Developmental psychology—the study of the changes that
occur as people grow up and grow older—is the focus of
Chapter 3.
Section 1 discusses the physical and perceptual development
of newborns and children. Infants are born with many reflexes
that help them adapt and survive. As the child grows, maturation
and learning foster growth. The development of language begins
with the ability to make sounds and ends with combining words
to make sentences.
Section 2 explores cognitive and emotional development
in children. As the thought processes of children develop,
they begin to think, communicate and relate with others, and
solve problems. Jean Piaget described four stages that occur
in children's understanding: sensorimotor stage, preoperational
stage, concrete operations state, and formal operations stage.
This section also discusses how infants begin to develop emotional
attachments by bonding to specific people, usually their mother.
Section 3 describes social development, or socialization,
of children. Research shows that parenting styles, which can
be authoritarian, democratic or authoritative, and permissive
or laissez-faire, can affect children. Sigmund Freud's theory
of psychosexual development and Erik Erikson's psychosocial
development theory attempt to explain socialization. Learning
theories suggest that social development is simply a matter
of conditioning and imitation while cognitive-development
theories suggest that the child acts upon his environment
in an attempt to make sense of his experiences. The chapter
concludes with a discussion of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages
of moral development.
