Dysrationalia is defined as the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. It is a concept in educational psychology and is not a clinical disorder such as a thought disorder. Dysrationalia can be a resource to help explain why smart people fall for Ponzi schemes and other fraudulent encounters.
History
The concept of dysrationalia was first proposed by psychologist Keith Stanovich
in the early 1990s. Stanovich originally classified dysrationalia as a
learning disability and characterized it as a difficulty in belief
formation, in assessing belief consistency, or in the determination of
action to achieve one's goals.
However, special education researcher Kenneth Kavale noted that
dysrationalia may be more aptly categorized as a thinking disorder,
rather than a learning disability, because it does not have a direct
impact upon academic performance.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg
argued that the construct of dysrationalia needed to be better
conceptualized since it lacked a theoretical framework (explaining why
people are dysrational and how they become this way) and
operationalization (how dysrationalia could be measured).
Sternberg also noted that the concept had the potential for misuse, as
one may label another as dysrational simply because he or she does not
agree with the other person's view: "I am afraid that Stanovich has
fallen into a trap—that of labeling people as 'dysrational' who have
beliefs that he does not accept. And therein lies frightening potential
for misuse."
Stanovich then replied to both Kavale and Sternberg.
In response to Sternberg's concern about the construct's potential for
misuse, Stanovich said that in that respect it is no different from
other constructs such as intelligence, which is a construct that
Sternberg himself uses. Stanovich emphasized that use of the dysrationalia construct should be carefully based on rigorous standards of epistemic justification that do not depend solely on social agreement or disagreement and that refer to the process of justifying beliefs, not to the content of beliefs themselves.
Stanovich and his colleagues further developed the theoretical
framework for, and operationalization of, dysrationalia in later books.
In 2002 Sternberg edited a book, Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid, in which the dysrationalia concept was extensively discussed. In his 2009 book What Intelligence Tests Miss, Stanovich provided the detailed conceptualization that Sternberg called for in his earlier critique.
In that book, Stanovich showed that variation in rational thinking
skills is surprisingly independent of intelligence. One implication of
this finding is that dysrationalia should not be rare.
Mindware
Stanovich proposed two concepts related to dysrationalia: mindware gap and contaminated mindware.
A mindware gap results from gaps in education and experience.
This idea focuses on the lack or limitations within a person's knowledge
in logic, probability theory, or scientific method when it comes to belief orientation or decision-making. Due to these gaps, intelligent people can make seemingly irrational decisions.
One
example that Stanovich related to dysrationalia centers on two former
Illinois schoolteachers who pulled their children from the local public
school in the area because discussions of the Holocaust are a part of the school's history curriculum.
These parents, who are presumably competent due to their college
education, believe that the Holocaust is a myth and should not be taught
to their children. This is an example of a problem in belief formation
regardless of intelligence.
A survey was given to Canadian Mensa club members on the topic of paranormal belief. Mensa
members are provided membership strictly because of their high-IQ
scores. The survey results showed that 44% of the members believed in astrology, 51% believed in biorhythms, and 56% believed in the existence of extraterrestrial visitors. Stanovich argued that these beliefs have no valid evidence and thus might have been an example of dysrationalia.
Sternberg countered that "No one has yet conclusively proven any of
these beliefs to be false", so endorsement of the beliefs should not be
considered evidence of dysrationalia. Stanovich's rebuttal to Sternberg explained that the purpose of the example was to question the epistemic rationality of the process
by which people arrived at their unlikely conclusions, a process of
evaluating the quality of arguments and evidence for and against each
conclusion, not to assume irrationality based on the content of the conclusion alone.
There are many examples of people who are famous because of their
intelligence, but often display irrational behavior. Two examples cited
by Stanovich were Martin Heidegger and William Crookes. Heidegger, a renowned philosopher, was also a Nazi apologist and "used the most specious of arguments to justify his beliefs". Crookes, a famous scientist who discovered the element thallium and was a Fellow of the Royal Society, "was repeatedly duped by spiritualist 'mediums' but never gave up his belief in spiritualism". Science journalist David Robson cited the example of Kary Mullis, an American biochemist and 1993 Nobel Prize winner who was also an astrology supporter and a climate change and HIV/AIDS denier.
Developmental psychology examines the influences of nature and
nurture on the process of human development, and processes of change in
context across time. Many researchers are interested in the
interactions among personal characteristics, the individual's behavior,
and environmental factors, including the social context and the built environment. Ongoing debates in regards to developmental psychology include biological essentialism vs. neuroplasticity and stages of development vs. dynamic systems of development.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John B. Watson are typically cited as providing the foundations for modern developmental psychology. In the mid-18th century, Jean Jacques Rousseau described three stages of development: infants (infancy), puer (childhood) and adolescence in Emile: Or, On Education. Rousseau's ideas were taken up strongly by educators at the time.
Developmental psychology generally focuses on how and why certain
changes (cognitive, social, intellectual, personality) occur over time
in the course of a human life. Many theorists have made a profound
contribution to this area of psychology. One of them, Erik Erikson
developed a model of eight stages of psychological development. He
believed that humans developed in stages throughout their lifetimes and
that this would affect their behaviors.
Charles Darwin
In the late 19th century, psychologists familiar with the evolutionary theory of Darwin began seeking an evolutionary description of psychological development; prominent here was the pioneering psychologist G. Stanley Hall, who attempted to correlate ages of childhood with previous ages of humanity. James Mark Baldwin, who wrote essays on topics that included Imitation: A Chapter in the Natural History of Consciousness and Mental Development in the Child and the Race: Methods and Processes, was heavily involved in the theory of developmental psychology. Sigmund Freud, whose concepts were developmental, significantly affected public perceptions.
Sigmund Freud
believed that everyone has a conscious, preconscious, and unconscious
level of awareness. In the conscious, one is aware of their mental
process. The preconscious involves information that, though not
currently in our thoughts, can be brought into consciousness. Lastly,
the unconscious includes mental processes that a person is unaware of.
He believed there is tension between the conscious and
unconscious because the conscious tries to hold back what the
unconscious tries to express. To explain this, he developed three
personality structures: the id, ego, and superego. The id, the most
primitive of the three, functions according to the pleasure principle:
seek pleasure and avoid pain.
The superego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the
organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id
and the superego.
Based on this, he proposed five universal stages of development,
that each is characterized by the erogenous zone that is the source of
the child's psychosexual energy. The first is the oral stage,
which occurs from birth to 12 months of age. During the oral stage, "the
libido is centered in a baby's mouth." The baby can suck. The second is
the anal stage, from one to three years of age. During the anal
stage, the child defecates from the anus and is often fascinated with
their defecation. The third is the phallic stage,
which occurs from three to five years of age (most of a person's
personality forms by this age). During the phallic stage, the child is
aware of their sexual organs. The fourth is the latency stage,
which occurs from age five until puberty. During the latency stage, the
child's sexual interests are repressed. Stage five is the genital stage, which takes place from puberty until adulthood. During the genital stage, puberty starts happening.
Jean Piaget, a Swiss theorist, posited that children learn by actively constructing knowledge through hands-on experience.
He suggested that the adult's role in helping the child learn was to
provide appropriate materials that the child can interact with and use
to construct. He used Socratic questioning to get children to reflect on what they were doing, and he tried to get them to see contradictions in their explanations.
Piaget believed that intellectual development takes place through
a series of stages, which he described in his theory on cognitive
development. Each stage consists of steps the child must master before
moving to the next step. He believed that these stages are not separate
from one another, but rather that each stage builds on the previous one
in a continuous learning process. He proposed four stages: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational.
Though he did not believe these stages occurred at any given age, many
studies have determined when these cognitive abilities should take
place.
Piaget claimed that logic and morality develop through constructive stages. Expanding on Piaget's work, Lawrence Kohlberg
determined that the process of moral development was principally
concerned with justice, and that it continued throughout the
individual's lifetime.
He suggested three levels of moral reasoning; pre-conventional
moral reasoning, conventional moral reasoning, and post-conventional
moral reasoning. The pre-conventional moral reasoning is typical of
children and is characterized by reasoning that is based on rewards and
punishments associated with different courses of action. Conventional
moral reason occurs during late childhood and early adolescence and is
characterized by reasoning based on rules and conventions of society.
Lastly, post-conventional moral reasoning is a stage during which the
individual sees society's rules and conventions as relative and
subjective, rather than as authoritative.
Kohlberg used the Heinz Dilemma to apply to his stages of moral
development. The Heinz Dilemma involves Heinz's wife dying from cancer
and Heinz having the dilemma to save his wife by stealing a drug.
Preconventional morality, conventional morality, and post-conventional
morality applies to Heinz's situation.
German-American psychologist Erik Erikson and his collaborator and wife, Joan Erikson,
conceptualized eight stages of psychosocial development that they
theorized healthy individuals pass through as they develop from infancy
to adulthood. At each stage
the person must resolve a challenge, or an existential dilemma.
Successful resolution of the dilemma results in the person ingraining a
positive virtue, but failure to resolve the fundamental challenge of
that stage reinforces negative perceptions of the person or the world
around them and the person's personal development is unable to progress.
The first stage, "Trust vs. Mistrust", takes place in infancy. The
positive virtue for the first stage is hope, in the infant learning whom
to trust and having hope for a supportive group of people to be there
for him/her. The second stage is "Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt" with the
positive virtue being will. This takes place in early childhood when
the child learns to become more independent by discovering what they are
capable of whereas if the child is overly controlled, feelings of
inadequacy are reinforced, which can lead to low self-esteem and doubt.
The third stage is "Initiative vs. Guilt." The virtue of being gained is
a sense of purpose. This takes place primarily via play. This is the
stage where the child will be curious and have many interactions with
other kids. They will ask many questions as their curiosity grows. If
too much guilt is present, the child may have a slower and harder time
interacting with their world and other children in it. The fourth stage
is "Industry (competence) vs. Inferiority". The virtue for this stage is
competency and is the result of the child's early experiences in
school. This stage is when the child will try to win the approval of
others and understand the value of their accomplishments. The fifth
stage is "Identity vs. Role Confusion". The virtue gained is fidelity
and it takes place in adolescence. This is when the child ideally starts
to identify their place in society, particularly in terms of their
gender role. The sixth stage is "Intimacy vs. Isolation", which happens
in young adults and the virtue gained is love. This is when the person
starts to share his/her life with someone else intimately and
emotionally. Not doing so can reinforce feelings of isolation. The
seventh stage is "Generativity vs. Stagnation". This happens in
adulthood and the virtue gained is care. A person becomes stable and
starts to give back by raising a family and becoming involved in the
community. The eighth stage is "Ego Integrity vs. Despair". When one
grows old, they look back on their life and contemplate their successes
and failures. If they resolve this positively, the virtue of wisdom is
gained. This is also the stage when one can gain a sense of closure and
accept death without regret or fear.
Stages based on the model of hierarchical complexity
Michael Commons enhanced and simplified Bärbel Inhelder
and Piaget's developmental theory and offers a standard method of
examining the universal pattern of development. The Model of
Hierarchical Complexity (MHC) is not based on the assessment of
domain-specific information, It divides the Order of Hierarchical
Complexity of tasks to be addressed from the Stage performance on those
tasks. A stage is the order hierarchical complexity of the tasks the
participant's successfully addresses. He expanded Piaget's original
eight stage (counting the half stages) to fifteen stages. The stages
are : 0 Calculatory; 1 Sensory & Motor; 2 Circular sensory-motor; 3
Sensory-motor; 4 Nominal; 5 Sentential; 6 Preoperational; 7 Primary; 8
Concrete; 9 Abstract; 10 Formal; 11 Systematic; 12 Metasystematic; 13
Paradigmatic; 14 Cross-paradigmatic; 15 Meta-Cross-paradigmatic. The
order of hierarchical complexity of tasks predicts how difficult the
performance is with an R ranging from 0.9 to 0.98.
In the MHC, there are three main axioms for an order to meet in
order for the higher order task to coordinate the next lower order task.
Axioms are rules that are followed to determine how the MHC orders
actions to form a hierarchy. These axioms are: a) defined in terms of
tasks at the next lower order of hierarchical complexity task action; b)
defined as the higher order task action that organizes two or more less
complex actions; that is, the more complex action specifies the way in
which the less complex actions combine; c) defined as the lower order
task actions have to be carried out non-arbitrarily.
Ecological systems theory, originally formulated by Urie Bronfenbrenner,
specifies four types of nested environmental systems, with
bi-directional influences within and between the systems. The four
systems are microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. Each
system contains roles, norms and rules that can powerfully shape
development. The microsystem is the direct environment in our lives such
as our home and school. Mesosystem is how relationships connect to the
microsystem. Exosystem is a larger social system where the child plays
no role. Macrosystem refers to the cultural values, customs and laws of
society.
The microsystem is the immediate environment surrounding and
influencing the individual (example: school or the home setting). The
mesosystem is the combination of two microsystems and how they influence
each other (example: sibling relationships at home vs. peer
relationships at school). The exosystem is the interaction among two or
more settings that are indirectly linked (example: a father's job
requiring more overtime ends up influencing his daughter's performance
in school because he can no longer help with her homework). The
macrosystem is broader taking into account social economic status,
culture, beliefs, customs and morals (example: a child from a wealthier
family sees a peer from a less wealthy family as inferior for that
reason). Lastly, the chronosystem refers to the chronological nature of
life events and how they interact and change the individual and their
circumstances through transition (example: a mother losing her own
mother to illness and no longer having that support in her life).
Since its publication in 1979, Bronfenbrenner's major statement of this theory, The Ecology of Human Development,
has had widespread influence on the way psychologists and others
approach the study of human beings and their environments. As a result
of this conceptualization of development, these environments—from the
family to economic and political structures—have come to be viewed as
part of the life course from childhood through to adulthood.
Lev Vygotsky
was a Russian theorist from the Soviet era, who posited that children
learn through hands-on experience and social interactions with members
of their culture.
Unlike Piaget, he claimed that timely and sensitive intervention by
adults when a child is on the edge of learning a new task (called the
"zone of proximal development") could help children learn new tasks.
This adult role is often referred to as the skilled "master", whereas
the child is considered the learning apprentice through an educational
process often termed "cognitive apprenticeship"
Martin Hill stated that "The world of reality does not apply to the
mind of a child." This technique is called "scaffolding", because it
builds upon knowledge children already have with new knowledge that
adults can help the child learn.
Vygotsky was strongly focused on the role of culture in determining the
child's pattern of development, arguing that development moves from the
social level to the individual level.
In other words, Vygotsky claimed that psychology should focus on the
progress of human consciousness through the relationship of an
individual and their environment.
He felt that if scholars continued to disregard this connection, then
this disregard would inhibit the full comprehension of the human
consciousness.
Constructivism is a paradigm in psychology that characterizes
learning as a process of actively constructing knowledge. Individuals
create meaning for themselves or make sense of new information by
selecting, organizing, and integrating information with other knowledge,
often in the context of social interactions. Constructivism can occur
in two ways: individual and social. Individual constructivism is when a
person constructs knowledge through cognitive processes of their own
experiences rather than by memorizing facts provided by others. Social
constructivism is when individuals construct knowledge through an
interaction between the knowledge they bring to a situation and social
or cultural exchanges within that content.
Jean Piaget, a Swiss developmental psychologist, proposed that
learning is an active process because children learn through experience
and make mistakes and solve problems. Piaget proposed that learning
should be whole by helping students understand that meaning is
constructed.
Evolutionary developmental psychology is a research paradigm that applies the basic principles of Darwinian evolution, particularly natural selection, to understand the development of human behavior and cognition. It involves the study of both the genetic and environmental mechanisms that underlie the development of social and cognitive competencies, as well as the epigenetic (gene-environment interactions) processes that adapt these competencies to local conditions.
EDP considers both the reliably developing, species-typical features of ontogeny (developmental adaptations), as well as individual differences
in behavior, from an evolutionary perspective. While evolutionary views
tend to regard most individual differences as the result of either
random genetic noise (evolutionary byproducts) and/or idiosyncrasies (for example, peer groups, education, neighborhoods, and chance encounters)
rather than products of natural selection, EDP asserts that natural
selection can favor the emergence of individual differences via
"adaptive developmental plasticity".
From this perspective, human development follows alternative
life-history strategies in response to environmental variability, rather
than following one species-typical pattern of development.
EDP is closely linked to the theoretical framework of evolutionary psychology
(EP), but is also distinct from EP in several domains, including
research emphasis (EDP focuses on adaptations of ontogeny, as opposed to
adaptations of adulthood) and consideration of proximate ontogenetic
and environmental factors (i.e., how development happens) in addition to
more ultimate factors (i.e., why development happens), which are the
focus of mainstream evolutionary psychology.
Attachment theory, originally developed by John Bowlby, focuses on the importance of open, intimate, emotionally meaningful relationships.
Attachment is described as a biological system or powerful survival
impulse that evolved to ensure the survival of the infant. A threatened
or stressed child will move toward caregivers who create a sense of
physical, emotional, and psychological safety for the individual.
Attachment feeds on body contact and familiarity. Later Mary Ainsworth developed the Strange Situation
protocol and the concept of the secure base. This tool has been found
to help understand and surveillance attachment, such as the Strange
Situation Test and the Adult Attachment Interview. Both of which help
determine factors to certain attachment styles. The Strange Situation
Test help finds "disturbances in attachment" and whether certain
attributes are found to contribute to a certain attachment issue.
The Adult Attachment Interview is a tool that is similar to the Strange
Situation Test but instead focuses attachment issues found in adults. Both tests have helped many researchers gain more information on the risks and how to identify them.
Theorists have proposed four types of attachment styles: secure, anxious-avoidant, anxious-resistant, and disorganized.
Secure attachment is a healthy attachment between the infant and the
caregiver. It is characterized by trust. Anxious-avoidant is an insecure
attachment between an infant and a caregiver. This is characterized by
the infant's indifference toward the caregiver. Anxious-resistant is an
insecure attachment between the infant and the caregiver characterized
by distress from the infant when separated and anger when reunited. Disorganized is an attachment style without a consistent pattern of responses upon return of the parent.
A child can be hindered in its natural tendency to form
attachments. Some babies are raised without the stimulation and
attention of a regular caregiver or locked away under conditions of
abuse or extreme neglect. The possible short-term effects of this
deprivation are anger, despair, detachment, and temporary delay in
intellectual development. Long-term effects include increased
aggression, clinging behavior, detachment, psychosomatic disorders, and
an increased risk of depression as an adult.
Attachment is established in early childhood and attachment
continues into adulthood. When involved in intimate relationships the
way adults are able to handle relationship issues depends on their
attachment styles that were formed during their childhood.
An example of secure attachment continuing in adulthood would be when
the person feels confident and is able to meet their own needs. Having a
secure attachment allows the adult to have a healthy trusting
relationship.
An example of anxious attachment during adulthood is when the adult
chooses a partner with anxious-avoidant attachment. Having an anxious/
ambivalent attachment style can affect an adult's trust issues in a
committed relationship.
By understanding what attachment style an individual formed with their
caregiver when they were children, we can better understand their
interpersonal relationships as adults.
Nature vs nurture
A
significant issue in developmental psychology is the relationship
between innateness and environmental influence in regard to any
particular aspect of development. This is often referred to as "nature and nurture" or nativism versus empiricism.
A nativist account of development would argue that the processes in
question are innate, that is, they are specified by the organism's genes.
An empiricist perspective would argue that those processes are
acquired in interaction with the environment. Today developmental
psychologists rarely take such polarised positions with regard to most
aspects of development; rather they investigate, among many other
things, the relationship between innate and environmental influences.
One of the ways this relationship has been explored in recent years is
through the emerging field of evolutionary developmental psychology.
One area where this innateness debate has been prominently portrayed is in research on language acquisition.
A major question in this area is whether or not certain properties of
human language are specified genetically or can be acquired through learning.
The empiricist position on the issue of language acquisition suggests
that the language input provides the necessary information required for
learning the structure of language and that infants acquire language
through a process of statistical learning.
From this perspective, language can be acquired via general learning
methods that also apply to other aspects of development, such as perceptual learning.
The nativist position argues that the input from language is too
impoverished for infants and children to acquire the structure of
language. Linguist Noam Chomsky asserts that, evidenced by the lack of sufficient information in the language input, there is a universal grammar that applies to all human languages and is pre-specified. This has led to the idea that there is a special cognitive module suited for learning language, often called the language acquisition device.
Chomsky's critique of the behaviorist model of language acquisition is
regarded by many as a key turning point in the decline in the prominence
of the theory of behaviorism generally.
But Skinner's conception of "Verbal Behavior" has not died, perhaps in
part because it has generated successful practical applications.
Continuity vs discontinuity
One of the major discussions in developmental psychology includes whether development is discontinuous or continuous.
Continuous development is quantifiable and quantitative,
whereas discontinuous development is qualitative. Quantitative
estimations of development can be measuring the stature of a child, and
measuring their memory or consideration span. "Particularly dramatic
examples of qualitative changes are metamorphoses, such as the emergence
of a caterpillar into a butterfly."
Those psychologists who bolster the continuous view of
improvement propose that improvement includes slow and progressing
changes all through the life span, with behavior within the prior stages
of advancement giving the premise of abilities and capacities required
for the other stages. "To many, the concept of continuous, quantifiable
measurement seems to be the essence of science".
Not all psychologists, be that as it may, concur that advancement
could be a continuous process. A few see advancement as a discontinuous
process. They accept advancement includes unmistakable and partitioned
stages with diverse sorts of behavior happening in each organize. This
proposes that the development of certain capacities in each arrange,
such as particular feelings or ways of considering, have a definite
beginning and finishing point. Be that as it may, there's no correct
time at which a capacity abruptly shows up or disappears. Although some
sorts of considering, feeling or carrying on could seem to seem
abruptly, it is more than likely that this has been developing gradually
for some time.
Stage theories of development rest on the suspicion that
development may be a discontinuous process, including particular stages
which are characterized by subjective contrasts in behavior. They
moreover assume that the structure of the stages isn't variable
concurring to each person, in any case the time of each arrange may
shift separately. Stage theories can be differentiated with ceaseless
hypotheses, which set that development is an incremental process.
Stability vs change
This
issue involves the degree to which one becomes older renditions of
their early experience or whether they develop into something different
from who they were at an earlier point in development. It considers the
extent to which early experiences (especially infancy) or later
experiences are the key determinants of a person's development.
Most lifespan developmentalists recognize that extreme positions
are unwise. Therefore, the key to a comprehensive understanding of
development at any stage requires the interaction of different factors
and not only one.
Mathematical models
Developmental
psychology is concerned not only with describing the characteristics of
psychological change over time but also seeks to explain the principles
and internal workings underlying these changes. Psychologists have
attempted to better understand these factors by using models.
A model must simply account for the means by which a process takes
place. This is sometimes done in reference to changes in the brain that may correspond to changes in behavior over the course of the development.
Mathematical modeling is useful in developmental psychology for
implementing theory in a precise and easy-to-study manner, allowing
generation, explanation, integration, and prediction of diverse
phenomena. Several modeling techniques are applied to development: symbolic, connectionist (neural network), or dynamical systems models.
Dynamic systems models illustrate how many different features of a
complex system may interact to yield emergent behaviors and abilities.
Nonlinear dynamics has been applied to human systems specifically to
address issues that require attention to temporality such as life
transitions, human development, and behavioral or emotional change over
time. Nonlinear dynamic systems is currently being explored as a way to
explain discrete phenomena of human development such as affect, second language acquisition, and locomotion.
Cognitive development is primarily concerned with the ways that
infants and children acquire, develop, and use internal mental
capabilities such as: problem-solving, memory, and language. Major
topics in cognitive development are the study of language acquisition
and the development of perceptual and motor skills. Piaget was one of
the influential early psychologists to study the development of
cognitive abilities. His theory suggests that development proceeds
through a set of stages from infancy to adulthood and that there is an
end point or goal.
Other accounts, such as that of Lev Vygotsky,
have suggested that development does not progress through stages, but
rather that the developmental process that begins at birth and continues
until death is too complex for such structure and finality. Rather,
from this viewpoint, developmental processes proceed more continuously.
Thus, development should be analyzed, instead of treated as a product to
obtain.
K. Warner Schaie
has expanded the study of cognitive development into adulthood. Rather
than being stable from adolescence, Schaie sees adults as progressing
in the application of their cognitive abilities.
Modern cognitive development has integrated the considerations of cognitive psychology and the psychology of individual differences into the interpretation and modeling of development. Specifically, the neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development showed that the successive levels or stages of cognitive development are associated with increasing processing efficiency and working memory
capacity. These increases explain differences between stages,
progression to higher stages, and individual differences of children who
are the same-age and of the same grade-level. However, other theories
have moved away from Piagetian stage theories, and are influenced by
accounts of domain-specific
information processing, which posit that development is guided by
innate evolutionarily-specified and content-specific information
processing mechanisms.
Developmental psychologists who are interested in social development
examine how individuals develop social and emotional competencies. For
example, they study how children form friendships, how they understand
and deal with emotions, and how identity develops. Research in this area
may involve study of the relationship between cognition or cognitive
development and social behavior.
Emotional regulation
or ER refers to an individual's ability to modulate emotional responses
across a variety of contexts. In young children, this modulation is in
part controlled externally, by parents and other authority figures. As
children develop, they take on more and more responsibility for their
internal state. Studies have shown that the development of ER is
affected by the emotional regulation children observe in parents and
caretakers, the emotional climate in the home, and the reaction of
parents and caretakers to the child's emotions.
Music also has an influence on stimulating and enhancing the senses of a child through self-expression.
A child's social and emotional development can be disrupted by
motor coordination problems, evidenced by the environmental stress
hypothesis. The environmental hypothesis explains how children with
coordination problems and developmental coordination disorder are exposed to several psychosocial consequences which act as secondary stressors, leading to an increase in internalizing symptoms such as depression and anxiety.
Motor coordination problems affect fine and gross motor movement as
well as perceptual-motor skills. Secondary stressors commonly
identified include the tendency for children with poor motor skills to
be less likely to participate in organized play with other children and
more likely to feel socially isolated.
Social and emotional development focuses on five keys areas:
Self-Awareness, Self Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills
and Responsible Decision Making.
Physical development
Physical
development concerns the physical maturation of an individual's body
until it reaches the adult stature. Although physical growth is a highly
regular process, all children differ tremendously in the timing of
their growth spurts.
Studies are being done to analyze how the differences in these timings
affect and are related to other variables of developmental psychology
such as information processing speed. Traditional measures of physical
maturity using x-rays are less in practice nowadays, compared to simple
measurements of body parts such as height, weight, head circumference,
and arm span.
A few other studies and practices with physical developmental
psychology are the phonological abilities of mature 5- to 11-year-olds,
and the controversial hypotheses of left-handers being maturationally
delayed compared to right-handers. A study by Eaton, Chipperfield,
Ritchot, and Kostiuk in 1996 found in three different samples that there
was no difference between right- and left-handers.
Memory development
Researchers interested in memory development look at the way our memory develops from childhood and onward. According to fuzzy-trace theory,
people have two separate memory processes: verbatim and gist. These two
traces begin to develop at different times as well as at a different
pace. Children as young as four years old have verbatim memory, memory
for surface information, which increases up to early adulthood, at which
point it begins to decline. On the other hand, our capacity for gist
memory, memory for semantic information, increases up to early
adulthood, at which point it is consistent through old age. Furthermore,
one's reliance on gist memory traces increases as one ages.
Research methods and designs
Main research methods
Developmental psychology employs many of the research methods
used in other areas of psychology. However, infants and children cannot
be tested in the same ways as adults, so different methods are often
used to study their development.
Developmental psychologists have a number of methods to study
changes in individuals over time. Common research methods include
systematic observation, including naturalistic observation or structured observation; self-reports, which could be clinical interviews or structured interviews; clinical or case study method; and ethnography or participant observation.
These methods differ in the extent of control researchers impose on
study conditions, and how they construct ideas about which variables to
study. Every developmental investigation can be characterized in terms of whether its underlying strategy involves the experimental, correlational, or case study approach. The experimental method involves "actual manipulation of various treatments, circumstances, or events to which the participant or subject is exposed; the experimental design points to cause-and-effect relationships. This method allows for strong inferences to be made of causal relationships between the manipulation of one or more independent variables and subsequent behavior, as measured by the dependent variable. The advantage of using this research method is that it permits determination of cause-and-effect relationships among variables. On the other hand, the limitation is that data obtained in an artificial environment may lack generalizability.
The correlational method explores the relationship between two or more
events by gathering information about these variables without researcher
intervention.
The advantage of using a correlational design is that it estimates the
strength and direction of relationships among variables in the natural
environment; however, the limitation is that it does not permit determination of cause-and-effect relationships among variables. The case study approach allows investigations to obtain an in-depth understanding of an individual participant by collecting data based on interviews, structured questionnaires, observations, and test scores.
Each of these methods have its strengths and weaknesses but the
experimental method when appropriate is the preferred method of
developmental scientists because it provides a controlled situation and
conclusions to be drawn about cause-and-effect relationships.
Research designs
Most
developmental studies, regardless of whether they employ the
experimental, correlational, or case study method, can also be
constructed using research designs. Research designs are logical frameworks used to make key comparisons within research studies such as:
In a longitudinal study, a researcher observes many individuals born at or around the same time (a cohort)
and carries out new observations as members of the cohort age. This
method can be used to draw conclusions about which types of development
are universal (or normative)
and occur in most members of a cohort. As an example a longitudinal
study of early literacy development examined in detail the early
literacy experiences of one child in each of 30 families.
Researchers may also observe ways that development varies between
individuals, and hypothesize about the causes of variation in their
data. Longitudinal studies often require large amounts of time and
funding, making them unfeasible in some situations. Also, because
members of a cohort all experience historical events unique to their
generation, apparently normative developmental trends may, in fact, be
universal only to their cohort.
In a cross-sectional study,
a researcher observes differences between individuals of different ages
at the same time. This generally requires fewer resources than the
longitudinal method, and because the individuals come from different
cohorts, shared historical events are not so much of a confounding factor.
By the same token, however, cross-sectional research may not be the
most effective way to study differences between participants, as these
differences may result not from their different ages but from their
exposure to different historical events.
A third study design, the sequential design,
combines both methodologies. Here, a researcher observes members of
different birth cohorts at the same time, and then tracks all
participants over time, charting changes in the groups. While much more
resource-intensive, the format aids in a clearer distinction between
what changes can be attributed to an individual or historical
environment from those that are truly universal.
Because every method has some weaknesses, developmental
psychologists rarely rely on one study or even one method to reach
conclusions by finding consistent evidence from as many converging
sources as possible.
Prenatal development is of interest to psychologists investigating
the context of early psychological development. The whole prenatal
development involves three main stages: germinal stage, embryonic stage
and fetal stage. Germinal stage begins at conception until 2 weeks;
embryonic stage means the development from 2 weeks to 8 weeks; fetal
stage represents 9 weeks until birth of the baby.
The senses develop in the womb itself: a fetus can both see and hear by
the second trimester (13 to 24 weeks of age). The sense of touch
develops in the embryonic stage (5 to 8 weeks). Most of the brain's billions of neurons also are developed by the second trimester. Babies are hence born with some odor, taste and sound preferences, largely related to the mother's environment.
Some primitive reflexes
too arise before birth and are still present in newborns. One
hypothesis is that these reflexes are vestigial and have limited use in
early human life. Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggested that some early reflexes are building blocks for infant sensorimotor development. For example, the tonic neck reflex may help development by bringing objects into the infant's field of view.
Other reflexes, such as the walking reflex,
appear to be replaced by more sophisticated voluntary control later in
infancy. This may be because the infant gains too much weight after
birth to be strong enough to use the reflex, or because the reflex and
subsequent development are functionally different. It has also been suggested that some reflexes (for example the moro and walking reflexes) are predominantly adaptations to life in the womb with little connection to early infant development. Primitive reflexes reappear in adults under certain conditions, such as neurological conditions like dementia or traumatic lesions.
Ultrasound has shown that infants are capable of a range of movements in the womb, many of which appear to be more than simple reflexes.
By the time they are born, infants can recognize and have a preference
for their mother's voice suggesting some prenatal development of
auditory perception. Prenatal development and birth complications may also be connected to neurodevelopmental disorders, for example in schizophrenia. With the advent of cognitive neuroscience, embryology and the neuroscience of prenatal development is of increasing interest to developmental psychology research.
Several environmental agents—teratogens—can
cause damage during the prenatal period. These include prescription and
nonprescription drugs, illegal drugs, tobacco, alcohol, environmental
pollutants, infectious disease agents such as the rubella virus and the toxoplasmosis parasite, maternal malnutrition, maternal emotional stress, and Rh factor blood incompatibility between mother and child.
There are many statistics which prove the effects of the aforementioned
substances. A leading example of this would be that, in America alone,
approximately 100,000-375,000 'cocaine babies' are born on an annual
basis. This is a result of an expectant mother abusing the drug while
pregnant. 'Cocaine babies' are proven to have quite severe and lasting
difficulties which persist throughout infancy and right throughout
childhood. The drug also encourages behavioural problems in the affected
children and defects of various vital organs.
From birth until the first year, the child is referred to as an infant.
Developmental psychologists vary widely in their assessment of infant
psychology, and the influence the outside world has upon it, but certain
aspects are relatively clear.
The majority of a newborn infant's time is spent in sleep. At
first, this sleep is evenly spread throughout the day and night, but
after a couple of months, infants generally become diurnal.
Infants can be seen to have six states, grouped into pairs:
Infant
perception is what a newborn can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.
These five features are better known as one's "five senses". Infants respond to stimuli differently in these different states.
Vision
is significantly worse in infants than in older children. Infant sight
tends to be blurry in early stages but improves over time. Color
perception similar to that seen in adults has been demonstrated in
infants as young as four months, using habituation methods. Infants attain adult-like vision in about six months.
Hearing
is well-developed prior to birth, unlike vision. Newborns prefer
complex sounds to pure tones, human speech to other sounds, mother's
voice to other voices, and the native language to other languages.
Scientist believe these features are probably learned in the womb.
Infants are fairly good at detecting the direction a sound comes from,
and by 18 months their hearing ability is approximately equal to an
adult's.
Smell and taste
are present, with infants showing different expressions of disgust or
pleasure when presented with pleasant odors (honey, milk, etc.) or
unpleasant odors (rotten egg) and tastes (e.g. sour taste). Newborns are
born with odor and taste preferences acquired in the womb from the
smell and taste of amniotic fluid, in turn influenced by what the mother
eats. Both breast- and bottle-fed babies around three days old prefer
the smell of human milk to that of formula, indicating an innate
preference. There is good evidence for older infants preferring the smell of their mother to that of others.
Touch and feel is one of the better-developed senses at birth as it is one of the first senses to develop inside the womb. This is evidenced by the primitive reflexes described above, and the relatively advanced development of the somatosensory cortex.
Pain:
Infants feel pain similarly, if not more strongly than older children,
but pain relief in infants has not received so much attention as an area
of research. Glucose is known to relieve pain in newborns.
Babies are born with the ability to discriminate virtually all sounds of all human languages. Infants of around six months can differentiate between phonemes in their own language, but not between similar phonemes in another language. At this stage infants also start to babble, producing phonemes.
Infant cognition: the Piagetian era
Piaget
suggested that an infant's perception and understanding of the world
depended on their motor development, which was required for the infant
to link visual, tactile and motor representations of objects. According to this view, it is through touching and handling objects that infants develop object permanence, the understanding that objects are solid and permanent and continue to exist when out of sight.
Piaget's sensorimotor stage comprised six sub-stages (see sensorimotor stages for more detail). In the early stages, development arises out of movements caused by primitive reflexes. Discovery of new behaviors results from classical and operant conditioning, and the formation of habits. From eight months the infant is able to uncover a hidden object but will persevere when the object is moved.
Piaget came to his conclusion that infants lacked a complete
understanding of object permanence before 18 months after observing
infants' failure before this age to look for an object where it was last
seen. Instead, infants continue to look for an object where it was
first seen, committing the "A-not-B error".
Some researchers have suggested that before the age of eight to nine
months, infants' inability to understand object permanence extends to
people, which explains why infants at this age do not cry when their
mothers are gone ("Out of sight, out of mind").
Recent findings in infant cognition
In
the 1980s and 1990s, researchers have developed many new methods of
assessing infants' understanding of the world with far more precision
and subtlety than Piaget was able to do in his time. Since then, many
studies based on these methods suggest that young infants understand far
more about the world than first thought.
Based on recent findings, some researchers (such as Elizabeth Spelke and Renee Baillargeon)
have proposed that an understanding of object permanence is not learned
at all, but rather comprises part of the innate cognitive capacities of
our species.
Other research has suggested that young infants in their first
six months of life may possess an understanding of numerous aspects of
the world around them, including:
an early numerical cognition, that is, an ability to represent number and even compute the outcomes of addition and subtraction operations;
an ability to infer the goals of people in their environment;
an ability to engage in simple causal reasoning.
Critical periods of development
There are critical periods
in infancy and childhood during which development of certain
perceptual, sensorimotor, social and language systems depends crucially
on environmental stimulation. Feral children such as Genie,
deprived of adequate stimulation, fail to acquire important skills and
are unable to learn in later childhood. The concept of critical periods
is also well-established in neurophysiology, from the work of Hubel and Wiesel among others.
Developmental delays
Studies
have been done to look at the differences in children who have
developmental delays versus typical development. Normally when being
compared to one another, mental age (MA) is not taken into
consideration. There still may be differences in developmentally delayed
(DD) children vs. typical development (TD) behavioral, emotional and
other mental disorders. When compared to MA children there is a bigger
difference between normal developmental behaviors overall. DDs can cause
lower MA, so comparing DDs with TDs may not be as accurate. Pairing DDs
specifically with TD children at similar MA can be more accurate. There
are levels of behavioral differences that are considered as normal at
certain ages. When we look at DDs and MA kids, we want to see if those
with DDs have a larger amount of behavior that is not normal for their
MA group. Developmental delays tend to contribute to other disorders or
difficulties than their TD counterparts.
Infants shift between ages of one and two to a developmental stage
known as toddlerhood. In this stage, an infant's transition into
toddlerhood is highlighted through self-awareness, developing maturity
in language use, and presence of memory and imagination.
During toddlerhood, babies begin learning how to walk, talk, and
make decisions for themselves. An important characteristic of this age
period is the development of language,
where children are learning how to communicate and express their
emotions and desires through the use of vocal sounds, babbling, and
eventually words.
Self-control also begins to develop. At this age, children take
initiative to explore, experiment and learn from making mistakes.
Caretakers who encourage toddlers to try new things and test their
limits, help the child become autonomous, self-reliant, and confident.
If the caretaker is overprotective or disapproving of independent
actions, the toddler may begin to doubt their abilities and feel ashamed
of the desire for independence. The child's autonomic development is
inhibited, leaving them less prepared to deal with the world in the
future. Toddlers also begin to identify themselves in gender roles, acting according to their perception of what a man or woman should do.
Socially, the period of toddler-hood is commonly called the "terrible twos".
Toddlers often use their new-found language abilities to voice their
desires, but are often misunderstood by parents due to their language
skills just beginning to develop. A person at this stage testing their
independence is another reason behind the stage's infamous label.
Tantrums in a fit of frustration are also common.
Erik Erikson divides childhood into four stages, each with its distinct social crisis:
Stage 1: Infancy (0 to 1½) in which the psychosocial crisis is Trust vs. Mistrust
Stage 2: Early childhood (2½ to 3) in which the psychosocial crisis is Autonomy vs. Shame and doubt
Stage 3: Play age (3 to 5) in which the psychosocial crisis is
Initiative vs. Guilt. (This stage is also called the "pre-school age",
"exploratory age" and "toy age".)
Stage 4: School age (5 to 12) in which the psychosocial crisis is Industry vs. Inferiority
Play (or preschool) ages 3–5.
In the earliest years, children are "completely dependent on the care of
others". Therefore, they develop a "social relationship" with their
care givers and, later, with family members. During their preschool
years (3-5), they "enlarge their social horizons" to include people
outside the family.
Preoperational and then operational thinking develops, which means actions are reversible, and egocentric thought diminishes.
The motor skills of preschoolers increase so they can do more
things for themselves. They become more independent. No longer
completely dependent on the care of others, the world of this age group
expands. More people have a role in shaping their individual
personalities. Preschoolers explore and question their world. For Jean Piaget, the child is "a little scientist exploring and reflecting on these explorations to increase competence" and this is done in "a very independent way".
Play is a major activity for ages 3–5. For Piaget, through play "a child reaches higher levels of cognitive development."
In their expanded world, children in the 3–5 age group attempt to
find their own way. If this is done in a socially acceptable way, the
child develops the initiative. If not, the child develops guilt. Children who develop "guilt" rather than "initiative" have failed Erikson's psychosocial crisis for the 3–5 age group.
Middle childhood ages 6–12.
For Erik Erikson, the psychosocial crisis during middle childhood is
Industry vs. Inferiority which, if successfully met, instills a sense of
Competency in the child.
In all cultures, middle childhood is a time for developing "skills that will be needed in their society."
School offers an arena in which children can gain a view of themselves
as "industrious (and worthy)". They are "graded for their school work
and often for their industry". They can also develop industry outside of
school in sports, games, and doing volunteer work. Children who achieve "success in school or games might develop a feeling of competence."
The "peril during this period is that feelings of inadequacy and inferiority will develop.
Parents and teachers can "undermine" a child's development by failing
to recognize accomplishments or being overly critical of a child's
efforts.
Children who are "encouraged and praised" develop a belief in their
competence. Lack of encouragement or ability to excel lead to "feelings
of inadequacy and inferiority".
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) divides Middle Childhood into two stages, 6–8 years and 9–11 years, and gives "developmental milestones for each stage".
Middle Childhood (7–10).
Entering elementary school, children in this age group begin to thinks
about the future and their "place in the world". Working with other
students and wanting their friendship and acceptance become more
important. This leads to "more independence from parents and family". As
students, they develop the mental and verbal skills "to describe
experiences and talk about thoughts and feelings". They become less
self-centered and show "more concern for others".
Middle Childhood (9–11).
For children ages 9–11 "friendships and peer relationships" increase in
strength, complexity, and importance. This results in greater "peer
pressure". They grow even less dependent on their families and they are
challenged academically. To meet this challenge, they increase their
attention span and learn to see other points of view.
Adolescence is the period of life between the onset of puberty and
the full commitment to an adult social role, such as worker, parent,
and/or citizen. It is the period known for the formation of personal and
social identity (see Erik Erikson) and the discovery of moral purpose (see William Damon).
Intelligence is demonstrated through the logical use of symbols related
to abstract concepts and formal reasoning. A return to egocentric
thought often occurs early in the period. Only 35% develop the capacity
to reason formally during adolescence or adulthood. (Huitt, W. and
Hummel, J. January 1998)
It is divided into three parts, namely:
Early Adolescence: 9 to 13 years
Mid Adolescence: 13 to 15 years and
Late Adolescence: 15 to 18 years
The adolescent unconsciously explores questions such as "Who am I?
Who do I want to be?" Like toddlers, adolescents must explore, test
limits, become autonomous, and commit to an identity, or sense of self. Different roles, behaviors and ideologies
must be tried out to select an identity. Role confusion and inability
to choose vocation can result from a failure to achieve a sense of
identity through, for example, friends.
Early adulthood generally refers to the period between ages 18 to 29, and according to theorists such as Erik Erikson, is a stage where development is mainly focused on maintaining relationships.
Examples include creating bond of intimacy, sustaining friendships,
and starting a family. Some theorists state that development of intimacy
skills rely on the resolution of previous developmental stages. A sense
of identity gained in the previous stages is also necessary for
intimacy to develop. If this skill is not learned the alternative is
alienation, isolation, a fear of commitment, and the inability to depend
on others.
A related framework for studying this part of the lifespan is that of emerging adulthood.
Scholars of emerging adulthood, such as Jeffrey Arnett, are not
necessarily interested in relationship development. Instead, this
concept suggests that people transition after their teenage years into a
period not characterized as relationship building and an overall sense
of constancy with life, but with years of living with parents, phases of
self-discovery, and experimentation.
Middle adulthood generally refers to the period between ages 29 to
49. During this period, middle-aged adults experience a conflict between
generativity and stagnation. They may either feel a sense of
contributing to society, the next generation, or their immediate
community; or develop a sense of purposelessness.
Physically, the middle-aged experience a decline in muscular
strength, reaction time, sensory keenness, and cardiac output. Also,
women experience menopause at an average age of 48.8 and a sharp drop in the hormone estrogen. Men experience an equivalent endocrine system event to menopause. Andropause
in males is a hormone fluctuation with physical and psychological
effects that can be similar to those seen in menopausal females. As men
age lowered testosterone levels can contribute to mood swings and a
decline in sperm count. Sexual responsiveness can also be affected, including delays in erection and longer periods of penile stimulation required to achieve ejaculation.
The important influence of biological and social changes
experienced by women and men in middle adulthood is reflected in that
fact that depression is highest at age 48.5 around the world.
The World Health Organization finds "no general agreement on the age at which a person becomes old." Most "developed countries" set the age as 60 or 65. However, in developing countries inability to make "active contribution" to society, not chronological age, marks the beginning of old age.According to Erikson's stages of psychosocial development,
old age is the stage in which individuals assess the quality of their
lives. In reflecting on their lives, people in this age group develop a
feeling of integrity if deciding that their lives were successful or a
feeling of despair if evaluation of one's life indicates a failure to
achieve goals.
Physically, older people experience a decline in muscular
strength, reaction time, stamina, hearing, distance perception, and the
sense of smell. They also are more susceptible to diseases such as cancer and pneumonia due to a weakened immune system.
Programs aimed at balance, muscle strength, and mobility have been
shown to reduce disability among mildly (but not more severely) disabled
elderly.
Sexual expression depends in large part upon the emotional and
physical health of the individual. Many older adults continue to be
sexually active and satisfied with their sexual activity.
Mental disintegration may also occur, leading to dementia or ailments such as Alzheimer's disease. The average age of onset for dementia in males is 78.8 and 81.9 for women. It is generally believed that crystallized intelligence increases up to old age, while fluid intelligence decreases with age. Whether or not normal intelligence increases or decreases with age depends on the measure and study. Longitudinal studies show that perceptual speed, inductive reasoning, and spatial orientation decline. An article on adult cognitive development reports that cross-sectional studies show that "some abilities remained stable into early old age".
Parenting
Parenting variables alone have typically accounted for 20 to 50 percent of the variance in child outcomes.
All parents have their own parenting styles. Parenting styles,
according to Kimberly Kopko, are "based upon two aspects of parenting
behavior; control and warmth. Parental control refers to the degree to
which parents manage their children's behavior. Parental warmth refers
to the degree to which parents are accepting and responsive to their
children's behavior."
Parenting styles
The following parenting styles have been described in the child development literature:
Authoritative parenting is characterized as parents who have
high parental warmth, responsiveness, and demandingness, but rate low in
negativity and conflict. These parents are assertive but not intrusive or overly restrictive.
This method of parenting is associated with more positive social and
academic outcomes. The beneficial outcomes of authoritative parenting
are not necessarily universal. Among African American adolescents,
authoritative parenting is not associated with academic achievement
without peer support for achievement.
Children who are raised by authoritative parents are "more likely to
become independent, self-reliant, socially accepted, academically
successful, and well-behaved. They are less likely to report depression
and anxiety, and less likely to engage in antisocial behavior like
delinquency and drug use."
Authoritarian parenting is characterized by low levels of warmth and
responsiveness with high levels of demandingness and firm control. These parents focus on obedience and they monitor their children regularly.
In general, this style of parenting is associated with maladaptive
outcomes. The outcomes are more harmful for middle-class boys than
girls, preschool white girls than preschool black girls, and for white
boys than Hispanic boys.
Permissive parenting is characterized by high levels of responsiveness combined with low levels of demandingness. These parents are lenient and do not necessarily require mature behavior. They allow for a high degree of self-regulation and typically avoid confrontation. Compared to children raised using the authoritative style, preschool girls raised in permissive families are less assertive.
Additionally, preschool children of both sexes are less cognitively
competent than those children raised under authoritative parenting
styles.
Rejecting or neglectful parenting is the final category. This is
characterized by low levels of demandingness and responsiveness. These
parents are typically disengaged in their child's lives, lacking
structure in their parenting styles and are unsupportive. Children in this category are typically the least competent of all the categories.
Mother and father factors
Parenting
roles in child development have typically focused on the role of the
mother. Recent literature, however, has looked toward the father as
having an important role in child development. Affirming a role for
fathers, studies have shown that children as young as 15 months benefit
significantly from substantial engagement with their father.
In particular, a study in the U.S. and New Zealand found the presence
of the natural father was the most significant factor in reducing rates
of early sexual activity and rates of teenage pregnancy in girls.
Furthermore, another argument is that neither a mother nor a father is
actually essential in successful parenting, and that single parents as
well as homosexual couples can support positive child outcomes.
According to this set of research, children need at least one
consistently responsible adult with whom the child can have a positive
emotional connection. Having more than one of these figures contributes
to a higher likelihood of positive child outcomes.
Divorce
Another
parental factor often debated in terms of its effects on child
development is divorce. Divorce in itself is not a determining factor
of negative child outcomes. In fact, the majority of children from
divorcing families fall into the normal range on measures of
psychological and cognitive functioning.
A number of mediating factors play a role in determining the effects
divorce has on a child, for example, divorcing families with young
children often face harsher consequences in terms of demographic,
social, and economic changes than do families with older children.
Positive coparenting after divorce is part of a pattern associated with
positive child coping, while hostile parenting behaviors lead to a
destructive pattern leaving children at risk.
Additionally, direct parental relationship with the child also affects
the development of a child after a divorce. Overall, protective factors
facilitating positive child development after a divorce are maternal
warmth, positive father-child relationship, and cooperation between
parents.
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