Cognitive Development

An Advanced Textbook

Marc H. Bornstein, Michael E. Lamb

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136699726
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Psicologia dello sviluppo

This new text consists of parts of Bornstein and Lamb's Developmental Science, 6th edition along with new introductory material that as a whole provides a cutting edge and comprehensive overview of cognitive development. Each of the world-renowned contributors masterfully introduces the history and systems, methodologies, and measurement and analytic techniques used to understand human cognitive development. The relevance of cognition is illustrated through engaging applications. Each chapter reflects the current state of the field in cognitive development and features an introduction, an overview of the field, a chapter summary, and numerous classical and contemporary references. As a whole, this highly anticipated text illuminates substantive phenomena in cognitive developmental science and its relevance to everyday life.

Students and instructors will also appreciate the book's online resources. For each chapter, the website features: chapter outlines; a student reading guide; a glossary of key terms and concepts; and suggested readings with hotlinks to journal articles. Only instructors are granted access to the test bank with multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay questions; PowerPoints with all of the text's figures and tables; and suggestions for classroom discussion/assignments.

The book opens with an introduction to cognitive development as well as an overview of developmental science in general—its history and theory, the cultural orientation to thinking about human development, and the manner in which empirical research is designed, conducted, and analyzed. Part 2 focuses on the field's major substantive areas: neuroscience and genetics, physical and motor development, perception, and cognitive and language development.

Intended for advanced undergraduate and/or beginning graduate courses on cognitive development taught in departments of psychology, human development and family studies, and education, researchers in these areas will appreciate this book's cutting-edge coverage.

1 NEURAL, PHYSICAL, MOTOR, PERCEPTUAL, COGNITIVE, AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: AN INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

Marc H. Bornstein

Editor, Parenting: Science and Practice

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Michael E. Lamb

University of Cambridge

DOI: 10.4324/9780203813393-1

INTRODUCTION

When lay people think of psychology, they tend to focus on the nature and origins of intelligence or personality. These concerns have characterized the reflections of men and women on their own nature since Aristotle first pondered the nature of mankind and individual diversity. Despite its long history, however, studies of intelligence and personality development are still marked in large measure by dissension rather than consensus, by assertion rather than documentation. This state of affairs may reflect both the inadequacies of scientific psychology and the complexity of the issues that developmentalists confront. Fortunately, recent advances in our understanding of development are transforming these areas of scholarship, as authors in this book make clear.

Developmental science addresses the full spectrum of human thinking, feeling, and behavior and how they vary from one culture to another (Bornstein, 2009), and it is concerned with children's futures as well as the future of society. In undertaking this privileged burden, developmental science has four related goals: (a) Description—what people are like at different ages and how they change or stay the same over time; (b) Explanation—the origins of individual differences and the causes of development; (c) Prediction—what an individual will be like at a later point in development based on what is known about the individual's past and present characteristics; and (d) Intervention—how best to use developmental knowledge to improve well-being.

Development is usually identified with growth and change. In the realm of language development, for example, growth and change are especially salient. As the toddler emerges out of the infant and the child out of the toddler, one of the most readily observable developmental characteristics is growth and change in the child's language. Although development implies growth and change over time, development is not just any kind of growth and change. When a child gains weight, his or her body grows bigger, but weight gain is not development. Developmental growth and change are special in three ways; consider language development again. (a) Developmental growth and change constitute better adaptation to the environment. When a child can say how she feels and what she wants, she has developed from being a baby who can only cry to communicate. Developing language enables a child to actively participate in her own development as well. (b) Developmental growth and change proceed from simple and global to complex and specific. In acquiring language, children move from single words that express simple and general thoughts to putting words together to express ever more sophisticated thoughts. (c) Developmental growth and change are relatively enduring. Whereas simple change is transitory, once a child acquires language it is permanent. Developmental growth and change therefore reflect relatively lasting transformations that make an individual better adapted to his or her environment by enhancing the individual's abilities to understand and express more complex behavior, thinking, and emotions.

But the coin in this (as in other realms of) development has two sides. The complement of growth and change in development is continuity and stability. Although development is commonly identified with growth and change, some features of development are theorized to remain (more or less) consistent over time. In biology, a goal of the organism is to maintain internal stability and equilibrium or homeostasis.

SOME CENTRAL ISSUES IN DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE

Norms and Individual Differences

In studying almost every characteristic (construct, structure, function, or process) of development, developmental scientists consider both norms and individual differences. Norms represent average outcomes on some characteristic; normative development is the pattern over time that is typical or average. For example, very few adults are either 4 or 7 feet tall; many more stand between 5 and 6 feet. This distribution during the childhood and adolescent years tells us how height varies in the population and provides guidance for pediatricians to determine whether a child or adolescent is developing normally.

However, typical development, based on what occurs on average, is only part of the story because children who are the same age vary within every domain of development. It is commonly understood that variation among individuals in diverse characteristics appears in normal distributions in the population. So, to continue our example, at virtually every age, children vary in terms of individual differences in their language. On average, children begin to talk and walk at about 1 year of age. But the range of individual differences in both achievements is considerable. Some children say their first word at 9 months, others not until 29 months; some children first walk at 10 months, others at 18 months. It is also the case that development can follow many different paths to the same or to different ends. Children may develop at different rates, but eventually reach the same height. Others may develop at the same rate, but stop growing at different heights. And different children may develop at different rates and reach different heights. All these paths illustrate individual differences. Understanding development requires an understanding of individual differences—the variation among individuals on a characteristic—as well as norms or what is typical.

The Constant Interplay of Biology and Experience

All children come into the world with the set of genes they inherit from their parents, but only a few traits (such as eye color) are genetically determined. All children have experiences in the world, but only a few experiences are formative by themselves. Rather, the characteristics an individual develops are the result of interaction between genetic and experiential influences over time (Gottlieb, Wahlstein, & Lickliter, 2006). A child may inherit a genetic tendency to be inhibited, for instance, but whether this leads to painful shyness or quiet confidence depends on the child's experiences. Likewise, language development is the product of genes and experience (Waxman & Lidz, 2006). Adopted children are like both their biological and adoptive parents with respect to their language abilities. Differences in the timing and rate of puberty among adolescents growing up in the same general environment result chiefly, but not exclusively, from genetic factors (Dick, Rose, Pulkkinen, & Kaprio, 2001; Mustanski, Viken, Kaprio, Pulkkinen, & Rose, 2004), but puberty occurs earlier among adolescents who are better nourished throughout their prenatal, infant, and childhood years.

Development is Dynamic and Reciprocal

Development is not the result of an environment operating on a passive organism; in many respects people help to create their own development through their thoughts and actions. People shape their own development by selecting experiences (children choose their friends); by appraising their experiences (children who believe that their parents love them have fewer mental health problems); and by affecting their experiences (children engender parents or peers to behave toward them in certain ways).

Development is Cumulative

To understand an individual at a given point in the life span, it is helpful to look at earlier periods (Lamb, Freund, & Lerner, 2010; Overton & Lerner, 2010). The quality of the infant's relationships at home lays the groundwork for the relationships the child forms with school friends, which in turn shape relationships the adolescent develops with intimate friends and lovers, and so on. The pathway that connects the past with the present and the future is a “developmental trajectory” (Nagin & Tremblay, 2005). A child who has poor early relationships is not destined to have bad relationships throughout life, but the child who is launched on a healthy trajectory clearly has an advantage.

Development Occurs Throughout the Lifespan

Development is a lifelong process, and individuals have the potential for continuing growth and change. This view contrasts with the notion that individual trajectories are determined by early experiences. Early experiences are, of course, important because they lay the foundation for later development, but their impact can be overridden by later experiences. No one period of development prevails over all others. Development continues from birth to death, and change is almost always possible, in infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age (Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006; Elder & Shanahan, 2006).

Systems in Development

Dynamic systems theory looks at the many facets of development as part of a single, dynamic, constantly changing system. Thus, development in one area of life influences others. Children's motor achievements affect other, sometimes surprising, aspects of their psychological growth (Howe & Lewis, 2005; Thelen & Smith, 2006; van Geert & Steenbeek, 2005). For example, infants perceive depth (the ability to correctly judge distances) at 2 months, but they do not show fear of heights until they are able to crawl on their own, regardless of the age at which they begin to crawl. Crawling (motor development) allows the infant to estimate distances more accurately than before (cognitive development), which later translates into fear (emotional development). Exercise affects brain development and learning; being more physically fit is related to higher scores on standardized math and reading tests (Castelli, 2005; Castelli, Hillman, Buck, & Erwin, 2007). Obesity presents a social and emotional hazard. Boys and girls who are overweight are subject to teasing and are more likely to be excluded from friendship groups; tend to have less confidence in their athletic competency, social skills, and appearance; and have lower opinions of their overall self-worth (Bradley et al., 2008; O'Brien et al., 2007). They score lower than normal-weight children on measures of quality of life (Schwimmer, Burwinkle, & Varni, 2003).

Consider another example of the interface between physical and psychological development. Hearing problems affect about half of those aged 75 and older (Pleis & Lethbridge-Çejku, 2006). Hearing problems are a deficit in themselves, but they can make it difficult for older adults to follow conversations, interfere with social interactions, frustrate others, or lead them to view the older person as confused or incompetent, reactions that can undermine the older person's confidence or feelings of self-worth (Kampfe & Smith, 1998) and so cause some older adults to become hesitant when interacting with others or to avoid interaction altogether (Desai, Pratt, Lentzner, & Robinson, 2001).

PRINCIPAL THEORIES OF DEVELOPMENT

Scientific theories are ideas or principles based on empirical findings that explain sets of related phenomena. Members of the scientific community accept a theory because it stands up under empirical testing and fits the known facts. Theories help scientists to organize their thinking, decide which phenomena are significant, and generate new questions and hypotheses. Developmental science covers a vast array of topics. Without theories, developmental scientists would be lost. But theories are not permanent; the history of science consists of widely accepted theories being replaced by new approaches. Theories are refined in response to new scientific discoveries.

Through most of the twentieth century, the study of development was guided by “classical theories” or overarching visions that sought to explain every aspect of development from birth to adulthood. Although less influential now than before, classical theories laid the foundation for today's science of development. Perhaps the most prominent and enduring theoretical orientation to development is the belief that development results from the predominance or the interplay of nature and nurture. The contemporary view of the nature–nurture debate emphasizes interaction and transaction, and their mutual influence through time.

Nature–Nurture

One perennial issue in discussions of intelligence or personality development can be summarized in three words: “heredity or experience?”. Although it is common to attribute the earliest salvos to the European empiricists and nativists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the dispute over the relative importance of innate biological influences (“heredity”) versus the role of the environment (“experience”) in individual development was initiated by Aristotle and his contemporaries much earlier (Brett, 1912–1921).

The heredity–experience dichotomy crudely labels the two principal points of view on the origins of the individuality and uniqueness of each person. Extreme hereditarians proposed that individual differences could be attributed to constitutional and genetic factors. Just as biology determines the characteristics that make all humans similar, they argued, so biological factors account for the features that make each member of the species recognizably unique. In contrast, the extreme empiricists argued that the experiences inherent in living determined both the course of development and the uniqueness of the individual. Men and women develop particular attitudes and behavioral styles because they have been trained to behave, think, or feel in such fashions. In the language of the scientific empiricists, differential reinforcement–both positive and negative–accounted for the strengthening of some behavior patterns and the elimination of others. Individuality consequently resulted from a unique history of experiences, just as species-specific similarities may result from uniformities in patterns of reinforcement.

In the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin (1859) initiated movements that were destined to engender the scientific study of psychology. The psychologists succeeding Darwin emphasized the biological aspects of development at the expense of the experiential. When Sigmund Freud subsequently formulated his psychoanalytical explanation of personality development, for example, he did so largely within this biological framework. Although critical formative experiences (such as the Oedipus complex) in the life of each person were described, Freud made clear that these events need not be concretely experienced; rather, many of the conflicts and “experiences” were believed to be inevitably (that is, biologically) predetermined (Freud, 1916/1917).

Scientists and philosophers stressing the importance of innate or biological determinants of intelligence and personality became known as nativists, and their dominance was rudely shattered in 1924 with John B. Watson's publication of a Behaviorist Manifesto. Watson's behaviorism was greeted enthusiastically by psychologists, and behaviorists' subsequent relentless emphasis on the observable and the tangible, and their rejection of any explanatory concept that rested on unobservable biological bases, transformed psychology. Watson's behaviorist theory was no less speculative than the theories against which he railed; the reinforcement histories, the experiences, and the training he identified were postulated, not observed. The strength of the behaviorist doctrine lay in its apparent precision and the extent to which it seemed open to refutation or confirmation.

For the next half-century the behaviorists dominated developmental science. Studies of intelligence and personality development drew on behaviorist notions, and official publications aimed at lay persons and parents paraphrased behaviorist pronouncements. However, psychoanalytic theory remained the predominant point of view among those working with disturbed children in clinical settings and continued to provide many of the concepts and to identify many of the phenomena with which other theories dealt. Psychoanalytic theory focuses on the inner self and how emotions determine the way we interpret our experiences and therefore how we act. Learning theory stresses the role of external influences on beh...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Table Of Contents
• Cognitive Development
• Cognitive Development
• Preface
• Neural, Physical, Motor, Perceptual, Cognitive, And Language Development: An Introduction And Overview
• Foundations of Developmental Science
• Concepts and Theories of Human Development
• Culture in Development
• Design, Measurement, and Analysis in Developmental Research
• Development in Neuroscience, Motor Skills, Perception, Cognition, and Language
• Developmental Neuroscience, Psychophysiology, and Genetics
• Physical and Motor Development
• Perceptual Development
• The Development of Cognitive Abilities
• Language Development
• Glossary
• Author Index
• Subject Index