Developmental Psychology Exam One

Continuity vs. discontinuity

Whether development occurs in a smooth progression throughout our life or as a series of abrupt shifts

Biopsychosocial framework

The idea that development occurs biologically, psychologically, and socioculturally.

Biological forces

Genetics, health factors that affect development

Psychological forces

Internal perceptive, cognitive, emotional, and personality factors that affect development

Sociocultural forces

The environmental and cultural factors that affect development

Psychodynamic Theory of Development

• Roots can be traced to Freud

• development is determined by how people resolve conflicts as they age

• Erik Erikson - personality development is determined by the interaction of an internal maturational plan and external societal demands

• Trust v mistrust, autonomy v shame, initiative v guilt, etc….

Learning Theory of Development

• John Watson and B.F. Skinner

• Learning influences a persons behavior

• Classical and operant conditioning

• Social learning theory (bandura doll)

Cognitive-development theory

• Jean Piaget

• Thinking changes over time

• Sensorimotor, preoperational, etc…

Information processing theory

• Mental hardware and mental software

• Accounts for changing in thinking over a lifespan

Sociocultural theory

• Vygotsky

• Children’s thinking is influenced by the sociocultural context they grew up in

• Scaffolding

Ecological theory

• Brofenbrenner

• Human development is inseparable from the environmental context they develop in

• Microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem

Life-span perspective

Development must be observed over the course of an individuals whole life

Life-course perspective

Development must be observed through various generations, as historical context matters

Reliability vs. validity

Reliability - the extent to which information collected provides a consistent index of a characteristic

Validity - whether or not data measures what researchers think it measures

Representative sampling

Collecting data from representative sub-samples in order to accurately represent the data of the whole population.

Experimental studies

Researchers manipulate key factor(s) to observe behavior

Qualitative studies

Gaining in-depth understanding of human behavior from detailed observations

Longitudinal studies

Same individual followed throughout their life

Cross-sectional studies

Different individuals of different ages are tested

Sequential studies

Combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.

Function of genes

To encode for proteins, which then build tissue

Alleles

Different versions of the same gene (ie. eye color alleles)

Phenylketonuria (PKU)

Disorder in which babies are born lacking an important liver enzyme.

• Cannot eat fish, bread, dairy products, or diet soda, or else phenylalanine will accumulate and damage the nervous system

Huntington’s Disease

Disease caused by a dominant allele

• Characterized by progressive generation of the nervous system

• Manifests in adulthood.

Down Syndrome-Trisomy 21

• An individual has an extra copy of chromosome 21

• Odds of bearing a child with down syndrome increase as mothers age. 

Fragile X syndrome

• Most common form of developmental delay in boys

• Improper formation of a gene that makes a protein necessary for brain growth

• X-linked

Concordance rates

Percentage of genetic relatives with a particular trait

• Relatively high for identical twins in regard to mental disorders, implicating genes in mental illness.

Correlational research

Observing and collecting data from people of different degrees of genetic relatedness

Canalization

Traits that would be pretty hard to disrupt development of despite wide variations in environmental factors

• Example: language development. 

Passive-gene environment interaction

Parents create an environment for their genetically similar children

• children are passive recipients of genes AND the environment provided

• athletic parents may have an athletic child, and that child may be given an athletic environment

Evocative genotype-environment correlations

Children’s behavior and trails elicit a certain type of environment

• Etc. child smiling elicits joy from parents

Active genotype-environment correlations

Nich-picking

• athletic kids will choose to do sports

• Become more prevalent as children grow

Epigenetics

The bidirectional relationship between genetics and environment (nature via nurture)

• Certain foods may help your epigenome to prevent passing down cancerous genes or stress to children

Apgar score

• Quick assessment of the newborn status

• Assesses the following vital signs on a scale of 0, 1, 2. 

  • Breathing, heartbeat, skin tone, muscle tone, reflexes

Neonatal behavioral assesement scale

More comprehensive, using 28 behavioral items to evaluate

• Autonomic systems

• Motor systems

• State

• Social systems

Three categories of temperament

• Surgency/extroversion

• Negative affect

• Effortful control

Surgency/extroversion

Extent to which a child is happy, active, vocal, and seeks stimulation

Negative affect

Extent to which a child is angry, fearful, frustrated, shy, and not easily soothed

Effortful control

Extent to which a child is focused, not readily distracted, and can inhibit responses

How many calories does a 3 month old need per pound vs an adult

50! An adult needs 15-20.

Advantages of breast-feeding

• Mothers antibodies

• Less prone to diarrhea and constipation

• Transition to solid foods easier

• No risk of contamination

Specialization of the brain

• By birth, the left and right hemispheres are specialized for language processing and spatial relations

• As we develop, stimuli that triggers brain activity shifts from generic to specific

• Specialization requires a stimulating environment

Fine motor skills

Actions like picking up small things, grasping, manipulating

Gross motor skills

Rolling over, sitting, crawling, standing, walking

Differentiation

Distinguishing and mastering individual motions

Integration

Linking individual motions into a coherent whole

What can babies percieve?

• Hearing - Begins in utero, respond to sounds within range of human speech

• Touch - Very responsive to touch, evokes reflexes

• Taste - Differentiate between sour, salty, bitter, sweet

• Smell - Recognize mothers smell

• Sight - 0-1 months, see 20 feet ahead

  • By 1 year, can see 200-400 feet

  • Full range of colors by 3 months

Intersensory redundancy

Infant perception is attuned to information presented simultaneously to different senses

• Faster learning

When do children become self-aware?

Between 18-24 months

• Personal pronouns

• Images of self

• “Mine” - growing self-identity

Theory of mind

Developed between ages 2 and 5

• Ideas about the connections between thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and behavior that create an intuitive understanding of the link between mind and behavior

• In children with autism, this may be absent, referred to as “mindblindness”

  • Controversial idea

Schemas

Mental structures that help us to organize information and regulate behavior

Assimilation vs accommodation

Assimilation - Integrating experiences into existing schemas

• Pincer grasp works on cheerios, too!

Accommodation - Developing new schemes for new experiences that don’t fit into a previous one

• Pincer grasp does not work on heavy objects, I need to use two hands

Sensorimotor thinking

• 0 - 2 years

• Marked by goal directed behavior

• Test the environment using sensory and motor perception

• Need to gain object permanence

Pre-operational thinking

• 3+ years

• Characterized by certain errors in logic

  • Egocentrism - seeing the world only from your view

  • Centration - Tunnel vision; narrowly focused thought

Strengths of Piaget’s theory

• Source of ideas for how to foster child development

  • Children profit from experiences within their previous cognitive structures

• Cognitive growth occurs rapidly, especially when children discover their own errors

Criticisms of Piaget’s theory

• Underestimates cognitive competence in early childhood

• Overly vague

  • Theory needs to be testable

• Too rigid in stage-like structure

• Undervalues importance of sociocultural environment

  • Child is not just a “lone explorer”

Three important features of memory

1. An event from the past is remembered

2. Over time, event can no longer be recalled

3. A cue can recall the memory that seemed to have been forgotten

In children, the prefrontal cortex (retrieval of memories) does not develop until age 2

Autobiographical memory

Significant memories about your own life that construct a narrative

Guided participation

Cognitive growth occurs from children’s involvement in structured activities with others who are more skilled than they.

• Aspect of Vygotsky’s theory

Scaffolding

A style in which teachers gauge the amount of assistance they need to offer to match the learner’s needs

• Give help, but not more than needed

Zone of proximal development

Difference between what children can do with assistance and what they can do alone

Private speech

Comments intended for yourself to regulate behavior

• Develop in children 

Phenomes

Basic building blocks of language; distinct sounds joined to create words

• Consonant and vowel sounds

Words as symbols in development

Children realizing the sounds they make represent something

• Happens around 12 months

How many words do 18 month olds learn per week?

10+

Bilingualism

Children begin with lower vocabularies respective to each language, but catch up eventually

• More skilled at switching in between tasks when they grow older and inhibiting inappropriate responses

  • Because of neural plasticity?

How to foster better language development?

• Parents speaking with a sophisticated vocabulary

• Reading quality books

Where can the theory of attachment be traced to?

Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development & evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary advantage to attachment

Some behaviors are more likely to result in the passing down of genes to following generations

• Parents need to invest resources into child development to ensure survival

Steps towards attachment

• Preattachment (0-8 weeks)

  • Infant behavior/responses invoke foundation of attachment

• Attachment in the making (8 weeks - 8 months)

  • Begin to recognize primary caregiver

• True attachment (8 months - 18 months)

  • Attachment figure is infant’s stable socioemotional base

• Reciprocal relationships (18 months on)

  • True partners in attachment relationship

Mary Ainsworth

Helped to develop “steps toward attachment” as well as the “strange situation” experiment to observe child attachment styles

Four types of attachment

Secure, avoidant, anxious, disorganized

Secure attachment

(B) 60-65%

• Baby may cry when mother leaves, but is easily consoled when she returns

Avoidant attachment

(A) 20%

• Baby is not upset when mother leaves, may not notice her return

Resistant/anxious attachment

(C) 10-15%

• Baby is upset when mother leaves, remains inconsolable even when she returns

Disorganized attachment

(D) 5-10%

• Baby is confused, characterized by contradictory behavior

How is attachment developed?

Consistent and responsive parenting

• Infant’s develop an internal working model, a set of expectations about parents’ availability and responsiveness

• Child temperament plays a role

How does day-care impact attachment?

Insecure attachments are more common when less sensitive parenting is combined with low-quality child-care

• Children can form multiple attachments

• High quality child-care involves well-trained staff, low staff turnover, opportunities and communication

Three elements of emotions

Subjective feeling, physiological response, overt behavior

Development of emotions in children

By 8 or 9 months all basic emotions are in place

• anger emerges at 4-6 months

• stranger anxiety emerges at 6 months

Complex emotions

• Pride, guilt, shame, embarrassment emerge around 18-24 months

• Directly tied to emergence of goal directed behavior in toddlers

Cultural differences in emotional expression

Collectivist vs individualistic differences

• Outward displays of emotion discouraged in Asian nations

• Shame and pride differ

When do infants begin to identify emotions?

As early as 4 months, but by 6 months

• Can distinguish between happy and sad faces

• Biased toward negative expressions

• Infants match emotions of their parents

Social referencing

Behavior in which infants in unfamiliar or ambiguous environments look at an adult for cues to help them interpret the situation

How do children learn to regulate their emotions?

• Habituation to aversive stimuli

• Secure base

• Reliance on mental strategies

Children who do poorly at this may have trouble in school 

Parallel play

1 year old - Kids play alone but maintain interest in what the other is doing

Simple social play

15-18 months - Engage in similar activities or smile

Cooperative play

2 years on - Play that is organized around a theme, designated roles

Pretend play

Reflects cognitive growth - advanced in language, memory, empathy, and reasoning

Prosocial behavior vs altruism

Any behavior that benefits another person

• Altruism - Prosocial behavior where the helping individual does not benefit directly

How to foster helping behavior in children?

• Modeling of behavior

• Disciplinary practices

  • Reasoning and guidelines

• Opportunities to behave pro-socially

  • See the benefits of helping others

Morphemes

Smallest units of language that carry meaning.

• free - book

• bound - prefix and suffix

Teratogens

Substances that harm embryonic development.

Alcohol, drugs, caffeine

Microsystem

People in an individuals immediate environment, can have multiple

Mesosystem

Connects across microsystems, because they influence each other

Exosystem

Social settings that influence people, like cutbacks on welfare

Macrosystem

Cultures and subcultures in which the systems are embedded. 

Alert inactivity

Baby is calm with open eyes, deliberately inspecting environment

Waking activity

Baby eyes seem unfocused, arms and legs moving uncoordinatedly

Crying

Basic cry, mad cry, pain cry