other people's thoughts (meta-cognition—thinking about thinking); the understanding that other people experience mental states (thoughts, beliefs, feelings, desires) that are different from our own, and that their mental states guide their behavior.

• This skill emerges in early childhood.
• It helps humans infer, predict, and understand others' reactions.
• Crucial for social development and competent social interactions.

🎭 The false-belief task

Sally-Anne experiment (Wimmer & Perner, 1983):

1. Sally puts her ball in a basket and leaves the room.
2. Anne moves the ball from the basket to a box.
3. Child is asked: Where will Sally look for the ball when she returns?

• Right answer: In the basket (where Sally thinks it is).
• Why it's hard: Must infer Sally's false belief against our own knowledge that the ball is in the box.
• Three-year-olds struggle because their perspectives are fused—whatever is actually true is what they and everyone else thinks.

🧩 What makes this task complex

To succeed, the child must separate three things:

1. What is actually true
2. What they themselves think (which can be false)
3. What someone else thinks (which can differ from both reality and their own thoughts)

• In Piagetian terms: must give up egocentrism.
• Must understand that people's actions are guided by what they believe, not what is actually true.
• People can have false beliefs and act on them.
• Children are rarely successful before age four.

📊 Components of theory of mind

Stage	Component	Description	Typical age
Desire Psychology	Diverse-desires	Understanding that two people may have different desires regarding the same object	2–3 years
Belief Psychology	Diverse-beliefs	Understanding that two people may hold different beliefs about an object	3–4 years
	Knowledge access	Understanding that people may or may not have access to information	3–5 years
	False belief	Understanding that someone might hold a belief based on false information	4–5 years

🌏 Cultural differences

• US, Australian, and German children develop theory of mind in the sequence shown above.
• Chinese and Iranian preschoolers acquire knowledge access before diverse beliefs (reversed order).
• Why? Collectivistic cultures (China, Iran) emphasize conformity, respect for elders, and knowledge acquisition more than autonomy—this may reduce familial conflict of opinions, so children encounter diverse beliefs less frequently.
• Individualistic cultures encourage children to assert their own opinions, increasing exposure to conflicting beliefs.

👥 Role of siblings

• Children with siblings, especially older siblings, understand false belief at earlier ages.
• Conflict may aid development of theory of mind—siblings provide more opportunities to encounter different perspectives.

🎯 Why it matters

• Part of social intelligence—recognizing others think differently about situations.
• Helps us be self-conscious (aware others can think of us in different ways).
• Enables empathy and understanding toward others.
• This "mind reading" ability helps anticipate and predict people's actions.
• Important for communication and social skills.

💬 Language Development

📈 Vocabulary explosion

• Between ages 2–6, vocabulary expands from ~200 words to over 10,000 words.
• This "vocabulary spurt" involves 10–20 new words per week.

Fast-mapping: words are easily learned by making connections between new words and concepts already known.

• Parts of speech learned depend on the language: verb-friendly languages (Chinese, Japanese) lead to learning verbs more readily; English speakers learn nouns more readily.

🎭 Literal meanings

• Children can repeat words after hearing them once or twice but don't always understand meaning.
• They take expressions and figures of speech literally.
• Example: Teacher says "That was a piece of cake!" and children ask "Where is my cake?"
• Example: Parent says "Oh your poor knee" when child scrapes knee; later child scrapes elbow and says "I got another knee."

📝 Overregularization

• Children learn grammar rules but may apply them inappropriately at first.
• Example: Child learns to add "-ed" for past tense, then says "I goed there" or "I doed that."
• Typical at ages 2–3.
• These mistakes disappear without correction as children learn irregular forms like "went" and "did."

🎓 Impact of training and scaffolding

• Children can be assisted in learning language by others who listen attentively, model accurate pronunciations, and encourage elaboration.
• Example: Child says "I'm goed there!" Adult responds "You went there? Where did you go?"—no corrections needed.
• Active participation in helping children learn is important (Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development).
• Scaffolding: guide provides needed assistance as new skill is learned.

🌐 Bilingualism

🌐 Prevalence and context

Bilingual: understanding and using two languages.

• Majority of children worldwide are bilingual.
• In the US, over 60 million people (21%) speak a language other than English at home.
• Dual language learners are one of the fastest-growing populations in the US.
• They make up nearly 30% of children in early childhood programs like Head Start.
• By school entry, they are heterogeneous in language and literacy skills—some show delays in one or both languages.

📊 Factors affecting language competency

Language competency depends on three factors:

1. Quantity: total number of words/phrases heard
2. Quality: proficiency of speakers
3. Opportunity: chances to use the language

• Dual language learners may hear the same total words as monolinguals, but split between two languages—so fewer words in any single language.
• They show higher skills in the language they hear most.
• Quality issue: Many immigrant children in the US hear English mostly from non-native speakers.
• Opportunity issue: Children may avoid using the heritage language in favor of the majority language (e.g., parents speak Spanish, child responds in English).

✅ Cognitive advantages of bilingualism

Executive function benefits:

• Bilingual children outperform monolinguals on inhibitory control (ignoring irrelevant information).
• Advantages in verbal and non-verbal working memory.
• Note: Among lower socioeconomic status populations, working memory advantage is not always found.

Word learning efficiency:

• Monolinguals are strongly influenced by the mutual-exclusivity bias: the assumption that an object has only a single name.
• Example: A child who learned "car" may be confused when it's called "automobile" or "sedan."
• Monolinguals find it easier to learn names for new objects than new names for familiar objects.
• Bilinguals show little difficulty with either task—likely because they have experience translating between languages for familiar objects.

🎓 Educational implications

• Preschool years are a developmental prime time for learning multiple languages.
• US practice of waiting until middle or high school contradicts natural language development progression.
• Systematic instruction, practice, reading, and writing in multiple languages during early childhood would allow children to become bilingual and bi-literate when it's relatively easy.
• Many school districts offer immersion programs starting in preschool or kindergarten.
• Districts serving children who speak languages other than English should support bilingualism in all pupils.

🏫 Early Childhood Education

🏫 The push for universal preschool

• President Obama called for high-quality preschool for all children in 2013 State of the Union.
• Universal preschool for all four-year-olds would require significant funding.
• Debates continue about effectiveness and what constitutes high-quality preschool.

✅ NAEYC quality standards

The National Association for the Education of Young Children identifies 10 standards for high-quality preschool:

• Positive and caring relationships among all children and adults
• Curriculum supporting learning in social, emotional, physical, language, and cognitive areas
• Teaching approaches that are developmentally, culturally, and linguistically attuned
• Assessment of children's progress
• Promotion of health and nutrition; protection from illness and injury
• Qualified teachers with appropriate education and commitment
• Collaborative relationships with families
• Relationships with community agencies and institutions
• Safe, well-maintained indoor and outdoor environments
• Well-qualified leadership and management with proper licensure

🎯 Types of preschool programs

• Many approaches focus on learning through discovery: Montessori, Waldorf, Reggio Emilia, High Scope, Parent Co-Ops, Bank Street.
• Teachers act as guides and create activities based on child's developmental level.

🎓 Head Start program

Background:

• Begun in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson as part of the war on poverty.
• Currently serves nearly one million children.
• Annual cost: approximately $7.5 billion.

Research challenges:

• Concerns about effectiveness have been ongoing since the program began.
• Studies show "potentially positive effects" on reading achievement for 3- and 4-year-olds, but no noticeable effects on math achievement and social-emotional development.
• No lasting gains found in some reviews.
• Research problems: Nonexperimental designs (control groups are difficult for ethical reasons—low-income children usually receive some preschool in alternative settings); Head Start programs vary by location (length of day, teacher qualifications); testing young children is difficult and depends on language skills and comfort with evaluator.

💰 Economic benefits of early education investment

Despite research challenges, the benefits of investing in universal preschool—especially for disadvantaged children—are substantial:

• Investing $17,000 in Head Start for a single child can yield a return to society of $300,000–$500,000 over that child's lifetime.
• Returns come from: lower high school dropout rates, lower unemployment rates, lower incarceration rates.
• Similar to preventative healthcare: investing in early education today yields greater societal benefits than interventions after problems emerge (remedial schooling, job retraining, substance abuse rehabilitation).
• Don't confuse: Individual program effectiveness vs. overall societal return on investment—even if specific academic gains are hard to measure, the long-term social and economic benefits are well-documented.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Erikson's fourth stage argues that middle childhood is a period of industriousness where children's success in activities builds confidence for future challenges, while failure risks feelings of inferiority.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Erikson's fourth stage: industry vs. inferiority occurs during middle and late childhood.
• What characterizes this period: children are constantly busy—doing, planning, playing, achieving, and comparing themselves with peers.
• The developmental outcome: successful endeavors build a sense of confidence; failure leads to feelings of inferiority.
• Why peer comparison matters: this is a time when children actively measure how they stack up against others.

🏗️ Industry vs. Inferiority stage

🏗️ What defines this stage

Industry vs. inferiority: Erikson's fourth developmental stage, occurring in middle and late childhood, characterized by constant activity and the formation of confidence or inferiority based on success or failure.

• Children are described as "very busy or industrious."
• They are not passive; they are "constantly doing, planning, playing, getting together with friends, and achieving."
• This is framed as "a very active time."

📏 The role of peer comparison

• A key feature: children gain "a sense of how they measure up when compared with peers."
• The excerpt emphasizes that this comparison process happens during the industrious activities.
• Don't confuse: the stage is not just about being active—it's about evaluating oneself through that activity relative to others.

🎯 Developmental outcomes

✅ Success pathway: building confidence

• Erikson believed that if children "can be successful in their endeavors," they develop "a sense of confidence for future challenges."
• The mechanism: repeated success during this busy, active period translates into a general sense of competence.
• Example: A child who successfully completes projects, makes friends, and achieves goals builds a foundation of confidence.

⚠️ Failure pathway: risk of inferiority

• The excerpt states "If instead, a child feels that..." and then cuts off, but the stage name "industry vs. inferiority" implies the alternative outcome.
• The contrast: lack of success or repeated failure would lead to feelings of inferiority rather than confidence.
• The stakes: this period shapes how children approach future challenges.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

During middle childhood, children enter Piaget's concrete operational stage, where they develop the ability to use logic systematically to solve problems involving the physical world, though they still struggle with abstract or hypothetical reasoning.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core shift: Thought becomes more flexible and logical, allowing children to "operate" mentally on concrete objects and events using systematic rules.
• Three major advances: Thought becomes multidimensional (coordinating multiple features), operational (reversible mental actions and conservation), and logical (inference and defining features).
• What these enable: Children can now solve academic tasks (arithmetic, science experiments), take multiple perspectives, classify objects hierarchically, and make accurate social comparisons.
• Key limitation: Concrete operational thought is tied to tangible, directly experienced situations—children still have trouble with hypothetical or abstract problems.
• Common confusion: Inductive vs. deductive reasoning—concrete operational children use inductive reasoning (combining specific observations to reach conclusions), whereas deductive reasoning (abstract logic) emerges later in adolescence.

🧩 The concrete operational stage

🧩 What "concrete operational" means

Concrete operational stage: The period (ages 7–11) when children master the use of logic in concrete ways; "concrete" refers to that which is tangible—what can be seen, touched, or experienced directly.

• Children can now apply logical principles to solve problems involving the physical world (cause and effect, size, distance).
• They mentally "operate" on concrete objects and events, following unconscious rules (e.g., "If nothing is added or taken away, the amount stays the same").
• Example: This principle helps children understand adding or subtracting zero, or judging liquid amounts in science experiments.

🔍 How it differs from preoperational thought

• Preoperational stage (early childhood): Children think symbolically but are limited by centration (focusing on one dimension), lack of reversibility, and inability to conserve.
• Concrete operational stage (middle childhood): Children overcome these limitations—they can coordinate multiple dimensions, reverse mental actions, and understand conservation.
• Still limited: Logic works only for tangible, directly experienced problems; abstract or hypothetical reasoning is not yet available.

🧠 Inductive reasoning

Inductive reasoning: A logical process in which multiple premises believed to be true are combined to obtain a specific conclusion.

• Concrete operational children use inductive reasoning: they observe specific instances and generalize.
• Example: A child has three friends who are all rude → concludes "friends are rude."
• Don't confuse with deductive reasoning: Deductive reasoning (starting from general principles to reach specific conclusions) emerges later, during adolescence.

🌐 Thought becomes multidimensional

🌐 What multidimensionality means

• Multidimensional thinking: Children no longer focus on only one dimension of an object (e.g., height of a glass) but can coordinate multiple dimensions simultaneously (height and width).
• This is also called decentration—overcoming the centration of preoperational thought.
• Multidimensionality allows three key abilities: taking multiple perspectives, understanding part-whole relationships, and cross-classifying objects.

👀 Multiple perspectives

• Preoperational limitation: Young children could only describe the Three Mountain display from their own viewpoint.
• Concrete operational gain: Children now understand that people looking from different vantage points see different features; they can coordinate multiple perspectives.
• Example: During peer play and disputes, children can consider what the situation looks like from a friend's point of view.
• Why it matters: This skill is crucial for social interaction and conflict resolution.

🧩 Part-whole relationships

• Preoperational limitation: Shown a bouquet of six daisies and three roses, young children asked "Are there more daisies or flowers?" would answer "daisies"—they couldn't coordinate "part" and "whole."
• Concrete operational gain: Now the correct answer ("flowers") is obvious—a logical necessity. Children understand that flowers include both daisies and roses.
• This reflects the ability to hold two levels of a hierarchy in mind at once.

🗂️ Classification

Classification: Organizing objects into classes and subclasses based on multiple features.

• As children's experiences and vocabularies grow, they build schemata and can organize objects in many different ways.
• They understand classification hierarchies (e.g., animals → mammals → dogs → poodles).
• Example: A child sorting toys can classify them by color, size, or type, and can switch between classification schemes.

⚙️ Thought becomes operational

⚙️ What "operational" means

Operational thought: Thought that consists of reversible, organized systems of mental actions.

• These systems allow children to mentally undo actions (reversibility) and to understand that certain properties remain constant despite transformations in appearance (conservation).

🔄 Reversibility

Reversibility: The understanding that some things that have been changed can be returned to their original state.

• Children learn which transformations are reversible and which are not.
• Example: Water can be frozen and then thawed to become liquid again, but eggs cannot be unscrambled.
• Arithmetic reversibility: 2 + 3 = 5 and 5 – 3 = 2.
• In school: Many cognitive skills are incorporated into the curriculum through math problems and worksheets about reversible vs. irreversible situations.

🧊 Conservation

Conservation: The understanding that changing one quality (e.g., height) can be compensated for by changes in another quality (e.g., width), so the total amount remains the same.

• Preoperational limitation: Young children thought a tall, narrow beaker with 8 ounces of water had "more" than a short, wide bowl with 8 ounces.
• Concrete operational gain: Children now understand that there is the same amount of water in each container, even though one is taller and narrower and the other is shorter and wider.
• Why it matters: Conservation is fundamental to understanding quantity, number, mass, and volume—key concepts in math and science.

🧠 Thought becomes logical

🧠 What logical thought enables

• Logical thought: Children can reason logically about concrete events, moving beyond perceptual cues to consider underlying principles.

🔍 Inferring higher-order characteristics

• Shift from perceptual to inferential reasoning: Where young children's reasoning was dominated by perceptual cues (what they could see), older children can now consider a variety of specific cues and use inference to reach logical conclusions about higher-order characteristics.
• Example: After a child does well on multiple math assignments, she may infer that she is high in math ability.
• Application: This capacity is seen in children's understanding of their own and others' capacities and personalities.

🎯 Identifying defining features

• Preoperational limitation: Young children's understanding was dominated by the most perceptually salient features (e.g., movement), leading to "animism"—thinking that bicycles and toasters are alive because they move.
• Concrete operational gain: Children now focus on the defining features of objects or states, not just the most salient ones.
• Example: By middle childhood, children understand that even though many mechanical devices (cars, fireworks) and natural objects (the sun, tides) move, only plants and animals have a life force—the defining feature of being alive.

📏 Seriation

Seriation: Arranging items along a quantitative dimension (e.g., length, weight) in a methodical way.

• Concrete operational children can methodically arrange a series of different-sized sticks in order by length.
• Why it's complex: This task requires multidimensional thinking—each object must be placed so it is bigger than the one before it but smaller than the one after it.
• Social application: These capacities allow children to make social comparisons, estimating who is bigger or better along some attribute (spelling ability, soccer skills, drawing).
• Impact on self-concept: Social comparison plays a role in the shift from the rosy overestimates of early childhood (where everyone sees themselves as "good" at everything) to more accurate self-views that correspond to external referents (e.g., school grades) during middle childhood.

🔗 Transitive inference

Transitive inference (transitivity): Understanding how objects are related to one another.

• Children can now reason about relationships between objects even when they haven't directly compared them.
• Example: If a child understands that a dog is a mammal, and that a poodle is a dog, they can infer that a poodle is a mammal—even without being told directly.
• Why it matters: Transitive inference is essential for understanding hierarchies, categories, and logical chains of reasoning.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Kohlberg's theory proposes that moral reasoning develops through three qualitatively different levels—from self-centered consequences to social approval to universal ethical principles—shaped by active engagement with caregivers, schooling, and peers.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Three levels of moral reasoning: preconventional (self-interest and consequences), conventional (social approval and laws), and postconventional (universal ethical principles beyond laws).
• How levels differ: preconventional focuses on what happens to the self; conventional on what others think or what laws say; postconventional on abstract ethical principles that may transcend laws.
• What drives development: not automatic maturation or simple teaching, but active thinking and reasoning in situations where viewpoints are challenged and perspectives must be coordinated with others.
• Common confusion: higher stages don't mean people always use them—individuals may revert to lower-level reasoning depending on the situation, goals, or beliefs.
• Key critiques: the theory may emphasize justice over care, may fit Western samples better, and stages don't always predict real-life moral behavior; Gilligan argued females may prioritize caring and relationships over abstract justice.

🪜 The three levels of moral reasoning

🪜 Level 1: Preconventional morality (self-interest)

Preconventional morality: reasoning based on what would happen to the person as a result of the act—the consequences; focuses on self-interest, avoiding punishment, and seeking rewards.

• Who uses it: young children (usually before age 9), though adults under pressure can also fall into these stages.
• Stage 1 (punishment orientation): if the consequence is punishment, the action was wrong.
  • Example: "The man shouldn't steal the drug because the pharmacist might find him and beat him."
• Stage 2 (reward and self-interest): "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."
  • Example: "The man should steal the drug because his wife will give him a big kiss."
• Both stages are self-centered—right and wrong are determined by physical outcomes for the self.

🪜 Level 2: Conventional morality (social approval and laws)

Conventional morality: people care about the effect of their actions on others; reasoning is based on authority and what other people would think.

• Who uses it: older children, adolescents, and most adults.
• Stage 3 (mutual expectations and relationships): reasoning based on wanting to please others and be seen as good.
  • Example: "He should break into the store, and then everyone would think he was a good husband."
• Stage 4 (social norms and laws): acknowledges the importance of laws and wants to be a good member of society.
  • Example: "He should not steal because it is against the law."
• Right and wrong are determined by what other people think or what the law says.

🪜 Level 3: Postconventional morality (universal ethical principles)

Postconventional moral development: reasoning goes beyond convention or what other people think to a higher, universal ethical principle of conduct that may or may not be reflected in the law.

• Who uses it: rare in adolescents; few adults ever reach this stage.
• Stage 5 (social contracts): laws are recognized as social contracts; reasons for laws (justice, equality, dignity) are used to evaluate decisions.
  • Example: "The man should break into the store because, even if it is against the law, the wife needs the drug and her life is more important than the consequences."
• Stage 6 (universal ethical principles): individually determined ethical principles are weighed to make moral decisions.
  • Example: "The man should steal the drug because life is more important than property."
• Judgment is based on concern for others, society as a whole, or ethical standards rather than legal standards.
• Don't confuse: this requires abstract thinking—the kind Supreme Court justices use when deliberating whether a law is moral or ethical—often not accomplished until adolescence or adulthood.

🌱 What influences moral development

🌱 Active engagement, not automatic maturation

• Kohlberg argued moral development is not automatic (like physical maturation) and cannot simply be taught mechanistically.
• Instead, it develops through repeated practice in situations where:
  • Children must think together with adults or peers about moral problems.
  • Their viewpoints are challenged or questioned.
  • They must consider others' perspectives and perhaps revise their own.
  • They must coordinate their own desires and those of others with the help of moral rules.
• It is our active engagement with these thought processes that helps development.

👨‍👩‍👧 Caregivers and parenting style

• Authoritative parenting helps children reach higher stages of moral reasoning.
  • Emphasizes care, consistent and fair expectations, and support for autonomy.
  • Includes discussing the reasoning for rules and encouraging children's own perspectives.
  • Helps children practice moral reasoning, internalize true moral principles, and act on them under difficulty (temptation).
• Threats and lectures do not help moral reasoning.
  • Children remember the negative affect and exertion of force, which interferes with internalization of moral principles.

🏫 Education and schooling

• More years of schooling correlate with higher average levels of moral reasoning.
• Schools promote moral reasoning when they offer:
  • Exposure to diverse experiences and ways of being.
  • Role-taking and perspective-taking opportunities.
  • Chances to discuss and defend their own viewpoints.

👫 Peers and equal relationships

• Peers are important relational partners for developing moral reasoning.
• Unlike conversations with parents or teachers (which are hierarchical), peers are on more-equal footing.
• With peers, individuals practice:
  • Communicating their own needs.
  • Considering the needs of their friends.
  • Reaching decisions and resolving conflicts.

⚠️ Critiques and limitations

⚠️ The stage model is too simple

• People may use higher levels for some problems but revert to lower levels in situations where doing so is more consistent with their goals or beliefs.
• There is frequently little correlation between how we score on the moral stages and how we behave in real life.

🌍 Cultural and Western bias

• The stage model may be particularly appropriate for Western samples rather than non-Western ones.
• In non-Western cultures, allegiance to social norms (such as respect for authority) may be particularly important and not well-captured by the stage progression.

💗 Justice vs. care (Gilligan's critique)

• Gilligan's most important critique: Kohlberg's theory emphasizes justice without incorporating compassion and other moral considerations.
• It might describe the moral development of males better than females (females were not represented in Kohlberg's initial research).
• Gilligan argued:
  • Because of differences in socialization, males tend to value principles of justice and rights.
  • Females value caring for and helping others—an "ethic of care" emphasizing human responsibilities to one another and consideration for others.
• Evidence:
  • Little evidence for a gender difference in Kohlberg's stages themselves.
  • Some evidence that girls and women tend to focus more on issues of caring, helping, and connecting with others than boys and men.
  • People of all genders consider both justice and caring to some extent in their moral decisions.

🌟 Moral compass and social activism

🌟 Childhood antecedents of social justice action

• Researchers are increasingly interested in the childhood antecedents of adolescent and adult action on behalf of social and racial justice.
• These are complex cognitive, social, and motivational processes likely shaped by specific experiences (e.g., family participation in volunteering and protest movements).

🌟 Moral compass as a prerequisite

• An important prerequisite: development of a strong moral compass during early and middle childhood.
• Internalization of moral principles (honesty, fairness, accountability) would help adolescents and young adults:
  • Recognize inequities.
  • Feel morally responsible for doing their part to see justice done.
• This is an interesting area for further study.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Gender development is a complex biopsychosocial process in which children actively construct their own gender identities over time, building on biological foundations while navigating societal expectations and their own cognitive growth.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What gender development involves: Children construct complex internalized cognitive and emotional representations of gender identity through cumulative interactions with biology, temperament, and social worlds.
• Four major theories: Social learning (observation and reinforcement), neurophysiological bases (biological givens), cognitive developmental (stage-based understanding), and gender schema theory (active self-socialization).
• Six age-graded milestones: Intrinsic gender/temperament at birth, gender awareness (~age 2–3), gender constancy (~age 5–7), gender latency (middle childhood), puberty and gender intensification, and identity exploration in emerging adulthood.
• Common confusion—sex vs. gender: Sex refers to biological categories (male/female) based on physical/genetic/reproductive differences; gender refers to cultural, social, and psychological meanings (masculinity/femininity) that vary by context.
• Why it matters: Understanding gender development helps adults create affirming contexts that support all children—including gender-nonconforming and transgender youth—in developing authentic, healthy identities.

🧬 Biological and social foundations

🧬 Sex versus gender

Sex refers to biological categories (traditionally male or female) as defined by physical differences in genetic composition and reproductive anatomy and function.

Gender refers to the cultural, social, and psychological meanings associated with particular biopsychosocial categories, like masculinity and femininity.

• Historically these terms were used interchangeably, but they describe different dimensions.
• Most people identify with the gender matching their natal sex (cisgender), but some (0.6–3%) identify with a gender that does not match their assigned sex (transgender).
• Biological sex itself is more complex than a binary: dozens of markers (genetic, hormonal, neurophysiological, psychological, social) exist, and people have many different combinations.
• Don't confuse: Sex = biology; gender = social/cultural meanings. They are related but distinct.

🌈 Beyond the binary

Intersex or sex diverse: born with either an absence or some combination of male and female reproductive organs, sex hormones, or sex chromosomes.

• Intersex individuals make up 0.05–2% of the population.
• Examples include Turner syndrome, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, and androgen insensitivity syndrome.
• Gender is also not always binary: genderqueer or gender nonbinary are umbrella terms for people who do not identify with the gender binary.
  • Genderfluid: may identify as male, female, both, or neither at different times.
  • Agender: no gender or neutral gender.
  • Bigender: identify as two genders.

🧠 Intrinsic gender and temperament

• Newborns come with a neurophysiological package of "gender stuff" that provides an internal anchor for preferences—including gender identity, sexual orientation, and possibly temperamental traits (activity level, aggression, emotional reactivity).
• These intrinsic anchors are part of an individual's core identity.
• Evidence suggests both genetic influences (twin studies show sexual orientation and gender nonconformity run in families) and prenatal environment (maternal hormones, antibodies).
• Key point: Core identities exhibit some malleability, but they cannot be ignored, subverted, or transformed through external pressure—doing so violates children's rights.

🏳️‍🌈 Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation: emotional and sexual attraction to a particular gender; a personal quality that inclines people to feel romantic or sexual attraction to persons of a given sex or gender.

• Sexual orientation is independent of gender: a transgender person may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, etc.
• Heterosexuality: attraction to opposite sex/gender.
• Homosexuality (gay/lesbian): attraction to one's own sex/gender.
• Bisexuality: traditionally attraction to male or female; recently used in nonbinary models to mean attraction to any sex or gender.
• Pansexuality: attraction to all sexes/genders.
• Asexuality: no sexual attraction to any sex/gender (~1% of population).
• Sexual orientation ranges along a continuum (Kinsey et al., 1948), not a strict dichotomy.
• Biological explanations: genetics (higher concordance in identical twins), fraternal birth order effect (each older brother increases probability of a boy being gay by 15–29%), and prenatal hormones (e.g., congenital adrenal hyperplasia in females).

🎭 Societal expectations and stereotypes

🎭 Gender roles and stereotypes

Gender roles: the expectations associated with being male or female.

Gender stereotyping: overgeneralizing about the attitudes, traits, or behavior patterns of women or men.

• Children learn these through socialization: the process by which they learn to behave as dictated by societal values, beliefs, and attitudes.
• Stereotypes for boys/men: "tough," "brave," "assertive."
• Stereotypes for girls/women: "nice," "nurturing," "affectionate."
• Reality: People of all genders frequently enact roles stereotypically assigned to only one gender.

⚖️ Psychological androgyny

Psychological androgyny: when people display both traditionally male and female gender role characteristics—both strong and emotionally expressive, both caring and confident.

• Researchers asked people to rate themselves on masculine traits (agency, assertiveness) and feminine traits (gentleness, compassion, awareness of others' feelings).
• Four groups emerged: masculine, feminine, undifferentiated, and androgynous.
• Findings:
  • Masculine and androgynous groups (high on "masculine" traits) tend to have higher self-esteem and lower internalizing symptoms.
  • Missing "feminine" traits has costs, since relationships, emotions, and communication are central to well-being.
  • Androgynous people (high on both) are more adaptable, flexible, and fare better in general adjustment.
• Takeaway: It is most adaptive to draw on the whole spectrum of human traits.

🧩 Four major theories of gender development

🧩 Social learning theory

Social learning theory argues that behavior is learned through observation, modeling, reinforcement, and punishment.

• Consistent with mechanistic meta-theories.
• Each society has a "gender curriculum" that leads to differential expectations and treatment starting at birth.
• Children are rewarded for behaving in concordance with gender roles and punished for breaking them.
• Children also learn by observing and modeling older children and adults.
• Fathers seem to play a particularly important role in this process.

🧬 Biological and neurophysiological factors

• Consistent with maturational meta-theories.
• Focuses on biological and neurophysiological factors present at birth: genes, chromosomes, hormones.
• Like temperament, infants come with "gender stuff" that influences how they respond to expectations and pressures for conformity.
• Research on gender expression, sexual orientation, and gender identity suggests children have a firm biological foundation for their gender and sexual preferences.

🧠 Cognitive developmental theory

• Consistent with organismic meta-theories.
• Children's understanding of gender depends on their current stage of cognitive development.
• At birth, children have no idea gender exists or that they belong to a gender category.
• As cognitive capacities grow, toddlers and young children can represent and understand more complex aspects of gender identity.
• Key milestones:
  • Gender awareness: recognition of one's own gender.
  • Gender constancy: belief that gender is a fixed characteristic.

🗂️ Gender schema theory

Gender schema theory argues that children are active learners who essentially socialize themselves by organizing behavior, activities, and attributes they observe into gender categories (schemas).

• Consistent with contextualist meta-theories.
• Children actively organize what they observe into gender schemas.
• These schemas affect what children notice and remember later.
• People are more likely to remember schema-consistent information and forget or misremember schema-inconsistent information.
• Example: People remember a person at the stove as cooking if depicted as a woman, and repairing the stove if depicted as a man.
• By remembering only schema-consistent information, gender schemas are strengthened over time.

🔄 Dynamic systems approach

• Most recent integrative approach.
• Attempts to explain how complex patterns of gender-related thought, behavior, and experience undergo qualitative shifts (disruption, transformation, reorganization) during different developmental windows.
• "Children's ongoing physical interactions and psychological experiences with parents, peers, and culture fundamentally shape and reshape their experience of gender developmentally, as different brain and body systems couple and uncouple over time."
• Gender is "a pattern in time," continually building on prior dynamics and adapting to current environments.
• Integrates all four theories: social learning, biological, cognitive developmental, and gender schema.

🌱 Six age-graded milestones

👶 1. Intrinsic gender and temperament (birth)

• Newborns come with a neurophysiological package of "gender stuff": gender identity, sexual orientation, and possibly temperamental characteristics.
• These are part of an individual's core identity.
• They cannot be ignored or transformed through external pressure.
• For gender-nonconforming children: Core identities are often clear to children and cannot be subverted.

🧒 2. Gender awareness (age 2–3)

Gender awareness: the ability to classify oneself as male or female.

• At about age 2–3, toddlers' cognitive development allows them to create representational categories, including gender.
• Before this, children are unaware of their gender, even though they have been receiving differential treatment.
• Once aware, children begin taking notes about differences between males and females: names, colors, toys, jewelry, clothes, hair, voices, behavior.
• Gender malleability: Young children in the preoperational stage believe gender is temporary and changeable (e.g., by cutting hair or changing clothes).
  • Little boys may say they will grow up to be Moms; little girls may say they will become Dads.
• Gender expression: This is the age when some parents of gender-nonconforming children notice their child has not conformed to cultural expectations (e.g., "pink boys" who prefer dresses, dolls, and female-stereotyped toys).
  • Girls who play with masculine toys ("tomboys") face less ridicule than boys who play with feminine toys.
  • Boys are 7 times more likely than girls to be referred to gender clinics.
• "Middle space": The overlap between male and female expectations. Expanding this space is healthier for all children.

🧩 3. Gender constancy (age 5–7)

Gender constancy: the belief that gender is a fixed characteristic.

• When children reach the concrete operational stage (ages 5–7), they infer that the essential defining feature of maleness and femaleness is genitalia.
• They also realize their assignment into gender categories is permanent and unchangeable.
• This realization often leads to greater interest in conformity to "gender-appropriate" markers.
• Children's attitude may shift from descriptive to prescriptive: they highly identify with markers from their own "club" and denigrate markers of the "wrong" club.
  • Boys resist wearing "girl colors" or playing "girl games."
  • Children enforce categories on others through instructions, statements of fact, teasing, taunting, criticism, and ridicule.
• For gender-nonconforming or transgender children: This is an age where psychological costs of society's gender boxes become apparent.
  • Children may sense they have been permanently assigned to the "wrong" gender expression, identity, or biological sex.
  • Confusion or feelings of gender dysphoria (sadness and desperation) may emerge.
• Don't confuse: Gender expression, gender identity, and sexual orientation are separate dimensions. Exploring one does not determine the others.

🧘 4. Gender latency (middle childhood, ages 8–9 to puberty)

• During middle childhood, children seem less active in working out issues explicitly connected to gender or sexual identity.
• Children are more "mellow" about gender, recognizing that scripts about gender-appropriate signifiers are societal conventions, not moral issues.
• Children relax enforcement of gender rules; "yuckiness" of the opposite sex fades.
• Many gender-variant children also relax, sometimes temporarily adopting conventional signifiers aligned with their biological sex.
• For parents: This can feel like the child has "made it through" or that the "problem" was just a phase—but this is not always the case.

🌪️ 5. Puberty and gender intensification (ages 10–14)

• Puberty triggers a major shift in neurophysiology, psychological systems, and social relationships.
• Teenagers seem to enact and rigidly enforce all of society's current stereotypes about gender.
• This process is labeled gender intensification and varies in intensity depending on local culture and stereotypes.
• Pressure on girls: To look and act more like girls—increased use of makeup, clothes, hairstyles, focus on diet, exercise, eating disorders; normative losses in self-esteem and negative body image.
• Pressure on boys: To look and act like boys—increased aggression, bullying, silence, body building, steroid abuse.
• Both genders risk commodifying the opposite sex (girls regard "boyfriends" as status objects; boys regard girls as sexual targets).
• Gender police: External pressures to conform originate largely within gender (girls pressure girls; boys pressure boys).
• Gender contraction: Some adolescents jump back into societal boxes, especially in terms of gender expression.
• For LGBTQ+ youth: Puberty brings additional biological information (or clarity) about sexual orientation or transgender status, at the same time external pressure to conform increases.
  • This collision can create confusion and internal gridlock.
  • Some youth achieve clarity ("Ah-ha, I'm gay/lesbian/bisexual!"), but many feel confused and endangered.
• Pause on puberty: For some transgender youth, hormone blockers can halt puberty, preserving options and allowing time for informed decision-making.
  • Transitioning before puberty is physiologically easier and requires fewer surgeries.
  • Experts recommend following the child's lead, not pressuring them to transition.

🎓 6. Identity development during college and emerging adulthood

• For many youth, full development of an authentic gender identity doesn't take place until after high school.
• College years are good for this work because:
  • The "gender police" fade; external pressures are more relaxed.
  • Youth have meta-cognitive capacities to reflect on internalized stereotypes and shame.
  • College provides open and understanding social and sexual partners for safe exploration.
  • Formal resources (e.g., Queer Resource Center, LGBTQ groups) and informal role models are available.
• Exploration and commitment: Many youth create their own narratives about what it means to be male and female.
  • Many affirm their assigned sex but accept a wide-ranging set of expressions, activities, and roles.
  • The "middle space" expands so much that gender becomes a small, almost incidental, part of identity.
• For LGBTQ+ youth: Emerging adulthood is a good time to work on these issues because they have worked out other aspects of identity and are strong and self-confident enough to face issues of sexual orientation and gender identity.
  • Some youth realize that transgender status and sexual orientation are separate issues (e.g., an affirmed male attracted to other men is a gay transgender male).

📊 Sex/gender differences

📊 Six areas of difference

Research suggests sex/gender differences are concentrated in six areas:

Area	Description	Notes
Activity level	Boys show higher activity levels starting at birth (muscle tone, mass, movement); remain more active; have more difficulty holding still.	Biggest differences in play styles: boys play organized rough-and-tumble games in large groups; girls play less-physical activities in smaller groups.
Verbal ability	Girls develop language skills earlier, know more words, show slightly higher verbal abilities (reading, writing) throughout school, and are more emotionally expressive (fear, sadness, but not anger).
Visuo-spatial ability	Boys perform slightly better on tests of visuo-spatial ability (e.g., mentally rotating 3-D objects), seen later in map reading or sports requiring spatial orientation.
Verbal and physical aggression	Starting at age 2, boys show higher rates of unprovoked physical aggression. Starting in adolescence, girls show higher levels of relational aggression (social shunning, gossiping, power exertion).	No gender differences in provoked aggression.
Self-regulation and prosocial behavior	Girls show better behavioral and emotional self-regulation, compliance, empathy, and prosocial behavior. Boys have more trouble minding rules, suppressing inappropriate responses, and are more likely to blurt things out. Girls are more likely to offer praise, agree, and elaborate; boys are more likely to assert opinions and criticize.	Combination of higher aggression and lower self-regulation is why boys are more likely to be disciplined, suspended, and expelled in school.
Developmental vulnerability	Boys are more likely than girls to show markers of biological and psychological vulnerabilities: prenatal/perinatal stress and disease, learning disabilities, neurological conditions (autism, ADHD), mental health conditions (ODD, schizophrenia), antisocial behavior, delinquency, violent crime, and incarceration. Girls show higher rates of internalizing disorders (depression, anxiety), but boys have higher rates of completed suicide at every age.	Rates of ADHD and autism are 3–5 times higher in boys; over 90% of inmates are male. By age 65, over 70% of suicides are committed by men.

📏 Magnitude of differences

• Important: With the exception of physical characteristics (height, muscle mass) and developmental vulnerability, sex/gender differences in psychological characteristics and behaviors tend to be quite small, inconsistent, and change over historical time.
• There is great variation among females and among males, meaning individual boys are very different from one another, as are individual girls.
• Knowing someone's gender does not help much in predicting their actual attributes or behaviors.
• Example: In activity level, boys are considered more active than girls, but 42% of girls are more active than the average boy (and so are 50% of boys).
• Few gender differences reflect innate biological differences; instead, they reflect complex mixtures of neurophysiological and social factors, especially the specific societal and familial gender curriculum.
• Example: Boys show better spatial abilities than girls, but with practice (e.g., imagining a line drawing as different shapes, or involvement in sports requiring spatial practice), this difference completely disappears.
• Meta-analyses: Large statistical analyses of thousands of studies across over a million participants conclude that many assumed gender differences are really based on stereotypes, not actual differences.
  • Girls are not more fearful, shy, or scared of new things than boys.
  • Boys are not more angry than girls; girls are not more emotional than boys.
  • Boys do not perform better at math than girls.
  • Girls are not more talkative than boys.

🌍 Societal hierarchies and discrimination

🌍 Status hierarchies of gender and sexuality

• Societies dictate hierarchies of human worth based on gender and sexuality.
• Hierarchies cover biological sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, and identity.
• Relative value is placed on:
  • Males versus females.
  • Heterosexual versus LGBTQ+ people.
  • People who conform to the gender binary versus people who do not.
• Some hierarchies are enshrined in law (e.g., women not allowed to vote, homosexuality illegal, laws refusing to recognize transgender identities).
• Hierarchies are enforced through implicit bias, prejudice, stereotypes, segregation, exclusion, and discrimination.
• Discrimination persists throughout the lifespan: obstacles to education, lack of access to political, financial, and social power.
• Entrenched myths: Subgroups at lower rungs of hierarchies are subject to negative stories; membership is sometimes falsely portrayed as voluntary or something youth should "get over."

🏳️‍🌈 Discrimination based on sexual orientation

Heteronormative: society supports heterosexuality as the norm.

Homophobia: encompasses a range of negative attitudes and stereotypes toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being LGBTQ+.

• Homophobia can be expressed as antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, or hatred; may be based on irrational fear and sometimes related to religious beliefs.
• Observable in critical and hostile behavior: discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation.
• Types of homophobia:
  • Institutionalized homophobia: religious and state-sponsored.
  • Internalized homophobia: people with same-sex attractions internalize society's negative views and/or hatred of themselves.
• Impacts: Sexual minorities regularly experience stigma, harassment, discrimination, and violence.
  • LGBTQ+ teenagers are at higher risk of depression and suicide due to exclusion, rejection, and negative media portrayals.
  • Discrimination occurs in workplace, housing, schools, and public settings.
• Intersectionality: Non-Caucasian LGBTQ+ individuals may be in a double minority, not fully accepted by Caucasian LGBTQ+ communities or their own ethnic group.

🏳️‍⚧️ Discrimination based on gender minority status

• Gender-nonconforming people are much more likely to experience harassment, bullying, and violence based on gender identity.
• Much higher rates of discrimination in housing, employment, healthcare, and education.
• Transgender individuals of color face additional financial, social, and interpersonal challenges due to structural racism.
  • Black transgender people report the highest level of discrimination among all transgender individuals of color.
  • Transgender women of color are especially vulnerable to employment discrimination, health disparities, harassment, and violence.

🧠 Effects on mental health

Minority stress model: an unaccepting social environment results in both external and internal stress which can take a toll on mental health.

• External stressors: discrimination, harassment, prejudice.
• Internal stressors: negative thoughts, feelings, and emotions resulting from societal messages about one's identity.
• Research findings: Participants identifying as transgender and gender-nonconforming had significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than those identifying as cisgender.
• Recommendation: Mental health services should be accessible and sensitive to both gender minority and sexual minority status.

🌈 Creating gender-affirming contexts

• Starting at birth, children learn social meanings of gender from society and culture.
• Gender roles and expectations are portrayed in toys, books, commercials, video games, movies, TV shows, and music.
• Support is crucial: When children make choices that do not conform to gender stereotypes, they need to feel supported by caring adults.
• This support allows children to feel valued, resilient, and develop a secure sense of self.
• Local contexts: Parents, families, friends, classmates, schools, and communities can create contexts of celebration and validation.
• Collective movements: LGBTQ+ and women's rights movements are changing status hierarchies, creating better conditions for all.

🩺 Role of professionals

• Developmental psychologists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians can create gender-affirming support for children, youth, and families.
• Gender-affirmative model of care: Views gender variation as a basic form of human diversity rather than inherent pathology.
  • Takes a multifaceted approach to supporting and affirming youth's experienced gender identity and reducing psychological distress.
  • Provides youth and parents with time, support, and information about the full range of gender diversity.
  • Recognizes that gender expressions and identities may change dynamically across different stages of development.
• Research needs: More studies on ingroup/outgroup biases, reactions to gender norm violations, awareness of preferential treatment, gender prejudice and discrimination, and bullying based on gender variation.
• Interventions: Inclusive sex education programs in schools that foster awareness and acceptance of gender diversity.
• Best practices:
  • Create safe and supportive spaces for all youth to give voice to diverse experiences of gender identity and expression.
  • Educate peers, schools, communities, and families about the validity of transgender and nonbinary identities.
  • Provide youth with access to supportive and informed care.
  • Expand the gender-affirmative model beyond the conventional gender binary, providing a broader range of options for identity and expression.
• Takeaway: Environments that foster self-acceptance, validation, openness, broadmindedness, and support regarding gender expression yield lasting benefits for all children.

🌟 Key takeaways

🌟 Complexity and fluidity

• Gender development is inherently complex, involving many dimensions: biological sex, gender expression and identity, temperament, intrinsic interests, cognitive constructions, social relationships, and changing historical and societal frames.
• These forces create an infinite number of unique and individual pathways, which cannot be captured by two boxes and cannot be nurtured by drawing and enforcing arbitrary lines.
• Goals: Gender expansion, creativity, and fluidity should become goals we support and strive for in our own development and in the development of all those whose nurturance has been entrusted to us.

🌟 Reducing negative outcomes

• Increasingly, it is possible to reduce the negative outcomes previously reported for gender-nonconforming children if children are supported by their families, schools, and societies in developing into their authentic selves.
• Recent research on socially transitioned transgender children (who identify with the gender opposite to the one assigned at birth and change their appearance and pronouns) shows:
  • Their gender development looks similar to cisgender children.
  • They exhibit similar gender preferences and identities as their gender-matched peers.
  • When living according to their gender identity and supported by families, they exhibit positive mental health.
• Consensus: Affirming non-conforming children in their own felt sense of gender seems to be the best course for promoting children's development.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Children's academic success depends not only on their intelligence but also on their self-beliefs (self-concept, self-efficacy, and mindsets), the quality of their educational environments, and the cultural contexts in which they learn.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Self-understanding evolves: Children in middle/late childhood develop more realistic self-concepts, self-esteem, and self-efficacy beliefs that shape their motivation and performance.
• Intelligence is debated: Psychologists disagree on whether intelligence is a single general factor ("g") or multiple separate abilities, and how to measure it fairly across cultures.
• Mindsets matter profoundly: A growth mindset (believing abilities expand with effort) leads to persistence and learning, while a fixed mindset (believing abilities are unchangeable) leads to avoidance and helplessness.
• Common confusion—self-efficacy vs. self-esteem: Self-efficacy is the belief you can accomplish a specific task; self-esteem is a general evaluation of your worth. High self-esteem doesn't guarantee high self-efficacy in a particular domain.
• Cultural and systemic factors shape education: Gender stereotypes, parental involvement patterns, language differences, and classroom practices all influence children's learning opportunities and outcomes.

🧠 Development of Self-Understanding

🪞 Self-concept in middle and late childhood

Self-concept: beliefs about general personal identity, including personal attributes such as age, physical characteristics, behaviors, and competencies.

• Children in middle/late childhood develop a more realistic sense of self than younger children.
• They better understand their strengths and weaknesses through:
  • Greater experience comparing their performance with others
  • Greater cognitive flexibility
• They incorporate others' appraisals (parents, teachers, peers, culture, media) into their self-concept.
• Why it matters: Social comparison and internalizing others' views shape self-esteem.

💭 Self-esteem

Self-esteem: an evaluation of one's identity.

• Children develop both domain-specific assessments (how well they do in various activities) and an overall global self-assessment.
• Discrepancy effects: If there is a gap between how children view themselves and their "ideal selves," self-esteem can be negatively affected.
• Example: A child who values athletic ability but sees themselves as uncoordinated may experience lower self-esteem.

💪 Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy: the belief that you are capable of carrying out a specific task or reaching a specific goal.

• Self-efficacy is task-specific, not a general trait.
• How it works: If a student believes they can solve math problems, they are more likely to attempt math homework—and vice versa.
• Misperceptions matter: Since self-efficacy is self-constructed, students can miscalculate their true skill, creating motivational problems.
• Optimal level: According to Bandura, the best self-efficacy is at or slightly above one's true ability—not too high, not too low.
• Don't confuse with self-esteem: Self-efficacy is about specific capabilities; self-esteem is about overall self-worth.

Example: A student with low math self-efficacy may avoid homework regardless of actual ability, missing opportunities to improve.

🧩 Theories of Intelligence

🧩 General intelligence ("g") vs. specific intelligences ("s")

General Intelligence Factor ("g"): the construct that different abilities and skills measured on intelligence tests have in common, relating to abstract thinking and including the abilities to acquire knowledge, reason abstractly, adapt to novel situations, and benefit from instruction.

• Historical origin: Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon (1904–1905) created the first intelligence test to identify children needing educational support.
• Key finding: Different test items (naming objects, defining words, drawing, completing sentences) all correlated positively—students who got one item correct tended to get others correct.
• Charles Spearman concluded there must be a single underlying "g" factor.
• Consensus: Virtually all psychologists now believe "g" exists; people with higher general intelligence learn faster.

Specific intelligence ("s"): a measure of specific skills in narrow domains.

• Evidence for "s": Some test items correlate more highly with each other than with others, forming clusters.
• Intelligence has both general and specific components.

🎭 Triarchic Theory (Sternberg)

Triarchic theory: people may display more or less analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence.

Type	Definition	Key features
Analytical intelligence	Academic problem solving and performing calculations	What traditional IQ tests measure
Creative intelligence	The ability to adapt to new situations and create new ideas	Not highly correlated with analytical intelligence; involves divergent thinking
Practical intelligence	The ability to demonstrate common sense and "street-smarts"	Learned from life experiences, not books; research has not found it distinct from "g" or predictive of task success

Convergent vs. divergent thinking:

• Convergent thinking: thinking directed toward finding the correct answer to a given problem (associated with analytical intelligence).
• Divergent thinking: the ability to generate many different ideas or solutions to a single problem (associated with creativity).
• These use different brain areas.

Five components important for creativity (from research on creative people):

1. Expertise—studied and learned about a topic
2. Imaginative thinking—view problems in new ways
3. Risk-taking—try new, potentially risky approaches
4. Intrinsic interest—pursue projects for interest, not money
5. Creative environments—supported and challenged by others on similar projects

Don't confuse: Exceptionally creative people do not score higher on general intelligence than their less creative peers; creativity requires some basic "g" abilities but is not the same as high IQ.

🌈 Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Gardner)

Howard Gardner proposed eight separate intelligences that can be differentiated from each other:

Intelligence	Description
Linguistic	Ability to speak and write well
Logical-mathematical	Ability to use logic and math to solve problems
Spatial	Ability to think about objects in three dimensions
Musical	Ability to perform and enjoy music
Kinesthetic (body)	Ability to move the body in sports, dance, or physical activities
Interpersonal	Ability to understand and interact effectively with others
Intrapersonal	Ability to have insight into the self
Naturalistic	Ability to recognize, identify, and understand animals, plants, and living things

Evidence Gardner used:

• Psychometric analyses of different intelligence tests
• Studies of children talented in one or more areas
• Studies of adults with brain damage affecting some capacities but not others
• Abilities of autistic savants (people who score low on IQ tests overall but have exceptional skills in a specific domain like math, music, art, or sports statistics)

Criticisms:

• These "intelligences" sometimes seem more like abilities or talents than true intelligence.
• The different intelligences are correlated, demonstrating the underlying power of "g."
• Unclear how many intelligences there really are (humor? artistic skill? dramatic skill?).

Educational influence: Teachers have used these ideas to teach differently to different students (e.g., using movement to teach math to kinesthetically strong students).

📏 Measuring Intelligence

📊 Standardization and the Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

Standardization: giving a test to a large number of people at different ages and computing the average score at each age level.

• Why standardization matters: Intelligence changes with age; we need norms to interpret scores.
• Example: A 3-year-old multiplying 183 by 39 would be intelligent, but a 25-year-old unable to do so would be seen as unintelligent.

Mental age: the age at which a person is performing intellectually.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ): a measure of intelligence that is adjusted for age.

IQ formula: IQ = (mental age ÷ chronological age) × 100

Example:

• A 10-year-old performing like an average 10-year-old: IQ = (10 ÷ 10) × 100 = 100
• An 8-year-old performing like an average 10-year-old: IQ = (10 ÷ 8) × 100 = 125

Modern approach: Most tests now base IQ on a person's relative position among same-age peers rather than this formula, but the "quotient" concept remains useful.

🧪 Wechsler Scales

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS): the most widely used intelligence test for adults.

• Current version: WAIS-IV, standardized on 2,200 people aged 16–90
• Structure: 15 different tasks assessing working memory, arithmetic, spatial ability, and general knowledge
• Scores: Yields scores on four domains—verbal, perceptual, working memory, and processing speed
• Reliability: Very high (more than 0.95)
• Validity: Correlates highly with other IQ tests (Stanford-Binet), academic success (college grades), work performance, occupational level, and everyday functioning

Versions for children:

• WPPSI-IV: Wechsler Primary and Preschool Scale of Intelligence (for preschoolers)
• WISC-V: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (for older children and adolescents)

⚖️ Bias in intelligence tests

Intelligence tests have been heavily criticized since the 1970s for several reasons:

• Cultural bias: Tests favor Anglo-American, middle-class respondents
• Narrow scope: Inadequate for measuring non-academic types of intelligence or talent
• Static view: IQ scores don't reflect the ability to change with experience
• Cultural variation in "smart": What counts as intelligent varies by culture
  • Western cultures: Being quick is smart (fastest answer = smartest)
  • Some other cultures: Being thoughtful is smart (well-considered, contemplative answer = best)
• Tests don't account for these cultural differences in what intelligence means

Flynn effect: the observation that scores on intelligence tests worldwide have increased substantially over the past decades (about 3 IQ points every 10 years).

Possible explanations: Better nutrition, increased access to information, more familiarity with multiple-choice tests

Recent reversal: The Flynn effect has reversed in several nations, though some still show increases.

Don't confuse: Higher scores don't necessarily mean people are actually getting smarter—the debate continues.

🏫 Education and School Context

👧👦 Gender stereotypes in education

Teachers' and parents' stereotypes can influence children's self-efficacy:

• Reading stereotypes: Teachers who believe girls are better at reading find their students' performance mirrors this belief, regardless of actual ability.
• Math stereotypes: Teachers who believe boys are better at math see the same pattern.
• Mechanism: Not all children internalize others' views, but those who do are more likely to show performance declines consistent with the stereotypes.
• Why it matters: Stereotypes become self-fulfilling prophecies for some children.

Example: A girl in a classroom where the teacher believes "girls can't do math" may develop lower math self-efficacy and perform worse, even if she has strong math ability.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Parental involvement in school

Family capital: a form of power based on income, occupational status, and other socially favored qualities that can be used to improve a child's education.

Research findings (Horvat, 2004):

• Teachers seek a particular type of involvement from particular types of parents.
• Teachers thought they were neutral, but were actually most receptive to support, praise, and agreement from parents similar to them in race and social class.
• Parents who criticized the school or its policies were less likely to be heard.
• Parents with higher family capital find it easier to be effectively involved.
• Parents without these qualities find it more difficult to be effectively involved.

Implications:

• Teachers should examine their biases about different kinds of parents.
• Schools need to improve their ability to dialogue openly with all parents about policies.

🌍 Cultural differences in the classroom

Approximately 20% of school-aged children (2013) spoke a language other than English at home, representing over 300 language groups.

🗣️ Bilingualism

Types of bilingual students:

• Fully fluent in both languages (cognitive advantage)
• Speak home language much better than English
• Partially lost heritage language while learning English
• Limited proficiency in both languages
• Can speak but not read/write (bilingual but not biliterate)

Cognitive advantages of full bilingualism:

• Better able to express concepts in multiple ways
• Greater awareness of language use

Importance of preserving first language:

• Large vocabulary in first language helps learn second language vocabulary faster
• Essential for students needing speech-language intervention (specialists more effective using first language)

Don't confuse: Many bilingual students have unbalanced bilingualism (still learning English or losing heritage language), which is different from full fluency in both.

🗨️ Cultural communication patterns

Cultural groups differ in how they use language, which can create misunderstandings:

Pattern	Cultural variation	Classroom expectation	Potential misunderstanding
Speaking	Some cultures: polite to speak only when you have something important to say; chitchat is immature	Teachers expect participation and discussion	Child may seem unfriendly or disengaged
Eye contact	Many African American and Latin American communities: respectful for child NOT to look directly at speaking adult	Teachers expect a lot of eye contact ("I want all eyes on me!")	Child may seem indifferent or disrespectful
Social distance	Varies by culture: some stand close, others far apart	Teachers have their own preferences	Student may seem overly familiar/intrusive or overly formal/reserved
Wait time	Some cultures: 3–4 seconds; others: negative gap (interrupting is acceptable)	Classrooms: about 1 second before moving on	Long-wait-time student seems hesitant; short-wait-time student seems rude
Questions	Most non-Anglo cultures: questions seek real information the asker doesn't have	Teachers ask "test questions" they already know the answer to	Student may think teacher is ignorant, trying to shame them, or become confused
Competition vs. cooperation	Many cultures prioritize relationships and cooperation	Many classroom activities are competitive (who finishes first, highest marks, best athlete)	Student may wonder what sharing is allowed; cooperation may be seen as cheating

Why this matters: Teachers may misinterpret culturally different communication styles as behavioral or motivational problems.

Example: A student from a culture valuing long wait times may rarely get called on because the teacher moves to another student after one second, making the child seem less capable than they are.

📊 Achievement testing and accountability

Achievement tests: tests used to measure what a child has already learned.

No Child Left Behind Act (2001):

• Mandated schools administer achievement tests and publish results
• Goal: Give parents information about children's performance
• Identify gaps in achievement between social class, racial, and ethnic groups
• Schools with significant gaps had to work toward narrowing them

Criticisms:

• Focused too much on testing as the only indicator of performance
• Target goals were unrealistic
• Goals set by federal government rather than individual states
• Requirements became unworkable

Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015):

• Replaced No Child Left Behind
• State-driven rather than federally driven
• Focuses on expanding educational opportunities and improving student outcomes
• Includes high school graduation rates, drop-out rates, and college attendance

🎯 Development of Motivation: Mindsets

🌱 Origins of mindsets

Mindsets: organized sets of beliefs people have about the nature of ability and what they themselves are capable of learning; convictions about how competent they are and whether there are limits to how much more competent they can become.

Mastery motivation (intrinsic motivation): babies are born active and curious, ready to learn; highly motivated to create effects and explore.

How mastery motivation works in infancy:

• Babies love to "create effects" (waving arms, dropping spoons, splashing, pulling earrings)
• Like a motor setting thousands of exploratory interactions in motion
• Through these interactions, babies learn about effectiveness

What babies learn about themselves:

• They are competent, efficacious people capable of making things happen
• They carry these beliefs into other contexts like school
• These beliefs provide confidence, determination, and persistence

🏆 Mastery orientation

Mastery orientation: a sense of confidence and competence that is the basis for constructive engagement with challenging learning activities.

How mastery-oriented children respond to challenges:

• Roll up their sleeves and work harder
• Concentration and strategizing increase
• Turn on effort and don't give up
• Learn from mistakes and benefit from challenges
• Not only feel more competent—they become more competent
• These experiences strengthen their mastery orientation (positive cycle)

😔 Learned helplessness orientation

Learned helplessness orientation: children learn that their actions don't matter and they have no control over their worlds.

Origins:

• Infants and young children in environments where they do NOT experience competence and control
• Parents not responsive, don't come when babies call, don't comfort when upset
• Parents may be hostile
• Can be seen in infants as young as 4 months old

How helpless-oriented children respond to challenges:

• React to obstacles with helplessness
• Behave as if there's nothing they can do
• Become upset and anxious
• Give up and don't even try
• Avoid challenges and new/difficult things
• Don't learn from difficulties
• Undermines confidence even more
• Not only feel less competent—they become objectively less competent (vicious cycle)

Don't confuse: Learned helplessness is not laziness or low ability; it's a learned belief that effort doesn't matter, which can develop even in capable children.

🧠 Two types of mindsets (Carol Dweck)

Experiences in achievement contexts (like schools) communicate the meaning of "intelligence" or "smartness," leading to one of two mindsets:

🔒 Fixed Mindset (entity view)

Fixed mindset (entity view of intelligence): people view intelligence as an unchangeable thing (entity); each person has a certain fixed amount of ability or talent that can't be expanded or improved.

Characteristics:

• Always trying to "measure up"
• Worry about revealing how big or small their intelligence is
• Never want to show when they don't understand (don't ask questions)
• Mistakes and failures = shameful, show how "dumb" you are
• Extra effort = means you're not "naturally" smart
• Prefer tasks they can already do well
• Avoid tasks where they might have to try hard or make mistakes

📈 Growth Mindset (incremental view)

Growth mindset (incremental view of intelligence): people view intelligence and abilities as expandable with effort; no fixed amount of intelligence; everyone can always get "smarter" through effort, hard work, practice, and more effective strategies.

Characteristics:

• Effort expands the capacity to learn
• Mistakes = opportunity to learn even more
• Don't worry about "measuring up"
• Focus on figuring out next steps to improve
• "Failure" = opportunity to learn more
• Prefer challenging tasks, even if it means making mistakes at first
• That's how they learn the most

🎯 Why mindsets matter

Mindsets profoundly affect life and how you approach the world throughout adulthood:

What mindsets affect:

• Your goals
• How you strive to achieve goals
• Your motivations for pursuing goals
• Your definitions of success vs. failure
• Your reactions to obstacles and challenges

📚 Learning Goals (growth mindset)

Learning goals: the goal is to acquire/improve new skills and knowledge.

Characteristics:

• Enjoy challenges
• Set high goals
• Exert high effort
• Concentrate on the task
• View failure as information about how to improve (not an assault on personal abilities)
• Respond to obstacles with determination and persistence
• Show less distress
• Initiate proactive action (planning, studying, practicing)

🏅 Performance Goals (fixed mindset)

Performance goals: the goal is to gain approval from others by demonstrating high ability or hiding low ability.

Characteristics:

• Avoid challenge
• Set less specific goals
• Easily distracted
• Do just enough to get by
• Experience self-derogatory thoughts
• Respond to setbacks by giving up quickly
• Avoid help
• Ruminate on failures
• Give excuses for performance

🔄 Can mindsets be changed?

Yes! The key idea of a growth mindset is that we can develop abilities through effort.

Important points:

• Change doesn't happen overnight
• Beliefs and mindsets can slowly be changed
• When encountering challenge, ask: What can be learned from it?
• Give up the desire to always appear "smart"
• Embrace struggles and setbacks as essential parts of learning
• Pursue more challenging and fulfilling goals
• Become more competent over time

Having a growth mindset doesn't mean:

• You can never feel bad about things that go wrong
• You can feel bad for a little while
• But feeling bad doesn't keep you from figuring out how to improve and trying again

👨‍🏫 Promoting a growth mindset in children

The adult's mindset matters most:

• If a teacher believes abilities are fixed: focuses on measuring intelligence, sorting children, offering different opportunities to each group
• If parents label children ("my smart child," "my artistic child"): communicates that fixed talents have been measured and children should limit themselves

What helps:

• Provide a wide range of learning opportunities (especially in areas children aren't already good at)
• Lots of encouragement for effort, hard work, and practice
• When children encounter setbacks: cooperative examination of mistakes, supportive coaching, suggestions for more effective strategies

Subtle things that make a difference:

Adult response	Message sent	Associated mindset
Praise perfect score	Importance of correct answer first time	Fixed
Praise effort	Importance of developing and learning	Growth
Express sympathy at low performance	Nothing you can do	Fixed
Mild irritation + support for continued practice	You can improve if you apply yourself	Growth
Encourage dropping activity when not excelling	Abilities are fixed	Fixed
Encourage continued practice despite difficulty	Abilities can improve	Growth

Don't confuse: Praising children isn't always helpful—what you praise (outcome vs. effort) sends very different messages about whether abilities can change.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Adolescence (roughly ages 10–18) is marked by dramatic physical changes driven by puberty, rapid brain development that creates a mismatch between reward-seeking and impulse control, and advances in abstract thinking that enable hypothetical reasoning but also fuel egocentrism and risk-taking.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Physical transformation: Puberty triggers growth spurts, sexual maturation, and changes in body composition; timing (early vs. late) significantly affects mental health and peer relationships.
• Brain mismatch: The limbic system (emotion/reward) matures earlier than the prefrontal cortex (impulse control/planning), explaining increased risk-taking and peer influence during adolescence.
• Cognitive leap: Adolescents develop formal operational thought—hypothetical, abstract, and logical reasoning—but also exhibit adolescent egocentrism (imaginary audience and personal fable).
• Common confusion: Adolescent risk-taking is not simply "bad judgment"; it reflects biological sensitivity to rewards (especially social rewards) and a still-maturing prefrontal cortex, not a lack of understanding of consequences.
• School transitions: Moving to middle school coincides with peak developmental vulnerability; the mismatch between adolescent needs (autonomy, challenge) and school structures (rigidity, control) predicts declines in engagement and achievement.

🧬 Physical development in adolescence

🧬 What puberty is

Puberty: a period of rapid growth and sexual maturation.

• Begins between ages 8–14 (girls around 10, boys around 12).
• Takes 3–4 years to complete.
• Involves an overall growth spurt: 10–11 inches in height and 50–75 pounds in weight.

📏 Growth patterns

• Distal-proximal development: growth proceeds from extremities (hands, feet) toward the torso.
• Head growth follows foot growth; ears, nose, and lips grow before the head.
• Result: adolescents often appear awkward and out-of-proportion.
• Internal organs (heart, lungs) also grow dramatically.

⚧ Sexual maturation

Primary sexual characteristics: changes in reproductive organs.

Sex	Primary characteristics
Females	Growth of uterus; menarche (first menstrual period); ova mature in ovaries (about 500 of 400,000 will mature)
Males	Growth of testes, penis, scrotum; spermarche (first ejaculation), occurs ages 11–15

Secondary sexual characteristics: visible physical changes signaling maturity but not directly linked to reproduction.

Sex	Secondary characteristics
Females	Breast development (starts around age 10); hips broaden; pubic and underarm hair becomes darker and coarser
Males	Broader shoulders; lower voice (larynx grows); coarser, darker hair in pubic area, underarms, and face

⏰ Effects of pubertal timing

• Trend: Age of puberty is declining worldwide; a century ago, average first period was 16; today it is around 13.
• Cultural differences: African American girls enter puberty earliest, followed by Hispanic, European-American, and Asian-American girls.
• Early puberty risks: Associated with depression, substance use, eating disorders, disruptive behavior, and early sexual activity—especially for girls.
• Why early puberty is hard: Mismatch between physical appearance and emotional/cognitive maturity; adults grant more freedom than the child can handle; early developers stand out among peers and gravitate toward older, riskier peer groups.
• Boys and early puberty: Early and rapid pubertal tempo in boys predicts increased depressive symptoms and poorer peer relationships; also linked to substance use.
• Don't confuse: Early puberty is not inherently harmful; the problem arises from the social and emotional mismatch and from being among the first in one's peer group to develop.

Example: A girl who looks 16 at age 12 may receive attention from older boys and be granted freedoms (like staying out late) that she is not emotionally ready to handle, increasing her risk for risky behaviors.

🧠 Brain development in adolescence

🧠 Structural changes

• The brain does not get larger but becomes more interconnected and specialized.
• Myelination: Continues, increasing white matter and improving processing speed; different areas myelinate at different times (e.g., language areas complete by age 13).
• Synaptic pruning: Gray matter (cortex) becomes thinner but more efficient; the brain adapts to the environment.
• Corpus callosum: Thickens, strengthening connections between hemispheres.
• Hippocampus-frontal lobe connections: Strengthen, integrating memory and experience into decision-making.

⚖️ The developmental mismatch

Limbic system: regulates emotion and reward; linked to hormonal changes at puberty.

Prefrontal cortex: involved in impulse control, organization, planning, and good decision-making; does not fully develop until the mid-20s.

• The mismatch: The limbic system develops early (at puberty), while the prefrontal cortex develops later (mid-20s)—a gap of about 10 years.
• Consequence: Increases in risky behavior, poor decision-making, and weak emotional control.
• When puberty begins earlier, this mismatch lasts even longer.

🎁 Dopamine and reward sensitivity

Dopamine: a neurotransmitter involved in reward circuits; sensitivity peaks during adolescence.

• Adolescents weigh risks and rewards differently than adults: they judge that possible rewards outweigh risks.
• Peers sensitize brain regions associated with rewards.
• Example: Adolescent drivers make riskier decisions when friends are present to impress them; teens are much more likely to commit crimes together than adults (who commit crimes alone).

🤝 Oxytocin and social bonding

Oxytocin: facilitates bonding and makes social connections more rewarding.

• With both dopamine and oxytocin engaged, adolescents seek peers and excitement, which can endanger them.

🧩 Vulnerability and adaptability

• Vulnerability: 50% of all mental illnesses occur by age 14; 75% by age 24. The adolescent brain is especially vulnerable to drug exposure (e.g., repeated marijuana use affects the endocannabinoid system).
• Adaptability: Novelty-seeking and risk-taking can generate positive outcomes—meeting new people, seeking new situations, separating from family, and moving into new relationships are adaptive for adolescents and society.

Don't confuse: The adolescent brain's sensitivity to rewards and peers is not a "flaw"; it is an adaptive feature that supports the developmental task of moving away from the family and into the wider world.

😴 Adolescent sleep

😴 Sleep needs and reality

• Adolescents need 8–10 hours of sleep per night to function their best.
• Reality: Adolescents average only 7.5 hours on school nights; only about 1 in 10 older adolescents get optimal sleep.
• Younger adolescents (sixth grade) get more sleep (8.4 hours) than older ones (twelfth grade: 6.9 hours).

🌙 Consequences of sleep deprivation

• Depressed mood, tiredness, crankiness, falling asleep in school, drinking caffeinated beverages.
• Greater risk for substance abuse, car crashes, poor academic performance, obesity, weakened immune system.
• Predictor of risky sexual behaviors (e.g., not using birth control, using substances before/during sex).
• Explanation: Staying out late without supervision increases risky behaviors; lack of sleep increases impulsivity and impairs decision-making.

🕰️ Why adolescents don't get enough sleep

• Environmental/social factors: Work, homework, media, technology, socializing.
• Biological factor: Circadian rhythms change during puberty, pushing sleep time later in the evening.
• This biological change keeps adolescents awake at night and makes it difficult to wake up early.
• When awakened too early, their brains do not function optimally—impairments in attention, academic achievement, and behavior; increases in tardiness and absenteeism.

🏫 School start times

• The CDC recommends school begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m. to support adolescents' later circadian rhythms.
• Reality: Over 80% of American schools begin earlier than 8:30 a.m. (average: 8:03 a.m.).
• Caution: Adolescents should avoid both sleeping too little during the week and oversleeping on weekends; inconsistent sleep schedules disrupt the natural biological sleep cycle.

Don't confuse: Adolescent sleep problems are not simply "laziness" or "poor habits"; they reflect a biological shift in circadian rhythms that conflicts with early school start times.

🧩 Cognitive development in adolescence

🧩 Improvements in basic thinking

• Attention: Improvements in selective attention (focusing on one stimulus while tuning out another) and divided attention (paying attention to two or more stimuli at once).
• Memory: Improvements in working memory and long-term memory.
• Processing speed: Adolescents think more quickly than children; speed improves sharply between age 5 and mid-adolescence, levels off around age 15, and remains largely the same between late adolescence and adulthood.

🔬 Formal operational thought

Formal operational thought: the ability to reason not only about tangible objects and events, but also about hypothetical or abstract ones.

• This is Piaget's fourth and final stage.
• Marks a movement from thinking about concrete visible events to thinking hypothetically and entertaining "what-if" possibilities.
• Adolescents can solve problems through abstract concepts and use hypothetical and deductive reasoning.
• Initially use trial and error, but the ability to solve problems systematically and logically emerges.

🔍 Hypothetical and abstract thinking

Deductive reasoning (top-down reasoning): leads to the development of hypothetical thinking.

• Adolescents can think of possibility, not just reality.
• They can plan ahead, see future consequences of actions, and provide alternative explanations of events.
• Makes adolescents more skilled debaters (they can reason against a friend's or parent's position).
• Develop a more sophisticated understanding of probability.

Example: A teacher poses a hypothetical problem: "What if the world had never discovered oil?" To answer, students must manipulate ideas that vary in several ways at once, entirely in their minds.

📚 Formal operational thinking in the classroom

• Students with hypothetical thinking ability require relatively few "props" to solve problems; they can be more self-directed.
• However, formal operational thinking is desirable but not sufficient for school success; it does not guarantee motivation, good behavior, or other skills.
• Many people never achieve or use formal thinking fully or consistently; they use it only in selected familiar areas.
• Limitation: Piaget's stage focuses on scientific problem-solving, not on social and interpersonal issues.

🗣️ Propositional thought

• Adolescents can comprehend higher-order abstract ideas: puns, proverbs, metaphors, analogies, satire, sarcasm.
• (Children younger than age 9 often cannot comprehend sarcasm at all.)
• Permits application of advanced reasoning to social and ideological matters: relationships, politics, philosophy, religion, morality, friendship, fairness, honesty.
• Allows adolescents to take others' perspectives in more complex ways and think through others' points of view.

🧠 Metacognition

Metacognition: "thinking about thinking"; monitoring one's own cognitive activity during the thinking process.

• Adolescents are more aware of their own thought processes.
• Can use mnemonic devices and other strategies to think and remember information more efficiently.
• Provides the ability to plan ahead, consider future consequences, and provide alternative explanations of events.

🔄 Relativism

• The capacity to consider multiple possibilities and perspectives often leads adolescents to conclude that nothing is absolute—everything is relative.
• Result: Teens start questioning everything they previously accepted—parent and family values, authority figures, religious practices, school rules, political events.
• May even question past events like adoption or parental divorce.
• Don't confuse: This is not "just being argumentative"; it signals a normal phase of cognitive development.

🎭 Adolescent egocentrism

🎭 What adolescent egocentrism is

Adolescent egocentrism (Elkind): the phenomenon of adolescents' inability to distinguish between their perception of what others think about them and what people actually think in reality.

• Drawn from Piaget's theory: formal operations enable adolescents to construct imaginary situations and abstract thinking.
• Adolescents can conceptualize their own thoughts and conceive of other people's thoughts.
• However, they tend to focus mostly on their own perceptions—especially behaviors and appearance—because of the "physiological metamorphosis" they experience during puberty.
• This leads to the belief that other people are as attentive to their behaviors and appearance as they are themselves.

👀 Imaginary audience

Imaginary audience: the phenomenon that an adolescent anticipates the reactions of other people to him/herself in actual or impending social situations.

• Adolescents believe they will be the focus of attention; they create an audience.
• However, the audience is usually imaginary because in actual social situations individuals are not usually the sole focus of public attention.
• The audience is the adolescent's own construction, so it is privy to his or her own knowledge of him/herself.
• Helps explain why adolescents seek privacy and feel reluctant to reveal themselves—a reaction to feeling always on stage and under critical scrutiny.
• Likely peaks at age 15, along with self-consciousness in general.

Example: An adolescent believes everyone at school will notice and judge a new pimple on their face, when in reality most peers are focused on their own concerns.

🦸 Personal fable

Personal fable: the notion that one's own feelings are unique and that one is special and immortal.

• Adolescents believe they are of importance to so many people (the imaginary audiences) that their feelings are something special and unique.
• They may feel they are the only ones who have experienced strong and diverse emotions; therefore, others could never understand how they feel.
• This uniqueness reinforces the belief of invincibility, especially to death.

🚗 Invincibility fable

Invincibility fable: the belief that one can be above some of the rules, constraints, and laws that apply to other people; even consequences such as death.

• Removes any impulse to control one's behavior.
• Result: Adolescents engage in risky behaviors (drinking and driving, unprotected sex) and feel they will not suffer negative consequences.

Don't confuse: The personal fable is not the same as high self-esteem; it is a cognitive distortion in which adolescents overestimate their uniqueness and underestimate their vulnerability.

🧠 Intuitive vs. analytic thinking

🧠 Dual-process model

Dual-process model: the notion that humans have two distinct networks for processing information.

Type	Characteristics
Intuitive thought	Automatic, unconscious, fast; more experiential and emotional
Analytic thought	Deliberate, conscious, rational (logical)

• These systems interact but are distinguishable.
• Intuitive thought is easier, quicker, and more commonly used in everyday life.

⚖️ Why adolescents rely more on intuitive thought

• The discrepancy between the maturation of the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex may make teens more prone to emotional intuitive thinking than adults.
• As adolescents develop, they gain in logic/analytic thinking ability but may sometimes regress.
• Social context, education, and experiences become major influences.
• Being "smarter" (as measured by an intelligence test) does not advance cognition as much as having more experience in school and in life.

Don't confuse: Adolescents are not incapable of logical thinking; they can use analytic thought, but they are more likely to default to intuitive thought, especially in emotionally charged or social situations.

🎲 Risk-taking in adolescence

🎲 Why adolescents take more risks

• Most injuries sustained by adolescents are related to risky behavior: alcohol/drug use, reckless or distracted driving, unprotected sex.
• Three facets of the question:
  1. Prevalence: Are adolescents more likely to engage in risky behaviors? (Yes.)
  2. Cognitive processing: Do they make risk-related decisions differently than adults? (Somewhat.)
  3. Weighting: Do they use the same processes but weigh facets differently? (Yes.)

⚖️ Behavioral decision-making theory

• Adolescents and adults both weigh potential rewards and consequences of an action.
• However, adolescents give more weight to rewards, particularly social rewards, than do adults.
• Adolescents value social warmth and friendship; their hormones and brains are more attuned to those values than to long-term consequences.

🌍 Evolutionary benefits

• There may be evolutionary benefits to increased risk-taking in adolescence.
• Without a willingness to take risks, teenagers would not have the motivation or confidence to leave their family of origin.
• From a population perspective, having a group willing to take more risks and try new methods counterbalances the conservative elements of older adults.

Don't confuse: Adolescent risk-taking is not simply "bad judgment" or "immaturity"; it reflects a different weighting of rewards (especially social rewards) versus consequences, driven by brain development and evolutionary pressures.

🏫 Education in adolescence

🏫 Importance of secondary education

Secondary education: school years after elementary school (primary education) and before college or university (tertiary education).

• Adolescents spend more waking time in school than in any other context.
• Those who complete primary education and continue through secondary and tertiary education tend to have better health, wealth, and family life.
• Middle schools were created for grades 5 or 6 through 8 to distinguish between early and late adolescence, as these groups differ biologically, cognitively, emotionally, and have different needs.

🔄 Transition to middle school

• Transition is stressful and often complex.
• Students are undergoing physical, intellectual, social, emotional, and moral changes.
• Early adolescence is an especially sensitive developmental period.
• Students who are developmentally behind typically experience more stress than their counterparts.
• Consequences: Lower grades, decreased academic motivation, increased rate of dropping out.
• For many, academic achievement slows down and behavioral problems increase.
• Bullying increases in middle school, particularly in the first year.

🎒 Challenges of middle school

• Just when egocentrism is at its height, students face an environment of independence and responsibility.
• Structural changes: Students go from one primary teacher in elementary school to multiple different teachers in middle school.
• Expected to: get to and from classes on their own, manage time wisely, organize and keep up with materials for multiple classes, be responsible for all classwork and homework from multiple teachers, and develop and maintain a social life.
• Peer acceptance is particularly important.
• Technology: Adolescents typically get their first cell phone at about age 11; social media use and texting increase dramatically (with both costs and benefits).

⚙️ Stage-environment fit theory

Stage-environment fit theory: highlights the developmental mismatch between the needs of adolescents and the characteristics of the middle school context.

Adolescent needs	Middle school context
Greater cognitive challenges	More rigid, controlling, unstimulating
Autonomy and independence	Less autonomy, more control
Stronger relationships outside family	Less supportive than elementary school; multiple teachers; less closeness and warmth in teacher-student relationships
Interesting, challenging curriculum	Standardized testing and organizational constraints make curriculum more uniform, less challenging and interesting
Stable peer relationships	Existing relationships disrupted; larger and more complex social context

• This poor fit is more pronounced over school transitions but continues throughout secondary education.

Don't confuse: Declines in engagement and achievement during middle school are not simply due to "adolescent laziness" or "hormones"; they reflect a mismatch between developmental needs and school structures.

🎓 High school and beyond

• High school emphasizes formal thinking to prepare graduates for college where analysis is required.
• Overall high school graduation rates in the United States: 83.2% in 2016 (after four years).
• Many students attend college, but about half leave without completing a degree.
• Those who earn a degree make more money and have an easier time finding employment.
• Key: Understanding adolescent development and supporting teens in making decisions about college or alternatives.

📊 Predictors of academic achievement

• Interpersonal: Parental engagement in adolescents' education.
• Intrapersonal: Intrinsic motivation.
• Institutional: School quality.
• Academic achievement is important as a marker of positive adjustment and because it sets the stage for future educational and occupational opportunities.
• The most serious consequence of school failure (especially dropping out) is high risk of unemployment or underemployment in adulthood.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Identity development during adolescence is a complex, ongoing process of exploration and commitment across multiple domains (ethnic-racial, gender, sexual, vocational, religious, political) that is shaped by both internal self-discovery and external social forces, including parents, peers, schools, and societal hierarchies.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core developmental task: Erikson identified identity formation as the primary psychosocial task of adolescence, involving the question "Who am I?" across appearance, vocation, relationships, sexuality, politics, and personality.
• Two key processes: Marcia identified exploration (trying out different identities) and commitment (consolidating and accepting who you are) as the central mechanisms of identity development.
• Multiple domains: Identity develops across ethnic-racial, gender, sexual, vocational, religious, and political domains, each with its own timeline and challenges.
• Highly social process: Identity formation occurs at the nexus of internal self-knowledge and external social messages from parents, peers, schools, and society's status hierarchies.
• Common confusion: Identity achievement is not typically completed by the end of adolescence; most people continue "MAMA cycling" (moving between moratorium and achievement) throughout emerging and young adulthood.

🔄 Erikson's Framework and Marcia's Identity Statuses

🔄 Identity vs. Role Confusion

Identity: The adolescent's answer to "Who am I?" encompassing personal preferences, characteristics, group memberships, meanings, emotions, desires, and goals.

• Erikson saw adolescence as a period of uncertainty, confusion, exploration, experimentation, and learning about identity and life path.
• Most adolescents experience psychological moratorium: teens put on hold commitment to an identity while exploring their options.
• The process continues well beyond adolescence; few leave the adolescent period with identity achievement.
• Don't confuse: Identity is not just a mental structure—it is full of meanings, emotions, desires, and goals, and is only partially stable.

🗺️ Exploration and Commitment

Exploration means the processes through which youth imagine, consider, try out, and try on different possible facets of their identity, experimenting with attitudes, looks, activities, friends, subjects, and hobbies.

Commitment refers to a consolidation and acceptance of who you truly are, as you recognize, understand, and feel comfortable with your multi-faceted authentic self.

Example: Photos of yourself at ages 13, 14, 15, and 16 may show big changes in dress and behavior—those different "personas" represent exploration.

📊 Four Identity Statuses

Marcia identified four statuses representing combinations of exploration and commitment:

Status	Exploration	Commitment	Description
Identity Diffusion	Absent	Absent	Neither explored options nor made commitment; risk of drifting aimlessly
Identity Foreclosure	Absent	Present	Committed without exploration; may be parent-directed or strongly identified with family
Identity Moratorium	Present	Absent	Actively exploring but no commitment yet; anxious and emotionally tense period
Identity Achievement	Present	Present	Explored and made commitment; typically not achieved until after adolescence

Changes over time: During high school and college, teens move from diffusion and foreclosure toward moratorium and achievement. College exposure to diverse choices, lifestyles, and beliefs spurs identity questions.

🔁 MAMA Cycling

MAMA cycling: Moving back and forth between moratorium and achievement.

• Identity development is revisited at many life stages (e.g., job loss, children leaving home, retirement).
• This cycling between exploration and achievement is normal and healthy.
• Life events can reignite identity development even in middle and old age.

🌈 Multiple Domains of Identity

🌍 Ethnic-Racial Identity

Ethnic-racial identity: How people come to terms with who they are based on their ethnic and/or racial ancestry.

• Involves "sorting out and resolving positive and negative feelings and attitudes about one's own ethnic group and about other groups and identifying one's place in relation to both."
• In the U.S., those of European ancestry engage in less exploration than those of non-European ancestry.
• More than 40% of Americans under 18 are from ethnic and racial minorities, making this a salient identity task.

🌐 Cultural/Bicultural/Multiracial Identity

Bicultural identity: The individual sees himself or herself as part of both the ethnic minority group and the larger society.

• Ethnic minorities must decide how and to what extent they identify with family culture vs. dominant culture.
• Multiracial individuals (parents from two or more groups) face more complex tasks; their appearance may be ambiguous, leading others to constantly ask them to categorize themselves.
• Society is starting to shift (e.g., "check all that apply" on forms) but still struggles to recognize these identities as legitimate.
• Don't confuse: Commitment to ethnic-racial identity is not a one-time event; people periodically reexamine these issues, especially when having children.

⚧️ Gender Identity

• Acquiring gender identity is increasingly prolonged as attitudes and norms keep changing.
• Roles for males and females are evolving; lack of gender binary allows more freedom to explore.
• Some teens foreclose on gender identity to deal with uncertainty, adopting stereotypic roles.
• College exposure to wider options may allow reopening questions and further exploration.

🏳️‍🌈 Sexual Identity

• By age 14, most adolescents become interested in intimate relationships and may begin sexual experimentation.
• Many feel pressure to express interest in opposite-sex relationships even if not ready.
• Non-heterosexual adolescents often struggle with negative peer and family reactions.
• Lack of parental acceptance can result in self-doubt, depression, and alienation.
• Supportive families and peers lead to better psychological and mental health outcomes.
• In unsupportive cases, adolescents may seek online communities or wait until leaving home.

💼 Vocational Identity

• Takes longer to develop than in earlier generations; most occupations require specific skills and education.
• Teens' jobs are often not in occupations they will seek as adults.
• Rapid employment changes and multiple jobs over working lives mean this identity may be renegotiated several times.

⛪ Religious Identity

• Adolescence is a time when teens question religious practices.
• Most end up adopting views similar to their families.
• Most question specific customs, practices, or ideas but few completely reject family religion.

🗳️ Political Identity

• Influenced by parents' political beliefs.
• 21st century trend: decrease in party affiliation among adults; many view themselves as "independent."
• Teenage children often follow suit or become more apolitical.
• Voting trends suggest most young adults question whether participating in the current political system is meaningful.

⚠️ Negative Identity

Negative identity: The adoption of norms and values that are the opposite of one's family and culture.

• Considered one of the more problematic outcomes of identity development.
• Those with negative identity hold dichotomous beliefs (friend or foe, good or bad).
• Generally hostile and cynical toward society; do not trust the world around them.
• May lead to delinquent and criminal behavior; prevents prosocial acts.
• May occur because teens cannot integrate information from inner and outer worlds.

🧩 Three Strands of Identity Development

🔍 Strand 1: Authentic Self ("Who I discover myself to be")

• Based on internal information: interests, preferences, impulses, proclivities, temperament, intrinsic motivations.
• Adolescents have access to their history of genuine experiences.
• These are now evaluated analytically and translated into psychological constructs (personality traits, values).
• Goal: "To thine own self be true."
• Challenge: By adolescence, authentic characteristics are wrapped in layers of social messages and evaluations.

How to discover authentic self:

• Look at photos/memories of 10-year-old self (before self-consciousness developed).
• Creative acts: journaling, writing songs, painting, improvisational theatre.
• Illustrated discovery journals: collect photos, drawings, poems, sayings that speak to you.
• Activities: find involvement that seems fun and meaningful; follow impulses that say "I really want to do that."

👥 Strand 2: Social Acceptance ("Who I think others think I am")

• Based on social desirability and acceptance—what others (real and imagined) think.
• Involves coming to grips with societal messages about attributes and categories (gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, class).
• With formal operations and perspective-taking, adolescents "wake up" to how they are viewed in society.
• These evaluations become deeply personal and meaningful.
• Example: Society's messages about appearance ("Am I pretty enough?" "Am I strong enough?") become personal questions.

💭 Strand 3: Self-Evaluation ("Do I feel good about myself?")

• A "35,000-foot view" of how the first two strands fit together.
• Summative personal and social evaluation of the whole identity.
• Tension: When authentic characteristics are stigmatized or devalued by society, adolescents face impossible choices:
  • Deny devalued parts → socially acceptable but hollow/fake identity
  • Accept authentic self + society's judgments → authentic but "inferior" identity (internalized stigma)

Healthy resolution requires:

• Local social contexts with different messages (e.g., "girl power," racial/ethnic pride, LGBTQ+ pride, disability rights).
• Parents/families providing socialization that counteracts biased messages and instills pride.
• Learning about histories of struggle against unjust treatment.
• Externalizing harmful societal messages; viewing characteristics as badges of honor.
• When families are unsupportive, creating "families of choice" with mentors, peers, and friends.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Social Contexts: Parents, Peers, and Schools

👪 Role of Parents

Authoritative parenting facilitates identity development:

• Strong messages of love and support for genuine selves.
• Learning to follow moral rules and act with kindness, honesty, responsibility.
• Autonomy support: freedom and support to explore different identity facets.

Other parenting styles create challenges:

• Authoritarian: Rigid standards prevent exploration; strong negative views of particular identities create roadblocks; may lead to foreclosure, moratorium, or rebellion.
• Helicopter: Prevent risk-taking and trying new things; curtail independence and exploration.
• Permissive/Indulgent: Lack of limits leads to immaturity, self-centeredness, lack of achievement; interferes with commitment to values and relationships.
• Neglectful: Undermines security, self-confidence, self-knowledge; may lead to "identity diffusion" and aimlessness.

Attachment and autonomy:

• Most teens do not experience major "storm and stress"; only small numbers have major conflicts with parents.
• Disagreements are usually minor (homework, money, curfews, clothing, chores, friends).
• Conflicts occur because adolescent desire for independence conflicts with parental supervision.
• Teens report more conflict with mothers but also more encouragement and support.
• As teens grow older, more compromise is reached.
• Securely attached teens have fewer emotional problems, less drug abuse/criminal behavior, more positive peer relationships.

👫 Role of Peers

Positive functions:

• Provide opportunities to elaborate on possibilities, play out exploration, test commitments.
• Safe contexts for exploration with freely chosen, mutually supportive equals.
• Communication helps adolescents become aware of diversity and develop clarity about themselves.
• Higher quality peer relationships → greater identity development and commitment.
• Mirroring and social comparison provide recognition, validation, support, and feedback.
• Desire to bond with similar others but also to be unique; balance between similarity and individuality.

Negative functions:

• Negative peer pressure can lead to riskier decisions and problematic behavior.
• Deviant peer contagion: peers reinforce problem behavior by laughing or approval, increasing likelihood of future problems.
• Peers can be associated with unhealthy/antisocial behaviors and negative attitudes toward school.
• Challenge: sorting out selection (choosing similar others) vs. influence (being influenced by proximity).

Identification and social identification:

Identification: Being drawn to and seeing your potential self in admired others, then emulating their behaviors and characteristics.

Social identification: The valuing and adoption of group behaviors and group characteristics.

• Friends or popular peers may serve as role models.
• Teens often adopt dress, slang, mannerisms, attitudes of a crowd (larger group or social category).

🏫 Role of Schools

• Provide experiences, interaction partners, and messages about academic identities, interests, vocational identities.
• Facilitate identity development by offering rich, varied opportunities for exploration.
• Expose children to different communities (organizers, professionals, scientists, gardeners, plumbers, artists).
• Extra-curricular activities with real responsibilities and leadership roles are especially meaningful.

Challenges:

• Middle and high school can be problematic for adolescents who don't meet narrow societal "norms."
• Vicious social messages target those perceived as lower on status hierarchies.
• Adolescents "police" rigid values but are enabled and trained by society at large.
• Some parents seek alternative supportive subcultures; online communities provide like-minded friends.
• Universities often provide wide range of role models and opportunities; students can choose their own "family" of supportive adults and peers.

🌐 Ethnic-Racial Identity: Deeper Dive

📚 Three Major Theoretical Perspectives

1. Phinney's Model of Ethnic Identity Formation Based on Marcia's exploration and commitment framework:

• Unexamined Ethnic Identity (similar to diffusion): Default preference for dominant culture or little thought given; includes those who adopted parents' ethnicity without reflection (foreclosure).
• Ethnic Identity Search (similar to moratorium): Exploring customs, culture, history; often triggered by an event (personal prejudice, media case, positive event); may immerse in ethnic culture or reject dominant culture values.
• Achieved Ethnic Identity: Actively explored culture; deeper appreciation and understanding; does not necessarily mean highly involved in customs; about 25% of ethnic minority youth have explored and resolved by tenth grade; college often becomes time of exploration.

2. Extended Bioecological Models

PVEST (Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory) by Margaret Beale Spencer:

• Identity-focused theory situating formation within social context.
• Risk and protective factors create individual vulnerability based on social position and experiences.
• Individuals actively cope with perceptions and vulnerability, forming identities in response to experiences.
• Overlapping and interacting systems; reciprocal effects of individual on context and future experiences.

Integrated Model by Garcia-Coll and colleagues:

• Incorporates social/contextual factors of position, structure, risk, promotion.
• Emphasizes adaptive cultures, family context, individual characteristics.
• Ethnic-racial identity is both component of adaptive cultures and important positive outcome.
• Large body of research shows importance of contextual factors, individual responses, benefits of strong ethnic-racial socialization and identity.

3. Multidimensional Conceptualizations

Five dimensions by Sellers and colleagues:

1. Centrality: Importance of ethnic-racial identity to self-definition.
2. Salience: Importance of ethnic-racial identity in the situation.
3. Public regard: Perceptions of others' evaluations of one's ethnic-racial group(s).
4. Private regard: Self-evaluations of one's own ethnic-racial group(s).
5. Ideology: Beliefs about how the group(s) should behave.

21st Century Study Group contribution:

• Combined ethnic identity and racial identity into ethnic-racial identity (hyphenated).
• Race: socially constructed when characteristics are "racialized."
• Ethnicity: shared cultural heritage, values, traditions, sometimes language, transmitted across generations.
• Both have consequences for social experience and psychological development; often overlapping and interdependent.
• Emphasizes intersectionality: specificity of ethnic-racial identities as particular combinations of racialized characteristics, ethnicity, cultural background, immigration status.
• Example: Black adolescents from families in US for centuries have different identities/experiences than recent Jamaican or Haitian immigrants.

🛡️ Protective Factors

Strong positive ethnic-racial identity and ethnic-racial socialization:

• Protect children and youth from discriminatory experiences and messages.
• Provide strong foundation for long-term resilience and thriving.
• "Promotive" and "protective" effects against harmful effects of racial and ethnic adversity.

🤔 White Ethnic-Racial Identity

• Many white Americans are "un-racialized"—race is not salient to their identity.
• Historically focused on ethnic identity (Jewish, Irish, Polish, Italian immigrants).
• Dominant groups assume they are default/prototype; resist idea they have racial identity.
• Example: "African-Americans" and "Asian-Americans" use hyphenated labels; less common to say "European-Americans."

Emerging awareness:

• Some white people experiencing awareness based on perceived threats from social change and uncertainty about status/privilege.
• Stereotype threat: Internalizing negative messages about subgroups; when identity is made salient, stereotypes are triggered, leading to self-doubt, reduced performance, giving up.
• Threats to identity particularly relevant in adolescence/early adulthood and times of change.
• Research on threats to masculinity and whiteness studies attempts to understand appeal of white supremacist identity to some marginalized white youth.

🪞 Self-Concept and Self-Esteem in Adolescence

🪞 Self-Concept Development

• Teens' self-concepts continue to develop with more abstract reasoning.
• Often full of contradictions: outgoing but withdrawn, happy yet moody, smart and clueless.
• Recognition that personality and behavior change depending on context (parents, friends, work) can make teens feel like a fraud: "Which one is really me?"
• Adolescents emphasize traits like being friendly and considerate more than children do (concern about how others see them).
• Older teens add values and moral standards to self-descriptions.

📊 Self-Esteem Changes

• Self-esteem differentiates: academic, social, appearance, physical/athletic dimensions plus romantic relationships, job, close friendships.
• Often drops during school transitions (elementary to middle, junior high to high school).
• Declines usually temporary unless additional stressors (parental conflict, family disruptions).
• Rises from mid to late adolescence for most, especially if they feel competent in peer relationships, appearance, athletic abilities.

💑 Romantic Relationships

💑 Stages of Dating

1. Early adolescence: Mixed-sex group activities; same-sex peer groups expand into mixed-sex groups.
2. Middle adolescence: Brief casual dating or group dating with established couples.
3. Late adolescence: Exclusive, intense relationships lasting a year or longer; may interfere with friendships.

Purposes: Fun, companionship, status, socialization, sexual experimentation, intimacy, (late adolescence) partner selection.

Cultural differences: Asian Americans and Latinas less likely to date than other ethnic groups.

🌟 Importance

• Adolescents spend great deal of time focused on romantic relationships.
• Positive and negative emotions tied more to romantic relationships than to friendships, family, or school.
• Contribute to identity formation, changes in family and peer relationships, emotional and behavioral adjustment.
• Centrally connected to emerging sexuality.
• Often when lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender individuals come to recognize themselves as such.
• Domain for experimenting with new behaviors and identities.

⚠️ Negative Aspects

Relationship inauthenticity: An incongruence between thoughts/feelings and actions within a relationship.

• Desires to gain partner approval and relationship demands may negatively affect sense of authenticity.
• High status society places on romantic relationships (especially for girls) leads to pressure into uncomfortable behaviors.
• Tension between desires to be in relationship and need to set boundaries.
• Positively correlated with poor mental health (depression, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts), especially for females.

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Note: This excerpt is from a textbook chapter on identity development during adolescence. It draws heavily on Erikson's and Marcia's frameworks, incorporates bioecological perspectives, and emphasizes the social and contextual nature of identity formation across multiple domains. The material highlights that identity development is an ongoing process extending well beyond adolescence, shaped by complex interactions between internal self-discovery and external social forces.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Emerging adulthood (ages 18–25) is a distinct developmental stage between adolescence and full adulthood, characterized by exploration, instability, and delayed commitment to adult responsibilities.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• What emerging adulthood is: a period (roughly 18–25 years) when individuals have left childhood dependency but have not yet taken on full adult responsibilities.
• How it differs from adolescence and young adulthood: it is neither—emerging adults are more independent than adolescents but less settled than young adults.
• Five defining characteristics: identity exploration, instability, and three others mentioned but not fully detailed in this excerpt.
• Common confusion: identity development was once thought to occur mainly during adolescence (Erikson, 1950s), but today most identity work happens in the late teens and early twenties.
• Why it matters: this stage sets the foundation for career choices, intimate relationships, and the transition to full adulthood.

🕰️ Historical context and redefinition

🕰️ From one stage to two

• Historically, "early adulthood" spanned approximately age 18 to 40 or 45.
• More recently, developmentalists split this 25-year period into two stages:
  • Emerging adulthood (late teens to early twenties)
  • Early adulthood (following emerging adulthood)
• The overall period (18–40) is still a time of peak physical capabilities, more mature cognition, financial independence, and establishment of intimate relationships.

🔍 What emerging adulthood is not

Emerging adulthood: the period between the late teens and early twenties; ages 18–25, although some researchers have included up to age 29.

• Jeffrey Arnett (2000) argues it is neither adolescence nor young adulthood.
• Emerging adults have left behind the relative dependency of childhood and adolescence.
• They have not yet taken on the responsibilities of adulthood.
• "Many different directions remain possible, when little about the future is decided for certain, when the scope of independent exploration of life's possibilities is greater for most people than it will be at any other period of the life course."

🔑 Five characteristics of emerging adulthood

🔍 Age of identity exploration

• What it means: this is the primary period for wrestling with questions of identity.
• Historical shift: Erik Erikson (1950) originally proposed that identity development occurred during adolescence.
  • Even Erikson (1968) later noted a trend toward "prolonged adolescence" in industrialized societies.
• Today's reality: most identity development now occurs during the late teens and early twenties, not adolescence.
• What is explored: career choices and ideas about intimate relationships.
• Why it matters: these explorations set the foundation for adulthood.

Example: An emerging adult might try different college majors, internships, or dating relationships to figure out what fits their sense of self.

⚡ Age of instability

• What it means: exploration generates uncertainty and instability.
• Behavioral evidence: emerging adults change jobs, relationships, and residences more frequently than other age groups.
• Why this happens: because many directions remain possible and little is decided for certain.

Don't confuse: instability here is not pathological—it is a normal feature of exploration during this life stage.

📊 Comparison: adolescence vs emerging adulthood vs young adulthood

Stage	Dependency	Responsibilities	Identity work	Stability
Adolescence	Relatively dependent	Few adult responsibilities	Historically thought to be main period; now less so	More structured (school, family)
Emerging adulthood	Left dependency behind	Not yet taken on adult responsibilities	Primary period for identity exploration	High instability (frequent changes)
Young adulthood	Independent	Full adult responsibilities	Foundation already set	More settled

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Multiple measurement points in longitudinal studies allow researchers to examine how initial levels and trajectories of change in antecedent variables predict subsequent trajectories in outcome variables, revealing causal processes that unfold over time.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Why more than two time points matters: Additional measurements enable researchers to examine predictors of change across multiple time gaps and to study trajectories of mean-level change as outcomes.
• "Launch" models: Initial levels of an antecedent variable can predict the trajectory of a target outcome, like a catapult setting the direction and angle of change.
• Change-to-change models vs. time-lagged growth curves: Concurrent change-to-change models are correlational and don't establish precedence; time-lagged growth curves (e.g., Time 1 to n predicting Time 2 to n+1) better support causal inference.
• Common confusion: Don't confuse concurrent change-to-change correlations (which don't show who precedes whom) with time-lagged analyses that preserve temporal ordering.
• Stage-environment fit example: School transitions (not adolescence itself) cause motivational declines when environmental changes mismatch adolescent developmental needs.

📏 Multiple measurement points and trajectories

📏 Why "more is merrier"

• Two measurement points are qualitatively better than one, but additional time points open up richer analyses.
• More measurements allow researchers to:
  • Examine predictors of change across additional time gaps (e.g., predictor at Time 2 → change from Time 2 to Time 3).
  • Study trajectories of mean-level change as outcomes of causal processes.
• Example: Instead of only looking at Time 1 → Time 2, you can also look at Time 2 → Time 3, Time 3 → Time 4, etc.

🚀 "Launch" models

A "launch" model examines whether an individual's initial levels on an antecedent can predict the individual's trajectory on the target consequence.

• The term "launch" is used because the initial level of a potential causal variable may act like a catapult or rocket launcher.
• It sets the direction and angle of change in the target outcome.
• Example: A student's initial level of teacher support (Time 1) may predict the trajectory of their engagement over subsequent time points.

🔄 Change-to-change models and time-lagged growth curves

🔄 Change-to-change models

• These models examine how changes in antecedents relate to changes in outcomes.
• Important limitation: You can't really use the word "predict" to describe these connections.
• They are actually correlations between growth curves, landing back in the "concurrent correlations puddle."
• Why this is a problem: We still don't know who is preceding whom—temporal ordering is unclear.

⏱️ Time-lagged growth curves

• A better approach: look at connections between time-lagged growth curves.
• Example: Growth curve from Time 1 to Time n predicts an outcome from Time 2 to Time n+1.
• This preserves temporal ordering and supports causal inference.
• You can also examine reciprocal change-to-change effects by switching antecedents and consequences.
• Don't confuse: These two analyses (concurrent vs. time-lagged) can provide different estimates of the connections between different portions of the growth curves.

🧬 Third variables and niche studies

🧬 Controlling vs. examining third variables

• Researchers can control for third variables statistically.
• More interesting approach: Look directly at their effects by organizing data into a "niche" study.
• Examine connections for subgroups (e.g., boys vs. girls, high vs. low achievement students).

🔍 How niche studies reveal spurious relationships

• If a connection between two variables is due to a third variable (e.g., gender), it will disappear when you look at subgroups separately.
• Example: If the connection between teacher involvement and student engagement is due to gender, it will disappear when examining boys and girls separately.
• This approach is consistent with a lifespan developmental systems perspective: development is differentially shaped by characteristics of people and their contexts.

🏫 Case study: Stage-environment fit and middle school transitions

🏫 The puzzle of middle school declines

• Researchers observed dramatic losses in students' motivation, engagement, academic performance, and self-confidence across the transition to middle school.
• Competing explanations:
  1. School characteristics (larger student bodies, harsher discipline, shorter subject-specific periods, different teachers).
  2. Neurophysiological development (puberty and adolescence).

🧪 Clever design to separate age from environment

Researchers compared students from three types of school districts:

District type	Grade organization	Transition timing
K-8 schools	Kindergarten through 8th grade in same building	No transition
Elementary + middle schools	K-5, then 6-8	Transition at 6th grade
Elementary + junior high schools	K-6, then 7-8	Transition at 7th grade

🎯 Definitive results

• Adolescence was not the primary risk factor for declines.
• Precipitous drops occurred at whatever age the school transition took place (6th or 7th grade).
• Most important: Such drops were not seen (or were greatly reduced) in K-8 schools across the same ages.
• Conclusion: The school transition itself, not adolescent development, caused the declines.

🧩 Stage-environment fit explanation

Stage-environment fit: Changes students experience over the transition to middle or junior high school include features that are a very bad match for the changing needs of adolescents.

Bad match features:

• More distant and less caring teacher-student relationships.
• More competitive and performance-oriented learning goals.
• More impersonal discipline.
• Fewer choices about academic work.

Adolescent needs:

• Stronger adult relationships outside the family.
• More intrinsic motivation.
• Greater autonomy in learning.

Example: An adolescent who needs more autonomy enters a middle school environment that offers less choice about academic work—this mismatch contributes to motivational decline.

🧭 Take-home messages for naturalistic field studies

✅ Four key lessons

1. Yes, naturalistic studies can reveal causal processes

   • These studies contain everything you want to know about your target phenomenon.
   • It is worthwhile to figure out how to decipher that information in ways that yield valid causal accounts.

2. Whoa—complexity requires meta-theoretical clarity

   • Causes operate in complex dynamic systems.
   • The ways causes operate can be truly mind-bending.
   • Get your meta-theoretical glasses firmly on before sifting through designs and strategies.

3. Time is your most trusty tool

   • Times of measurement in longitudinal and time series designs.
   • Time windows over which you choose to hover.
   • Timing (spacing) of measurements so they map onto the pace of causal processes.

4. Embrace complexity as a message, not a problem

   • When you encounter complex problems (historical embeddedness, cohort effects), don't ask "How do I avoid this?" or "How do I solve this?"
   • React with curiosity instead of coping.
   • Best advice: "Don't ignore. Don't evade. Turn around and look."
   • These are not methodological problems—they are messages from your target developmental phenomena.
   • Walk directly towards them to learn a great deal.

🤝 Interdisciplinary support

• Researchers from epidemiology, sociology, and economics face similar challenges.
• They cannot create controlled experiments (crash stock markets, start epidemics, shift social mores) any more than developmental scientists can.
• They are uncovering important tools for causal inferences through careful application of sound statistical methods.
• Don't confuse: The lack of experimental control does not mean causal inference is impossible—it means different tools and designs are needed.

📚 Design competencies

📚 What you should be able to do

For the designs discussed (cross-sectional, longitudinal, sequential, experimental, correlational, laboratory, field):

• Define each one.
• Identify the advantages and disadvantages of each.
• Discuss when it would make sense to use each in a program of research.

🔗 Converging operations

Converging operations: The strengths of each design can help compensate for the weaknesses of other designs.

• This concept pulls together the idea that no single design is perfect.
• By using multiple designs that converge on the same question, researchers can build stronger causal accounts.
• Example: Combine a longitudinal field study (high ecological validity but less control) with a laboratory experiment (high control but less ecological validity) to triangulate causal conclusions.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Erikson's intimacy vs. isolation stage in early adulthood centers on forming close relationships—romantic, friendship, family—through mechanisms like proximity, similarity, self-disclosure, and attachment styles, with communication patterns predicting long-term relationship success.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Intimacy is broader than romance: intimacy includes closeness, caring, and personal disclosure in friendships, family, and romantic relationships, not just sexual or romantic bonds.
• Attraction mechanisms: proximity (mere exposure), similarity (consensual validation), and self-disclosure drive relationship formation.
• Attachment styles shape adult relationships: secure, avoidant, anxious/ambivalent, and fearful-avoidant patterns influence trust, communication, and satisfaction.
• Common confusion—attachment dimensions vs. categories: Bartholomew's two-dimensional model (anxiety and avoidance) yields four styles, not just three; high anxiety ≠ high avoidance.
• Gottman's communication predictors: contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and stonewalling ("Four Horsemen") predict divorce; positive interactions and conflict management sustain marriages.

🤝 Friendships in early adulthood

🤝 Why friendships matter

• Friendships provide support, self-esteem, and well-being in early adulthood.
• Intimacy, mutuality, and closeness remain as important as in adolescence.
• Women's friendships show more emotional intimacy overall; men's friendships grow more intimate over time.
• Don't confuse: friendships may take a backseat after marriage, but maintaining them is still important for well-being.

💼 Workplace friendships

• People spend as much or more time at work as with family/friends, so workplace friendships are common.
• Benefits:
  • Mentoring, social support, and resources.
  • Higher job satisfaction, involvement, organizational commitment, and retention.
  • A Gallup poll found employees with "close friends" at work were ~50% more satisfied.
• Risk: potential for conflicts and misinterpretation when sexual attraction is involved.

🌐 Internet friendships

• People use the Internet to meet and make friends.
• Research shows virtual relationships can be as intimate as face-to-face ones—sometimes more so.
• Especially beneficial for socially anxious, lonely, or high-functioning autistic individuals who find face-to-face interaction difficult.
• The Internet provides a safe, nonthreatening space to develop and maintain relationships.
• Example: Someone with social anxiety may find it easier to share personal thoughts online, leading to deeper connections than in-person.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family relationships in early adulthood

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Parent-child transitions

• The parent-child relationship must transition to a relationship between two adults.
• Challenge for parents: accepting the adult status of their children; reluctance can hinder identity development.
• Leaving home and financial independence promote psychological growth and independence.
• Young adults with secure, positive parental relationships transition more easily than those with insecure attachments.

👫 Sibling relationships

• Sibling bonds are among the longest-lasting relationships, but little research exists on adult sibling dynamics.
• Early adulthood sees a decline in sibling interaction frequency as peers, romantic partners, and children become more central.
• Task: maintain enough connection to preserve a foundation for later life.
• Childhood closeness typically predicts adult closeness; it is unusual for siblings to become close for the first time in adulthood.
• Successful siblings move from "older-younger" conflicts to a more egalitarian adult relationship.

💘 Romantic attraction and relationship formation

📍 Proximity and mere exposure

Proximity: the extent to which people are physically near us.

Mere exposure: the tendency to prefer stimuli (including people) that we have seen more frequently.

• We are more likely to befriend people who are nearby (e.g., same dorm, nearby seats in class).
• Mere exposure is powerful: infants smile more at familiar faces; people prefer mirror images of their own faces (because they see them more often).
• Evolutionary basis: the unknown triggers fear; familiarity signals safety and similarity (ingroup), leading to positive affect.
• Example: A person who sits next to you in class every day becomes more likable simply through repeated exposure.

🔗 Similarity and consensual validation

• Perceived similarity in values and beliefs is a key determinant of attraction.
• Why similarity matters:
  • Convenience: both partners enjoy the same activities.
  • Validation: seeing that your partner shares your beliefs makes you feel validated.

Consensual validation: having others like and believe in the same things we do makes us feel validated in our beliefs.

🗣️ Self-disclosure

Self-disclosure: the tendency to communicate frequently, without fear of reprisal, and in an accepting and empathetic manner.

• Friends listen and respond to our needs and goals.
• Self-disclosure must be reciprocal: if you open up, you expect your partner to do the same.
• Imbalance in self-disclosure can harm the relationship.

💕 Sternberg's components and types of love

💕 Three components of love

Sternberg (1988) identifies three main components:

Component	Definition
Passion	Intense, physical attraction partners feel toward one another
Intimacy	Ability to share feelings, psychological closeness, and personal thoughts
Commitment	Conscious decision to stay together

• Passion appears early; intimacy takes time (based on knowledge and sharing); commitment follows once intimacy is established.
• Love relationships vary by the presence or absence of each component.

💞 Types of love based on components

Type	Components present	Description
Liking	Intimacy only	Partners are close friends; no passion or commitment; being told "I think of you as a friend" can be painful if you seek romance.
Infatuation	Passion only	"Love at first sight" or a "crush"; intense physical attraction; short-lived (months to a year); based on image, not deep knowledge.
Fatuous Love	Passion + Commitment	Premature commitment without intimacy; partners focus on physical attraction but don't share ideas/feelings deeply; often driven by insecurity.
Empty Love	Commitment only	Partners stay together for children, religion, or lack of alternatives; no intimacy or passion; may be found later in a relationship or in marriages formed for non-intimate reasons.
Romantic Love	Intimacy + Passion	Partners are close and attracted but have not committed; may fear commitment will diminish passion or closeness.
Companionate Love	Intimacy + Commitment	Partners love, respect, and are committed; physical attraction may have faded or never been strong; they are good friends.
Consummate Love	Passion + Intimacy + Commitment	All three components present; often seen as the "ideal" in Western cultures; partners are best friends, lovers, and committed.

• Don't confuse: romantic love (no commitment) with companionate love (no passion); both involve intimacy but differ in the other component.

🧷 Attachment styles in young adulthood

🧷 Three-category model (Hazan & Shaver, 1987)

Hazan and Shaver adapted Ainsworth's child attachment categories to adult romantic relationships:

Style	Description
Secure	Easy to get close; comfortable depending on others and having them depend on you; don't worry about abandonment or excessive closeness.
Avoidant	Uncomfortable being close; difficult to trust or depend on others; nervous when someone gets too close; partners often want more intimacy than you feel comfortable with.
Anxious/Resistant	Others are reluctant to get as close as you'd like; worry that your partner doesn't love you or will leave; want to merge completely, which can scare people away.

🧷 Four-category model (Bartholomew, 1990)

Bartholomew proposed two dimensions instead of categories:

Attachment-related anxiety: the extent to which an adult worries about whether their partner really loves them; fear of rejection or abandonment.

Attachment-related avoidance: whether an adult can open up to others, and whether they trust and feel they can depend on others; high avoidance = discomfort with dependency and fear of losing autonomy.

Four styles result from combining high/low on each dimension:

Style	Anxiety	Avoidance	Description
Secure	Low	Low	Comfortable trusting partners; don't worry excessively about love.
Dismissing	Low	High	Dismiss the importance of relationships; trust themselves but not others; don't share dreams/goals/fears.
Preoccupied	High	Low	Prone to jealousy; worry partner doesn't love them enough.
Fearful-Avoidant	High	High	Want close relationships but uncomfortable getting emotionally close; trust issues with others and their own social skills.

• Don't confuse: preoccupied (high anxiety, low avoidance) with fearful-avoidant (high on both); preoccupied individuals want closeness and are comfortable opening up, while fearful-avoidant individuals want closeness but cannot open up.

🔍 Research findings on adult attachment

• Insecure attachments → lower relationship satisfaction.
• High attachment-related anxiety → more daily conflict.
• Avoidant attachment → less support to partners.
• Young adults show greater attachment-related anxiety than middle-aged or older adults.
• Secure attachments and authoritative parents → easier transition to adulthood, less depression.

🔄 Do attachment styles match in couples?

• Most people seek secure, kind, caring, trustworthy partners.
• Research shows secure people tend to end up with secure partners; insecure with insecure.
• Why? Mainly because secure people are attracted to other secure people (speed-dating studies confirm this).
• Secure people, being closer to the "ideal," have more choice and select other secure partners.
• Some evidence that partners' attachment styles mutually shape each other over time (longitudinal studies show changes in one partner predict changes in the other).

🧒 Do early childhood experiences shape adult attachment?

• Retrospective studies: secure adults recall supportive, loving childhood experiences.
• Prospective longitudinal studies:
  • Maternal sensitivity across development predicts security at age 18.
  • Infant attachment security → peer competence in grades 1–3 → quality friendships at age 16 → positive/negative emotion expression in adult romantic relationships (ages 20–23).
• Important: early experiences are probabilistic, not deterministic.
  • Even with suboptimal early experiences, people can develop well-functioning adult relationships through corrective pathways (siblings, family, teachers, friends).
  • Security is an accumulation of attachment history, not just early experiences.

💬 Gottman's predictors of marital harmony

💬 Communication is key

• Gottman's research: the way partners communicate is crucial, not compatibility.
• Method: measured physiological responses (heart rate, respiration, fidgeting) and videotaped couples discussing disagreements.
• Goal: identify communication patterns that predict whether a couple will stay together.

⚠️ The "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"

In marriages destined to fail, partners engage in these "marriage killers":

Behavior	Definition	Impact
Contempt	Mocking or derision; communicates the other partner is inferior	Strongest predictor of divorce; the worst of the four
Criticism	Attacking partner's character	Undermines caring and respect
Defensiveness	Making excuses or counter-attacking	Blocks resolution
Stonewalling	Withdrawing from interaction	Shuts down communication

• All partnerships include these occasionally, but when they become the norm, they signal the relationship's end.
• Don't confuse: occasional criticism with a pattern of contempt; contempt is more destructive because it conveys superiority and disrespect.

🔮 Predicting marital stability

• Gottman's Oral History Interview examines eight variables: fondness/affection, we-ness, expressiveness, negativity, disappointment, and three conflict resolution aspects (chaos, volatility, glorifying the struggle).
• Accuracy: 87% at 4–6 years, 81% at 7–9 years.
• Interventions: increase positive regard, strengthen friendship, improve communication and conflict resolution.

💰 Positive "emotional bank account" deposits

• A positive balance of relationship deposits helps during conflict.
• Example: A husband's enthusiasm in everyday interactions relates to a wife's affection during conflict.
• Couples with more pleasant interactions report higher marital satisfaction, fewer severe problems, better physical health, and lower divorce risk.
• Positive partner interactions buffer the impact of conflict intensity on marital satisfaction.
• Don't confuse: avoiding conflict with managing conflict; positive deposits don't eliminate conflict but reduce its harm.

🛠️ Techniques for healthy relationships

Gottman's techniques include:

• Building love maps (knowing your partner's inner world).
• Turning towards partner's "bids" for affection and attention.
• Managing conflict constructively.
• Changing how we interpret conflict.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The overarching task of the family life cycle is to create a life that is personally meaningful and fulfilling for the individual while also working for the rest of the family, as people navigate stages from independence through forming households, raising children, and becoming grandparents.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core objective: The family life cycle's goal is to find a life that fits the individual's characteristics and preferences—the life they want—while also functioning for their family unit.
• Broadened definition: "Family" encompasses most adult activities beyond work, friendships, and personal time, including diverse domestic arrangements, not just traditional sequences.
• Marital satisfaction fluctuates: Happiness peaks before the first child, drops with additional children due to new demands and financial stress, and often rises again during the empty nest stage.
• Common confusion: The "empty nest syndrome" (great distress when children leave) is less common than once thought; many parents experience role strain relief and increased marital satisfaction instead.
• Contextual influences: Parenting and family life are shaped by parent and child characteristics, plus higher-order sociocultural factors like economic hardship, neighborhoods, and structural inequities.

🏠 What "family life cycle" means

🏠 The conventional sequence

The family life cycle is conventionally represented as a sequence of stages typical of many adults, moving from independence from the family of origin, through forming one's own family unit, raising kids, and becoming grandparents.

• Many people do not follow this traditional pattern.
• The excerpt emphasizes that family life includes all varieties of domestic arrangement.
• Family encompasses intimate relationships, children (or not), home life, homemaking tasks, and shared activities.

🎯 The overarching objective

The overarching objective or task of the family life cycle is to create the life that fits and works for the individual, that is consistent with their personal characteristics and preferences, the life they want.

• Successful navigation means finding a life that is personally meaningful and fulfilling for you.
• It must also work for the rest of your family, however that family is constituted.
• Family life cycle patterns differ across cultures, subcultures, and historical time.

Don't confuse: The goal is not to follow a rigid script; it is to build a life that aligns with individual preferences and family needs, recognizing that "family" can take many forms.

🔄 Stages and transitions in family life

🚪 Single adulthood

• In 1960, only 1 in 10 adults age 25+ had never married; by 2012, this rose to 1 in 5.
• Just over half (53%) of unmarried adults say they would eventually like to marry; 32% are unsure, and 13% do not want to marry.
• Projections suggest that by the time current young adults reach their mid-40s and 50s, almost 25% may never have married.
• Young adults prioritize education and career establishment, contributing to delays in marriage.

Example: A young adult may choose to remain single while completing graduate school and establishing a career, reflecting shifting priorities and reduced stigma around singlehood.

💑 Cohabitation trends

• Cohabitation has become increasingly common, especially among emerging adults (18–24).
• From 1995 to 2010, the median length of cohabitation increased from 13 months to 22 months.
• Within three years, 40% of cohabitations transitioned to marriage, 32% remained intact, and 27% dissolved.

Three explanations for the rise:

1. Individualism and secularism: Decline in religious observance led to greater acceptance of cohabitation.
2. Economic changes: Improved women's social status and gender equality made marriage no longer the only long-term option.
3. Educational delays: Jobs requiring advanced education delay marriage; people typically marry soon after completing their highest level of education.

Don't confuse: Cohabitation is not just a "trial marriage"; for some it is a step in courtship, for others it replaces marriage altogether.

💍 Marriage patterns

• In 1960, 72% of adults 18+ were married; by 2010, barely half were.
• Average age at first marriage increased: in 1960, 20 for women and 23 for men; by 2010, 26.5 for women and nearly 29 for men.
• Same-sex marriage became legal nationwide in the U.S. in 2015; 29 countries currently allow it.

Cultural influences:

• Rules of endogamy indicate groups we should marry within (race, class, age, religion).
• Homogamy: marriage between people who share social characteristics; most U.S. marriages are homogamous.
• Historically, arranged marriages were common; now personal choice is more normative, though arranged marriages persist in some cultures (e.g., India, Pakistan).

👶 Parenthood and its challenges

• Women in the U.S. have fewer children than in the past (average ~2.1 since the 1970s, down from ~7 in the early 1900s).
• Average age for first-time mothers: 26.3 years in the U.S. (2014), 28.5 in Canada (2011).
• 40% of U.S. births in 2011 were to women 30+; in Canada, 52%.
• Parenting outside marriage has increased; college-educated women are more likely to be married at birth than less-educated mothers.

Influences on parenting (three categories):

1. Parent characteristics: age, gender, personality, developmental history, mental/physical health. Parents with agreeable, conscientious, outgoing traits provide warmer, more structured care.
2. Child characteristics: gender, birth order, temperament, health. A fussy infant elicits fewer positive reactions; parents of difficult children may become more punitive over time.
3. Contextual and sociocultural factors: economic hardship, culture, neighborhoods, schools, social support. Economic stress makes parents more frustrated and depressed, affecting parenting skills.

Don't confuse: Parenting is bidirectional—children influence parents just as parents influence children.

📉 Marital satisfaction across the life cycle

📉 The U-shaped curve

• Marital satisfaction is highest before the first child.
• It hits a low point with the arrival of the second (or more) child.
• Children bring new demands, financial hardships, and stress.
• Many couples comfortable as partners find parental duties more challenging.

Why satisfaction drops:

• More domestic responsibilities and childrearing duties fall on women, shifting away from egalitarian relationships.
• This shift may be one reason marital satisfaction suffers.

📈 Recovery in the empty nest

• Marital satisfaction often increases during the "launching phase" (empty nest period) and endures long after the last child leaves.
• The most egalitarian gender roles typically occur when children are older and in the empty nest stage.

Don't confuse: Some researchers argue that only happier marriages survive to this stage (unhappy couples divorce earlier), so the apparent increase may reflect selection bias.

🪹 The empty nest period

🪹 What it is

The empty nest, or post-parental period, refers to the time period when children are grown up and have left home.

• Recognized as a "normative event"—parents expect children will eventually leave.
• Creates complex emotions, both positive and negative.

🪹 Two competing hypotheses

Hypothesis	Prediction	Evidence
Role loss	Parents experience decreased well-being when losing the parental role; linked to "empty nest syndrome" (great distress, especially for mothers)	Few parents report loneliness or big sense of loss; syndrome is rare
Role strain relief	Empty nest leads to more positive changes as responsibility of raising children is lifted	Supported by many studies; marital satisfaction often increases and endures

Cultural variation:

• Most research is on American parents, who often report increased satisfaction.
• Chinese empty-nesters, especially in rural areas, report greater loneliness and depression, possibly due to loss of family income and support (children move to cities for work).
• Urban Chinese empty-nesters do not report the same distress, suggesting the issue is additional hardship, not the event itself.

🪃 Boomerang kids

Boomerang kids: young adults who return after having lived independently outside the home.

• More young adults (25–35) are living with parents than in previous generations.
• Financial reasons underlie both delayed exit and returns; some return due to emotional distress (e.g., mental health issues).

Effect on parents:

• Early research (1980s–90s) found financial hardship and negative perceptions.
• Recent surveys show today's parents are more tolerant; this is becoming normative.
• Parents of young adults who moved back for economic reasons report similar life satisfaction to parents whose children live independently.
• Adult children 25+ are more likely to contribute financially or complete household chores.
• Living in a multigenerational household may act as an economic safety net (lower poverty rates for young adults at home).

Linked lives:

The notion that people in important relationships, such as children and parents, mutually influence each other's developmental pathways.

• Parents whose adult children face personal problems (alcoholism, health issues, legal trouble) report more negative affect, lower self-acceptance, poorer parent-child interactions, and more family stress.
• The more problems the adult children face, the worse the parents' emotional health; single parents fare worst.

🥪 The sandwich generation

🥪 Who they are

The sandwich generation refers to adults who have at least one parent age 65 or older and are either raising their own children or providing support for their grown children.

• 47% of middle-aged adults are part of this generation.
• 15% provide financial support to an older parent while raising or supporting their own children.
• 48% have supported adult children in the past year; 27% are the primary source of support.

Demographics:

• 71% are age 40–59; 19% younger than 40; 10% age 60+.
• Hispanics are more likely (31%) to support two generations than Whites (24%) or Blacks (21%).
• Women are more likely to provide personal care (dressing, bathing) for aging parents in the U.S. and Germany.

🥪 Effects on well-being

• 33% of sandwich-generation adults always feel rushed (vs. 23% of other adults).
• They report being just as happy as those not in the sandwich generation.
• Greater financial strain: only 28% living comfortably (vs. 41% of non-sandwich adults); 33% just making ends meet (vs. 17%).

👵 Grandparents and caregiving

👵 Grandparent roles

• Grandparents are a major source of support for new parents and young families worldwide.
• Degree of involvement depends on proximity; technology (texting, email, Skype) helps distant grandparents stay in touch.

Three styles (Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1986):

1. Remote (30%): rarely see grandchildren, usually live far away; contact on special occasions.
2. Companionate (55%): do things with grandchildren but have little authority; more like friends.
3. Involved (15%): very active role, frequent contact, authority over grandchild; grandchildren may live with them.

• Grandmothers more often take the involved role; grandfathers more often see themselves as family historian and advisor.
• Grandparents may adopt different styles with different grandchildren and change styles over time as circumstances shift.

🩺 Family caregivers

• 40 million Americans provide unpaid caregiving for family members.
• Typical caregiver: 49-year-old female caring for a 69-year-old female with a long-term physical condition.
• For recipients 18–49: caregiver is female (61%) caring mostly for her own child (32%) or spouse/partner (17%).
• For recipients 50+: caregiver is female (60%) caring for a parent (47%) or spouse (10%).

Burdens and effects:

• Caregiving is one of the most demanding and stressful roles.
• Caregiving for a child with special needs is associated with poorer health and more physical symptoms for both parents.
• Marital quality matters: caregiving mothers report more chronic conditions when marital strain is high; fathers report more chronic conditions regardless of marital quality.
• Older parents experience fewer negative effects than younger parents; emotional stability at midlife may help.

Spousal care:

• Caring for a disabled spouse can negatively affect health, but also has positive effects if the caregiver does not feel strain.
• Caregivers who help without strain report decreased anxiety and depression.
• Female caregivers of spouses with dementia experience more burden, poorer health, and more depressive symptoms than male caregivers.
• Disabled males are more aggressive (physically and sexually) than females, especially with dementia.
• Women may not seek external support due to societal expectations and concerns about others' opinions.

Broader context:

• 66 million Americans (29% of adults) are caregivers for someone dying or chronically ill; two-thirds are women.
• Caregiving involves physical, emotional, and financial tolls; families face high out-of-pocket expenses.
• 69% receive no home visits by health care professionals; 72% are employed; 55% of employed caregivers have been caregiving for 3+ years.
• Annual U.S. productivity loss: $25 billion due to work absenteeism.
• Leaving the workforce to care for a parent costs women $324,044 and men $283,716 in lost wages and social security benefits.

💔 Divorce and remarriage at midlife

💔 Divorce trends

• 27% of adults age 45–54 are divorced; 57% of divorced adults are women (men remarry more).
• Two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women.
• Most divorces occur within the first 5–10 years of marriage.
• Divorce after 20+ years of marriage is increasing; the rate among those 50+ has doubled since the 1990s.

Reasons for "graying of divorce":

• Less stigma attached to divorce today.
• Some older women out-earn spouses and are more financially capable of supporting themselves.
• Increased human longevity makes the prospect of living decades with an incompatible spouse less appealing.

Gender differences in motivations:

• Women: verbal/physical abuse (23%), drug/alcohol abuse (18%), infidelity (17%).
• Men: fallen out of love (17%), no longer share interests/values (14%), infidelity (14%).
• Both genders felt the marriage had been over long before the decision; many stayed together while raising children.
• Women also stayed due to financial concerns, including loss of health care.
• Only 1 in 4 adults regret their decision to divorce.

Effects:

• Young adults struggle more with divorce consequences than midlife adults (higher risk of depression).
• Divorce at midlife is more stressful for women: 44% of middle-aged women report financial problems after divorce (vs. 11% of men).
• Many women report feeling a great release from unhappiness.
• Divorce enhancers: used the experience to better themselves and seek more productive relationships (mostly women).
• Competent loners: used divorce to grow emotionally but chose to stay single (mostly women).

💑 Dating and remarriage post-divorce

• Most divorced adults have dated by one year after filing; 1 in 4 are in or have been in a serious relationship.
• Younger adults more likely to be dating (larger pool of potential partners).
• Over two-thirds of women under 45 cohabited between first and second marriages.
• Dating with children is more challenging; courtships are shorter in remarriage; less time going out, more time at home or with children.

Gatekeeping:

Post-divorce parents gatekeep, that is, they regulate the flow of information about their new romantic partner to their children.

• 47% gradually introduce children to dating partner (protect children from meeting many partners; give time to adjust).
• 40% are open and transparent from the outset.
• 13% do not reveal until cohabitation or remarriage is likely.
• Practical matters influence method: availability of childcare, child's age and temperament, concerns about ex-spouse's reaction.

💍 Remarriage rates and success

• Remarriage rate has been declining overall (28 per 1,000 adults 18+ in 2013, down 44% since 1990).
• As we age, we are more likely to have remarried (takes time to marry, divorce, remarry).
• Adults 55+ are remarrying at a higher rate than in the past (67% of 55–64 and 50% of 65+ had remarried in 2013, up from 55% and 34% in 1960).
• Men have higher remarriage rates at every age starting at 25; in 2013, 64% of divorced/widowed men vs. 52% of women had remarried.
• Whites more likely to remarry than other racial/ethnic groups; rate increased for Whites (driven by White women) but declined for others.

Success of remarriage:

• Research is mixed; some remarriages are more successful, especially if divorce motivated self-improvement.
• Many divorced adults end up in similar marriages the second or third time.
• Remarriages face unique challenges: lack of clarity in family roles, determining terms and roles for new kin, navigating relationships with partners' children.
• Remarried couples have more realistic expectations but are less willing to stay in unhappy situations.
• Divorce rate among remarriages is higher than among first marriages.

Children's influence on repartnering:

• Children in the home reduce mothers' likelihood of marrying a man without children.
• Having children increases single men's likelihood of marrying a woman with children.
• Experiencing a stepfamily while growing up may make adults feel better prepared for stepfamily living.

Two parenting approaches:

• Child-focused parent: allows child's views, reactions, and needs to influence repartnering.
• Adult-focused parent: expects child can adapt and should accommodate to parental wishes; tends to be older, more educated, employed, married longer; reports less rapport with children; responds more to partner's concerns when child and partner resist each other.

🤝 Friendships in middle adulthood

🤝 Importance of friendships

• Adults with a confidante or close friend report a sense of belonging, security, and overall well-being.
• Having a close friend is associated with significantly lower odds of psychiatric morbidity (depression, anxiety).
• Close friends lessen adverse effects of stress on health.
• Poor social connectedness in adulthood is associated with a larger risk of premature mortality than smoking, obesity, or excessive alcohol use.

🤝 Gender differences

• Women: supportive friendships contribute significantly to life satisfaction and well-being; a friendship network or confidante is important to mental health; difficult to find time and energy with caretaking responsibilities.
• Men: shared consumption of alcohol is important to creating and maintaining friendships; drinking with friends provides social support, relaxation, and mood improvement; but the role of alcohol can lead to health-damaging behavior.

🤝 Long-term effects

• Quantity of social interactions at age 20 and quality (but not quantity) at age 30 predict midlife social interactions.
• High levels of social information seeking (quantity) at age 20 followed by fewer relationships but greater emotional closeness (quality) at age 30 lead to the most positive psychosocial adjustment at midlife.

Example: An individual who has many acquaintances in their 20s but then focuses on a few deep, emotionally close friendships in their 30s is likely to have better mental health and well-being at midlife than someone who maintains many shallow connections or becomes isolated.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Middle adulthood is characterized by generativity (creating legacy through work, family, and community), evolving intelligence patterns (crystallized intelligence increases while fluid intelligence declines), and relatively stable personality traits that can still change in response to life experiences.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Erikson's generativity vs. stagnation: Middle adults focus on leaving a positive legacy through parenting, work, mentoring, and community involvement; achieving generativity requires care for people, products, and ideas.
• Intelligence shifts: Crystallized intelligence (accumulated knowledge, vocabulary) increases throughout adulthood, while fluid intelligence (speed, new problem-solving) declines starting in the 20s-30s.
• Midlife crisis is rare: Only 23% of middle-aged adults report experiencing a midlife crisis; most experience well-being and satisfaction during ages 40-60.
• Common confusion—cross-sectional vs. longitudinal studies: Cross-sectional research (comparing different age groups at one time) can create false impressions of inevitable decline, while longitudinal studies (following the same people over time) reveal more stability and growth.
• Expertise develops with time: Middle-aged workers demonstrate intuitive, automatic, strategic, and flexible thinking due to accumulated experience, though maintaining expertise requires deliberate practice.

🌱 Erikson's Generativity Stage

🌱 What generativity encompasses

Generativity: encompasses procreativity, productivity, creativity, and legacy—generating new beings, ideas, creations, and lasting contributions, plus self-generation for further identity development.

• This stage lasts from the 40s to 60s, the longest of Erikson's stages.
• Middle adults focus on leaving a positive legacy, primarily through parenthood.
• Also involves mentoring, coaching, community service, and leadership in organizations.
• Don't confuse: Generativity with just having children—it includes work contributions, community involvement, and creating meaningful ideas or products.

💪 The virtue of "care"

• Erikson identified "care" as the virtue emerging from generativity.
• Middle adults should "take care of the persons, the products, and the ideas one has learned to care for."
• Strengths from earlier life stages are essential for cultivating strength in the next generation.
• Generativity works best after resolving identity and intimacy issues.

✅ Benefits of achieving generativity

Research shows generative adults possess many positive characteristics:

Characteristic	Evidence
Personality traits	High conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, openness; low neuroticism
Women at age 52	Higher positive personality, greater marriage/motherhood satisfaction, more successful aging at 62
Men at midlife	Stronger cognitive functioning, better executive functioning, lower depression in late adulthood

⚠️ Stagnation as motivation

• Stagnation occurs when one is not active in generative matters.
• However, stagnation can motivate redirection into more meaningful activities.
• Erikson warned against fully withdrawing from generative tasks when entering late adulthood, as feeling unneeded may result in stagnation.

🧠 Intelligence Changes in Middle Adulthood

🧠 Brain capabilities at midlife

The middle-aged brain maintains and gains abilities:

• Demonstrates continued plasticity and rewiring based on experiences.
• Some individuals show improved cognitive functioning.
• Older adults use more of their brains than younger adults.
• White matter (forming neuron connections) increases into the 50s before declining.
• Emotionally calmer, less neurotic, better at managing emotions and social situations.
• Focus more on positive information, remember positive images better.
• Amygdala responds less to negative stimuli.
• Better financial decisions (peak at age 53) and economic understanding.

🔄 Fluid vs. crystallized intelligence

Fluid intelligence: the capacity to learn new ways of solving problems and performing activities quickly and abstractly.

Crystallized intelligence: the accumulated knowledge of the world we have acquired throughout our lives.

Key differences in developmental pathways:

Intelligence Type	Age Trajectory	Relies On	Example Tasks
Fluid	Declines starting late 20s-early 30s	Perceptual speed, processing speed	New problem-solving, athletic performance, speed tasks
Crystallized	Increases throughout adulthood	Semantic knowledge, vocabulary, language	History, geography, crossword puzzles, experience-based tasks

• Why this matters: Older adults outperform younger people on tasks requiring accumulated knowledge and experience.
• Slower, more complete processing plus sophisticated world understanding gives older adults "wisdom" advantage.
• Example: A young chess player thinks faster, but an experienced player has more knowledge to draw upon.

📊 Seattle Longitudinal Study findings

This study has tracked cognitive abilities since 1956, testing participants every seven years:

Skills that increase until the 70s:

• Verbal memory
• Spatial skills
• Inductive reasoning (generalizing from examples)
• Vocabulary

Skills that decline:

• Perceptual speed (declines starting in early adulthood)
• Numerical computation (declines starting in middle/late adulthood)

Key finding: Middle-aged adults perform better on 4 out of 6 cognitive tasks than they did as young adults.

🛫 Real-world expertise example

Pilot studies demonstrate these patterns:

• Older pilots (40-69) showed declines in processing speed and memory capacity.
• However, overall performance remained intact.
• Older pilots took longer to learn simulators but subsequently performed better at avoiding collisions than younger pilots.

🎓 Tacit knowledge

Tacit knowledge: knowledge that is pragmatic or practical and learned through experience rather than explicitly taught.

• Also called "know-how" or "professional instinct."
• Cannot be codified or written down.
• Involves using skills and problem-solving in practical ways, not academic knowledge.
• Increases with age.
• Underlies steady improvements in job performance across age and experience.
• Example: Seen in both white and blue collar workers—carpenters, chefs, hair dressers.

🎓 Middle adults returning to college

• Students over 35 accounted for 17% of college/graduate students in 2009, expected to reach 19% by 2020.
• Enroll to develop skills for second careers, retool for workplace reentry, or pursue neglected interests.

How older learners differ:

• Mechanics of cognition (working memory, processing speed) gradually decline but are compensated by higher-order cognitive skills.
• Form strategies to enhance memory; summarize and compare ideas rather than rote memorization.
• Take longer to learn material but forget it less quickly.
• Look for relevance and meaning; ask "Why is this important?"
• More task-oriented; want to organize activity around problem-solving or real-world contributions.
• More independent, inquisitive, and intrinsically motivated than younger students.
• Older women process information at deeper levels and express more satisfaction with education.

Plus 50 Initiative:

• American Association of Community Colleges program for those over 50.
• Provides workforce training for new careers (early childhood educators, nursing assistants, substance abuse counselors, etc.).
• Since 2008: grants for 138 community colleges, affecting over 37,000 students.
• Addresses need: 80% of people over 50 say they will retire later or continue working in retirement, including in new fields.

🎨 Creativity in Middle Adulthood

🎨 What creativity is

Creativity (Franken, 2001): "the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems… and entertaining ourselves and others."

Three agreed-upon components:

1. Divergent thinking: the ability to look at things from different perspectives.
2. Unique perspective/originality: some element of originality.
3. Functionality: a creative work serves some function or value.

🔄 The creative process

Four generally agreed-upon steps:

1. Preparation: conscious and effortful practice of studying and gathering information on a creative endeavor.
2. Incubation: largely unconscious process where the mind makes new connections and processes knowledge 'behind the scenes.'
3. Illumination: the 'Aha!' moment—an insight generated from conscious and unconscious processes.
4. Revision: revisiting a creative work before finalizing to ensure it accomplishes original goals.

📈 How creativity changes with age

General pattern:

• Creativity increases into the 30s and middle adulthood as expertise, motivation, and cognition develop.

Field-specific differences:

Field Type	Peak Creativity	Reason
Mathematics-heavy (physics, engineering)	Soon after formal training, very young age	Relies on working memory and processing speed, which decline early
Humanities, social sciences, arts	Later in life	Benefits from accumulated life experience and knowledge

Important note: These are average trajectories; exceptions exist (e.g., Elon Musk in engineering, Jean Piaget in social sciences made contributions at atypical ages).

💼 Work and Careers in Middle Adulthood

💼 Expertise development

Expertise: specialized skills and knowledge that pertain to a particular topic or activity.

Novice: someone who has limited experiences with a particular task.

Everyone develops "selective" expertise in vocational activities or personally meaningful areas (bread-making, quilting, gardening, computer programming, child care).

Four characteristics of expert thought:

1. Intuitive: Experts call upon vast knowledge and past experience; actions appear intuitive rather than formulaic.

   • Example: Novice cooks follow recipes step-by-step; chefs glance at recipes for ideas and follow their own procedure.

2. Automatic: Complex thoughts and actions become routine; reactions appear instinctive because expertise allows faster, more holistic and effective information processing.

3. Strategic: Experts have more effective strategies than non-experts.

   • Example: Skilled doctors generate better hypotheses than novices by discounting misleading symptoms and focusing on likely problems.
   • Example: Experienced students extract and note central ideas rather than writing everything down; develop shorthand for common terms.

4. Flexible: Experts are more curious and creative; enjoy challenges and experiment with new ideas or procedures; grow knowledge by taking on challenging rather than routine tasks.

⏱️ How expertise is gained

• Developing expertise takes time—a long process from repeated experience and protracted practice.
• Middle-aged adults often find they've encountered similar problems before, allowing them to ignore irrelevant details and focus on important aspects.
• This accumulated experience is one reason many reach career peaks in middle adulthood.

Limitations:

• Expertise cannot fully compensate for all losses in general cognitive functioning with age.
• Superior performance of older adults vs. younger novices appears task-specific.
• As we age, we need more deliberate practice to maintain skills.
• The rate of return for effort diminishes with age—increasing practice doesn't produce the same advances in older adults as in younger ones.

😊 Job satisfaction peaks at midlife

Multiple studies show job satisfaction tends to peak in middle adulthood:

Reasons for higher satisfaction:

• Higher wages
• Greater involvement in workplace decisions (moving from worker to supervisor/manager)
• More effective and productive after years of experience
• Many adults lower expectations and goals, realizing they've reached their likely career peak
• Translates to lower absenteeism, greater productivity, less job hopping vs. younger adults

🚧 Workplace challenges for middle-aged adults

Glass ceiling:

• Women may encounter barriers to advancement
• May explain why females at large corporations are twice as likely to quit as men

Burnout (World Health Organization, 2019):

Burnout: unsuccessfully managed workplace stress, consisting of:

• Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion
• Increased mental distance from one's job, or feelings of job negativism or cynicism
• Reduced feelings of professional effectiveness or efficacy

American workers and burnout:

• May experience burnout more often than workers in other developed nations
• Most developed nations guarantee paid vacation days by law; the U.S. does not
• Americans work more hours per year than workers in many other developed nations
• Not all U.S. employees are covered under overtime pay laws
• The 40-hour work week is a myth: only 4 in 10 work typical 40 hours; average is 47 hours; 39% work 50+ hours per week

Economic challenges:

• Middle-aged adults challenged by economic downturns (2001, 2008, 2020)
• During 2008 recession: 55% of adults reported workplace problems (fewer hours, pay cuts, switching to part-time)
• Young adults had highest unemployment, but middle-aged adults saw retirement savings disappear, house values shrink, foreclosures increase
• Age 50-64 reported recession hit them worse than other age groups
• Unemployed middle-aged adults remain unemployed longer than those in early adulthood

Ageism in the workplace:

• Common complaint
• Employers may see hiring young adults as more cost-effective (lower starting pay, many years of work ahead vs. 10 years until retirement)
• Reality contradicts stereotypes: Older workers typically stay on jobs longer (younger workers more geographically mobile and likely to switch jobs); demonstrate lower absenteeism; show greater work investment
• Competition with global markets and technology changes; those who keep up or are willing to relocate have better chances
• Moving may be easier for younger people with fewer obligations

🧩 Personality Development

🧩 Temperament stability from infancy

Temperament: the innate characteristics of the infant, including mood, activity level, and emotional reactivity, noticeable soon after birth.

Research on temperament stability:

• Chess and Thomas (1987): Children identified as "easy" became well-adjusted adults; "difficult" temperament children were not as well-adjusted as adults
• Kagan (2002): Studied "inhibition to the unfamiliar" in young children
  • Inhibited infants reacted strongly to unfamiliar stimuli (cried loudly, pumped limbs, increased heart rate)
  • These highly reactive children showed temperamental stability into early childhood
  • Shyness in infancy linked to social anxiety in adulthood
• Brain research: Young adults identified as strongly inhibited toddlers showed heightened amygdala activation (important for fear/anxiety) compared to uninhibited toddlers

Temperament does show stability, BUT:

• Environment has significant impact
• Environmental factors modify gene expression (epigenesis)
• Cultural and environmental factors affecting temperament: teratogens in utero, harsh parenting, adversity, child abuse, supportive child-rearing, stable homes, illnesses, socioeconomic status
• Individuals choose environments aligning with their temperaments, further strengthening them
• Adults can choose how to express temperaments (e.g., not letting inhibited temperament stop them from adventures)

Summary: Biology (neurophysiology) is the main reason temperament remains stable into adulthood; environment is mainly responsible for changes or modifications in temperament.

🎭 Personality traits

Personality: one's characteristic manner of thinking, feeling, behaving, and relating to others.

• Personality traits: characteristic, routine ways of thinking, feeling, and relating to others
• Personality integrates temperament with cultural and environmental influences
• Signs of traits appear in childhood but become particularly evident in adulthood
• Integral to each person's sense of self (involve what people value, how they think/feel, what they like to do, what they're like most days throughout life)

🌊 The Five-Factor Model (OCEAN)

All personality traits can be organized into five broad dimensions:

Trait	Description	Behavioral Examples
Openness to experience	Appreciation for art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas, imagination, curiosity, variety	Distinctive/unconventional home decorations; books on wide variety of topics; diverse music collection; art on display
Conscientiousness	Tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, aim for achievement	Preference for planned rather than spontaneous behavior
Extraversion	Tendency to experience positive emotions, seek stimulation and company of others	Enjoy being with people; in groups like to talk, assert themselves, draw attention
Agreeableness	Compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious/antagonistic; concern for social harmony	Considerate, friendly, generous, helpful, willing to compromise interests with others
Neuroticism	Tendency to experience negative emotions (anger, anxiety, depression); "emotional instability"	Interpret ordinary situations as threatening, minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult; trouble thinking clearly, making decisions, coping with stress

🔄 Does personality change in adulthood?

Previous answer: No

Contemporary research shows: Although some people's personalities are relatively stable, others are not.

Longitudinal studies reveal:

• Average changes during adulthood in some trait expression:
  • Neuroticism and openness decrease with age
  • Conscientiousness increases with age
• Individual differences in patterns due to idiosyncratic life events (divorce, illness)
• Adult personality traits predict important life outcomes: job success, health, longevity

💪 Conscientiousness and positive outcomes

Research documents correlations between conscientiousness and many positive health outcomes:

• Lower blood pressure
• Lower rates of diabetes and stroke
• Fewer joint problems
• Less likely to engage in harmful behaviors
• More likely to stick to healthy behaviors and avoid stressful situations
• Positively related to career choices, friendships, marriage stability
• Possessing self-control and organizational skills (related to conscientiousness) may help withstand aging effects and maintain stronger cognitive skills

🚫 Debunking the Midlife Crisis Myth

🚫 Levinson's midlife crisis theory

Daniel Levinson's 1978 book The Seasons of a Man's Life:

• Based on in-depth interviews with 40 men ages 35-45
• Proposed adults go through stages with an image of the future ("the dream") that motivates them
• For interviewed men, the dream was about career path progress and where they'd be at midlife

Midlife transition (40-45) described as:

• Time of reevaluating previous commitments
• Making dramatic changes if necessary
• Expressing previously ignored talents/aspirations
• Feeling urgency about life and its meaning
• By middle adulthood (45-50), generally committed to new choices and channeled energies into these commitments

Midlife crisis: Levinson believed this was a normal part of development as people become more aware of how much time has passed and how much is left.

• Future focus of early adulthood gives way to emphasis on present in midlife
• Men interviewed had difficulty reconciling their "dream" with current reality
• Felt impatient and unwilling to postpone things they'd always wanted to do

❌ Criticisms of Levinson's research

Methodological problems:

• Focus on men only
• Small sample size
• Narrow age range
• Concerns about cohort effect
• Other research does NOT support midlife crisis theory

✅ What research actually shows

Vaillant's critique (2012):

• Believed Levinson's cross-sectional design led to erroneous conclusion of inevitable midlife crisis
• Argued longitudinal study of individual's entire life needed to determine factors associated with optimum health and potential
• Main researcher in 75-year Harvard Study of Adult Development
• Considered midlife crisis a rare occurrence among participants

MacArthur Foundation Research Network (2007):

• 10-year longitudinal study
• Telephone interviews with over 3,000 midlife adults
• Years between 40 and 60 typically marked by sense of well-being
• Only 23% reported experiencing a midlife crisis
• Crisis tended to occur among highly educated men
• Typically triggered by major life event rather than fear of aging

Conclusion: Most research suggests the majority of people in the United States today do NOT experience a midlife crisis.

⏰ How time perception changes

• People in early 20s emphasize how old they are (to gain respect, be viewed as experienced)
• By 40s, people emphasize how young they are
• Example: Few 40-year-olds say "You're only 43? I'm 48!"
• Previous focus on future gives way to emphasis on present
• Neugarten (1968): In midlife, people no longer think of lives in terms of how long they've lived; rather, in terms of how many years are left

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Late adulthood (age 65+) is the longest and fastest-growing developmental stage, characterized by diverse physical, cognitive, and psychosocial changes that vary widely among individuals, with successful aging depending on factors including health behaviors, social engagement, and adaptive strategies rather than inevitable decline.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Demographic shift: The "graying of America" means by 2050 almost 1 in 4 Americans will be over 65, with similar trends worldwide creating major societal impacts.
• Sub-periods matter: Late adulthood spans 60+ years and includes young-old (60-74), old-old (75-84), oldest-old (85-99), and centenarians (100+), each with distinct characteristics.
• Psychosocial task: Erikson's integrity vs. despair involves accepting one's life and approaching death with dignity, potentially leading to gerotranscendence.
• Cognitive changes are selective: Processing speed and some memory types decline, but wisdom, expertise, and semantic knowledge can be maintained or improved; losses are often exaggerated by stereotypes.
• Common confusion: Not all older adults experience the same trajectory—health, education, lifestyle, and engagement strongly influence outcomes, and many remain active and productive.

📊 Demographics and age structure

🌍 The graying phenomenon globally

Graying of America: the increasingly aged population resulting from baby boomers (born 1946-1964) reaching 65+, with approximately 10,000 turning 65 daily.

• Currently 1 in 7 Americans is 65+; by 2050 this will be almost 1 in 4.
• Life expectancy has increased: someone turning 65 in 2015 can expect to live another 19 years (5.5 years longer than in 1950).
• Worldwide, 524 million people are over 65 (8% of global population), expected to reach 16% by 2050.
• Less developed countries will see a 250% increase in older populations between 2010-2050, compared to 71% in developed countries.
• Fertility declines (below replacement rate of 2 children per woman in many countries) combined with longevity improvements drive these changes.

🔢 Four sub-periods of late adulthood

Age period	Age range	Key characteristics
Young-old	60-74	"Golden years"; relatively good health, social engagement, strong cognitive performance; more similar to midlife; highest well-being and happiness
Old-old	75-84	Often living independently but chronic diseases increase (heart failure 10× more common); hypertension and cancer rates rise
Oldest-old	85-99	Fastest-growing group; more serious chronic ailments; 50% need assistance with daily activities; higher hospitalization and mortality rates
Centenarians	100+	Nearly 500,000 worldwide; many delay serious disease until 90s; 25% reach 100 with no serious chronic illness; experience rapid terminal decline

Don't confuse: These categories reflect typical patterns, not rigid boundaries—individual variation is enormous based on genetics, lifestyle, and access to healthcare.

👥 Caregiving implications

• By 2040, the ratio of oldest-old needing care to middle-aged potential caregivers (ages 50-64) will more than double from 2000 levels.
• In 2000: about 10 people aged 85+ for every 100 people aged 50-64.
• Families will need external physical, emotional, and financial support.

🧠 Psychosocial development

🎯 Erikson's integrity vs. despair

Integrity vs. despair: the developmental task of late adulthood involving either self-acceptance and contentment with life and approaching death (integrity) or lack of fulfillment and inability to come to terms with aging and death (despair).

What it means:

• This task asks whether you have built a life and self sufficient to withstand physical disintegration, loss of loved ones, and your own impending death with dignity and grace.
• Integrity = sense of self-acceptance, contentment with life and imminent death.
• Despair = lack of fulfillment or peace, inability to accept life, aging, and approaching death.
• The goal is to transcend geographical, societal, and temporal limitations by connecting with universal humanity.

🔄 The ninth stage (Joan Erikson)

After Erik Erikson's death, Joan Erikson proposed that in their 80s and 90s, older adults revisit all eight previous stages but now the dystonic (less desirable) outcomes take precedence again:

• Trust vs. mistrust → may become more mistrustful
• Initiative vs. guilt → feel more guilt about lost abilities
• Industry vs. inferiority → feel less competent
• Identity vs. role confusion → lose sense of identity as they become dependent
• Intimacy vs. isolation → become increasingly isolated
• Generativity vs. stagnation → feel they have less to offer society

Gerotranscendence: greater awareness of one's own life and connection to the universe, increased ties to the past, and a positive, transcendent perspective about life.

Successfully navigating these challenges can lead to gerotranscendence—a cosmic perspective that brings peace.

🎭 Theories of successful aging

🏃 Activity theory (Havighurst & Albrecht, 1953)

Activity theory: the more active older adults remain physically and socially, the more stable and positive their self-concept, leading to greater life satisfaction and higher morale.

• Recommends involvement in voluntary organizations, leisure activities, child care, and social interaction.
• Avoiding sedentary lifestyle is essential to health and happiness.
• Older adults who remain active can replace lost opportunities with new ones.

🔗 Continuity theory

Continuity theory: as people age, they continue to view the self in much the same way as when younger; they are the same individuals in older bodies.

• Approach to problems, goals, and situations remains similar.
• Older adults maintain identity even as they give up previous roles.
• Example: A retired Coast Guard commander attends reunions, stays interested in technology, remains meticulous—maintaining sense of self through continuity.
• Focusing on what a person can still do helps optimize and maintain self-identity.

💝 Socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen)

Socioemotional selectivity theory: with increasing age, motivational goals change based on perceived time left to live; older adults prioritize emotionally meaningful relationships over information-gathering.

How it works:

• Younger people seek diverse social relationships to acquire information.
• Older adults actively restrict social life to prioritize time with emotionally close significant others.
• This optimizes positive affect.
• Research support: older marriages show enhanced positive and reduced negative interactions; older adults have smaller but more meaningful networks.

Two types of prospective memory:

• Time-based: remembering to do something at a future time (more age-related decline)
• Event-based: remembering when a certain event occurs (less decline)
• In real-world settings (vs. labs), older adults often perform comparably or better because they use compensatory aids and are more selective about what matters.

⚙️ Selective optimization with compensation

Selective optimization with compensation: a strategy for successful aging where seniors select and optimize their best abilities and most intact functions while compensating for declines and losses.

Examples:

• Person who can no longer drive finds alternative transportation.
• Person with less energy reorganizes daily routine to avoid over-exertion.
• Focus shifts from treating illnesses to helping patients remain independent by optimizing best functions.

🎯 Developmental self-regulation theory (dual-process model)

Two complementary processes:

Process	Definition	Example
Primary control	Strength and courage to change what can be changed; taking action to optimize functioning	Healthy diet, exercise, medical treatments, adopting aids like cane or walker
Accommodation	Grace to accept what cannot be changed; willing acceptance with understanding and gratitude	Relinquishing activities/goals no longer feasible; focusing on positives that remain

Don't confuse: Depression in old age often results not from losses themselves, but from inability to accommodate (accept) what cannot be changed—furious resentment or depressed resignation rather than willing acceptance.

🌟 Continued generativity and productivity

💼 Work and retirement

• 16% of adults over 65 were in the labor force in 2008; globally 6.2% (expected to reach 10.1 million by 2016).
• Mandatory retirement is now illegal in the U.S.; most leave by choice around age 65.
• Factors influencing retirement timing: health status, finances, work satisfaction.
• Those who leave by choice adjust more easily; abrupt departures (health, layoffs) are harder.
• Men may find unexpected retirement especially difficult.
• Women may feel less identity loss (more identity from family roles) but face poorer retirement funds and risk of outliving savings.
• Older workers rarely perform more poorly on the job; they develop efficient strategies and rely on expertise to compensate for cognitive declines.

🤝 Volunteering

• About 40% engage in structured, face-to-face volunteer work.
• About 60% engage in informal volunteerism (helping neighbors/friends).
• Those who work part-time are more likely to volunteer in organizations.
• Virtual volunteerism has grown dramatically (3,000 participants in 1998 to over 40,000 in 2005).
• Virtual options open possibilities for those unable to engage face-to-face.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Relationships with adult children

• Many older adults provide financial assistance and/or housing to adult children.
• Currently more support flows from older parent to younger adult children than the reverse.
• Many elders are raising grandchildren.
• Emotional support is key: Adult children providing emotional support (tenderness, cheering up) correlates with greater parental life satisfaction.
• Informational support backfires: Adult children providing advice correlates with less parental life satisfaction—older adults want emotional meaning, not being told what to do.
• Daughters and younger adult children provide more support than sons and older adult children.
• More autonomous (vs. emotionally dependent) adult children have more emotionally meaningful relationships with parents.

👫 Friendships

• Most elderly have at least one close friend.
• Friends provide emotional and physical support.
• Having a friend as confidante protects women's health from widowhood impact (lower depressive symptoms, better self-rated health, fewer sick days).
• In contrast, having a family member as confidante did not provide the same health protection.

📚 Education and other activities

• 20% of people over 65 have a bachelor's or higher degree.
• Over 7 million people over 65 take adult education courses.
• Programs include academic courses and practical skills (computers, languages, budgeting, holistic medicine).
• Higher education levels correlate with more continuing education participation.

Other productive activities:

• Religious activities increase with age (provide social network and belief system).
• Political activism: over 70% of people 65+ vote in presidential elections; engage in letter-writing on domestic and foreign issues.

😔 Loneliness vs. solitude

Loneliness: the discrepancy between the social contact a person has and the contacts a person wants.

Solitude: gaining self-awareness, taking care of self, being comfortable alone, and pursuing one's interests.

Key distinction: Being alone ≠ loneliness. Loneliness is perceived social isolation.

Health impacts of loneliness:

• 40% increase in risk for dementia
• 30% increase in risk of stroke or coronary heart disease
• Hypothesized causes: biological (stress hormones), psychological (depression/anxiety), social (lack of encouragement for healthy behaviors)

Protective factors:

• Social clubs and church groups lower risk of death.
• Mixed-age housing and feeling productive decrease social isolation.

💑 Late adult lifestyles and relationships

💍 Marriage and partnership patterns

• Marriage is the most common living arrangement for older adults (more common for men than women due to life expectancy differences).
• Older adults divorce at higher rates than prior generations, though still less than younger adults.
• Divorce poses challenges especially for women (financial difficulties, more likely to remain single).
• Adult children offer more support to divorced mothers than fathers.

💕 Dating in late adulthood

• 18 months after spouse's death: 37% of men and 15% of women interested in dating.
• Older adults increasingly use technologies (email, chat rooms, online dating sites).
• Gender patterns persist: Men seek physical attractiveness and offer status; women seek resources.
• Age preferences shift: Men increasingly desire younger women; women desire older men until 75+, then seek younger.
• Older men more eager to repartner than older women.
• Women's concerns: not wanting to lose autonomy, become caregiver, or merge finances.

Sexual health concerns:

• Nearly 25% of people living with HIV/AIDS in U.S. are 50+.
• Only 25% of adults 50+ who were single or had new partner used condom last time.
• 40% of those 50+ have never been tested for HIV.
• Education on healthy sexual behavior important for all ages, not just adolescents.

🏠 Remarriage and cohabitation

• Remarriages in late adulthood are more stable than in younger adults (greater emotional maturity, more realistic expectations).
• Older adults often seek companionship without marriage.
• Cohabitation increasing among older adults; associated with more positive consequences than in younger age groups.
• 2% of adults 65+ were cohabitating in 2014.

🏘️ Living apart together (LAT)

Living apart together (LAT): a monogamous intimate partnership between unmarried individuals who live in separate homes but identify themselves as a committed couple.

Motivations:

• Strong desire for independence in day-to-day decisions
• Maintaining own home
• Keeping boundaries around established relationships
• Maintaining financial stability
• Need for companionship, sexual intimacy, emotional support

Age differences in LAT:

• Younger adults: often circumstantial (job market), viewed as transitional
• Older adults: 80% do not wish to cohabitate or marry; conscious choice for independence
• Older women use LAT to avoid traditional gender roles inherent in cohabitation
• Some older adults choose LAT to avoid social disapproval of living together

🏳️‍🌈 Gay and lesbian elders

• Approximately 3 million older adults in U.S. identify as lesbian or gay; expected to rise to 7+ million by 2025.
• One of the least researched demographic groups.

Health disparities:

• 83% of women worldwide identify with religion vs. 80% of men (97 million more women).
• Over 40% suffer from at least one chronic illness or disability.
• More likely to smoke and binge drink than heterosexuals.
• Gay men: increased risk of prostate cancer, HIV, and STIs.
• Twice as likely to live alone; four times less likely to have adult children.

Additional stressors for minorities:

• Ageism, heterocentrism, sexism, and racism combine cumulatively.
• Older gay Black men report higher rates of racism than younger gay Black men and higher ageism than older gay white men.

Resilience factors:

• Over 80% engage in wellness or spiritual activities.
• Gather social support from friends and "family members by choice" rather than legal/biological relatives.
• Broader social network provides extra support.

Cohort considerations:

• Oldest lesbian/gay adults came of age in 1950s with no legal protections.
• Baby boomers (1960s-70s) saw states repeal laws criminalizing homosexual behavior.
• Future elders will have different experiences due to same-sex marriage rights and greater acceptance.

Elder care concerns:

• By 2030, 7 million LGBT people over 50 will reside in U.S.; 4.7 million will need elder care.
• Many are estranged from families and don't have children, creating vulnerability.
• History of discriminatory housing policies and stigma make them especially vulnerable.

🧬 Physical changes in late adulthood

🫀 Major organ system changes (Baltimore Longitudinal Study findings)

• Aging varies significantly by individual and organ system.
• Heart muscles thicken with age.
• Arteries become less flexible.
• Lung capacity diminishes.
• Kidneys become less efficient at removing waste.
• Bladder loses ability to store urine.
• Brain cells lose some functioning, but new neurons can also be produced.
• Changes determined by genetics, lifestyle, and disease.

🦴 Body composition changes

• After age 30, people lose lean tissue; cells of muscles, liver, kidney, and other organs are lost.
• Bones lose minerals and become less dense (osteopenia → osteoporosis).
• Body fat increases steadily after age 30; older individuals may have almost 1/3 more fat than when younger.
• Fat tissue builds up toward center of body, including around internal organs.

Sarcopenia: the loss of muscle tissue as a natural part of aging.

• Most noticeable in men.
• Physically inactive people can lose 3-5% of muscle mass each decade after age 30.
• Even active people lose muscle.
• Typically increases around age 75, but may speed up as early as 65 or as late as 80.
• Causes: reduction in nerve cells signaling muscles, decreased ability to turn protein into energy, insufficient calories/protein.
• Consequences: lessens strength and mobility; factor in frailty, falls, and fractures.
• Prevention: weight-lifting, walking, swimming, cardiovascular exercise.

📏 Height and weight changes

• Height loss occurs in all races and both sexes.
• Total of 1-3 inches lost with aging; almost 0.5 inch every 10 years after age 40 (faster after 70).
• Men: often gain weight until about age 55, then lose weight (possibly related to testosterone drop).
• Women: usually gain weight until age 65, then lose weight.
• Weight loss partly because fat replaces lean muscle (fat weighs less than muscle).

🧴 Skin, hair, and nails

• Skin loses fat, becomes thinner, less elastic.
• Veins and bones more visible; scratches/cuts/bumps take longer to heal.
• Years of sun exposure may lead to wrinkles, dryness, cancer.
• Bruise more easily; bruises take longer to heal.
• Age spots (flat, brown spots from sun exposure) are harmless.
• Skin tags (small flesh-colored growths) become common, especially in women; harmless.
• Hair loss and graying continue; rate of hair growth slows.
• Body and face lose hair; facial hair may grow coarser (women: chin and upper lip; men: eyebrows, ears, nose).
• Nails (especially toenails) become hard and thick; lengthwise ridges develop.

👁️ Sensory changes

👀 Vision problems

Three serious eye diseases more common in older adults:

🌫️ Cataracts

Cataracts: a clouding of the lens of the eye.

• Lens protein starts to clump together, reducing clarity.
• Some cloudiness may begin in middle adulthood but usually doesn't interfere with vision.
• More problems after age 60; by age 75, 70% have problems.
• Lens discoloration (yellow → brown) interferes with distinguishing black, brown, dark blue, dark purple.
• Risk factors: age, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, smoking, prolonged UV exposure, eye trauma, long-term steroid use, family history.
• Treatment: removing and replacing lens with synthetic lens (easy in developed countries).
• Leading cause of blindness in least developed countries due to limited access to surgery.

🎯 Macular degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration: loss of clarity in center field of vision due to deterioration of the macula (center of retina).

Two types:

• Dry type (most common): fatty protein (drusen) forms beneath retina; macula becomes thinner and stops working properly.

• Wet type (10% of cases): abnormal blood vessels develop beneath retina; may leak fluid/blood causing more rapid vision loss.

• Does not usually cause total vision loss, but loss of central field greatly impairs day-to-day functioning.

• Risk factors: smoking (doubles risk), Caucasian race, high cholesterol, family history, certain genes (but no simple genetic test).

• Treatment: No effective treatment for dry type; some patients may benefit from antioxidant vitamins/minerals (mixed results, not a cure). For wet type: medications to slow abnormal blood vessel growth, laser surgery (only 25% see improvement).

🌀 Glaucoma

Glaucoma: loss of peripheral vision, frequently due to fluid buildup in eye that damages the optic nerve.

• Pressure in eye increases, damaging optic nerve.
• Exterior of optic nerve receives input from peripheral retinal cells; as glaucoma progresses, peripheral visual field deteriorates toward central field.
• Advanced stages can cause total blindness.
• Tends to progress slowly.
• Most common cause of blindness in U.S.
• Risk factors: African Americans over 40, everyone over 60, diabetes, family history.
• Treatment: No cure, but progression can be slowed with early diagnosis. Routine eye exams measure pressure and examine optic nerve. Medicated eye drops reduce pressure.

👂 Hearing changes

• Almost 1 in 4 adults aged 65-74 and 1 in 2 aged 75+ have disabling hearing loss.

Presbycusis: a common form of hearing loss in late adulthood that results in gradual loss of hearing; runs in families and affects both ears.

Tinnitus: a ringing, hissing, or roaring sound in the ears.

• Exact cause unknown, but may relate to hypertension and allergies.
• May come and go or persist and worsen.
• Both presbycusis and tinnitus increase with age; males have higher rates worldwide.

Balance issues:

• Auditory system helps both hearing and balance.
• Balance controlled by brain receiving information from shifting hair cells in inner ear about body position/orientation.
• With age, inner ear functionality declines, leading to balance problems when sitting, standing, or moving.

👃 Taste and smell

Chemical sensing system: our senses of taste (gustation) and smell (olfaction).

Taste:

• Taste occurs when molecules released by chewing stimulate taste buds (tongue, roof of mouth, throat lining).
• After age 50, start to lose some sensory cells.
• Most people don't notice changes until 60s.
• Loss of taste buds is very gradual; most "taste" loss is actually smell loss.

Smell:

• Decreases with age; more common in men (1 in 4 males in 60s vs. 1 in 10 women).

Presbyosmia: loss of smell due to aging.

• Olfactory cells located high in nasal cavity.
• Stimulated two ways: inhaling through nose, or via nose-throat connection when chewing/digesting.
• Problems with second pathway explain why chocolate or coffee seem tasteless with head cold.

Types of smell disorders:

Disorder	Description
Presbyosmia	Smell loss due to aging
Hyposmia	Loss of only certain odors
Anosmia	Total loss of smell (extremely rare)
Dysosmia	Change in perception of odors; familiar odors distorted
Phantosmia	Smell odors that are not present

Health implications:

• Problems with chemical senses can link to serious conditions (Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis).
• Sudden changes should be checked.
• Loss of smell can change diet: either loss of enjoyment (eating too little) or adding sugar/salt to bland foods.

✋ Touch

• With age, may experience reduced or changed sensations of vibration, cold, heat, pressure, pain.
• Many changes consistent with medical conditions more common in elderly (e.g., diabetes).
• Ability to detect pressure changes declines with age (more pronounced in 6th decade, diminishing further with advanced age).
• Considerable variability: almost 40% of elderly show sensitivity comparable to younger adults.
• Ability to detect roughness/smoothness or hardness/softness shows no appreciable change.
• Those with decreasing sensitivity at risk for injury (can injure themselves without detecting it).

😣 Pain

• 60-75% of people over 65 report at least some chronic pain (even higher in nursing homes).
• Older adults are less sensitive to pain than younger adults.
• Age-related decreases in brain volume in structures involved in pain (prefrontal cortex, brainstem, hippocampus).
• Women more likely to report pain than men (fewer opioid receptors, less relief from opiate drugs).
• Decreased sensitivity is a concern because pain indicates something is wrong.
• Common causes: arthritis, cancer, diabetes, joint pain, sciatica, shingles.
• Breakthrough pain: severe pain that comes on quickly while already medicated; very upsetting.
• Some worry about addiction, but if medicine taken as prescribed, addiction should not be a concern.
• Side effects: constipation, dry mouth, drowsiness.
• Unmanaged chronic pain leads to restricted movement, fear of pain/injury, decreased participation, greater disability, weight gain, obesity, sleep disorders, mood disorders (depression).
• Working with primary physician or pain specialist is recommended.

♿ Disability rates

• 35% of those 65+ have a disability.
• Types vary (ambulatory, cognitive, hearing, vision, self-care, independent living difficulties).

🧠 Brain and cognitive functioning

🧬 Brain changes with aging

• Brain loses 5-10% of weight between ages 20 and 90.
• Decrease due to: shrinkage of neurons, decreased synapses, shorter axon lengths.
• Normal cognitive declines associated with: reduced activity of genes involved in memory storage, synaptic pruning, plasticity, and neurotransmitter receptors.
• Loss in white matter connections between brain areas (without myelin, neurons show slower conduction).
• Synapse loss in specific areas: hippocampus (memory) and basal forebrain.
• Older individuals activate larger regions of attentional and executive networks (parietal and prefrontal cortex) when performing complex tasks.
• Increased activation coincides with reduced performance on executive tasks and working memory tests.

🌱 Continued neurogenesis

• New neurons continue to form into old age.
• Evidence of neurogenesis in hippocampus found in individuals ages 79-99 (average 90.6).
• Approximately 2,000 neural progenitor cells and 150,000 developing neurons found per brain.
• Lower levels of developing neurons in people with cognitive impairments or Alzheimer's.
• Lower neurogenesis associated with symptoms of cognitive decline and reduced synaptic plasticity.

🏗️ Brain plasticity and scaffolding

Scaffolding Theory of Aging and Cognition: the brain adapts to neural atrophy by building alternative connections (scaffolding), allowing older brains to retain high levels of performance.

• Brain exhibits considerable plasticity; through practice and training can be modified to compensate for age-related changes.
• Brain compensation especially noted in additional neural effort by those aging well.
• Example: older adults performing as well as younger adults on memory task used both prefrontal areas, while younger participants used only right prefrontal cortex.
• Decrease in brain lateralization assists older adults with cognitive skills.

🏃‍♀️ Promoting healthy brain functioning

• Physical activity (especially aerobic exercise): associated with less age-related gray and white matter loss, diminished neurotoxins, preserved neuron integrity and brain volume.
• Cognitive training: improves prefrontal cortex efficiency and executive functions (working memory), strengthens plasticity of neural circuits.
• Both activities support cognitive reserve: "the structural and dynamic capacities of the brain that buffer against atrophies and lesions."
• Never too late to start these programs to improve cognitive health.

🧪 Brain training programs

• ACTIVE study (Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly): 2,802 individuals age 65-94 received 10 group training sessions + 4 follow-ups on memory, reasoning, speed of processing.
• Mental workouts improved cognitive functioning even 5 years later.
• Participants believed improvement seen in everyday tasks.
• Limitation: Improvement on specific tasks trained, but no generalization to other abilities.
• Programs have not been shown to delay or slow Alzheimer's progression.
• Most effective for brain training: physical exercise, learning new skills, and socializing (appear to build reserve to minimize primary aging effects).

🧠 Memory and information processing

💭 Working memory changes

Three major systems of working memory:

• Phonological loop: maintains information about auditory stimuli
• Visuospatial sketchpad: maintains information about visual stimuli
• Central executive: oversees working memory, allocating resources and monitoring cognitive strategies

Age-related changes:

• Central executive shows most marked declines.
• In tasks requiring attention allocation between different stimuli, older adults fare worse.
• Older adults unable to learn and perform two tasks simultaneously without loss in speed/efficiency (though young adults can with practice).
• When learning each task individually, older adults perform as well as young adults.
• Learning and performing both tasks together too taxing for central executive.
• In tasks not requiring much central executive input (e.g., digit span test using phonological loop), older adults perform on par with young adults.

📚 Long-term memory changes

Types of long-term memory:

• Semantic memory: knowledge of facts
• Episodic memory: memories of specific events
• Implicit memory: stored procedural skills, classical conditioning, priming

Explicit memory system: requires conscious effort to create and retrieve (includes semantic and episodic).

Key findings:

• Episodic memory shows greater age-related declines than semantic memory.
• Episodic memories harder to encode/retrieve because they contain at least two types: (1) the event and (2) when/where it took place.
• Semantic memories not tied to particular geography or timeline; only knowledge needs encoding/retrieval.
• Retrieval of semantic information considerably faster for both age groups than episodic information.
• Little difference between age groups for semantic memory retrieval.
• Older adults' poorer episodic memory performance related to slower processing and task difficulty.
• As tasks become more difficult, gap between age groups widens more for episodic than semantic tasks.

📖 Semantic memory advantages

• Studies of general knowledge (politics, history) or vocabulary often find older adults outperform younger adults.
• However, older adults experience more tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) events—memory blocks especially common for "nonsense words" (names of people, places, things like movies, restaurants, books).

🤖 Implicit memory

Implicit memory: requires little conscious effort and often involves skills or habitual patterns of behavior.

• Shows few declines with age.
• Many studies measure effects of priming.

Priming: changes in behavior as a result of frequent or recent experiences.

• Example: Shown pictures of food, then asked to complete s_ _p → more likely to write "soup" than "soap" or "ship."
• This type of memory and learning typically does not change with age for most older adults.

📅 Prospective memory

Prospective memory: remembering things we need to do in the future (e.g., doctor's appointment, taking medication before bedtime).

• Described as "flip-side of episodic memory" (episodic = recall of past events; prospective = events in future).
• Humans fairly good at prospective memory with little else to do in meantime.
• Rapidly declines when competing tasks demand attention.
• Draws on central executive of working memory; when central executive absorbed in other tasks, prospective memory more likely to fail.

Two types:

• Time-based prospective memories: remembering to do something at a future time (more age-related decline)
• Event-based prospective memories: remembering to do something when a certain event occurs (less decline)

Real-world vs. lab:

• Age-related declines more likely in time-based tasks and laboratory settings.
• In real world, older adults show comparable or slightly better performance.
• Not surprising given older adults' tendency to be more selective about where they place energy.
• Real-world offers more compensatory aids (post-it notes, calendars, phone alarms).

🔍 Recall vs. recognition

• Memory performance depends on whether older adults must recognize or recall material.
• Recognition tasks easier for all humans (require less cognitive energy).
• Older adults show roughly equivalent memory to young adults on recognition tasks.
• In recall tasks, older adults show memory deficits compared to younger adults.
• Effect initially not large, but starting at age 40, adults show regular age-graded declines in recall memory.

💪 The age advantage

• Fewer age differences when memory cues available (recognition tasks) or when individuals can draw upon acquired knowledge/experience.
• Older adults often perform as well or better on word knowledge/vocabulary tests.
• Expertise often comes with age:
  • Older typists compensate for speed declines by looking farther ahead at printed text.
  • Older chess experts focus on smaller set of possible moves (greater cognitive efficiency).
  • Accrued knowledge of everyday tasks (grocery prices) helps older adults make better decisions than young adults.

🎯 Attention and problem solving

👀 Attention changes

• Changes in sensory functioning and processing speed translate into attention changes.
• Older adults less able to selectively focus on information while ignoring distractors (though with double time, can perform at same level as young adults).
• Greater difficulty shifting attention between objects or locations.

Everyday implications:

• Driving: Although older adults have more experience, cognitive declines in reaction time/attention may pose limitations under certain circumstances.
• Interpersonal problem solving: Older adults use more effective strategies than younger adults for social and emotional problems.
• Work: Researchers rarely find older individuals perform more poorly on the job; develop efficient strategies and rely on expertise to compensate.

🧩 Problem-solving changes

• Declines on tasks requiring processing non-meaningful information quickly (laboratory tasks).
• Many real-life challenges don't rely on speed or making choices alone.
• Older adults resolve everyday problems by relying on input from others (family, friends).
• Less likely than younger adults to delay decisions on important matters (medical care).

🐌 Processing speed theory (Salthouse)

Processing speed theory: as the nervous system slows with advanced age, our ability to process information declines.

• Slowing may explain age differences on variety of cognitive tasks.
• Working memory becomes less efficient.
• Older adults need longer time to complete mental tasks or make decisions.
• Key finding: When given sufficient time (to compensate for speed declines), older adults perform as competently as young adults.
• When speed is not imperative, healthy older adults generally do not show cognitive declines.

🚫 Inhibition theory (Hasher & Zacks)

Inhibition theory: older adults have difficulty with tasks requiring inhibitory functioning—the ability to focus on certain information while suppressing attention to less pertinent information.

Evidence from directed forgetting:

Directed forgetting: people asked to forget or ignore some information but not other information.

• Example: Memorize list of words, then told researcher made mistake and to "forget" this list; given second list to memorize.
• Most people do well at forgetting first list.
• Older adults more likely to recall more words from "directed-to-forget" list than younger adults.

🧠 Intelligence and wisdom

📊 Traditional intelligence patterns

• Verbal skills: show minimal or no age-related declines on traditional intelligence tests.
• Performance tests (solving problems quickly): decline with age.
• This profile mirrors crystallized and fluid intelligence.

Four types of intelligence:

Type	Description	Age trajectory
Crystallized intelligence	Abilities drawing upon experience and knowledge (vocabulary, solving number problems, understanding texts)	Maintained or increased
Fluid intelligence	Information processing abilities (logical reasoning, remembering lists, spatial ability, reaction time)	Declines
Pragmatics of intelligence (Baltes)	Cultural exposure to facts and procedures maintained with age	Little decline, typically increase
Mechanics of intelligence (Baltes)	Dependent on brain functioning	Decline steadily, starting relatively young

Key insight: Pragmatics of intelligence may compensate for declines in mechanics of intelligence. Global cognitive declines are not typical; individuals typically compensate for some cognitive declines, especially processing speed.

🦉 Wisdom

Wisdom: "expert knowledge in the fundamental pragmatics of life that permits exceptional insight, judgment and advice about complex and uncertain matters."

• A wise person is insightful and has knowledge to overcome obstacles in living.
• Does aging bring wisdom? Living longer brings experience, but not always wisdom.
• Wisdom is rare (Baltes).
• Emergence of wisdom can be seen in late adolescence and young adulthood.
• Few gains in wisdom over the course of adulthood.
• Factors other than age are stronger determinants:
  • Occupations and experiences emphasizing others rather than self
  • Personality characteristics: openness to experience, generativity
• Age combined with certain types of experience and/or personality brings wisdom.

🙏 Religion and spirituality

📿 Definitions and distinctions

Religiosity: engaging with a formal religious group's doctrines, values, traditions, and co-members.

Spirituality: an individual's intrapsychic sense of connection with something transcendent (that which exists apart from and not limited by the material universe) and subsequent feelings of awe, gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness.

Research findings:

• Strong relationship between spirituality and psychological well-being, irrespective of religious participation.
• Spirituality related to higher quality of life for individuals and societies.
• Higher spirituality associated with: lower negative affect, higher positive affect, personal growth, purpose in life, positive relationships, self-acceptance, environmental mastery, autonomy.
• Formal religious participation associated with: lower autonomy but (among older adults) higher purpose in life and personal growth.
• Formal religious participation and spirituality relate differently to overall psychological well-being.

👴 Age differences

• Older individuals identify religion/spirituality as more important than those younger.
• Explanations:
  • Religion/spirituality provide opportunities for socialization and social support in later life.
  • Assist in coping with age-related losses.
  • May reflect cohort differences (older individuals socialized to be more religious/spiritual).

👩 Gender differences in the U.S.

• Women report identifying as more religious and spiritual than men.
• Women more likely to say religion is very important (60% vs. 47% for men).
• Women more likely to pray daily (64% vs. 47%).
• Women more likely to attend religious services weekly (40% vs. 32%).

Theories for gender differences:

• Women may benefit more from social-relational aspects (social relationships more strongly influence women's mental health).
• Women socialized more to internalize behaviors linked with religious values (cooperation, nurturance).

🌍 Worldwide patterns

• 83% of women worldwide identify with religion vs. 80% of men (97 million more women).
• No countries where men more religious than women by 2+ percentage points.
• Among Christians: women report higher rates of weekly church attendance and daily prayer.
• Among Muslims: similar religiosity levels except worship service attendance (religious norms mean men attend mosque more often).
• Among Jews: men attend synagogue more often (Orthodox Judaism requires minyan of 10 Jewish men for communal worship).
• Only in Israel (22% Orthodox Jews) did higher percentage of men report daily prayer than women.

🎓 Exaggeration of cognitive losses

🔬 Why research may overestimate decline

1. Meaningless tasks: Older individuals not motivated to remember random lists in studies, but motivated for meaningful material related to their life (perform better on those tests).
2. Cross-sectional vs. longitudinal: Researchers often estimate age declines from cross-sectional studies; when conducted longitudinally (removing cohort differences), extent of loss is much smaller.
3. Disuse of skills: Losses may be due to disuse; when given structured practice opportunities, older adults perform as well as previously.
4. Speed effects: Diminished speed especially noteworthy in late adulthood; when effects of speed statistically removed, fewer and smaller declines found in other cognitive aspects. Processing speed accounted for all but 1% of age-related differences in working memory (ages 18-82).
5. Sensory functioning: Hearing and vision decline with age; deficits in sensory functioning explain age differences in variety of cognitive abilities.
6. Socioeconomic factors: More years of education, higher income, and better healthcare (which go together) associated with higher cognitive performance and slower cognitive decline.

🧠 Post-formal thought

Beyond Piaget's formal operations:

• Formal operational thought (abstract thinking) emerges in adolescence.
• Adult thought goes beyond abstract thinking to consider what is likely, not just what is possible.
• Adults base decisions on what is realistic and practical, not idealistic.
• Adults less influenced by what others think.

Post-formal thought: advanced ways of thinking that are relativistic, dialectical, and systemic.

🔄 Relativistic thinking

Relativistic thinking: appreciation of multiple perspectives and understanding that knowledge depends on the perspective of the knower.

• In later life, adults continue to entertain multiple perspectives simultaneously.
• At same time, in face of all possibilities, make a decision, commit to specific course of action, and carry it out.
• Suggests post-formal thought integrates thought and action.

⚖️ Dialectical thought

• Adolescents think in dichotomies: ideas are true or false, good or bad, no middle ground.
• With experience, adults recognize some right and some wrong in each position, some good and bad in each approach, some truth and falsity in each idea.

Dialectical thought: ability to appreciate essential paradox and bring together salient aspects of two opposing viewpoints or positions; considered one of most advanced aspects of post-formal thinking.

• More realistic because very few positions, ideas, situations, or people are completely right or wrong.
• Example: Parents considered angels or devils by adolescent children become just people with strengths and weaknesses to adult children.

🌐 Systemic thinking

Systemic thinking: capacity to think about entire systems of knowledge or ideas.

• Recognizes complexity of world based on inter-connectedness of multiple subsystems at multiple levels.
• Useful for tackling complex problems and creating mental models suggesting entry points or levers for solving them.
• When combined with expertise and experience, these modes of thought can be very powerful.
• Examples: meta-theories, ecological perspectives (both require thinking about complex multi-level systems).

🤔 Does everyone reach post-formal or formal operational thought?

• Formal operational thought influenced by experience and education.
• Some adults not challenged to think abstractly about their world.
• Many adults receive no formal education and not taught to think abstractly about situations they haven't experienced.
• Many not exposed to conceptual tools used to formally analyze hypothetical situations.
• Those who think abstractly may do so more easily in some subjects than others.
• Abstract reasoning in particular field requires knowledge base that no one has in all areas.
• Ability to think abstractly depends on experiences.

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Note: This excerpt is primarily a references and attribution section from a textbook chapter. The substantive content on late adulthood development appears in earlier sections not included in this excerpt. The references list scholarly sources on topics including work, retirement, cognitive aging, intelligence, personality, relationships, health, and various aspects of aging across the lifespan.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Death and dying are multiply determined biological, psychological, and social processes shaped by lifespan development, cultural context, and individual circumstances, requiring age-appropriate support and understanding of grief as a normal but complex response to loss.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Lifespan vs. life expectancy: Lifespan is the maximum age reached by any member of a species (120–125 for humans), while life expectancy is the average number of years members live (varies widely by region, income, and demographics).
• Theories of aging: Primary aging theories focus on programmed biological timetables (genetics, cellular clocks, DNA damage), while secondary aging theories emphasize cumulative environmental damage (lifestyle, toxins, stress).
• Children's developmental concepts of death: Understanding of death evolves with cognitive development—preschoolers see death as temporary and reversible, school-age children grasp finality but not universality, and adolescents have adult-level understanding but face unique emotional challenges.
• Common confusion—grief vs. bereavement vs. mourning: Grief is the emotional reaction to loss, bereavement is the period after loss during which grief occurs, and mourning is the culturally influenced process of adapting to loss.
• Cultural and contextual factors: End-of-life decisions, funeral practices, communication about death, and grieving processes are profoundly shaped by cultural beliefs, family structures, and religious traditions.

🌍 Life expectancy and healthy aging

🌍 Global patterns in life expectancy

Life expectancy: the average number of years that members of a species (or population) live.

• Global life expectancy (2019): 72.0 years overall; females 74.2, males 69.8.
• Wide variation: WHO African Region 61.2 years vs. WHO European Region 77.5 years.
• Low-income countries: 62.7 years (18.1 years lower than high-income countries at 80.8 years).
• In low-income countries, almost one in three deaths are children under 5; in high-income countries, most deaths occur in old age.
• The U.S. ranks 45th globally for life expectancy.

🌍 Healthy life expectancy

Healthy Life Expectancy: the number of equivalent years of full health on average a newborn baby is expected to have, accounting for current age-specific mortality, morbidity, and disability risks.

• Global Healthy Life Expectancy (2016): 63.3 years, up from 58.5 in 2000.
• Lowest: WHO African Region at 53.8 years; highest: WHO Western Pacific Region at 68.9 years.
• This measure captures not just how long people live, but how many years they live in good health.

🇺🇸 U.S. life expectancy trends

• U.S. life expectancy (2017): 78.6 years, decreasing from 78.7 (2016) and 78.8 (2015).
• Males: 76.1 years; females: 81.1 years.
• Non-Hispanic white: 78.5; non-Hispanic Black: 74.9; Hispanic: 81.8.
• Reasons for recent decline: drug overdoses, liver disease, rise in suicide rates.
• Before this two-year decline, life expectancy had been increasing steadily for decades.
• Don't confuse: This is a recent reversal of a long-term trend, not a normal fluctuation.

🔵 Blue zones and longevity

Blue zones: regions of the world where people live significantly longer than average, identified by Dan Buettner.

Five identified blue zones:

• Okinawa (Japan)
• Sardinia (Italy)
• Nicoya (Costa Rica)
• Icaria (Greece)
• Seventh-day Adventists in Loma Linda, California

Shared lifestyle characteristics:

• Family prioritized
• Less smoking
• Semi-vegetarianism (plant-based diet)
• Legumes commonly consumed
• Constant moderate physical activity
• Social engagement across all ages

Nine lessons from blue zones:

1. Moderate, regular physical activity
2. Life purpose
3. Stress reduction
4. Moderate caloric intake
5. Plant-based diet
6. Moderate alcohol intake (especially wine)
7. Engagement in spirituality or religion
8. Engagement in family life
9. Engagement in social life

Example: These populations show that longevity is not purely genetic but heavily influenced by lifestyle and social factors.

⚠️ Childhood obesity and future life expectancy

• Children born in America today may be the first generation to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.
• Obesity rate for children 2–19 tripled from 5% (1980) to 20.5% (2014).
• Obesity in children is associated with high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, elevated cholesterol, low self-esteem, negative body image, and depression.
• Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona (2007): "Because of the increasing rates of obesity, unhealthy eating habits and physical inactivity, we may see the first generation that will be less healthy and have a shorter life expectancy than their parents."

⚖️ Gender differences in life expectancy

🧬 Biological explanations

Sex chromosomes and gene expression:

• Males are heterogametic (XY); females are homogametic (XX).
• Females can select the "better" X chromosome from mother or father, inactivating the "worse" one; males cannot, resulting in greater genetic and developmental stability for females.
• Males require a sequence of molecular events initiated by the SRY gene on the Y chromosome, creating more opportunities for developmental disturbances and disorders.

Immune system differences:

• Men are more likely to contract viral and bacterial infections.
• Men's immunity at the cellular level decreases significantly faster with age.
• Women are slightly more prone to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, but gradual deterioration of the immune system is slower in women.

Hormonal factors:

• Estrogen in women has protective effects on heart and circulatory systems and antioxidant properties that protect against free radicals.
• Testosterone in men is related to more frequent cardiovascular and immune disorders, and is associated with increased aggression and violence.
• The frontal lobe (which controls judgment) develops more slowly in boys and young men, affecting lifestyle choices and contributing to risky behaviors.

🚨 Lifestyle factors

• Males work in more dangerous jobs (police, fire fighters, construction) and are more exposed to violence.
• 77% of homicide victims in the U.S. (2014) were male.
• Males serve in the military in much larger numbers (83% of officers, 85% of enlisted in 2014).
• Males are more than three times as likely to commit suicide.
• Men are less likely to have health insurance, develop a regular relationship with a doctor, or seek treatment for medical conditions.
• Women are more religious than men, which is associated with healthier behaviors.
• Nearly 20% of men over 50 have contact with friends less than once a month, compared to only 12% of women—loneliness is considered a health hazard.

Don't confuse: Gender differences in life expectancy are not purely biological; they result from a complex interaction of biological and lifestyle factors.

🧬 Theories of aging

🧬 Two main categories

Programmed Theories: follow a biological timetable, possibly a continuation of childhood development, depending on changes in gene expression that affect systems responsible for maintenance, repair, and defense responses.

Damage Theories: emphasize environmental factors that cause cumulative damage in organisms.

🧬 Primary aging: Programmed theories

🧬 Genetics

• Genetic makeup plays a role in longevity, but specific genes are still being identified.
• Some genes promote longer life; others limit longevity.
• Longevity may be due to genes that better equip someone to survive a disease, or genes that accelerate or slow the rate of aging.
• Researchers scan entire genomes comparing genetic variants in those who live longer with those who have average or shorter lifespans.
• Example: NIH study identified genes possibly associated with blood fat levels and cholesterol, both risk factors for coronary disease and early death.
• It is most likely a combination of many genes that affect the rate of aging.

⏱️ Cellular clock theory

Hayflick limit: normal cells cannot divide indefinitely; cells studied in test tubes divide about 40–60 times before they stop.

Telomere: a sequence of DNA at the end of each chromosomal strand that does not code for any particular protein but protects the rest of the chromosome.

• With each replication, the telomere gets shorter.
• Once it becomes too short, the cell does one of three things:
  1. Cellular senescence: stops replicating by turning itself off.
  2. Apoptosis: stops replicating by dying.
  3. Abnormal division: continues to divide and becomes abnormal (as in cancer development).
• Senescent cells are not dead; they still interact with other cells and can increase risk of disease.
• When young, senescent cells may reduce risk of serious diseases like cancer; as we age, they increase risk of problems.
• Don't confuse: Cellular senescence is not the same as cell death; senescent cells remain metabolically active and can cause problems.

🧬 DNA damage

• Over time, DNA accumulates damage.
• Cells can repair damage throughout life, and some damage is harmless.
• However, some damage cannot be repaired and remains in DNA.
• As DNA damage accumulates with age, it can cause cells to deteriorate and malfunction.
• Factors that damage DNA: ultraviolet radiation, cigarette smoking, exposure to hydrocarbons (auto exhaust, coal).

⚡ Mitochondrial damage

Mitochondria: a cell organelle that uses oxygen to produce energy from food.

• Mitochondria convert oxygen to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which provides energy for the cell.
• When damaged, mitochondria become less efficient and generate less energy, leading to cellular death.

🔥 Free radicals

Free radicals: byproducts produced when mitochondria use oxygen to produce energy; they are missing an electron and create instability in surrounding molecules by taking electrons from them.

• Free radicals create a snowball effect (A takes from B, then B takes from C, etc.) that disrupts the cell and causes it to behave abnormally.
• Some free radicals are helpful (can destroy bacteria and harmful organisms), but most cause damage in cells and tissue.
• Free radicals are identified with disorders seen in advanced age: cancer, atherosclerosis, cataracts, neurodegeneration.
• Some research suggests adding antioxidants to diets can help counter free radical damage (antioxidants can donate an electron to neutralize damaged molecules), but research on effectiveness is not conclusive.

🛡️ Immune and hormonal stress theories

Metabolic stress: the life-sustaining activities of the body, such as circulating blood, eliminating waste, controlling body temperature, and neuronal firing in the brain—all activities that keep the body alive also create biological stress.

Innate immune system:

• Made up of skin, mucous membranes, cough reflex, stomach acid, and specialized cells that alert the body of impending threats.
• With age, these cells lose their ability to communicate effectively, making it harder for the body to mobilize defenses.

Adaptive immune system:

• Includes tonsils, spleen, bone marrow, thymus, circulatory system, and lymphatic system that work to produce and transport T cells.
• T-cells (lymphocytes) fight bacteria, viruses, and other foreign threats.
• T-cells are in a "naïve" state before being programmed to fight an invader and become "memory cells."
• Memory cells can remain in the body for many decades (e.g., measles vaccine protection).
• Older adults produce fewer new T-cells, so they are less able to fight off new threats and new vaccines work less effectively.
• The shingles vaccine works well with older adults because they already have existing memory cells against the varicella virus.

Hormonal Stress Theory (Neuroendocrine Theory of Aging): suggests that as we age, the ability of the hypothalamus to regulate hormones in the body begins to decline, leading to metabolic problems.

• Linked to excessive levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
• While many hormones decrease with age, cortisol does not.
• More stress → more cortisol → more hypothalamic damage.
• Changes in hormones linked to metabolic and hormone-related problems that increase with age: diabetes, thyroid problems, osteoporosis, orthostatic hypotension.

🌪️ Secondary aging: Damage theories

🌪️ Lifestyle factors that predict aging and death

• Poor diet, lack of exercise, substance abuse (physical factors).
• Stress, social inactivity, pessimistic outlook (psychological factors).
• These factors can predict both how healthy people will be and how long they will live.
• Such forces cause biological damage, which is repaired more and more slowly as we age.
• Aging results from the accumulation of such damage.

☢️ Exposure to environmental toxins

• Aging can be shaped by exposure to environmental pollution: pesticides, air pollutants, radiation, harmful substances added to food and water.
• When we metabolize these toxins, they damage our bodies and genetic DNA material at the cellular level.
• As organ systems deteriorate and become more vulnerable, errors pile up and the body's ability to repair them slows down.
• Toxins can cause allergic reactions and auto-immune diseases (e.g., upswing in Type II adult-onset diabetes and other chronic conditions).
• Effects seen in inflammatory processes involved in life-threatening medical conditions: cardiovascular disease, arthritis, cancer.

📈 Historical increases in average life expectancy

• Steady historical increases in average life expectancy follow from changes in external factors, mostly related to public health.
• Reductions in extreme poverty.
• Improvements in nutrition, quality and access to medical care, sanitation, childbirth procedures, invention of antibiotics.
• These historical changes did not result in evolutionary changes in human biology; they produced recent changes in environmental factors that are shaping the rate of aging and the timing of death.

Don't confuse: Primary and secondary aging theories are not mutually exclusive; aging and death are multiply determined by biological, psychological, social, and contextual factors.

👶 Developmental concepts of death in children and adolescents

👶 General principles

• Children grieve differently than adults.
• They often grieve in spurts and can re-grieve at new developmental stages as their understanding of death and perceptions of the world change.
• Childhood grief may be expressed as behavioral changes and/or emotional expression.
• The two most important predictive factors of a child's successful resolution after suffering a loss: (1) availability of one significant adult, and (2) provision of a safe physical and emotional environment.

👶 Infancy (0–2 years)

Dying:

• Children at this age have no cognitive understanding of death.
• If they themselves are dying, they are not aware of this fact.
• Reactions are based completely on local conditions: contact with caregivers and current levels of pain and suffering.
• Infants can be comforted by the presence of secure attachment figures and palliative care to reduce pain.
• The process of dying is much more psychologically painful for caregivers than for infants.

Grieving:

• Even if infants are not cognitively aware of death, they are cognizant of separation and loss, so separation anxiety and grief reactions are possible.
• Behavioral and developmental regression can occur.
• Need to maintain routines and avoid separation from significant others.
• If the death is the primary attachment figure:
  • Before 6 months: long-term effects depend almost entirely on whether a sensitive responsive substitute caregiver can be found who can take over immediately.
  • After 6 months: expressions of grief and loss are common, but transition is easier if the new primary caregiver is someone the infant or toddler knows and trusts (e.g., father, aunt, grandmother).
• Children may repeatedly revisit and re-grieve the loss at successive ages as they develop cognitive capacities to reflect on the loss in qualitatively different ways.

🧒 Early childhood (2–6 years)

Concept of death:

• Preschool age children see death as temporary and reversible.
• They interpret their world in a literal manner.

Dying:

• When children are facing death, they take their cues from caregivers and people around them.
• Typical developmentally-graded concerns about attachment and abandonment.
• Hard time understanding why they have to accept painful treatments and why they can't just go home.
• Can have tantrums and difficulty regulating emotions and behaviors.
• High-quality parenting is helpful: love (affection, caring, concern) combined with firm and reasonable limits, and autonomy support (validation and opportunities for free expression of preferences and perspectives).
• Small children benefit from familiar routines, assurances that familiar adults will be with them, support for whatever emotions they are experiencing, and developmentally-attuned explanations and answers to questions.

Grieving:

• Their conception of death makes grieving more difficult.
• May believe that death can be caused by thoughts and provide magical explanations, often blaming themselves for the death.
• Conviction that death is reversible makes it difficult to cognitively accept death as final.
• Sometimes beg parents to go get the dead person and bring them back home; can become frantic if told the person has been buried.
• Challenging to provide simple and straightforward explanations that emphasize: (1) child is not to blame, (2) loved one cannot return even though they did not want to go, (3) absent person still loves the child.
• Even when adults avoid euphemisms and try to correct misperceptions, preschool children often regard death like a kidnapping (with the dead person taken far away against their will) until they reach concrete operational stage.
• Don't confuse: This combination—full-blown attachment to a primary caregiver and a conception of death that makes it impossible to accept death as final—puts children this age at particular risk for complicated grief and long-term negative neurophysiological and psychological effects.
• Greatest protection: immediate presence of a loving and stable attachment figure, preferably one to whom the young child is already securely attached.

🧒 Middle childhood (6–8 years)

Concept of death:

• Understand that death is final and irreversible but do not believe it is universal or could happen to them.
• Death is often personalized and/or personified.

Grieving:

• Expressions of anger towards the deceased or towards those perceived to have been unable to save the deceased can occur.
• Anxiety, depressive symptoms, and somatic complaints may be present.
• Often has fears about death and concerns about the safety of other loved ones.
• In addition to giving clear, realistic information, offer to include the child in funeral ceremonies.
• Notifying the school helps teachers understand the child's reaction and provide additional adult support.

🧒 Preadolescence (8–12 years)

Concept of death:

• Have an adult understanding of death: final, irreversible, and universal.
• Able to understand the biological aspects of death and cause-and-effect relationships.

Grieving:

• Tend to intellectualize death as many have not yet learned to identify and deal with feelings.
• May develop a morbid curiosity and are often interested in the physical details of the dying process and religious and cultural traditions surrounding death.
• Ability to identify causal relationships can lead to feelings of guilt; such feelings should be explored and addressed.
• To facilitate identification with emotions, talk about your own emotions surrounding death and offer opportunities for the child to discuss death.
• Child should be allowed to participate, as much as they feel comfortable, in seeing the dying patient and participating in activities surrounding the death.

Dying:

• Concrete understanding of death can lead to a relatively matter-of-fact acknowledgement of the actual situation.
• Adults should follow the child's lead in terms of questions and explanations, and share their own grief and sadness only as appropriate.
• Children may show a wide variety of emotions but still have developmentally-graded concerns (e.g., keeping up with friends and schoolwork).
• Presence of friends can provide both distraction and comfort.
• Connections with friends can be maintained through letters, notes, phone conversations, and virtual meetings.

🧑 Adolescence (12–18 years)

Concept of death:

• Have an adult understanding of death.
• Developing the ability to think abstractly and are often curious about the existential implications of death.

Grieving:

• Often reject adult rituals and support and feel that no one understands them.
• May engage in high-risk activities to more fully challenge their own mortality.
• Often have strong emotional reactions and may have difficulty identifying and expressing feelings.
• Important that adults support independence and access to peers, but also provide emotional support when needed.

Dying:

• Have full-blown emotional and psychological reactions.
• Like adults, can grieve the lives and possibilities that are lost with death at a young age.
• Parents and peers can help them create legacy projects (blogs, videos, music, books) to feel they have accomplished at least some parts of their life purposes.
• Remain adolescents with developmentally-appropriate concerns and problems.
• Emotional instability and need for autonomy characteristic of adolescence can sometimes make it difficult for parents to provide helpful support.
• Can get into arguments with parents about whether or not they will accept certain medical treatments, especially if treatments affect physical appearance.
• Can find life-threatening diseases embarrassing because it makes them different from peers during a time when they are concerned with peer conformity.
• However, adolescents count on the presence, wisdom, and support of their parents, even if they do not always acknowledge it.

Don't confuse: The generalizations provided serve as a framework; children and adolescents have age-graded conceptions of death and developmentally-appropriate concerns and challenges. They need individually and developmentally attuned supports. When in doubt, seek help from pediatricians, child-life specialists, mental health professionals, and others specializing in bereavement.

💔 Loss during childhood

💔 Loss of a family member

• For a child, the death of a parent without support to manage grief may result in long-term psychological harm.
• More likely if adult caregivers are struggling with their own grief and are psychologically unavailable to the child.
• The surviving parent or caregiver plays a crucial role in helping the child adapt to a parent's death.
• Some children showed increased maturity, better coping, and improved communication skills.
• Adolescents who have lost a parent value other people more than those who have not experienced such a close loss.
• Loss of a parent, grandparent, or sibling can be very troubling in childhood, with age differences in relation to the loss.
• A very young child (under six months) may have no reaction if a caregiver dies, but older children are typically affected.
• Especially true if loss occurs during the time when trust and dependency are formed.
• During critical periods (8–12 months), when attachment and separation anxiety are at their height, even a brief separation can cause distress.
• Younger children see death more as a separation and may believe death is curable or temporary.
• Reactions can manifest in "acting out" behaviors: return to earlier behaviors (sucking thumbs, clinging to a toy) or angry behavior.
• Pre-teen and teen years: more mature understanding, but strong emotional reactions are still normal.

💔 Loss of a friend or classmate

• Children may experience the death of a friend or classmate through illness, accidents, suicide, or violence.
• Loss from sudden violence (drive-by or school shootings) is particularly traumatic.
• Initial support involves reassuring children that they are safe, that their emotional and physical feelings are normal, and that support is available.
• Schools are advised to plan for these possibilities in advance.
• Planning and participating in rituals and memorials may be helpful but also challenging.
• Some children choose to continue visiting with the parents or family of their dead friend or classmate to keep the connection, share the loss, and comfort the family.

💔 Other forms of loss

• Children can experience grief as a result of losses due to causes other than death.
• Example: Children may grieve losses connected with divorce and pine for the original family that has been forever lost; may re-grieve this transition as they get older.
• Relocations can cause children significant grief, particularly if combined with other difficult circumstances (neglectful or abusive parental behaviors, other significant losses).
• Children who have been physically, psychologically, or sexually abused can grieve over the damage to or loss of their ability to trust.
• Such children usually have no support or acknowledgement from any source outside the family unit, so this is likely to be experienced as disenfranchised grief.

🕊️ End-of-life processes

🕊️ Kübler-Ross' stages of loss

Based on work and interviews with terminally ill patients, Kübler-Ross described five stages of loss experienced by someone who faces the news of their impending untimely death.

Important clarifications:

• These "stages" are not really stages that a person goes through in order or only once.
• They do not occur with the same intensity.
• The process of death is influenced by a person's life experiences, the timing of their death in relation to life events, the predictability of their death based on health or illness, their belief system, and their assessment of the quality of their own life.
• Nevertheless, these stages provide a framework to help us understand and recognize some of what a dying person experiences psychologically.

🕊️ Denial

• Often the first reaction to overwhelming, unimaginable news.
• Denial, disbelief, or shock protects us by allowing news to enter slowly and giving time to come to grips with what is taking place.
• The person who receives positive test results for a life-threatening condition may question the diagnosis, seek second opinions, or simply feel psychological disbelief even though they know the results are true.

🕊️ Anger

• Provides protection in that being angry energizes us to fight against something and gives structure to a situation that may be thrusting us into the unknown.
• It is much easier to be angry than to be sad, in pain, or depressed.
• Helps us temporarily believe we have a sense of control over our future and to feel that we have at least expressed our rage about how unfair life can be.
• Anger can be focused on a person, a health care provider, at God, or at the world in general.
• Can be expressed over issues that have nothing to do with our death; consequently, being in this stage of loss is not always obvious.

🕊️ Bargaining

• Involves trying to think of what could be done to turn the situation around.
• Living better, devoting oneself to a cause, being a better friend, parent, or spouse are all agreements one might willingly commit to if doing so would lengthen life.
• Asking to just live long enough to witness a family event or finish a task are examples of bargaining.

🕊️ Depression

• Sadness is appropriate for such an event.
• Feeling the full weight of loss, crying, and losing interest in the outside world is an important part of the process of dying.
• This depression makes others feel very uncomfortable, and family members may try to console their loved one.
• Sometimes hospice care may include the use of antidepressants to reduce depression during this stage.

🕊️ Acceptance

• Involves learning how to carry on and to incorporate this aspect of the life span into daily existence.
• Reaching acceptance does not imply that people who are dying are happy about it or content with it.
• It means that they are facing it and continuing to make arrangements and to say what they wish to say to others.
• Some terminally ill people find that they live life more fully than ever before after they come to this stage.

In sum: These five stages serve as coping mechanisms, allowing the individual to make sense of the situation while coming to terms with what is happening. They are the mind's way of gradually recognizing the implications of one's impending death and giving the person the chance to process it. When death is on time and comes at an advanced age, people have had more opportunity to come to grips with impending death and so may show only acceptance. Research shows that as people age, they become less and less afraid of death, so that for many who are old-old (85+ years), death seems like a natural next step.

Don't confuse: Since Kübler-Ross presented these stages, several other models have been developed that expand views of how individuals process loss and grief. While Kübler-Ross' model was restricted to dying individuals, subsequent theories focused on loss as a more general construct, suggesting that facing one's own death is just one example of grief and loss that human beings can experience.

🌏 Cultural differences in end-of-life decisions

🌏 Communication about diagnosis and prognosis

• Cultural factors strongly influence how doctors, other health care providers, and family members communicate bad news to patients.
• In Western medicine, doctors take the approach that patients should be told the truth about their health.
• 75% of the world's population do not conduct medicine by the same standards.
• Outside Western nations, and even among certain racial and ethnic groups within those nations, doctors and family members may conceal the full nature of a terminal illness, as revealing such information is viewed as potentially harmful to the patient, or at least is seen as disrespectful and impolite.
• Example: In India, doctors routinely abide by the family's wishes and withhold information from the patient; in Germany, doctors are legally required to inform the patient.
• Many doctors in Japan and in numerous African nations use terms such as "mass," "growth," and "unclean tissue" rather than referring to cancer when discussing the illness to patients and their families.
• Family members actively protect terminally ill patients from knowing about their illness in many Hispanic, Chinese, and Pakistani cultures.

🌏 Decision-making authority

• In Western medicine, we view the patient as autonomous in health care decisions.
• In other nations, the family or community plays the main role, or decisions are made primarily by medical professionals, or the doctors in concert with the family make the decisions for the patient.
• Example: Compared to European Americans and African Americans, Koreans and Mexican-Americans are more likely to view family members as the decision makers rather than just the patient.
• In many Asian cultures, illness is viewed as a "family event," not just something that impacts the individual patient.
• As many cultures attribute high regard and respect for doctors, patients and families may defer some of the end-of-life decision making to the medical professionals.

🌏 Advanced directives

Advanced directives: spell out a patient's wishes for end-of-life care.

• The notion of advanced directives holds little or no relevance in many cultures outside of Western society.
• Example: In India, advanced directives are virtually non-existent; in Germany, they are regarded as a major part of health care.
• End-of-life decisions involve how much medical aid should be used.
• In the U.S., Canada, and most European countries, artificial feeding is more commonly used once a patient has stopped eating.
• In many other nations, lack of eating is seen as a sign, rather than a cause, of dying, and do not consider using a feeding tube.

🌏 Racial and ethnic differences in the U.S.

• According to a Pew Research Center Survey, 37% of respondents had given a great deal of thought about their end-of-life wishes, with 35% having put these in writing; over 25% had given no thought to this issue.
• Clear racial and ethnic differences in end-of-life wishes:
  • Whites are more likely than Blacks and Hispanics to prefer to have treatment stopped if they have a terminal illness.
  • Majority of Blacks (61%) and Hispanics (55%) prefer that everything be done to keep them alive.
• The low rate of completion of advanced directives among non-whites may reflect a distrust of the U.S. health care system as a result of health care disparities non-whites have experienced.
• Among Hispanics, patients may be reluctant to select a single family member to be responsible for end-of-life decisions out of concern of isolating the person named and offending other family members, as this is commonly seen as a "family responsibility."

🕯️ Religious practices after death

Funeral rites are expressions of loss that reflect personal and cultural beliefs about the meaning of death and the afterlife.

• Ceremonies provide survivors a sense of closure after a loss.
• These rites and ceremonies send the message that the death is real and allow friends and loved ones to express their love and respect for those who die.
• Under circumstances in which a person has been lost and presumed dead or when family members were unable to attend a funeral, there can continue to be a lack of closure that makes it difficult to grieve and to learn to live with loss.
• Although many people are still in shock when they attend funerals, the ceremony still provides a marker of the beginning of a new period of one's life as a survivor.

🕯️ Hinduism

• Hindu belief in reincarnation accelerates the funeral ritual; deceased Hindus are cremated as soon as possible.
• After being washed, the body is anointed, dressed, and placed on a stand decorated with flowers ready for cremation.
• Once the body has been cremated, the ashes are collected and, if possible, dispersed in one of India's holy rivers.

🕯️ Judaism

• Among the Orthodox, the deceased is first washed and then wrapped in a simple white shroud.
• Males are also wrapped in their prayer shawls.
• Once shrouded, the body is placed into a plain wooden coffin.
• Burial must occur as soon as possible after death, and a simple service consisting of prayers and a eulogy is given.
• After burial, family members typically gather in one home, often that of the deceased, and receive visitors (referred to as "sitting shiva").

🕯️ Muslim

• In Islam, the deceased are buried as soon as possible, and it is a requirement that the community be involved in the ritual.
• The individual is first washed and then wrapped in a plain white shroud called a kafan.
• Next, funeral prayers are said followed by the burial.
• The shrouded dead are placed directly in the earth without a casket and deep enough not to be disturbed.
• They are also positioned in the earth, on their right side, facing Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

🕯️ Roman Catholic

• Before death, an ill Catholic individual is anointed by a priest (Anointing of the Sick).
• The priest recites a prayer and applies consecrated oil to the forehead and hands of the ill person.
• The individual also takes a final communion consisting of consecrated bread and wine.
• Funeral rites consist of three parts:
  1. Wake: usually occurs in a funeral parlor; body is present, and prayers and eulogies are offered by family and friends.
  2. Funeral mass: includes an opening prayer, bible readings, liturgy, communion, and a concluding rite.
  3. Cemetery: blessing of the grave, scripture reading, and prayers conclude the funeral ritual.

🌱 Green burial

Green burials: attempt to reduce the impact on the environment at every stage of the funeral.

• In 2017, median cost of an adult funeral with viewing and burial was $8,775; median cost for viewing and cremation was $6,260.
• Americans bury over 64 thousand tons of steel, 17 thousand tons of copper and bronze, 1.6 million tons of concrete, 20 million feet of wood, and over 4 million gallons of embalming fluid every year.
• Growing interest in green or natural burials.
• Can include using recycled paper, biodegradable caskets, cotton shroud in place of any casket, formaldehyde-free or no embalming, and trying to maintain the natural environment around the burial site.
• Many cemeteries have reported that consumers are requesting green burial options.
• Since many add-ons of a traditional burial (concrete vault, embalming, casket) are not required, the cost can be substantially less.

😢 Grief, bereavement, and mourning

😢 Definitions

Grief: the normal process of reacting to a loss (can be in response to a physical loss, such as a death, or a social loss including a relationship or job).

Bereavement: the period after a loss during which grief and mourning occurs (the time spent in bereavement depends on the circumstances of the loss and the level of attachment to the person who died).

Mourning: the process by which people adapt to a loss (greatly influenced by cultural beliefs, practices, and rituals).

Don't confuse: These terms are often used interchangeably, but they have different meanings.

😢 The process of grieving

Typical grief reactions:

• Emotional, mental, physical, and social responses.
• Can include feelings of numbness, anger, guilt, anxiety, sadness, and despair.
• Difficulty concentrating, sleep and eating problems, loss of interest in formerly pleasurable activities, physical problems, and even illness.
• Research has demonstrated that the immune systems of individuals grieving is suppressed and their healthy cells behave more sluggishly, resulting in greater susceptibility to illnesses.
• However, the intensity and duration of typical grief symptoms do not match those seen in severe grief reactions, and symptoms typically diminish within 6–10 weeks.

😢 Prolonged and complicated grief

Complicated grief: includes atypical grief reactions.

Symptoms:

• Feelings of disbelief
• Preoccupation with the dead loved one
• Distressful memories
• Feeling unable to move on with one's life
• Yearning for the deceased
• These symptoms may last six months or longer and mirror those seen in major depressive disorder.

Don't confuse: Distinguishing between major depressive disorder and complicated grief requires clinical judgment. The psychologist needs to evaluate the client's individual history and determine whether the symptoms are focused entirely on the loss of the loved one and represent the individual's cultural norms for grieving. Those who seek assistance for complicated grief usually have experienced traumatic forms of bereavement, such as unexpected, multiple and violent deaths, or those due to murders or suicides.

😢 Anticipatory grief

Anticipatory grief: grief that occurs when a death is expected, and survivors have time to prepare to some extent before the loss.

• Such anticipation can make adjustment after a loss somewhat easier.
• Can include the same denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance experienced in loss one might experience after a death; this can make adjustment after a loss somewhat easier, although a person may then go through the stages of loss again after the death.
• A death after a long-term, painful illness may bring family members a sense of relief that the suffering is over or the exhausting process of caring for someone who is ill is over.
• At the same time, when a person has organized all their waking hours around the care of a dying loved one, upon their death the caregiver may experience feelings of emptiness and disorientation in addition to relief.

Survivor's guilt (survivor's syndrome): a mental condition that occurs when a person blames themselves for surviving a traumatic event when others did not.

• May be found among survivors of combat, natural disasters, epidemics, among the friends and family of those who have died by suicide, and in non-mortal situations such as among those whose colleagues are laid off.

😢 Disenfranchised grief

Disenfranchised grief: grief that is not socially recognized.

Examples:

• Death due to AIDS

• Suicide of a loved one

• Perinatal deaths

• Abortions

• Death of a pet, lover, or ex-spouse

• Psychological losses, such as divorce or a partner developing Alzheimer's disease

• Due to the type of loss, there is no formal mourning practices or recognition by others that would comfort the grieving individual.

• Consequently, individuals experiencing disenfranchised grief may suffer intensified symptoms due to the lack of social support.

😢 Patterns of grief

• It has been said that intense grief lasts about two years or less, but grief is felt throughout life.
• One loss triggers the feelings that surround another.
• People grieve with varied intensity throughout the remainder of their lives; it does not end, but it eventually becomes something that a person has learned to live with.
• As long as we experience loss, we experience grief.
• Over time, grief becomes interlaced with gratitude for the presence of the loved one in our lives and the cherished memories that remain.

Layers of grief:

• Initial denial, marked by shock and disbelief in the weeks following a loss, may become an expectation that the loved one will walk in the door.
• Anger directed toward those who could not save our loved one's life may become resentment and bitterness that life did not turn out as we expected.
• There is no right way to grieve.

Grief and mixed emotions:

• A sense of relief is accompanied by regrets.
• Periods of reminiscing about our loved ones are interspersed with feeling haunted by them in death.
• Outward expressions of loss are also sometimes contradictory: We want to move on but at the same time are saddened by going through a loved one's possessions and giving them away.
• We may no longer feel sexual arousal or we may want sex to feel connected and alive.
• We need others to befriend us but may get angry at their attempts to console us.
• These contradictions are normal, and we need to allow ourselves and others to grieve in their own time and in their own ways.

The "death-denying, grief-dismissing world":

• Often the approach to grief in our modern society.
• We are asked to grieve privately, quickly, and to medicate our suffering.
• Employers grant us 3 to 5 days for bereavement, if our loss is that of an immediate family member (sometimes limited to no more than one per year).
• Yet grief takes much longer, and the bereaved are seldom ready to perform well on the job.
• It becomes a clash between life having to continue and the individual being unready for it to do so.

Fading affect bias: negative events, such as the death of a loved one, tend to lose their emotional intensity at a faster rate than pleasant events.

• This is believed to help enhance pleasant experiences and avoid the negative emotions associated with unpleasant ones, thus helping the individual return to his or her normal daily routines following a loss.

💔 Factors that affect grief and bereavement

💔 Nature of the loss

• Grief reactions vary depending on whether a loss was anticipated or unexpected (e.g., parents do not expect to lose their children).
• Whether it occurred suddenly or after a long illness.
• Whether or not the survivor feels responsible for the death.
• Struggling with the question of responsibility is particularly felt by those who lose a loved one to suicide or overdose.
• These survivors may torment themselves with endless "what ifs," even if they know cognitively that there was nothing more that could have been done.
• Family members may also hold one another responsible for the loss.
• Much of this laying of blame is an effort to think that we have some control over these losses; the assumption being that if we do not repeat the same mistakes, we can control what happens in our life and prevent such losses in the future.

💔 Death of a child

• Death of a child can take the form of a loss in infancy (miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, SIDS) or an older child, adolescent, or adult child.
• In most cases, parents find the grief almost unbearably devastating, and the death of a child tends to hold greater risk for negative physical and psychological outcomes than any other loss.
• This loss begins a lifelong process: One does not "get over" the death but instead must bear, assimilate, and live with it.
• Intervention and comforting support can make a big difference to the survival of a parent in this type of grief, but the risk for negative outcomes is great and may include family breakup, depression, or suicide.
• Feelings of guilt, whether legitimate or not, are pervasive, and the dependent nature of the relationship predisposes parents to feelings of responsibility, and hence to a variety of problems as they seek to cope with this great loss.
• Parents who suffer miscarriage or a regretful or coerced abortion may experience resentment towards others who experience successful pregnancies.
• Seeing other children who are the age that the child would have been had they lived can be painful and triggering.

💔 Suicide and drug overdoses

• Suicide rates are growing worldwide.
• When a parent loses their child through suicide (suicide is the second leading cause of death during adolescence), it is traumatic, sudden, and impacts all those who loved this child.
• Suicide leaves many unanswered questions and leaves most parents feeling hurt, angry, and deeply saddened by such a loss.
• Parents may feel they can't openly discuss their grief and feel their emotions because of how their child died and how the people around them may perceive the situation.
• Parents, family members, and service providers have confirmed the unique nature of suicide-related bereavement following the loss of a child.
• They report that "a wall of silence" goes up around them that shapes how people interact with them.
• One of the best ways to grieve and move on from this type of loss is to find a support group of other parents who have suffered a similar loss, and to find ways to keep that child as an active part of their lives.

Drug overdoses:

• When adolescents or other family members die from a drug overdose, the grieving process can also be prolonged and complicated, with patterns similar to grieving someone who committed suicide.
• Survivors may experience feelings of guilt, anger, resentment, and helplessness; and may not receive the sympathy and social support from others that they otherwise would.
• Survivors may worry about the person's reputation and the value placed on them by society because they committed suicide or died from an accidental overdose, and so may feel defensive, inhibited, or worried about sharing their experience of loss.

💔 Death of a spouse

• The death of a spouse is usually a particularly powerful loss.
• A spouse often becomes part of the other in unique ways.
• Many widows and widowers describe losing "half of themselves" and losing their past selves as well.
• The days, months, and years after the loss of a spouse can echo with emptiness, and learning to live alone may be harder than the survivor expects.
• The grief experience is unique to each person.
• Depression and loneliness are very common.
• Feeling bitter and resentful are also normal feelings for the spouse who is "left behind."
• Oftentimes, the widow/widower may feel it necessary to seek professional help in dealing with their new life.
• After a long marriage, at older ages, the elderly may find it a very difficult transition to begin anew; but at younger ages as well, the death of a spouse is unexpected and off-time.
• A marriage relationship is often a profound anchor around which one's life is organized, and the loss can completely disrupt the life of the survivor.
• Most couples have a division of 'tasks' or 'labor' (e.g., the husband mows the yard, the wife pays the bills), which, in addition to dealing with great grief and life changes, means added responsibilities for the bereaved.
• Immediately after the death of a spouse, there are tasks that must be completed: planning and financing a funeral, changes in insurance, bank accounts, claiming of life insurance, securing childcare.
• If there are children still at home, the survivor must take care of them, support them in their grieving processes, and still find time to take care of themselves.
• Social isolation may also become an issue, as many groups composed of couples find it difficult to adjust to the new identity of the bereaved, and the bereaved themselves have great challenges in reconnecting with others.
• Seeing other couples still together may be intensely painful.
• Widows in many cultures wear black for the rest of their lives to signify the loss of their spouse and their ongoing grief (only in more recent decades has this tradition been reduced to shorter periods of time).

💔 Death of a parent

• When an adult child loses a parent in later adulthood, it is considered to be "timely" and so a normative life course event.
• This allows the adult children to feel a permitted level of grief.
• However, research shows that the death of a parent in an adult's midlife is not experienced as a simple "normative life event" by any measure, but instead represents a major life transition that can trigger an evaluation of one's own life or mortality.
• Others may shut out friends and family in processing the loss of someone with whom they have had the longest relationship.
• The grieving process can be especially challenging if the parent-child relationship was contentious or difficult, and many issues were unresolved.

💔 Death of a sibling

• The loss of a sibling can be a devastating life event.
• Despite this, sibling grief is often the most disenfranchised or overlooked of the four main forms of grief, especially with regard to adult siblings.
• Grieving siblings are often referred to as the 'forgotten mourners' who are made to feel as if their grief is not as severe as their parents' grief.
• However, the sibling relationship tends to be the longest significant relationship since it can last for the lifespan.
• Siblings who have been part of each other's lives since birth, such as twins, help form and sustain each other's identities.
• With the death of one sibling comes the loss of that part of the survivor's identity because "your identity is based on having them there."
• The sibling relationship is a unique one: they share a special bond and a common history from birth, have a certain role and place in the family, often complement each other, and share genetic traits.
• Siblings who enjoy a close relationship participate in each other's daily lives and special events, confide in each other, share joys, spend leisure time together (whether they are children or adults), and have a relationship that not only exists in the present but often looks toward a future together (even into retirement).
• Surviving siblings lose this "companionship and a future" with their deceased siblings.

🌟 Conclusion

Death and dying, like every other developmental task across the lifespan, are biological, psychological, and social processes. All lifespan perspectives begin at conception and end at death. Many philosophers and spiritual guides suggest that you should "Let death be your advisor." This phrase has many meanings, but as Carlos Castaneda explains, "Death is the only wise advisor that we have. Whenever you feel, as you always do, that everything is going wrong and you're about to be annihilated, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong; that nothing really matters outside its touch. Your death will tell you, 'I haven't touched you yet.'" Death helps us keep life in perspective, reminds us what is really important, encourages us to treasure and make good use of the time we have remaining, and ties us to all of living things, past, present, and future.