Developing Through the Life Span-Chapter 5

Thank goodness we're done with heritability! I enjoyed reading this chapter MUCH more and feel that I was able to take more away from it. Many of the theories discussed were familiar to me, such as Piaget's and Kohlberg's, but it was interesting to read a little more in depth about their studies and research findings.
I agree with Piaget (and most of today's researchers) that chldren actively create and modify their minds and understanding of the world. One of Piaget's main ideas was object permanance. I have always found this concept fascinating, most likely because I cannot remember when it applied to me! Object permanence is the awareness that things continue to exist when they cannot be percieved. It baffles me how infants seem to think that an object has "disappeared" and forget about it immediately!
Another bit of information that I found interesting and agreed with was the fact that people are usually unable to remember early memories. I had heard the whole "no memory before the age of 3" bit before but never really knew if it was completely true. The text confirmed that it is, in fact, true and further explained how the human cerebral cortex is too immature to retain information during infancy and beginning toddlerhood.
Habituation (decreasing responsiveness to repeated stimulation) is a concept that fascinates me! I never would have realized that this is how we learn and retain most information, even after infancey, if the term "habituation" hadn't been given. Although with familiarity comes boredom, intelligence and recognition come as well. This is a genious way of "asking" infants what they can remember (brain stimulation tests).
Finally, Jonathon Haidt's social intuitionist account of morality (moral feelings precede moral resoning) was a theory that really made me think about what I would do in life threatening situations (of others). Would I let 5 die if it meant having to push one person to their death? Or, if i wasn't involved, would I choose to save the 5 at the expense of one life? This is an extremely tough decision and I thought about it for a long time. I continued thinking about this at night as I was going to sleep and actually dreamt about it. In my dream, the 5 people on the train tracks, waiting to die, were my boyfriend and 4 family members. I chose to push a friend onto the tracks to save my 5 loved ones. If this were a real life situtation, I would be haunted forever, yet feel happy to still have my family. It was really an intense section of the chapter that I feel deserves some in class discussion.