第67章
Had his math aptitude decreased because
in his work he does not often use the math skills that he once practiced regularly in high school?
Would he have improved his score if he had signed up for a course that prepared him in advance
for the test? Had he just been watching too much TV?
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Human Development across the Life Span
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
On completion of this chapter, students should be able to:
1. Describe the significance and characteristics of the pubescent growth spurt
2. Explain the physical and psychological changes that occur during the adult years
3. Describe Piaget’s stages of cognitive development and discuss their significance
4. Define the concept of critical periods and explain its significance to development
5. Describe Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development
6. Comment on the importance and influence of culture to development
7. Identify Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning
8. Describe the importance of attachment styles and the problems experienced by those
without secure attachments
9. Describe the influence of gender roles and gender identity on development
10. Describe the developmental tasks and challenges of adulthood
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Studying and Explaining Development
A. Developmental psychology is the area of psychology that is concerned with changes in
physical and psychological functioning that occur from conception across the entire life
span
B. Documenting Development
1. Documenting development requires learning to differentiate between
research that documents age changes and research that documents
age differences
a) Age change documents the ways in which individuals change
as they grow older
b) Age differences document the ways in which individuals of
different ages differ from one another
2. Normative investigations seek to describe characteristics of a specific
age or stage of development, providing norms based on observations
of many individuals, such research efforts permit distinctions to be
made between:
a) Chronological age: The number of months or years since birth
b) Developmental age: The chronological age at which most
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individuals display the particular level of physical and
mental development demonstrated by that individual
3. Norms permit a standardized basis (such as the Bayley Scales in the
text) for comparisons between individuals and between groups
4. Research designs
a) Longitudinal designs make repeated observations of the same
individuals, over an extended period of time
b) Cross-sectional designs (includes most developmental research)
observe and compare groups of individuals of different
chronological ages, at the same time
c) Sequential designs combine the best features of both
longitudinal and cross-sectional designs, by studying, over
time, individuals from different birth cohorts
C. Explaining Development
1. Explaining shared aspects of development requires consideration of
both universal aspects of change and the unique aspects of change
that characterize each individual
2. The nature—nurture contrast is most often applied to the childhood
aspects of change by asking such questions as:
a) To what extent is development determined by heredity
(nature)?
b) To what extent is development a product of learned
experiences (nurture)?
3. John Locke proposed empiricism, a nurture perspective that credits
human development to experience
4. Jean-Jacques Rousseau proposed a nativist view, that the evolutionary
legacy each individual brings into the world is the mold that shapes
development
5. Locke’s and Rousseau’s respective positions fail to do justice to
human behavior, because complex actions are shaped by both
heredity and experience
a) Heredity provides potential
b) Experience determines the manner in which potential is (or is
not) fulfilled
II.Physical Development across the Life Span
A. Physical Development refers to an organism’s changes, maturation, and growth from
conception and continuing across the life span
B. Prenatal and Childhood Development
1. Physical Development in the Womb
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a) A zygote is formed when a male’s sperm cell fertilizes a
female’s egg
b) Earliest behavior, the heartbeat, appears during prenatal
period, about 3 weeks after conception
c) Spontaneous movements observed by week 8
d) After week 8, the developing embryo is referred to as a fetus
e) Mother feels fetal movements at about week 16
f) Prenatal brain growth generates 250,000 neurons per minute
(i) Proliferation and migration of neurons in humans
and many other mammals occur prenatally
(ii) Development of branching processes of axons and
dendrites occurs largely after birth
2. Babies Prewired for Survival
a) Hearing functions before birth, as evidenced by neonates
preference for its mother’s voice
b) Vision is less well developed at birth than are other senses,
and though “legally blind,” neonates’ eyes turn in the
direction of a voice
(i) Infants perceive best large objects displaying high
contrast
(ii) By 4 months of age, infants prefer looking at
contoured objects rather than plain ones, complex
objects to simple ones, and whole faces to those with
disarrayed features
3. Growth and Maturation in Childhood
a) Disproportionate early growth takes place within the head
(i) Total mass of axons and neurons rapidly increases
the total mass of brain cells
(ii) Infant boys’ weight doubles in the first 6 months of
life, and triples by age 1
(iii) At age 2, the child’s trunk is about half its adult
length
(iv) Genital tissue growth is unremarkable until
adolescence
b) Much of early growth occurs in concentrated bursts
c) In most children, physical growth is accompanied by
maturation of motor ability
d) Maturation refers to the process of growth typical of all
members of a species who are reared in the species usual
habitat, and describes systematic changes occurring, over
time, in bodily functioning and behavior
e) Maturation is influenced by genetic factors, pre- and postnatal
chemical environments, and sensory factors that are constant
for all members of the species
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f) By ages 6 to 7, most basic motor skills are in place
4. Physical Development in Adolescence
a) First concrete indication of childhood’s end is the pubescent
growth spurt, about age 10 for girls and about 12 for boys, with
flow of hormones into bloodstream
b) Puberty, sexual maturity, is reached 2 to 3 years following the
onset of the growth spurt
(i) For females, puberty begins with menarche
(ii) For males, puberty begins with production of live
sperm
(iii) Physical changes often bring an awareness of sexual
feelings
c) Physical changes of adolescence may exaggerate the
adolescent’s concern with their body image, their subjective
view of their appearance
(i) Females seem to have less average confidence in their
physical attractiveness dm do males
(ii) When exaggerated, females preoccupation with body
image and aspects of the social self can lead to self-
destructive behavior, such as eating disorders
(a) Anorexia, involves self-imposed starvation
(b) Bulimia, involves binging and purging
C. Physical Changes In Adulthood
1. Some senses may become less acute
2. Changes occur gradually
3. Many physical changes occur as a result of disuse, rather than aging
4. Some changes are largely unavoidable
a) Visual function diminishes for most people over age 65
(i) Lenses of eyes become yellowed and less flexible
(ii) Lens rigidity impacts adaptation to dark
b) Hearing loss is common past age 60
(i) Older adults may have difficulty hearing high-
frequency sounds, with males experiencing more
difficulty than females
(ii) Changes in hearing are gradual and may not be
realized until they are extreme
c) Reproductive and sexual functioning changes
(i) Females experience menopause around age 50
(ii) Quantity of sperm in males decreases after age 40,
and seminal fluid volume declines past age 60
(iii) Increasing age and physical change do not
necessarily impair other aspects of sexual experience
III. Cognitive Development across the Life Span
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A. Cognitive development is the study of the processes and products of the mind, as they
emerge and change over time
B. Piaget’s Insights into Mental Development
1. Piaget saw the mind as an active biological system, seeking, selecting,
interpreting, and reorganizing environmental information to fit with
or adjust to its own existing mental structures
2. Piaget’s interest was not in the amount of information children
possessed, but in the ways children’s thinking and inner
representations of outer physical reality changed at different stages in
their development
3. Schemes are the mental structures enabling the individual to interpret
the world
a) Schemes are the building blocks of development change
b) Piaget characterized infants’ initial schemes as sensorimotor
intelligence
(i) First dependent on physical presence of objects that
could be sucked, watched, or grasped
(ii) Later, mental structures increasingly incorporate
symbolic representations of outer reality
4. Piaget saw cognitive development as the result of the interweaving of
assimilation and accommodation. These two processes work in tandem
to achieve cognitive growth
a) Assimilation modifies new environmental information to fit
into what is already known
b) Accommodation restructures or modifies the child’s existing
schemes so that new information is accounted for more
completely
c) Discrepancies between already held ideas and new
experiences force development of more adaptive inner
structures and processes that permit creative and appropriate
actions to meet future challenges
5. Stages in Cognitive Development
a) Sensorimotor stage: infancy, roughly from birth to age 2
(i) Child is tied to the immediate environment and
motor-action themes
(ii) Most important cognitive acquisition of infancy is
attainment of object permanence, the ability to form
mental representations of absent objects
b) Preoperational stage: roughly 2 to 7 years of age
(i) Main cognitive advance is improved ability to
mentally represent objects not physically present
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(ii) Piaget characterized this stage in terms of what the
child cannot do, other than the development of
representational thought
(iii) Child’s thoughts at this stage are characterized by
egocentrism, an inability to take the perspective of
another, or to imagine a scene from any perspective
other than one’s own, as demonstrated by Piaget’s
three-mountain task
(iv) Children at this stage have difficulty distinguishing
the mental from the physical world, as demonstrated
by animistic thought
(v) Centration is the tendency to be captivated (centrated)
by the more perceptually striking features of objects
c) Concrete operational stage: roughly ages 7 to 11 years of age
(i) Child is capable of mental operations
(ii) Mastery of conservation is a hallmark of this stage
(iii) Children at this stage generally do not ask abstract
questions, but remain with specifics
d) Formal operational stage: roughly from age 11 on
(i) Represent the final stage of cognitive growth, in
which thinking becomes abstract
(ii) Adolescents realize their reality is only one of several
that are imaginable, and begin pondering deeper
questions of truth, justice, and existence
(iii) Individual begins to impose his/her own structures
on tasks, beginning with broad categories, then
formulating and testing hypotheses in light of the
individual’s knowledge of categories and
relationships
C. Contemporary Perspectives on Early Cognitive Development
1. Contemporary research posits a greater degree of order, organization,
and coherence in the perceptual and cognitive experience of the infant
and young child than that proposed by Piaget
2. Recent research shows that differences in conceptual understanding
between preoperational and concrete operational children may be a
difference in immediate memory
a) The sensorimotor child revisited: 3-month-old neonates may
have already developed the concept of object permanence, as
well as being able to integrate information across sensory
domains
b) The preoperational child revisited
(i) Egocentrism may not be ongoing, as recent research
indicates the child to have the ability to take the
perspective of the other if the task is simple
(ii) Children at this stage also have the ability to
differentiate mental and physical worlds, if they are
asked the correct questions
(iii) Recent research indicates the preoperational child is
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not exclusively centrated
3. Children’s Foundational Theories
a) Recent research explores the notion that changes occur
separately, in several domains, as the child develops
foundational theories, or frameworks for initial
understanding, to explain experiences of the world
b) Children accumulate experiences into a theory of mind,
through performing the functions of psychologists
c) Children must be young practitioners of disciplines such as
physics and biology in order to perfect their understanding of
various aspects of the world
4. Social and Cultural Influences on Cognitive Development
a) Late in his life, Piaget began to question the cross-cultural
validity of his findings. Research has since shown that there
are cross-cultural differences in cognitive development.
b) Vygotsky argued that children developed through a process of
internalization, that they absorb knowledge from their social
context.
c) The concept of internalization helps to explain the effect
culture has on cognitive development.
D. Cognitive Development in Adulthood
1. Intelligence
a) Only about 5 percent of the healthy elderly experience a major
loss in cognitive functioning
b) Age-related decline in functioning is usually limited to only
some abilities, such as
(i) Difficulty in forming new associations
(ii) Slower acquisition of new information
c) As compared to crystallized intelligence, only fluid
intelligence shows a slight decline with increasing age
d) Wisdom, experience in the fundamental pragmatics of life, may
experience age-related gains
2. Elderly individuals who pursue high levels of environmental
stimulation tend to maintain high levels of cognitive functioning
a) Disuse, rather than decay, may be responsible for isolated
deficits in cognitive functioning
b) Successful aging may be linked to a strategy of selective
optimization with compensation
(i) Selective means scaling down the number and extent
of goals
(ii) Optimization refers to exercising or training oneself in
areas of individual highest priority
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(iii) Compensation means using alternative methods of
dealing with losses, such as choosing age-friendly
environments
3. Memory
a) Not all memory systems show age-related deficits; general
knowledge store and personal information does not appear to
diminish
b) Older adults do experience difficulty in acquisition of new
information
c) Elderly individuals’ memory performance may be impaired by
their belief that their memory will be poor
d) Certain age-related neurobiological changes may result in
impaired memory:
(i) Loss or decay of cells in the brain
(ii) Deficiencies in neurotransmitters
(iii) Patients with Alzheimer’s disease experience gradual
loss of memory, as well as deterioration of
personality, which
(a) Affects ±5% of individuals past age 65 and
±20% of individuals past age 80
(b) Deceptively mild onset
(c) Steady deterioration, including
(d) Gradual personality changes
(e) Inattentiveness and mutism
(f) Lack of ability to care for oneself
(g) Loss of memory for who they are
(h) Eventual death
IV. Acquiring Language
A. Most researchers agree that the ability to learn language is biologically based–that it is an
innate capacity
1. Perceiving Speech and Perceiving Words: A child’s first step in acquiring
language is noting sound contrasts that are used meaningfully in that
language
a) When using signed languages, the child must attend to
contrasts in such things as positions of the hands
b) Minimal meaningful units in speech are phonemes
c) Children habituate to phonemes, learning to distinguish
between different sounds
B. Learning Word Meanings
1. Naming explosion occurs at about 18 months
2. Average 6-year-old understands about 14,000 words
3. Children develop hypotheses about meanings of words, which may
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result in
a) Overextensions: incorrect use of words to cover a wide range of
subjects, such as using “doggie” for any four-legged animal
b) Underextensions: such as thinking “doggie” refers only to the
family pet
c) Hypotheses may be constrained by mutual exclusivity, in
which the child may act as if each object must have only one
label
4. Bootstrapping occurs when children make use of what they already
know to acquire new meanings
C. Acquiring Grammar
1. Grammar is the rules by which units of meaning are combined into
larger units
2. Chomsky argued that children are born with mental structures that
facilitate the comprehension and production of language, thus
removing some parental pressures to teach grammar explicitly
a) Referential children’s vocabularies consist largely of nouns
b) Expressive children’s vocabularies consist largely of
formulaic expressions
c) Referential and expressive children appear to believe, at an
early age, in different functions for language, and follow
different paths to acquisition of grammar
D. Language-Making Capacity
1. Aspects of acquisition are believed to be biologically predetermined
2. Children bring innate guidelines to the task of learning a particular
language
3. Slobin defined a set of operating principles that constitute the child’s
language-making capacity
a) Operating principles take the form of directives to the child
b) Principles are encoded as part of the human genome.
Examples include:
(i) Telegraphic speech: use of two-word phrases which
lack functions
(ii) Extensions: the child’s attempts to try (in all cases) and
use the same unit of meaning (morpheme) to mark the
same concept, often resulting in over regularization
V.Social Development Across the Life Span
A. Social development concerns how individuals’ social interactions and expectations
change across the life span
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B. Erikson’s Psychosocial Stages
1. Erikson proposed that there are eight stages of psychosocial
development across the life span
2. Each stage presents a conflict for resolution. Conflicts at each stage
must be successfully resolved in order to cope successfully with
subsequent stages
3. Stages, crises, and approximate age range for each:
a) Trust vs. mistrust: child’s sense of safety vs. insecurity; birth to
1.5 years
b) Autonomy vs. self-doubt: sense of self-efficacy vs. feelings of
inadequacy, 1.5 to 3 years
c) Initiative vs. guilt: confidence in self as an initiator vs. feelings
of lack of self-worth, 3 to 6 years
d) Competence vs. inferiority: adequacy in basic social and
intellectual skills vs. feelings of failure and lack of self-
confidence; 6 years to puberty
e) Identity vs. role confusion: comfortable sense of self vs.
fragmented, unclear sense of self; adolescent years
f) Intimacy vs. isolation: capacity for commitment to another vs.
feelings of separation, aloneness; early adulthood
g) Generativity vs. stagnation: concerns go beyond the self, to
society vs. self-indulgence and lack of future orientation;
middle adulthood
h) Ego-integrity vs. despair: sense of satisfaction with life vs.
feelings of futility and disappointment with life; later
adulthood
C. Social Development in Childhood
1. Socialization is the lifelong process through which an individual’s
behavior patterns, values, standards, skills, attitudes, and motives are
shaped to conform to those regarded as desirable in a particular
society
a) Most important socializing agent is the family
b) Parental socialization goals for children range from
behavioral compliance with specific social rules to
internalizing of general social values
2. Attachment
a) Attachment–the beginning of the process of social
development–is the establishment of a close emotional
relationship between a child and a mother, father, or other
regular caregiver
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b) Earliest function of attachment is ensuring of the infant’s
survival
c) In some nonhuman species, biology elicits attachment, such
as imprinting, in which the infant automatically fixes on the
first moving object it sees or hears
d) Human infants rely on complex proximity-promoting signals
to solidify adult—child bonding
e) Bowlby posits that infants will form attachments to
individuals who consistently and appropriately respond to
their signals
3. Assessing the Quality and Consequences of Attachment
a) Secure attachment has powerful, lasting, beneficial effects,
which include enabling the child to:
(i) Learn various prosocial behaviors
(ii) Take risks
(iii) Enter into novel situations
(iv) Seek and accept intimacy in personal relationships
b) Ainsworth’s Strange Situation Test is widely used for assessing
attachment with infant response patterns falling into three
categories
(i) Securely attached children show some distress when
parent leaves, seek proximity, comfort, and contact at
reunion, then gradually return to play
(ii) Insecurely attached-avoidant children seem aloof and
may actively avoid and ignore the parent on return
(iii) Insecurely attached-ambivalent/resistant children become
quite upset and anxious at parent’s departure, cannot
be comforted at reunion, showing both anger and
resistance to the parent but simultaneously
expressing desire for contact
c) Categorizations based on the Strange Situation have proved to
be highly predictive of a child’s subsequent behavior in a
variety of settings
4. Parenting Styles and Parenting Practices
a) Researchers feel the most beneficial parenting style is at the
intersection of the dimensions of demandingness and
responsiveness
(i) Demandingness refers to parent’s willingness to act as
a socializing agent
(ii) Responsiveness refers to the parent’s recognition of the
child’s individuality
b) Parenting styles
(i) Authoritative parents make appropriate demands on
the child, but are responsive, keeping channels of
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communication open. This style of parenting is most
likely to produce an effective parent-child bond
(ii) Authoritarian parents apply discipline with little
attention to the child’s autonomy
(iii) Indulgent parents fail to help children learn about the
structure of social rules in which they must live
c) Parents with the same overall style of parenting may place
different priorities on the various socialization goals they
consider important for their children
d) Parenting practices are a response to particular goals, with both
parents’ general attitudes and specific behaviors being
important for charting the life course of the child
e) A 35-year longitudinal study of parenting style revealed that
mothers’ treatment of their 5-year-old children was
significantly associated with social adjustment in the child
more than 30 years later
5. Contact Comfort and Social Experience
a) (i) Cupboard theory proposed that infants become attached to
parents because parents provide them with food, their most
basic physical need
b) (ii) Harlow proposed that infants attach to those who
provide them with contact comfort and tested his theory with
infant macaque monkeys
(i) Separated infants from mothers at birth and placed
them in cages with access to one of two artificial
“mothers,” one made of wire and one of terry cloth
(ii) Wire mother provided food source, but babies spent
more time with terry cloth mother
(iii) Babies used terry cloth mother as comfort source
when frightened and “base of operations” when
exploring new stimuli
(iv) Harlow also found that the bond of the infant
monkeys to the mother substitute was insufficient for
healthy social development. Females deprived of
interaction opportunities with other monkeys had
difficulty forming social and sexual relationships in
adulthood
c) Suomi found that placing emotionally vulnerable infant
monkeys in the “foster care” of supportive mothers provided
the infants with coping skills and information essential for
recruiting support from other monkeys, as well as for
maintaining high social status within the group
D. Social Development in Adolescence
1. The Experience of Adolescence: The Myth of Adolescent “Storm and
Stress”
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a) “Storm and stress” disputed by cultural anthropologists
Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict as being nonapplicable to
many non-Western cultures
b) Data indicate that the few adolescents who do experience
serious maladjustment are likely to continue to do so as
adults, with a strong link between adolescent conduct
problems and adult criminality
c) Erikson considered the discovery of one’s true identity to be
the essential task of adolescence
2. Social relationships
a) Peers
(i)Peers now compete with parents in shaping of attitudes
and behaviors
(ii) Social skills and roles are refined with peers
(iii) Peers become an increasingly important source of
social support, with an increase in anxiety being
associated with peer rejection
(iv) Peer pressure to conform to peer values and behaviors
peaks around ages 12 to 13
b) Autonomy is the transition from parental authority to
reasonable independence on the part of the adolescent
(i) Transition may be difficult for parents
(ii) Parent-child relationships may have more built-in
potential for conflict than do peer relationships
3. Future Goals
a) Setting goals for the future involves current appraisal of one’s
abilities and interests
b) Selection of future occupation involves tasks central to
identity formation, including awareness of alternatives, and
making and following through on choices
E. Social Development in Adulthood
1. Intimacy
a) Intimacy refers to the capacity to make a full commitment to
another person, sexually, emotionally, and morally
b) Intimacy occurs in friendships as well as romantic
relationships, and requires openness, courage, ethical
strength, and usually some compromise of one’s personal
preferences
c) Research confirms Erikson’s supposition that social intimacy
is a prerequisite for psychological well-being across the adult
life stages
d) Young adulthood is the time in which many people enter into
marriages or other stable relationships, often deciding to
include children in their lives
(i) Males and females make the transition to parenthood
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in different ways
(ii) Arrival of children may push parents into more
traditional sex-role behaviors
(iii) For some couples, marital satisfaction erodes due to
conflicts as children pass through their own
adolescent years
(iv) Parents may enjoy their children most when the
children no longer live at home
e) Research indicates that approximately two out of three
couples now married will divorce, but consequences of
remaining in an unsatisfying marriage are more unfortunate
for females than males
(i) Marital dissatisfaction for women often results in
impairment of both physical and mental health
(ii) Men almost always benefit from marriage, even a bad
marriage, while women suffer in bad marriages
(iii) Women are more likely to care for an unhealthy,
elderly husband—and go on to a period of mourning
his death and of financial insecurity
f) In later life, the balance of social interactions shifts somewhat,
from family to friends
(i) The elderly interact with fewer people, but the nature
of the interactions change in order for intimacy needs
to be met
(ii) Selective social interaction theory proposes that as we
age, we become more selective in choosing social
partners who satisfy our emotional needs
2. Generativity
a) Generativity refers to commitment beyond oneself to family,
work, society, or future generations
b) Erikson’s last crisis of adulthood is the conflict between ego-
integrity and despair
c) Most adults review their lives with a sense of wholeness and
satisfaction
3. The Cultural Construction of Late Adulthood: addresses cultural
beliefs and expectations about later life, the stereotypical depictions of
the elderly
a) Overall stereotype is negative
b) Stereotype may serve to change the lifestyle experience of
older adults for the worse
c) Negative expectations of their performance by the elderly may
lead to impaired performance
d) Caretakers may artificially bring about patterns of increased
dependence via the dependency-support script
e) Ageism is prejudice against older people that leads to
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discrimination that limits their opportunities, isolates them,
and fosters negative self-images
VI. Gender Development
A. Early human differences perceived by children are entirely social—they sense sex
differences before acquiring anatomical knowledge
B. Sex and Gender
1. Sex differences are biologically based characteristics that distinguish
males from females
a) Include different reproductive functions and differences in
anatomy and hormones
b) Differences are universal, biologically determined, and
unchanged by social influence
c) Over time, sex differences have led to development of
traditional social roles for males and females
2. Gender is a psychological phenomenon, referring to learned, sex-
related behaviors and attitudes
3. Gender identity is the individual’s sense of maleness or femaleness,
and includes awareness and acceptance of one’s own sex
a) Develops at an early age
b) Is important to child’s psychological well-being
C. The Acquisition of Gender Roles
1. Gender roles are patterns of behavior regarded as appropriate for males
and females within a given society
a) Provide basic definitions of masculinity and femininity
b) Much of what is considered masculine or feminine is
culturally determined
c) Gender-role socialization begins at birth, with parental
responses to the infant being based on gender-role stereotypes
VII. Moral Development
A. Morality is a system of beliefs, values, and underlying judgments about the rightness or
wrongness of human acts
B. Kolhberg’s Stages of Moral Reasoning
1. Kohlberg founded his study of moral development on the study of
moral reasoning, the judgments people make about what courses of
action are correct or incorrect in particular situations
2. Kohlberg’s theory predicated on Piagetian cognitive-development
theory (i.e., as the child progresses through the stages of cognitive
growth, he/she assigns differing relative weights to the consequences
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of an act and to the actor’s intentions)
3. Each of Kohlberg’s levels and stages is characterized by a different
basis for making moral judgments; he was interested in the course of
action involved in making a moral decision, not the decision itself
a) Level 1: Preconventional Morality
(i) Stage 1: Pleasure–pain orientation, reasons for
behaviors is to avoid pain or not get caught
(ii) Stage 2: Cost–benefit orientation; reciprocity, reasons
for behaviors are to obtain rewards
b) Level II: Conventional Morality
(i) Stage 3: Good child orientation, behavior is enacted to
gain acceptance and avoid disapproval
(ii) Stage 4: Law and order orientation, behavior is
enacted to follow the rules, and avoid censure by
authorities
c) Level III: Principled Morality
(i) Stage 5: Social contract orientation, to promote social
welfare
(ii) Stage 6: Ethical principle orientation, to achieve
justice and avoid self-condemnation
(iii) Stage 7: Cosmic orientation; to be true to universal
principles, feeling oneself part of a cosmic direction
that transcends social norms
4. Four Principles Govern Kohlberg’s Stage Model:
a) An individual can be at only one of the indicated stages at a
given time
b) Everyone goes through the stages in a fixed order
c) Each stage is more comprehensive and complex than the
preceding one
d) The same stages occur in every culture
5. Stages 1 through 3 appear to parallel the course of cognitive
development, with most children reaching stage 3 by age 13, with
much of the controversy with Kohlberg’s theory aimed at stages 4
through 7
6. Moral Reasoning in Adolescents and Adults
a) Kohlberg’s view was that moral development would continue
in steady progression, beyond level 3; however, not all
individuals attain stages 4 through 7
b) Many adults never reach stage 5, and few go beyond it
c) Stages 4 through 7 are not found in all cultures and seem
more associated with advanced education and increased
verbal ability in Western cultures, features that should not be
prerequisites for moral achievement
C. Gender and Cultural Perspectives on Moral Reasoning
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PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE
1. Content of latter stages appears subjective
2. Understanding each successive latter stage as “more comprehensive
and sophisticated than the preceding” is difficult
3. Latter stages have been criticized because they do not recognize that
adult moral judgments may reflect different but equally moral
principles
a) Gilligan argued Kohlberg’s work was biased in that his
original sample was all male
b) Kohlberg’s research overlooked potential differences between
habitual moral judgments of males and females
c) Gilligan proposed female’s moral development was based on
a standard of caring for others, and progressing to a stage of
self-realization, whereas males base their reasoning on a
standard of justice
4. Though Gilligan’s contribution is valued, later research suggests she
is incorrect to identify unique styles of moral reasoning for males and
females
a) Researchers dispute whether gender differences in moral
reasoning exist
b) Alleged gender differences may be consequences of the
difference in social situations that arise in the lives of males
and females
c) Studies of gender differences in moral behaviors have found
no consistent differences
5. Adult moral reasoning may best be characterized as a mix between
considerations of justice and considerations of caring, with the mix
remaining in place over most of the life span
a) Moral judgments are affected by general changes in adult
cognition.
b) A relevant change in late adulthood is the individual’s
shifting the basis for judgments away from the details of
specific situations, and toward the use of general principles
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CHAPTER 11: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. In several well-publicized cases, judges have returned custody of children to the biological
parents, removing the child from his or her adoptive parents or foster parents. This would
seem to indicate that there is still a sense of ownership of children in the eyes of the law.
What do such decisions indicate about th