Exam 1 Psych 2400 Coppola

Werner's Study

1955
-examined 698 children's birth stories and collected data on multiple aspects of their lives for a period of over 30 years (done in Hawaii, scope of study unusual, no selection process so it guarantees you a wide pop) --usually high income families, women stay at home moms choose to participate
-results: quality of home environment played a larger role in development than biological risk factors
-explains the issues of nature vs nurture
-prenatal and birth problems related to impaired psychological ONLY IF children also experienced poor rearing conditions, points to high degree of resilience with these children
-most children who faced both birth complications and adverse family circumstances developed serious problems by age 10, however 1/3 of these children developed into successful young adults

What specific experiences or traits do you think helped the resilient children in the Werner Study

-somebody outside the family was helping them (teachers, guidance counselor, clergy members)
-stubborn children have their own drive
*shows that we can never predict how a child will turn out, humans are very adaptive

Why study Development?

-important for choosing social policies

-effectiveness of health-education coures
-obtaining more accurate testimonies from young children (interview styles--so don't provide too many ideas so the child won't fully tell the truth about their own, and props don't help children in telling an accurate portrayal of what happened)

Why Study Development?

-Understanding Human Nature

-relationship between early and later experiences
-learn from pathologies and disorders to better understand environment

Romanian Orphanage

-timing of experiences influences development\-- huge predictive value
-abortions completely illegal in Romania, people in charge of orphanage's were instructed to care for physical needs of infants but were unable to interact with them as we should with babies HIGH LEVEL OF INTERACTION
-6 month old babies adopted were completely indistingushable from normal babies but 24-42 month olds had many serious psychological problems

Plato's View on Children

self-control and discipline are born with innate knowledge

Aristotle

fitting child rearing to needs of individual child
*all knowledge comes from experience

Development Caveat

We tend to relate developmental themes to our own lives BUT:
-development is complex
-outcomes are not 100% predictable
-research discusses trends not certainties

Nature-Nurture

Nature: refers to our biological endowment, especially the genes we receive from our parents
-physical characteristics, emotional temperament, IQ
Nurture: refers to the wide range of environments, both physical and social that influence our development
-prenatal teratogens, family styles
-environment

Nature Nurture Controversy: language development

-developmental systems view: multiple interacting levels within the organism, no single cause, it is a system (environment, behavior, neural activity and genetic activity)
-primary environmental aspect that affects language is the language they are learning in the house

The Active Child

-children's actions contribute to their own development, even during the first year of life (whatever the baby pays attention to promotes their development)
-attentional patterns and use of language
-choose who to play with, what they want to play

Continuous Change

-change with age occurs gradually, in small increments
(the tree growing)

Discontinuous Change

-change with age includes occasional large shifts
-example: stage theories, development is a series of discontinuous, age related phases (butterfly has significant shifts, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly)
*what you measure and how you measure it can determine if it is continuous or discontinuous

Mechanisms of Change

-the interaction of genes and environment determines both what changes occur and when those changes occur

Sociocultural Context

-the physical, social, cultural, economic, and historical circumstances that make up any child's development
-people: parents, family, friends
-physical environment: house, day care, school
-cultural contexts: SES, geography, language, customs

Individual Differences

-genetics
-different treatment by parents and others
-different reactions to similar experiences
-different choice of environments, even those within the same family

Research and Children's welfare

-early diagnosis of developmental problems
-fetal alcohol syndrome, Down Syndrome, Autism, SIDS
-early diagnosis leads to early treatment and prevention

Scientific Method

Choose a Question, doing background research, hypothesis, testing hypothesis, draw conclusion (Cat in the Hat example)

reliability

the degree to which independent measurements of a given behavior are consistent
-interrater reliability (different people)
-test-retest reliability (different times)

Validity

the degree to which the test measures what it is intended to measure
-does it measure what you think it is measuring and is it similar to someone elses research

Data Gathering Techniques

-interviews
-observation
-experiment

Structured interview

a research procedure in which all participants are asked the same questions, rigid, same structure, fixed procedure

clinical interview

a procedure in which questions are adjusted in accord with the answers the interviewee provides

Naturalistic observation

-examination of ongoing behavior in an environment not controlled by the researcher

structured observation

a method that involves presenting an identical situation to each child and recording their behavior
-classic lab study, people come in and they are exposed to your study

To examine how children interact with their elementary school teachers on a daily basis, a researcher would probably use the...

naturalistic observation technique

Correlation and Causation

interviews and observations are forms of correlational designs\-- studies intended to indicate how variables are related to each other

correlation

the association between two variables

correlation coefficient

a statistic that indicates the direction and strength of a correlation
direction: positive or negative
strength: measured between 0 (no relationship) and 1 (perfectly predictive height in meters and inches)

Positive correlation?

the points are lined up slanting upwards to the right (r\=1.00)

negative correlation

points all lined up and pointing downwards toward the bottom right (r\=-1.00)

no correlation

the points are scattered making dot squares all over the plot (unrelated, your height and how many letters are in your name)
(r\=0)

positive correlation (not perfect)

the points are scattered but they do create a slant upwards toward the right (r\=0.68)

negative correlation (not perfect)

scattered points all point downward toward the right (r\=-0.58)

Variables A and b have a correlation of -.86. if you know Keira has a low score on A, what can you say about her score on B?

Keira is likely to have a high score on B

Direction of Causation

Correlation does not apply to causation, it just means that those things are related, you need other types of evidence to prove it (third variable problem)
-eating ice cream makes you more likely to commit murder or murderers really like ice cream?

Third Variable problem

Adding heat to the ice cream and murderers variable, if it is really hot out, people tend to eat ice cream and people tend to murder
*ice cream and murder not a causal relationship

experimental studies

-allow inferences about causes and effects
-rely on RANDOM ASSIGNMENT
-each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any group within the experiment

Cross Sectional Design

-children of different ages are studied at a single time
-easy to administer/quick
-age differences useful
-does not address stability of individual differences over time or pattern of development for each individual
-quicker version of longitudinal

longitudinal design

children are examined repeatedly over a prolonged period of time
-stability of individual differences
-patterns of change within individuals
-difficult to mange (high cost, time and participants can drop out)
-danger in repeated testing

microgenetic design

children observed intensively over a short time period while a change is occurring
-best examine process of change
-short, but detailed patterns of change within individuals
-may be hard to pinpoint when and how often to measure
-does not cpature long term developmental change
-example: 20 infants seen daily for 4 weeks when learning to crawl

ethical issues in developmental research

-children are unable to give consent
-researchers have a responsibility to anticipate potential risks that the children in their studies may encounter, to minimize such risks and to make sure that the benefits of the research outweigh the potential harm

SOCIETY FOR RESEARCH IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT

SOCIETY FOR RESEARCH IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT has created a code of ethics for investigators to follow

External Validity

A study that readily allows its findings to generalise to the population at large has high external validity

Internal Validity

To the degree that we are successful in eliminating confounding variables within the study itself is referred to as internal validity.

Preformationism

the idea that the sperm head had a little new born and it deposited into the female and got bigger there

Epigenesis

the emergence of new structures and functions over the course of development
*Aristotle, he looked at chicken embryos

Conception

union of two gametes (sex cells, egg and sperm)

gamete

contains half the genetic material found in other cells (23 chromosomes)
-females create eggs prenatally
-males create sperm all the time

zygote

fertilized egg (46 chromosomes)

Early Sex development

120-150 males conceived for every 100 females
-sperm with y chromosome are lighter and swim faster than those with X chromosome
-more male embryos miscarried than female embryos
-boys are more ulnerable to developmental disorders
-men are more vulnerable to illness throughout the lifespan

Developmental Processes

Zygote- cell division begins 12 hours after fertilization
-cell migration
-cell differentiation
-apoptosis

3 Periods of Prenatal Development

Germinal, Embryonic, Fetal

Germinal

0-2 weeks from conception- until implantation
-rapid cell division
-where twins originate

Embryonic

3-8 weeks
ectoderm (top)
mesoderm (middle)
endoderm (bottom)
-neural tube starts to form and closes off, here we need folic acid the most

Fetal

9 weeks to birth
-organ development
-sensory experiences and learning
-identical cannot have different sexes while fraternal can

fetal behavior

-by 12 weeks after gestation, most of the movements that will be present at birth have appeared
-movement in utero\= practice for external functions (hiccups, swallowing, moving, waking, fetal breathing)

True or False: Babies do the same thing inside the uterus versus the period shortly after birth

True
-environment changes dramatically, but apart from that they are pretty much the same

Fetal Sensory Experience

Vision, not much experience (REM sleep)
Touch: lots of opportunity
taste: prefer certain tastes
preferences last until childhood, more pronounced in breast fed babies
smell: prefer smells associated with foods mother has eaten
hearing: react to mother's voice from 6th month onward

early term

37-38 weeks

full term

39-41 weeks

fetal learning

at 32 weeks, the fetus demonstrates habituation by decreasing response to repeated or continued stimulation

DeCasper and Spence (1986)

newborn infants recognize rhymes and stories presented before birth
-newborns also prefer familiar smells, tastes, and sound patterns from womb

Teratogens

environmental agents that have the potential to cause harm during prenatal development
(alcohol, birth control pills, mercury, AIDS, herpes)

Sleeper Effects

the effect of a teratogen will not be apparent at birth, it will affect the acitivty of regulatory genes that don't get expressed until they are in use later in life
-DES: hormone given to women that gave offspring cancer (sleeper effect) but was meant to prevent miscarriage

dose-response relation

the greater the fetus's exposure to potential teratogen, the more likely it is that fetus will suffer damage and the more severe any damage is likely to be

thalidomide during pregnancy

meant to be a sedative for pregnant mothers and other people, ended up causing babies to have limb deformities
-happened during the 4th and 6th week after conception
-if you took it before or after limb development you saw no defects

Maternal factors

-infants born to girls 15 years or younger are 3-4 times more likely to die before their first birthday than those with mothers 23-29 years of age

True or False Stress later in pregnancy is related to higher scores and stress earlier in pregnancy is related to smaller scores

true

Father's Prenatal Influence

-relatively little research
-tobacco use
-drug use
-alcohol use
-treatment of mother, big role in pregnancy, if the mother is not stressed, way better for the baby
*quality of sperm declines as a male gets older

Labor and Birth

-fetuses head squeezed during labor
-can cause the head to misshapen temporarily
-stimulates hormone production that helps the fetus withstand mild oxygen deprivation during birth and stimulates milk production
-forces amniotic fluid out of lungs
-first breath after birth usually birth cry

vernix

protects the babies skin while in the womb, waxy substance

lanugo

fine baby hair (when babies are born early, they may have it) but it goes away

APGAR scale

-at 1 minutes and 5 minutes after birth
Appearance, Pulse, Grimace (reflex irritability) Activity (muscle tone) Respiration

How much does a baby sleep in a day?

16 hours (8 hours quiet sleep and 8 hours active sleep)

Stages of a babies day

quiet sleep, active sleep, drowsing, alert awake, active awake, crying

Crying

-older infants cry as a communicative act to get adults to respond to them

colic

excessive, inconsolable crying for no apparent reason

how can crying be soothed?

swaddling, repetitive stimulation, carrying and touch

Which of the following statements accurately describes the infant mortality rates in the us?

higher than that of many other industrialized countries
*we have a much higher ratio of income inequality

infant mortality

-death during the first year after birth
-relatively rare event in industrialized world
*African American infants are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday as Euro-American babies

Low Birth Weight infants

low birthweight

Two types of LBW infants

premature: < or \= to 35 weeks of gestation
-small for gestational age (SGA) birth weight less than norm for gestational age

Average weight of a new born in the US

7.5 lbs

At how many weeks will a baby have more than a 50% chance of survival?

25 weeks

Multiple Risk Model

-risk factors tend to occur together
-negative outcome is more likely when there are multiple risk factors
-risk factors: maternal distress, low SES, paternal criminality, maternal psychiatric disorder, marital problems

Developmental problems are particularly heightened when children are exposed to how many risk factors?

4+
-20% chance of developing a psychiatric disorder
-the presence of multiple risks is strongly related to SES factors

developmental resilience

proposes that children can overcome developmental problems with personal characteristics
-biological factors
-personal characteristics
-sense of being capable of achieving goals

Individuals differ from one another by only about....

1-1.5% of their genes

Francis Galton

study on what is more important nature or nurture, he found that people from families that are wealthy, they produce leaders of society, prosperous therefore genes are the reason for this outcome (not really....)

Mendel

selectively breeding peas, different patterns of breeding produced different outcomes

Watson and Crick

id'ed DNA, mapped out DNA structure

genotype

the genetic material an individual inherits

phenotype

the observable expression of the phenotype, including both body characteristics and behavior

4 fundamental relations

-parents genes to child's genotype
-child's genotype to their phenotype
-child's environment to their phenotype
-child's phenotype on their environment

genes

sections of chromosomes that are the basic units of heredity for all living things

mutations

changes in the section of DNA caused by random or environmental factors

random assortment

the shuffling of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in the sperm and egg, chance determines

crossing over

the process by which sections of DNA insert themselves into other chromosomes during meiosis

regulator gene defects

testosterone gene: everybody is programmed to be female until testosterone is made and male characteristics develop, if the gene is not functioning and the baby is XY, the baby will be born with female characteristics