AP PYSCHOLOGY UNIT 3

Developmental Psychology

is concerned with chronological order of development and thematic issues in development across the lifespan. 

Thematic Issues Developmental Psychologists Study

• Nature (biological predispositions & heredity) vs. nurture (environment)  

• Continuity vs. stages (discontinuity) 

  • Do the changes we experience occur very gradually or abruptly?  

• Stability vs. change

Teratogens

Potentially harmful agents that can produce birth defects or abnormalities.  Many _______ cause damage only if they are present during a critical period in prenatal development. 

Maternal Illness

• HIV, herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis, rubella, and the Zika virus can be transmitted from the mother.  

• Mismanaged chronic conditions like diabetes or hypertension → complications like premature birth and low birth weight 

Genetic Mutations

Example: Presence of an extra 21st chromosome causes Down syndrome

Hormonal Factors

Example: low maternal thyroid hormone levels → developmental delays

Environmental Factors

Examples: maternal nutrition, stress levels, and exposure to pollutants

Down Syndrom: Chromonsomal Abnormality

Prenatal screenings can detect _______ ____________ before birth. There is a positive correlation between a mother’s age and the likelihood of having a child with Down syndrome. 

Fine and Gross Motor Coordination

Among the major physical and psychological milestones that define infancy and childhood. These physical skills develop as children mature, allowing children to develop critical skills needed to become more independent.

Fine Motor Skills

Ability to use small muscles in hands, wrists, and fingers to coordinate movements for tasks like eating, writing, and getting dressed

Gross Motor Skills

Ability to use large muscles to crawl, walk, throw, etc.  

Infants

(from birth to 1 year) possess reflexes, like the rooting reflex, that indicate on-track physical and psychological milestone development.

Reflex

An innate, automatic response by the body that occurs when a stimulus in the environment is detected. 

Rooting Reflex:

When the corner of a baby’s mouth is touched or stroked, the infant will turn their head and open their mouth. The reflex helps infants find food and latch onto a bottle or breast to feed. 

Eleanor Gibson’s Visual Cliff Experiment

• Research using the visual cliff apparatus demonstrates an early ability in infants to perceive depth and an innovative way to assess infant responses.

• Findings: 

  • Most infants (81%) refused to crawl to the deep side, even though they could touch it with their hands and feel that it was solid 

  • They were upset and fearful when encouraged to crawl across the visual cliff 

  • Evidence supported the hypothesis depth

Critical or Sensitive Periods

Research suggests that _______ __ __________ __________ in infancy and childhood have strong developmental effects, especially for skills such as language.

Imprinting

• Some non-human animals will _____ on the first object they encounter as a means of survival.  This attachment is innate and can’t be reversed.    

• occurs during the critical period of development and isn’t forgotten.  

Growth Spurt and Puberty

• the main physical and psychological milestones that occur in adolescence are the adolescent _______ ________ and _______, in which reproductive ability develops. 

  • Puberty often begins ≈2 years after the beginning of the growth spurt.  

  • Girls typically begin puberty around age 10, and boys typically begin around age 12.  

Primary and Secondary Sex Characteristics

• Adolescents develop ________ _____ ________ ______________ during puberty, such as menarche and spermarche.

Menarch

1st incidence of menstruation in a female, marking the beginning of puberty

Spermarche

a male’s first ejaculation of semen 

Primary Sex Characteristics

 

• Sex Organs involved in reproduction

• Sperm production (Males)

• Ovulation and Menstruation (Females)

Secondary Sex Characteristics

• Sexual characteristics that develop during puberty that aren’t directly involved in reproduction

• Growth of testes, broadening of shoulders, lowered voice, growth of facial hair, growth of pubic hair (Males)

• Development of breasts and hips, growth of pubic hair

Adulthood

Spans most of the lifespan and is characterized by a general leveling off and then a varying decline in reproductive ability (i.e., menopause), mobility, flexibility, reaction time, and visual and auditory sensory acuity. 

• Vision: loss of elasticity in the lens, making it harder to focus 

• Hearing: may become harder to hear higher-frequency sounds 

• Crystallized intelligence increases, but fluid intelligence decreases. 

• Reaction time decreases due to decreased muscle mass, slower nervous system and cognitive processing 

Risk Factors for Cogntive Decline

There are several risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease and other causes of dementia. Research suggests approximately 50% of Alzheimer’s disease cases may be related to these modifiable risk factors:

1. Type 2 diabetes

2. High blood pressure

3. Midlife obesity

4. Smoking

5. Depression

6. Little or no mental activity

7. Little or no physical exercise

Brain Health

• Don’t smoke. 

• Exercise at a moderately high level of physical activity. Exercise facilitates oxygen and growth factors in the brain and helps modulate the brain’s immune responses.

• Get routine medical care. Illnesses in your body affect your brain’s ability to optimally function.

• Maintain excellent cardiovascular health (e.g., blood pressure, cholesterol levels). What’s good for the heart is good for the brain!

• Build social support networks to reduce stress, challenge your brain and share the aging process with other people who are experiencing the same changes and joys of entering into the latter years of life.

• Keep doing the activities that challenge you and you enjoy for as long as possible. Trying new activities may be a great way to challenge your brain to make new brain connections. 

• Maintain a healthy diet. Plan your meals around your vegetables and then fill in with other foods. Otherwise, as a general plan, eat a variety of foods as close to their natural state as possible.

• Get enough sleep.  As an adult, aim for 7-9 hours a night.  

Jean Piaget

Worked with Alfred Binet in Paris on the first standardized intelligence test. Piaget soon found that he was more interested in children’s incorrect answers than their correct ones. He first noticed that children of the same age were producing the same kinds of wrong answers. But why? As he proceeded to question children about their misconceptions, he realized that young children aren’t simply less intelligent than older children; their thought processes are completely different.

According to Piaget, children develop schemas via continuous and discontinuous processes such as assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation

A continuous process where children integrate new information into their existing schemas, reinforcing and expanding their understanding of the world without fundamentally altering their schema. For example, a child who knows what a dog is may assimilate new information by identifying different breeds of dogs as still belonging to the category of “dog.” 

Accomodation

A discontinuous process where new experiences challenge existing schemas, requiring children to modify or create new schemas altogether. For example, if the child encounters a cat and initially calls it a “dog,” they must adjust their schema for animals to distinguish between dogs and cats, thereby refining their understanding and adapting to new information. Through these processes, schemas become more sophisticated, enabling children to think in increasingly complex ways.

Continuous Development

Key Question in Psychology

Does development occur as a continuous process or in distinct stages?

Two Types: Continous Development and Stage-Based Development

• Piaget strongly advocated for a stage-based approach to understanding development

Sensorimotor Stage Age

Infancy Through Toddlerhood (Birth to 2)

Sensorimotor Stage

Experiencing the world through senses and actions

Sensorimotor Stage Phenomenon

Object Permanence

Preoperational Stage Age

Toddlerhood through early childhood (2-7)

Preoperational Stage

Representing things with words and images; using intuitive rather than logical thought 

Preoperational Stage Phenomenon

• Mental symbols 

• Pretend play

• Egocentrism

• Irreversibility  

• Animism 

• Begin to develop a theory of mind

Concrete Operational Stage Age

Early thorugh late childhood (7 to 11 or 12)

Concrete Operational Stage Definition

Understand the world in logical, realistic, and straightforward ways, but struggle to think systematically 

Concrete Operational Stage Phenomenon

• Develop conservation

• Reversibility obtained

Formal Operational Stage Age

Late Childhood through adulthood (11-12 and beyond)

Formal Operational Stage

Piaget proposed that not all people achieve formal operational thinking

Formal Operational Stage Phenomenon

Gain the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically

Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

Infants primarily learn about the world through their senses (sight, touch, taste, etc.) and motor abilities (moving, grasping, etc).

Object Permanence

Knowledge of the continued existence of objects even when they are not directly perceived.  Infants typically develop this cognitive skill around 8 months.  

Peekaboo is a classic game that helps infants learn

Mental Symbols

Children start to use mental symbols, like words and images, to represent objects, people, and experiences. This symbolic thinking allows them to communicate ideas, recall past events, and imagine future possibilities, although their understanding is still very concrete. 

Pretend Play

Imaginative play becomes a big part of the child’s life. Through activities like pretending to be a superhero or acting as a parent to a doll, children use their developing symbolic thinking to create scenarios that help them practice social roles and explore different aspects of reality.

Irreversibility

Preoperational children have difficulty understanding that some actions can be undone. They struggle with the concept of reversing processes, so if they see a toy taken apart, they may not understand that it can be put back together in the same way.

Animism

Tendency of young children to attribute human qualities or intentions to inanimate objects. For example, a child may think a stuffed animal is “sad” if left alone or think that the moon “follows” them.  

Egocentrism

Difficulty of children to see perspectives other than their own. This egocentrism means that they may assume everyone else shares their viewpoint, beliefs, and experiences.

Does NOT mean selfish. But in developmental psychology, it refers to a child's inability to see things from others’ perspectives, not an unwillingness. It’s not a character flaw but rather a developmental stage, particularly prominent in young children.

Developing Theory of Mind:

Near the end of the preoperational stage, children start to understand that others have thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that may differ from their own. This development of a "theory of mind" allows them to grasp that others may have different intentions or viewpoints, though they’re still learning to fully appreciate those perspectives.

Piaget’s Conservation Tasks

The logical thinking ability that allows a person to determine that a certain quantity will remain the same despite adjustment of the container, shape, or apparent size

Alison Gopnik’s Goldfish and Brocolli Study

According to Piaget, children in the preoperational stage of cognitive development are egocentric.  What does that mean? 

They have a difficult understanding different perspectives and that other individuals may have different opinions; not to be confused with selfishness

Explain whether Alison Gopnik’s goldfish and broccoli study supports or refutes the idea that children are egocentric in the preoperational stage of cognitive development.   

It refutes the idea that children are egocentric in the preoperational stage of cognitive development as they accept that the researcher preferred broccoli over crackers, contrary to their own beliefs, still handing the researcher her preferred choice (shows understanding of different perspectives). This was seen in 18-month-olds, who are presumably under the preoperational stage, under Piaget’s stages of cognitive development. 

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

1. Piaget underestimated the cognitive ability of infants and young children. 

2. Piaget underestimated the impact of the sociocultural context of cognitive development.  

Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

This theory argued that people can attain higher levels of cognitive development through cooperative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society such as adults and more expert peers. Stated that cognitive development is a socially mediated process.  

Lev Vygotsjy’s Zone of Proximal Development

Challenges that are in Reach of that individual’s Intelligence

Scaffold Analogy

construction scaffolding provides temporary support, enabling workers to access higher areas and complete tasks they couldn’t reach on their own. 

Similarly, in education, scaffolding offers support so students can tackle challenging tasks just beyond their independent abilities.  Eventually the scaffolding is removed as the student becomes more competent. 

cochlea

A message travels through the inner ear, where the ___ transduces sound vibrations into nerve impulses.  

auditory cortex

Then the information moves to ___, the area responsible for comprehending spoken language in the temporal lobe. 

Wernicke’s Area

Then the information moves to ___, the area responsible for comprehending spoken language in the temporal lobe. 

Broca’s Area

The information then moves to ___, the area in the frontal lobe responsible for language production.  These areas are in the brain’s ___ hemisphere.  

Motor Cortex

That message then travels to the ___ located in the back of the frontal lobe, that signals your larynx and mouth to move and vocalize your response. 

Phoenemes

the smallest units of sound in a language 

Ex: the word “cat” comprises 3 phonemes: the sounds kuh, ah, and tuh

Morphemes

the smallest unit of meaning in a language

Ex: the word “cooked” consists of two morphemes: “cook” and “ed,” with the suffix “ed” indicating that the cooking took place in the past

Ex: the word “playing” consists of two morphemes: “play” and “ing”

Semantics

the study of meaning - how words, phrases, and sentences are interpreted

Ex: bank can mean a financial institution, the side of a river, or to rely or count of something

Ex: connotations like youthful v. childish

Syntax

set of rules for ordering words and phrases into sentences

Ex: nouns before verbs when making statements

Prelinguistic Stages

Birth to 2 months, 2-12 months (language development)

Cooing

Birth to 2 Months (Language Development)

2-12 months (language development)

babbling

babbling

meaningless, speechlike sounds

Linguistic Stages

around 12 months, 16 months, and 2-6 years of age (language development)

holophrastic stage

expressing a complete thought with 1 word like “up” for “pick me up” or “hungry” for “im hungry”

around 12 months (language development)

Holophratic Stage

telegraphic speech

2-3 word utterances like “me walk”

around 16 months (language development)

telegraphic speech

2-6 years of age ( language development )

add 6- 10 words per day

over extention

over-regularization

over-extension

using a word too broadly like calling all four-legged animals a “doggie”

over-regularization

regular grammatic patterns are applied to irregular verbs like “goed” instead of “went” or “breaked” instead of “broken”

controversial issue of language development

Children’s acquisition of language is a controversial issue in psychology.

Some psychologists argue that language is influenced primarily by nurture, and others argue that language development is primarily influenced by nature.

language development is primarily influenced by nurture

Learning, behaviorism, reinforcement and modeling are important in acquiring language

Behaviorists advocate this position, noting that children use words for which they’re reinforced and don’t use words for which they’re punished.

Case study: Genie

Genie had difficulty acquiring language after a childhood of abuse and isolation (positive and negative punishment).

language development is primarily influenced by nature

• Innate factors, the language acquisition device, critical periods, maturation and genetics influence language acquisition.  

• Supporting evidence: 

  • Critical or sensitive period

  • Universal sequence of language development  

  • Children say many sentences that are never rewarded by parents (“I hate you, Mommy”) and toddlers engage in “crib speech,” talking to themselves when they’re alone in a room   

• Noam Chomsky stated that language is learned by exposure to language, but the ability to speak is hardwired. Humans are born with the innate ability to speak and the interaction with the environment allows that skill to emerge. 

  • Language acquisition device: innate ability of the human brain to acquire language in childhood’s critical period 

language acquisition device

 innate ability of the human brain to acquire language in childhood’s critical period 

ecological systems theory

explores how the social environment influences development. five systems in this theory: microsystem, mesosystem, ecosystem, microsystem, chronosystem

This theory underscores that development is not isolated but shaped by interactions within these interconnected systems. This model has been influential in fields like education, psychology, and social work for understanding how diverse influences contribute to individual growth.

microsystem

the immediate environment where a person has direct interactions, such as with family, friends, and work

mesosystem

the interactions between different microsystems

exosystem

the larger social system that doesn’t directly involve the person but still affects them indirectly like a parent’s workplace

macrosystem

broader cultural and societal factors, such as economic conditions, cultural beliefs, and political systems

chronosystem

incorporates the dimension of time, highlighting how changes over time, like life transitions (e.g., starting school), historical events, or shifts in societal values, affect development.

authoritattive parents

high control, high warmth (the best style of parenting)

authoritarian parents

high control, low warmth

permissive parents

high warmth, low control

uninvolved parents

low warmth, low control

characteristics of children of authoritative parents

Friendly

Cooperative

Self-reliant

Socially-

responsible

Do better in school & are more popular

characteristics of children of authoritarian parents

Moody

Unhappy

Fearful

Withdrawn

Not spontaneous

Irritable

More likely to cheat and deny responsibility & assign blame

characteristics of children of permissive parents

Relatively immature

Dependent

Often have tantrums

Tend to ask for help even when encountered with slight difficulties

characteristics of children of uninvolved parents

Immature

Impulsive

Aggressive

Less likely than any other children to form secure attachments

cultural difference

________ _____________ exist in the ways these parenting styles affect outcomes in caregivers and children. Cultural norms and values influence the way children and parents respond to different parenting styles. What works well in one cultural context may not have the same results in another.

For example, in Western cultures, authoritarian parenting often correlates with negative outcomes for children, such as lower self-esteem and higher levels of anxiety. However, in some Asian cultures, where respect for authority and family hierarchy is deeply valued, children raised by authoritarian parents may achieve high academic success and feel a strong sense of family loyalty.

attachment

the emotional bond between an infant or child and its caregiver. The type of attachment has far-reaching consequences for later development.

temperament

the basic foundation of personality, usually assumed to be biologically determined and present early in life, including such characteristics as energy level, emotional responsiveness, demeanor, mood, and willingness to explore.