Psych Exam 2

Developmental Psychology

• a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change though the lifespan (childhood, adulthood, onward)

  • nature and nature - development due to genes vs environment

  • continuity and stages - some developmental changes occur continuously while others occur in distinct stages (Ex: tree growing=continuous; butterfly growing=stages)

  • stability and change - consistent through life vs changing

Prenatal Development

From conception to birth (9-10 months, 40 weeks)

• germinal stage (2 weeks), embryonic stage (2 weeks to 2 months), fetal stage (2 months to birth)

Zygote

fertilized egg (one single cell with rapid division)

• first two weeks after conception

Embryo

• week 3 to week 8 after conception

• rapid growth and cell differentiation: some of the cells start serving different purposes like gender

• greatest vulnerability to teratogens (agents that can cause defects)

Fetus

• week 9 to birth

• body systems grow and mature; beginning of sleep and wake cycles, substantial weight gain

• at 6 months fetus response to sound outside womb

• links between prenatal behaviors and personality

Newborn

• most behavior due to reflexes (automatically without conscious control, universal)

• senses attuned to people, learn quickly who primary caregivers are

• cognitive abilities studied with habituation studies

Reflexes

automatic responses without conscious control, universal to newborns

• morrow reflex: startle and lift hands

• rooting reflex: touch cheek —> turn face away

• grasping reflex: fingers grip

Habituation

a decrease in responding with repeated stimulation

• show newborn something until they no longer pay attention → novel stimuli will get more attention than repeated stimuli

Maturation

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience; genetically defined so similar for most people

Brain Development for babies

• form brain cells really fast

• mind and brain develop together

• frontal lobes show rapid growth between 3-6 years of age

• association areas develop last

Developmental Norms

typical age at which individuals display various behaviors and abilities based on group average

Cognition

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

4 distinct cognitive stages that children progress through

Stage 1 of Piaget’s Theory

Sensorimotor stage - goes from birth to about 2 years of age

• children acquire knowledge using sensory and motor skills by directly manipulating objects

• Object permanence: the understanding that an object continues to exist even if it can’t be seen

Stage 2 of Piaget’s Theory

Preoperational Stage - 2 to 7 years of age

• Symbolic Thought: understand words, images, and symbols as they represent the world → pretend play

• thinking is limited:

  • egocentric: lack of ability to consider events from another person’s point of view (3 mountains test: testing if children notice that people don’t see the same as them)

  • Irreversible: inability to mentally reverse a sequence of events or logical operations back to the starting point; reverse the thinking

  • Centration: tendency to focus on one aspect of the situation

  • Lack conservation: don’t have the awareness that physical quantities remain constant in spit of changes in shape or appearance

  • Irreversible, Centration and Lack conservation shown by the Water Pouring Test: two glasses of water → pour the same amount of water into a taller, thinner glass → child asked if it is still the same amount

• Theory of Mind: people’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states; develops during this stage, realize they can lie or trick because people can hold false beliefs/different views of the world

Stage 3 of Piaget’s Theory

Concrete Operational stage - 7 years to adolescence

• use of logic is limited to concrete reality and tangible objects

• master reversibility and decentration

• decline in egocentrism - realize other perspectives

• development of new problem solving abilities

Stage 4 of Piaget’s Theory

Formal operational stage - adolescence on

• capacity for true logical thought; though can be limited

• can imagine possible consequences of behavior

• hypotheticals, more abstract

• thinking becomes more sophisticated

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory

• well supported → change in how people think

• may underestimate infants and overestimate adults → confused motor skill with cognition

• stages may not be as universal or distinct → happen more gradually

• Vygotsky’s Social Theory suggests the child’s mind grows through interaction with their social environment and through language

Attachment

an emotional tie with another person

• type of attachment affected by behavior of child + temperament

Critical Period

a time in development where attachment needs to happen so it can development normally with age

Secure Attachment

• most infants (67%)

• playing and exploring comfortably when caregiver is present, being upset when they leave but then being calmed when they return

Anxious Attachment

• Insecure attachment

• 12% of infants

• anxious even when caregiver is present, still upset when they return

Avoidant Attachment

• insecure attachment

• 20% of infants

• not upset when caregiver leaves, don’t reach for comfort

Authoritarian Parenting Style

coercive, impose rules, expect obedience, “too hard” → children with less esteem, lower social skills, overreaction when making mistakes

Permissive Parenting Style

unrestraining, few demands, little punishment, “too soft” → more aggressive, immature children

Negligent Parenting Styles

uninvolved, inattentive, careless, “too uncaring” → poor academic success + social outcomes

Authoritative Parenting Style

confrontative, demanding yet responsive, rules but with exceptions, “perfect” → higher helpfulness and esteem

Adolescence

the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence

• physical development: puberty

• cognitive development: reasoning ability developing, but still limited due to front lobe still not fully developed

Puberty

the period of sexual maturation in which the person is able to reproduce

• girls using reach it 2 years earlier than boys

• boys have more positive benefits of having it early

• genetics and environment are factors

Moral Reasoning

how an individual thinks about moral reasons

Kohlberg’s first stage of moral development

• preconventional level (younger than 9 years old): reasoning is guided by external consequences and authority and values or rules are not internalized

  • decisions to avoid punishment or get rewards

  • consequence

Kohlberg’s second stage of moral development

conventional level (adolescence but also through adulthood): reasoning is guided by conformity to social roles, rules and expectations that have been internalized

• rules=inflexible and maintain order

• social expectations

Kohlberg’s third stage of moral development

post conventional stage (adolescence and beyond): reasoning is guided by internalized legal and moral principles that protect the rights of all members of society

• not everyone reaches this stage

• more nuanced

Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

• being focused on social relationships and how problems are solved

• each conflict/stage must be resolved to go onto the next stage

• exact age is not as important

Infancy: Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

• birth to 1 year

• issue: trust vs mistrust

• if needs are dependably met, infants develop a sense of basic trust

• will I have my needs met or not?

• forming emotional bonds with caregivers

Toddlerhood: Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

• 1 to 3 years

• issue: autonomy vs. shame and doubt

• toddlers learn to exercise their will and do things for themselves, or they doubt their abilities

• deciding who is in change

• if a child learns responsibility = self sufficiency

• if parents show shame or scolding = develop shame or doubt in their own abilities

• independence is important for self reliance

Preschool: Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

• 3 to 6 years

• issue: initiative vs. guilt

• preschoolers learn to initiate tasks and carry out plans, or they feel guilty about their efforts to be independent

• what their life as an adult might look like

• sense of right and wrong, relationships

Elementary School: Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

• 6 years to puberty

• issue: competence vs inferiority

• children learn the pleasure of applying themselves to tasks or they feel inferior

• skills for workplace and contributions to society

• focused, organized usually through schoolwork

Adolescence: Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

• teen years into 20s

• issue: identity vs role confusion

• teenagers work at refining a sense of self by testing roles and then integrating them to form a single identity, or they become confused about who they are

• figuring out who you are, self image and concepts, consistent set of values

• integrated sense of self-experiment → role confusion: not sure what role is yours

Young Adulthood: Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

• 20s to early 40s

• issue: intimacy vs isolation

• young adults learn to form close relationships and gain the capacity for intimate love or they feel socially isolated

• intimate romantic and platonic relationships

Middle Adulthood: Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

• 40s to 60s

• issue: generatively vs stagnation

• middle-aged people discover a sense of contributing to the world, usually through family and work or they may feel a lack of purpose

• concerned with future generations/raising children

• self absorbed if not involved

• creating objects/ideas that outlive you

Late Adulthood: Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

• late 60s and up

• issue: integrity vs despair

• reflecting on their lives, older adults may feel a sense of satisfaction or failure

• accepting accomplishments and failures

  • satisfied or continuous level of business=ego integrity

  • unsatisfied=despair

• felt around retirement and end of life

Adolescence

forming an identity by trying roles and integrating into a unified self

• teens try out different “selves” at home, with friends, online and at school

• culture shapes how much teens explore

• self-esteem dips in the early teens, then rebounds

Identity

a unified, consistent sense of who you are

• followed by intimacy: forming close relationships

Emerging Adulthood

period from 18 to mid 20s where people are no longer adolescents but not fully independent adults (ex: college students)

Adulthood abilities

• physical

  • peak in mid 20s

  • begin decline in 40s; health and exercise habits can limit this decline

• cognitive

  • processing speeds decrease

  • frontal love atrophy - lack of filter, impulsive

• social

  • self concept focused on social roles or what they do

  • no mid life crisis

  • marriage related to happiness

  • work is a source of identity; competence and accomplishments produce more satisfaction

• well being

  • regrets: education, not telling people they love them

  • amygdala tends to respond less to negative events

  • life satisfaction not based on age

Social Clock

the culturally preferred timing social events such as marriage, parenthood and retirement

• people tend to perceive that this happens earlier than it actually does

Neurocognitive Disorders (NCD)

acquired disorders marked by cognitive deficits

• demetia

• occurs because of loss of brain cells and decrease in acetyl-CoA

Alzheimer's Disease

a neurocognitive disorder marked by neural plagues, entailing progressive declines in memory and other cognitive abilities, genetic component

Sensation

the process by which our sensory receptors and nervous system receive and represent stimulus energies from our environment

• things coming outside in

• continuously happening alongside perception

Sensory receptors

sensory nerve endings that respond to stimuli

Perception

the process of organizing and interpreting sensory information

• making sense of sensory info

• perceiving only what we are attending to

• continuously happening alongside sensation

Bottom-up processing

analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain’s integration of sensory information

Top-down processing

information processing guided by high level mental processes, as when we construct perceptions drawing on our experience and expectations

• using context to help us perceive instead of just stimuli alone

Transduction

conversion of one form of energy into another

• stimuli energy → neural impulses

Psychophysics

the study of relationships between the physical characteristics of stimuli and our psychological experience of them

Sensory adaptation

diminished sensitivity as a consequence of constant stimulation

• people don’t always know what their house smells like because they are used to it

• we don’t notice the constant stimuli affecting us like how our shoes feel because our senses adapt → we can more adequately notice when it changes like when your shoes get wet

Absolute Threshold

the minimum stimulus energy needed to detect a particular stimulus 50% of the time

Signal Detection Theory

there is no single absolute threshold; how and when we detect a small stimuli amongst background noise

• depends on experience, expectations, motivations

• ex: you think your phone buzzed because you are expecting a call

Subliminal

below one’s absolute threshold for conscious awareness

• not detected less than 50% of the time

Priming

the activation, often unconscious, of particular associations in memory; cue to remember other types of info

difference threshold

the minimum difference between two stimuli required for detection 50% of the time; a just noticeable difference

Weber’s law

stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage, not amount

• small change related to what your started with = you don’t noice

• for the average person to notice a difference, the two stimuli have to have a constant minimum percentage

Perceptual set

a mental predisposition to perceive one thing and not another; expectations of a familiar saying

• strongly influenced by top down processing

• affected by:

  • context: ex=being the pedestrian vs the driver

  • motivation: ex=something seems more attainable if you want it than if you don’t want it

  • emotion: ex=emotions can change interpretations of stimuli

Vision

• stimulus input: light

• wavelength: hue/color (short=blueish, long=reddish)

• amplitude: intensity/brightness (shorter the amplitude=brighter the colors)

Eye

houses the tissues that receive light and transfer it to the tissues that perceive it

cornea

clear membrane covering front of eye; helps gather and direct incoming light

pupil

the opening in the center of the iris that helps regulate the amount of light passing into the rear chamber of the eye

• dilates (more light)

• constricts (less light, sharpens image on retina)

Lens

focuses the light rays falling on the retina, transparent eye structure

Accommodation

the curvature of the lens adjusts to alter visual focus

• closer=lens get fatter/rounder

• farther=lens gets flatter

• near sightedness=see close objects but not farther

• far sightedness=see farther

• hardening of lens that decreases accommodation in older age

retina

the light-sensitive inner surface of the eye, containing the receptor rods and cones plus layers of neurons that begin the processing of visual information (millions of receptor cells)

rods

specialized visual receptors that play a key role in night vision and peripheral vision

cones

specialized visual receptors that play a key role in daylight visions and color vision as well as acuity

• acuity: how sharp an image is

fovea

center of the retina, contains only cones; where visual acuity is greatest

• we directly look at something to get the sharpest image

optic nerve

the nerve that carries neural impulses from the eye to the brain

• blindspot where optic nerve leaves the eye → we don’t notice because our eyes are constantly moving and the other eye can make up for it

Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision

color vision is due to three different types of cones that are sensitive to different wavelengths

• long wavelengths=red

• medium wavelengths=green

• short wavelengths=blue

• some overlap in the wavelengths that allow us to see combinations of colors → can explain colorblindness

• mono=one color

• di=two colors

After Image Effect

Color vision is processed in opposing pairs (red–cyan, green–magenta, blue–yellow, and black–white). When you stare at one color, those neurons fire continuously and suppress their opposite pair. When you shift your gaze to a blank wall, the fatigued cells under-respond while the unexhausted opposite-color cells temporarily dominate, creating a phantom image in the complementary color

Opponent-Process Theory of Color Vision

the four basic colors are paired and the members of the pair oppose each other. if one member of a pair is stimulated the other is inhibited

• red — green

• blue — yellow

• black — white

• can explain afterimage: exhausts the cone so you see the color pair

Gestalt Psychology

the study of how we integrate pieces of information into meaningful wholes

• looking at an organized whole and how we integrate parts into a whole

Figure-ground form perception

the organization of the visual field into objects (figures) that stand out from their surroundings (ground)

Grouping

the perceptual tendency to organize stimuli into coherent groups

Proximity

things that are one another are perceiving as belonging together

• bottom up processing

Continuity

we see elements in ways to produce smooth continuation

• bottom up processing

Closure

we group elements to create a sense of closure of complete figures

Depth Perception

2D images into seeing a 3D world; judge distances

Binocular cues

depth cues the depend on the use of two eyes

retinal disparity

by comparing retinal images from the two eyes, the brain computes the distance (closer than 25 feet away)

• the greater the disparity, the closer the two images

Monocular cues (pictorial depth cues)

depth cues available to either eye alone

relative height (height in plane)

objects higher in the visual plane are perceived as farther away

relative size

closer objects appear larger

• ex: row of electrical lines

overlap/interposition

an object that covers another object is perceived as being closer

linear perspective

parallel lines seem to converge as they get farther away

• ex: railroad tracks

light and shadow

shading produces a sense of depth

• consistent with assumption that light comes above

Phi phenomenon

an illusion of movement created when two or more adjacent lights blink on and off in quick succession

perceptual constancy

perceiving objects as unchanging even as retinal images change

• top down processing

• perception is based on context: we see color and brightness based on what surrounds it

Perceptual interpretation

assigning meaning to what you are perceiving

perceptual adaptation

ability to adapt to vision input

• image on retina is upside down but perception flips it

• experiment with inverted glasses: took 8 days to do normal tasks and adapt to inversions; took glasses off: easy to adapt to usual

Restored vision and sensory restriction

• blind from birth → gain sight → see different in colors but unable to see objects (though they know it by touch)

  • see the form to know the form, not just feel it

Hearing/Audition

act or sense of hearing

• the stimulus inputs: sound waves from environment

• wavelength: frequency/pitch (short=high pitch, long=low pitch)

• amplitude: intensity/loudness (great amplitude=loud, small amplitude=soft) → how loud something is (decibel)

Pinna (the external ear)

collects sound waves and funnels them through auditory canal towards the eardrum