G E N E T I C S

A N D H U M A N
D E V E L O P M E N T
PREPARED BY: PROF. KENO SUNI,
RPM
MODIFIED BY: PROF. TRIXIA REYES
Nature vs. Nurture
• Arnold Gesell
• Natural growth may unfold in a fixed
and timetable regardless of our
maturation.

• Developmental Psychology
• The study of progressive age-related
changes in behavior and abilities
Environment
• All external conditions that affect development

• Genetic Disorder
• Problem caused by inherited characteristics

• Sensitive Periods
• Period of increased sensitivity to environmental influences.
• Period when certain events must occur for normal development to take place

• Deprivation
• Lack of normal stimulation, nutrition, comfort or love.
The Mozart Effect: Real or Rubbish?

“College students who listened to Mozart

scored higher on a spatial reasoning test.
(Rauscher & Shaw, 1998)”
Newborns (Neonates) and their Reflexes

•Grasping Reflex
•Rooting Reflex
•Sucking Reflex
•Moro Reflex
Maturation
• Physical development of the body, brain and nervous system

• Increased muscular control occurs in patterns

• Cephalocaudal - Head to Toe
• Proximodistal – Center of the body to the extremities
Emotional and Social Development
• Social Smile
• Smiling elicited by social stimuli; not exclusive to seeing parents
• Invites parents to care for them
Motor development. Most infants follow an orderly pattern of motor development. Although the
order in which children progress is similar, there are large individual differences in the ages at
which each ability appears. The ages listed are averages for American children. It is not unusual
for many of the skills to appear 1 or 2 months earlier than average or several months later
(Frankenberg & Dodds, 1967; Harris & Liebert, 1991). Parents should not be alarmed if a child’s
behavior differs some from the average.
Behavioral Capabilities of the Newborn

•Lack of muscle control

•1 day old infants show a preference for

their mom’s voice

•Newborns have visual preferences

Infants pay more attention to faces than to other patterns. These results suggest
that infants are born with certain visual preferences. (Based on Fantz, 1963)
Behavioral Capabilities of the Newborn
As motor skills, develop, perceptual abilities improve (e.g., depth
perception)

• Visual motor coordination develops quickly but must be practiced

to continue being improved

• Experiments with kittens suggest that eye movements must be

allowed to coordination with body movements for further
development of all visually guided behavior.
Behavioral Capabilities of the Newborn

• Infants as young as one month old can

discriminate between speech sounds
• Newborn’s Learning and Memory
• 8 weeks old shows ability to learn responses and
remember them for days afterwards (Make mobile
moves)
• Infants display many of the same
emotional expressions as adults do.
Carroll Izard believes such
expressions show that distinct
emotions appear within the first
months of life. Other theorists argue
that specific emotions come into
focus more gradually, as an infant’s
nervous system matures. Either way,
parents can expect to see a full range
of basic emotions by the end of a
baby’s first year.
Mary Ainsworth and Attachment
• Emotional Attachment
• Close emotional bond between infants and their caregiver

• Separation Anxiety
• Separation of infant to caregiver; appears around 8-12 months

• Quality of Attachment
• Secure – Stable and positive bond
• Insecure-avoidant – Tendency to avoid reunion with caregiver
• Insecure-ambivalent – Desire to be with parent or caregiver and some
resistance to being reunited with mother.
Play and Social Skills

• Solitary Play
• Child plays alone even when with other children

• Cooperative Play
• Two or more children must coordinate their actions
Optimal Caregiving
• Maternal Influences
• All the effects a mother has on her child

• Goodness of Fit (Chess & Thomas)

• Degree to which parents and child have compatible
temperaments

• Paternal Influence
• Sum of all effects a father has on his child
Parenting Styles (Baumrind, 1991)
• Authoritarian parents
• Enforce rigid rules and demand strict obedience to authority.

• Overlay permissive
• Give little guidance. Allow too much freedom, or don’t hold children
accountable for their actions.

• Authoritative
• Provide firm and consistent guidance combined with love and affection.
Types of Child Discipline
• Power Assertion:
• Using physical punishment or a show of force.

• Withdrawal of Love
• Withholding affection

• Management Techniques
• Combine praise, recognition, approval, rules, and reasoning to encourage
desirable behavior.
Language Acquisition
• Cooing
• Repetition of vowel sounds by infants (like “oo” and “ah”); starts about 8 weeks

• Babbling
• Repetition of meaningless language sounds (e.g., babababa), starts at about 7
months

• Single-Word Stage
• The child says one word at a time

• Telegraphic Speech
• Two word sentences that communicate a single idea (e.g., Want yogurt)
Infant engagement scale. These samples from a 90-point scale show
various levels of infant engagement, or attention. Babies participate
in prelanguage “conversations” with parents by giving and
withholding attention and by smiling, gazing, or vocalizing.
Noam Chomsky and the Roots of Language
• Biological Disposition
• Presumed readiness of ALL humans to learn certain skills such as how to use
language.

• Chomsky
• Language patterns are inborn

• Parentese (Motherese):
• Pattern of speech used when talking to infants
• Marked by raised voice;short, simple sentences and repetition
Jean Piaget and Cognitive Development

• Assimilation
• Application of existing mental patterns to new situations.

• Accommodation
• Existing ideas are changed to accommodate new information or
experiences.
Jean Piaget: Sensorimotor Stage
• Sensorimotor (0-2 Years)
• All sensory input and motor responses are coordinated; most intellectual
development here is nonverbal.

• Object Permanence
• Concept that objects still exist when they are out of sight.
Sensorimotor Stage
Object Permanence
The panels on the left show a possible event, in which an infant watches as a toy
is placed behind the right of two screens. After a delay of 70 seconds, the toy is
brought into view from behind the right screen. In the two panels on the right, an
impossible event occurs. The toy is placed behind the left screen and retrieved
from behind the right. (A duplicate toy was hidden there before testing.) Eight-
month-old infants react with surprise when they see the impossible event staged
for them. Their reaction implies that they remember where the toy was hidden.
Infants appear to have a capacity for memory and thinking that greatly exceeds
what Piaget claimed is possible during the sensorimotor period.
Jean Piaget: Preoperational Stage
• Preoperational Stage (2-7 Years)
• Children begin to use language and think symbolically, BUT their thinking is
still intuitive and egocentric.

• Intuitive
• Makes little use of reasoning and logic.

• Egocentric Thought
• Thought that is unable to accommodate viewpoints of others.
Three-Mountain Task (Preopperational)
Conservation of Volume (Preoperational)
Jean Piaget: Concrete Operational Stage
• Concrete Operational Stage (7-11Years):
• Children become able to use concepts of time, space, volume, and number
BUT in ways that remain simplified and concrete, not abstract.

• Conservation:
• Mass, weight, and volume remain unchanged when the shape or appearance of
objects changes.

• Reversibility of Thought:
• Relationships involving equality or identity can be reversed.
Jean Piaget: Formal Operations
• Formal Operations Stage (11 Years and Up):
• Thinking now includes abstract, theoretical, and hypothetical ideas.
Hypothetical Possibilities: Suppositions, guesses, or projections.

• Critics of Piaget’s theory claim he underestimated

children’s abilities because he
• Didn’t pay attention to cultural differences
• Confused inability to make a physical response with lack of cognitive skills
• Didn’t think infants could form internal representations
Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
• Zone of Proximal Development
• Range of tasks a child cannot master alone even though they are close to
having the necessary mental skills

• Scaffolding
• Adjusting instruction so it is responsive to a beginner’s behavior and so it
supports the beginner’s efforts to understand a problem or gain a mental
skill
Lawrence Kohlberg and
Stages of Moral Development
• Moral Development
• When we acquire values, beliefs, and thinking abilities that guide
responsible behavior

• Three Levels
• Preconventional - Moral thinking guided by consequences of actions
• Conventional - Reasoning based on a desire to please others or to follow
accepted rules and values
• Postconventional - Follows self-accepted moral principles
Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial
Dilemmas
• Stage One: Trust versus Mistrust (Birth-1) - Children are completely
dependent on others
• Trust: Established when babies given adequate warmth, touching, love,
and physical care
• Mistrust: Caused by inadequate or unpredictable care and by cold,
indifferent, and rejecting parents

• Stage Two: Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt (1-3)

• Autonomy: Doing things for themselves
• Overprotective or ridiculing parents may cause children to doubt abilities
and feel shameful about their actions
Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Psychosocial
Dilemmas (cont'd)
• Stage Three: Initiative versus Guilt (3-5)
• Initiative: Parents reinforce via giving children freedom to play, use
imagination, and ask questions
• Guilt: May occur if parents criticize, prevent play, or discourage a child’s
questions

• Stage Four: Industry versus Inferiority (6-12)

• Industry: Occurs when child is praised for productive activities
• Inferiority: Occurs if child’s efforts are regarded as messy or inadequate
Dramatic differences in physical size and maturity are found in adolescents
of the same age. The girls pictured are all 13, the boys 16. Maturation that
occurs earlier or later than average can affect the “search for identity.”
Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of
Psychosocial Dilemmas (cont'd)
• Stage Five (Adolescence) - Identity versus Role Confusion
• Identity: For adolescents; problems answering, “Who am I?”
• Role Confusion: Occurs when adolescents are unsure of where they are
going and who they are

• Stage Six (Young adulthood) - Intimacy versus Isolation

• Intimacy: Ability to care about others and to share experiences with them
• Isolation: Feeling alone and uncared for in life
Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of
Psychosocial Dilemmas (cont'd)
• Stage Seven (Middle adulthood)- Generativity versus Stagnation
• Generativity: Interest in guiding the next generation
• Stagnation: When one is only concerned with one’s own needs and
comforts

• Stage Eight (Late adulthood) - Integrity versus Despair

• Integrity: Self-respect; developed when people have lived richly and
responsibly
• Despair: Occurs when previous life events are viewed with regret;
experiences heartache and remorse
Effective Parenting
• Have stable rules of conduct (consistency)
• Show mutual respect, love, encouragement, and shared enjoyment
• Have effective communication
• I-Message: Tells children the effect their behavior had on you (Use this)
• You-Message: Threats, name-calling, accusing, bossing, criticizing, or
lecturing (Avoid this)
Consequences
• Natural Consequences:
• Effects that naturally follow a particular behavior;
intrinsic effects

• Logical Consequences:
• Rational and reasonable effects
What is Behavior genetics?
• It is a field of psychology that involves the study of biology.

• It seeks to determine the extent to which our behavior and the rest
of our individual differences can be attributed to the genes.

• Behavior Geneticist contributes the understanding of the influence

of heredity (nature) on personality traits, such as aggression,
shyness, etc. on mental abilities, and even on psychological
disorders, all of which have, for so long a time, been attributed to
the environment (Nurture)
Heritability
• Heritability refers to the extent to which the differences among
people are attributable to genes.

What percentage of the

difference among people’s
height can be attributed to
their genes?

90%
Genes: Our Codes for Life
• Chromosomes containing DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) are situated
in the nucleus of a cell.
Genes: Our Codes for Life
Segments within DNA consist of genes that make proteins to
determine our development.
Genome
Genome is the set of complete instructions for making an organism,
containing all the genes in that organism. Thus, the human genome
makes us human, and the genome for drosophila makes it a common
house fly.
Genes 101
• Dominant Gene – Member of a gene pair
that controls the appearance of a certain
trait.
• Recessive Gene - Member of a gene pair
that controls the appearance of a certain
trait only if it is with another recessive
gene.
Twin Biology
Studying the effects of heredity and environment on two sets of
twins, identical and fraternal, has come in handy.
Separated Twins
A number of studies compared identical twins raised separately from
birth, or close thereafter, and found numerous similarities.
Jim Lewis
• Middle Class
• Wife named Betty – left her love notes
• Son named James Alan
• Dog named Toy
• Woodworking hobby
• Circular white bench around a tree in his yard.
• Chain Smoker
• Bit his fingernails
• Drove a Chevy, watched stock car racing, and drank Miller-Lite
• Suffered from High Blood Pressure and Migraines
Jim Springer
• Calls his 37 year separated twin in February 1980
• Everything down to the dog’s name is the same (except sons James
Allan vs. James Alan)
• When played their voices, they would mistake themselves for their
twin
• They are the first in Thomas Bouchard’s twin study
• Studied 80 pairs of identical twins reared apart
Separated Twins
Critics of separated twin studies note that such similarities can be
found between strangers.

Let us see if they might be correct

but
Researchers point out that differences between fraternal twins are
greater than identical twins.
Nature and Nurture
Some human traits are fixed, such as having two eyes. However,
most psychological traits are liable to change with environmental
experience.

Genes provide choices for the organism to change its form or traits
when environmental variables change. Therefore, genes are pliable.