Introduction to Psychology - Exam 3 Review

Developmental Psychology

The study of continuity and change across the life span.

Only one, and that's you! :o

200 million sperm began the journey, but how many reached the egg?

Zygote

A fertilized egg that contains chromosomes from both a sperm and an egg. This is considered male if the sperm that fertilizes the egg has a Y chromosome and female if the sperm has an X chromosome.

X or Y for sperm, Y for eggs

The 23rd chromosome of an sperm cell can be ______, but for the egg its 23rd chromosome is always _____

Germinal Stage

The 2-week period of prenatal development that begins at conception. This is where the zygote repeatedly divides itself. Zygotes also migrate back down the fallopian tube to the wall of the uterus.

Embryonic Stage

The period of prenatal development that lasts from the 2nd week until about the 8th week. This is where cells begin to differentiate in function, and the embryo begins to form with a beating heart and other body parts.

Fetal Stage

The period of prenatal development that lasts from the 9th week until birth. The embryo develops into a fetus, to which it has skeletal muscles capable of movement and a layer of insulating fat beneath its skin.

Myelination

The formation of a fatty sheath around the axons of a neuron.

Placenta

The organ that physically links the bloodstream of the mother and the embryo or fetus. This organ permits the exchange of certain chemicals, and explains why the foods the mother eats can affect the unborn child.

Teratogens

Agents, such as drugs or viruses, that damage the process of development. Common examples are alcohol, tobacco (first and second hand), and environmental poisons (lead in water, sniffing paint ew).

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)

A developmental disorder that stems from heavy alcohol use by the mother during pregnancy. Children with this disorder have a variety of brain abnormalities and cognitive deficits.

Infancy

The stage of development that begins at birth and lasts between 18 and 24 months. Involves perceptual, motor, and cognitive development.

Motor Development

The emergence of the ability to execute physical actions such as reaching, grasping, crawling, and walking

Reflexes

Specific patterns of motor response that are triggered by specific patterns of sensory stimulations. Primarily divided into 5 categories.

Moro

The reflex involved when the infant makes a startled response/reaction.

Walking/Stepping

The reflex where if the soles of their feet touch a flat surface, they will attempt to walk.

Rooting

The reflex where the baby turns its head to assist the act of breastfeeding.

Palmar Grasp

The reflex where an object is grasped when it is placed in the infant's hand and strokes the palm.

Babinski

A reflex that reacts to when the bottom of the foot is touched. Involves the toes moving away and curling downwards.

Cephalocaudal Rule

Top-to-Bottom rule that describes the tendency for the motor skills to emerge in sequence from the head to the feet. Discovered that infants can control their heads before their feet.

Proximodistal Rule

Inside-to-Outside rule that describes the tendency for motor skills to emerge in sequence from the center to the periphery. Discovered that infants can control their trunks before hands and feet.

Jean Piaget

The man who saw that children of the same age made the same mistake. He suggested that children move through discrete stages of cognitive development.

Cognitive Development

The emergence of the ability to think and understand. Divided into four stages.

Sensorimotor Stage

Stage of cognitive development that begins at birth and lasts through infancy. In this stage, infants acquire information about the world by sensing it and moving around with it.

Schemas

Child-generated theories about the way the world works. Constructed through the children actively exploring environments with their eyes, mouths, and fingers.

Assimilation

The process by which infants apply their schemas in novel situations (Ex. applying the motor skills with a crayon onto a pencil).

Accommodation

The process by which infants revise their schemas in light of new information. Often involves adjusting or creating new schemas. (Ex. seeing a plane fly may lead to a new schemas if the infant associated flying with birds, hopefully this makes sense lmao).

Object Permanence

The belief that objects continue to exist even when they are not visible. According to Piaget, infants in their first few months of life act as though objects no longer exist when they cannot see them. This is what causes surprise when you play peek-a-boo with them.

Childhood

The period after infancy that begins at about 18-24 months and lasts until about 11 to 14 years. Involves the last three stages of cognitive development.

Preoperational Stage

The stage of cognitive development that begins at about 3 years and ends at about 6 years. In this stage, children develop a preliminary understanding of the physical world.

Concrete Operational Stage

The stage of cognitive development that begins at about 6 years and ends at about 11 years. In this stage, children learn how various actions or "operations" can affect or transform "concrete" objects.

Preoperational children DO NOT grasp conservation, but concrete operational children DO grasp conservation.

What is the difference between the Preoperational and the Concrete Operational Stages, or rather between preoperational children and concrete operation children?

Conservation

The notion that the quantitative properties of an object are invariant despite changes in the object's appearance. (Ex. when comparing two different glasses that contain the same amount of milk, concrete operational children will say that the amount of milk is the same despite it looking like it is different).

Formal Operational Stage

The final stage of cognitive development that begins around the age of 11. In this stage, children learn to reason about abstract concepts, which involves the ability to generate, consider, reason about, or mentally operate on abstract objects.

Harlow

The man who questionably socially isolated rhesus monkeys for the first 6 months of their lives and placed them in a cage with two artificial mothers where one made of wire that dispensed food and the other made of terrycloth. Discovered that the monkeys spent most of their time clinging onto the terrycloth, only going to the wired mother for food.

Konrad Lorenz

The man who discovered that new hatchlings will faithfully follow the first moving object to which they are exposed. Claimed that nature designed birds so that the first moving object they saw was IMPRINTED on their brains as the "thing I am always supposed to stay near."

John Bowlby

The man, fascinated by Konrad Lorenz's work, posited that infants are designed to emit signals such as crying, gurgling, cooing, or smiling to have adults reflexively move towards them. Led to the concept of ATTACHMENT.

Attachment

The emotional bond that forms between newborns and their primary caregivers. Typically in the form of communication, not from movement (do not quote me on that)

Mary Ainsworth

The woman who developed a way to measure attachment, known as the "strange situation." Her experiment led to four patterns of attachment styles.

Strange Situation

The behavioral test, developed by Mary Ainsworth, used to determine a child's attachment style. Involves bringing a child and their primary caregiver to a laboratory room and staging a series of episodes (ex. we study the infant's reaction to their primary caregiver briefly leaving the room and returning).

Secure Attachment Style

60% of American infants have this attachment style. When the caregiver leaves, the infant may or may not be distressed.
When the caregiver returns, non-distressed infants acknowledge them with a glance or greeting; however, distressed infants will go to them and be calmed by their presence.

Avoidant Attachment Style

20% of American infants have this attachment style.
When the caregiver leaves, the infant will not be distressed.
When the caregiver returns, the infant will not acknowledge them.

Ambivalent Attachment Style

15% of American infants have this attachment style.
When the caregiver leaves, the infant will be distressed.
When the caregiver returns, the infant will rebuff, or ignore her. The infant will refuse any attempt at calming while arching his or her back and squirming to get away.

Disorganized Attachment Style

5% of American infants have this attachment style.
There is no consistent pattern of the infant's response to their caregiver's leaving and returning.

Yes. Securely attached infants do better than children who are not securely attached on many measures.

Do attachment styles have any influence on development? If so, which attachment style appears the best for infant development?

Lawrence Kohlberg

The man that posited that moral reasoning proceeds through three basic stages. He based this position on people's responses to a series of dilemmas, the most notable one being the Heinz Dilemma.

Heinz Dilemma

The popular dilemma given to people to gauge moral development. Involves this situation: A woman is dying and needs an expensive medication. Husband cannot afford the medication, should he steal it or should she die?

Preconventional Stage

The stage of moral development in which the morality of an action is primarily determined by its CONSEQUENCES for the actor. This is where most children are regarding moral development, where they base their moral judgments on the relative costs of one decision, thus analogizing immorality with punishment. (ex. it would be immoral to steal the medicine because it is bad to go to jail).

An action is immoral if it leads to blame and punishment.

In the preconventional stage, what makes an action immoral?

Conventional Stage

The stage of moral development in which the morality of an action is primarily determined by the extent to which it CONFORMS to social rules. In this stage, many would have to adhere to societal standards of right and wrong.

An action is immoral if it leads to condemnation, either from dishonor or breaking a law.

In the conventional stage, what makes an action immoral?

Postconventional Stage

The stage of moral development in which the morality of an action is determined by a set of general principles that REFLECT core values. Behaviors that violate these principles are immoral, and laws that require these principles to be violated should be disobeyed.

An action is immoral if it violates the principles that reflect core values.

In the postconventional stage, what makes an action immoral?

Erik Erikson

The man who characterized each stage of life by the major task confronting the individual at that stage. Each stage has a key conflict and crisis, which can be resolved either positively or negatively.

Oral-Sensory Stage

The first stage of Erikson's psychosocial development, lasting from birth to 12-18 months.
Key Event: Feeding
Crisis: Trust vs Mistrust
Positive Resolution: The child develops a belief that the environment can be counted on to meet their basic physiological and social needs.

Muscular-Anal Stage

The second stage of Erikson's psychosocial development, lasting from 18 months to 3 years.
Key Event: Toilet Training
Crisis: Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt
Positive Resolution: Child learn what he or she can control and develops a sense of free will and corresponding sense of regret and sorrow for inappropriate use of self-control.

Locomotor Stage

The third stage of Erikson's psychosocial development, lasting from 3 to 6 years.
Key Event: Independence
Crisis: Initiative vs. Guilt
Positive Resolution: Child learns to begin action, to explore, to imagine, and to feel remorse for action.

Latency Stage (Erikson)

The fourth stage of Erikson's psychosocial development, lasting from 6 to 12 years.
Key Event: School
Crisis: Industry vs. Inferiority
Positive Resolution: Child learns to do things well or correctly in comparison to a standard or to others.

Adolescence

The fifth stage of Erikson's psychosocial development, lasting from 12 to 18 years.
Key Event: Peer Relationships
Crisis: Identity vs. Role Confusion
Positive Resolution: Adolescent develops a sense of self in relationships to others and to own internal thoughts and desires.

Young Adulthood

The sixth stage of Erikson's psychosocial development, lasting from 19 to 40 years.
Key Event: Love Relationships
Crisis: Intimacy vs. Isolation
Positive Resolution: Person develops the ability to give and receive love. They begin to make long-term commitment to relationships
(This is where most of us are right now)

Middle Adulthood

The seventh stage of Erikson's psychosocial development, lasting from 40 to 65 years.
Key Event: Parenting
Crisis: Generativity vs. Stagnation
Positive Resolution: Person develops an interest in guiding the development of the next generation.

Maturity

The final (bout damn time) stage of Erikson's psychosocial development, lasting from 65 years to death.
Key Event: Reflection on and Acceptance of One's Life
Crisis: Ego Integrity vs. Despair
Positive Resolution: Person develops a sense of acceptance of life as it was lived and the importance of the people and relationships that the individual developed over the life span.

Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

The woman who posited that there were five discrete stages of death and dying, originally observed from people suffering from terminal illness.

Denial

The first stage of grief, where the person is trying to sort out the reality or magnitude of their situation by developing a false yet preferable reality.

Also known as a defense mechanism where it involves the refusal to acknowledge some painful external or subjective reality obvious to others (ex. Luke and Darth Vader).

Anger

The second stage of grief, where the person recognizes that denial is not working and thus, gets pissed.

Barganing

The third stage of grief, where people hope to undo or avoid a cause of grief. Typically involves negotiation for an extended life in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. People in this stage cannot move into acceptance, but they recognize that whatever happened cannot be undone.

Depression

The fourth stage of grief, where people are somber and sad (no shit). This marks the beginning of a form of acceptance.

Acceptance

The final stage of grief, where people begin to come to terms with their mortality or inevitable future, or that of a loved one, or other tragic event.

Persona

The Latin term to which "personality" was derived from. It is represented by theatrical masks used by dramatic players and suggests a pretense of appearance.

Personality

An individual's characteristic style of behaving, thinking, and feeling.

Self-Report

A method of measuring personalities in which people provide subjective information about their own thoughts, feelings, or behaviors, typically via questionnaires or interviews. Easy to administer and does not require much supervision, but often problematic due to individual interpretations.

Projective Tests

Tests designed to reveal inner aspects of individuals' personalities by analysis of responses to a standard series of ambiguous stimuli. These tests present the subject with inherently unstructured, vague, and ambiguous situations that seek to draw out internal, frequently unconscious influences on behavior. Not often used because of their low validity and reliability.

Roschach Inkblot Test

A projective technique in which respondents' inner thoughts and feelings are believed to be revealed by analysis of their response to a set of unstructured inkblots.

Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)

A projective technique in which respondents' underlying motives, concerns, and the way they see the social world are believed to be revealed though analysis of the stories they make up about ambiguous pictures of people.

Incomplete Sentence Blank

The projective test that assesses personality by examining the ways clients finish sentence stems. (Ex. My mother______. I wish I had________)

Traits

Relatively stable dispositions to behave in a particular and consistent way. We could think about personality as a combination of these things.

Factor Analysis

A statistical technique that explains a large number of correlations in terms of a small number of underlying factors. This allows us to examine the overlap between traits and to select a much smaller number of dimensions in which the original traits are best summarized.

Openness to experience
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism

Most psychologists agree that personality is best captured by five factors. What are the Big Five? (Think about the Pacific or the Atlantic...)

These five factors repeatedly show the best balance between accounting for the wide variation of personality traits and avoiding overlapping or redundant traits.
These five factors do not just show up in factor analyses, but also in people's description of themselves and others and interviewer checklists.
These five factors show up across a wide range of participants.

Why did psychologists have a wide preference for the Big Five? (Three reasons)

Psychodynamic Approach to Personality

Pioneered by Sigmund Freud, this approach regards personality as formed by needs, strivings, and desires largely operating outside of awareness. Freud believed that the real engines of personality are those which we are largely unaware of.

Id

The part of the mind containing the drives present at birth. This is the source of our bodily desires, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives; it is a dictator that knows only how to repeatedly assert its own desires.

Pleasure Principle

The desire for immediate instinctual pleasure.

Ego

The component of personality, developed through contact with the external world, that enables us to deal with life's practical demands. This is the part of our psyche that abides by the reality principle, where it performs sophisticated intellectual activities such as risk-benefit analyses and means-end analyses.

Reality Principle

The principle that guides the ego, which is fundamentally rational and planful.

Superego

The mental system that reflects the internalization of cultural rules, mainly learned as parent exercise their authority. This part of our psyche is needed because everything that the ego imagines might not be possible in the real world.

Conscience

The part of the superego that is concerned with the morality principle.

Morality Principle

The principle on which the superego may operate, which results in feelings of guilt if its rules are violated. Particularly concerned with the right and wrong of behaviors.

Ego Ideal

The part of the superego that pulls each of us towards the realization of our unique human potentials.

Neurotic Anxiety

The fear and awareness that our Id instincts will break through our ego and saturate behavior with raw animal forces. In other words, conflict between our Id and Ego

Moral Anxiety

The fear and awareness of the threat of guilt when the satisfaction of Id demands are not disguised. In other words, conflict between the Ego trying to satisfy the Id and our Superego

Reality Anxiety

The fear of danger from the external world; the level of such anxiety is proportionate to the degree of real threat.

Defense Mechanisms

Unconscious coping mechanisms that reduce anxiety generated by threats from unacceptable impulses. The ego uses these to reduce anxiety, whether neurotic, moral, or reality ones. Be cautious as most of these are inheritably judgmental.

Acting Out

A defense mechanism where conflicts are translated into action, with little or no intervening reflection. This characterizes a personality disorder known as Antisocial Personality Disorder. (ex. Temper Tantrums)

Devaluation

A defense mechanism that involves attributing negative qualities to self or others, as a means of punishing the self or reducing the impact of the devalued item. (Ex. "I hate Summer")

Displacement

A defense mechanism where conflicts are displaced from a threatening object onto a less threatened one. (Ex. Smashing an inanimate object, lashing at your family after a bad day).

Dissociation

A defense mechanism where conflict is dealt with by disrupting the integration of consciousness, memory, or perception of the internal and external world. (Ex. After breaking up with a lover, a suicidal student is suddenly unable to recall the periods of time during which they were together).

Fantasy

A defense mechanism involving the avoidance of conflict by creating imaginary situations that satisfy drives or desires. (Ex. Imagining a world where COVID-19 never surfaced lmao).

Idealization

A defense mechanism that involves attributing unrealistic positive qualities to self or others. (Ex. I attribute characteristics of Michael Jackson onto myself since I want to be a good dancer and singer).

Projection

A defense mechanism where unacceptable emotions or personal qualities are disowned by attributing them to others. This is the main mechanism involved in gaslighting :c (Ex. Someone who committed infidelity may accuse their partner of infidelity as well)

Rationalization

A defense mechanism where an explanation for a behavior is constructed after the fact to justify one's actions in the eyes of self or others. (Ex. A thief justifies stealing money from someone because the person has more money anyway).