FMST exam

Psychoanalytic Theories 

Development and behavior are the result of interplay of inner drives, memories, and conflicts we are unaware of and cannot control.

Freud’s Psychosexual Theory:

Behavior is driven by unconscious impulses outside our awareness.

Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory:

Included the role of the social world in shaping our sense of self 

Eriksen’s Psychological Stages

Believed that there is stages during life and development that cause conflict that we need to resolve

Behaviorist and Social Learning Theories 

Development and behavior are influenced by the physical and social environment.

Behaviorism:  

Examines only observable behavior 

Social Learning Theory:

People actively process observable information, and their thoughts and feelings then influence their future behavior

Pavlov’s Classical conditioning:

Person or animal comes to associate environmental stimuli with physiological responses 

Skinner’s Operant conditioning:

Behavior becomes more or less probable depending on its consequence 

Social Learning Theory (Albert Bandura) 

Observational learning: People learn through observing and imitating model 

Cognitive Theory 

Development and behavior are the result of thought or Cognition. 

Piaget’s Cognitive-Developmental Theory:

• Children and adults use their ability to think to better understand their environment 

• Organization of learning results in Cognitive schemas or concepts, ideas, and ways of interacting with the world

 Systems Theory 

• Emphasizes the role of social context in development

• People are inseparable from the familial, neighborhood, and societal contexts in which they live

Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Systems Theory:

Addresses both the role of the individual and that individual’s social interactions 

• Development is the result of interactions among biological, cognitive, and psychological changes within a person and their changing context. 

• Individuals are embedded in, or surrounded by, a series of sociocultural contexts, affecting behaviour and development

• Macro, exo, meso, micro systems

 Evolutionary Developmental Theory 

• Applies principles of evolution and scientific knowledge about the interactive influence of genetic and environmental mechanisms to understand development. 

• Genetic programs and biological predispositions interact with physical and social environments to influence development. 

Dominant

• Only requires one copy of the dominant allele to be physically expressed. The dominant gene "overrides" or "masks" the recessive gene 

• Dominant Traits: Brown eyes, freckles, the ability to roll your tongue, and conditions like Huntington's disease.

Recessive 

• Requires two copies of the recessive allele (one from each parent) to be expressed. If you inherit only one recessive allele, the dominant allele will mask it, making you an unaffected "carrier" 

• Traits: Blue eyes, red hair, and conditions like cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anemia

Maternal Characteristics and Behaviors: Nutrition

• Fresh fruits and veggies

• Lean protein

• They need to be able to give babies the right amount of food and nutrients 

Maternal Characteristics and Behaviors: Maternal Illness

• Effects depends on when person was pregnant 

  • Ex: measles cause miscarriage, baby can be born premature, LBW, brain damage, blind, deaf, might die before first year

  • Chicken pox, cica, mumps 

Maternal Characteristics and Behaviors: Emotional Well-Being

• Unsafe living conditions, domestic violence, living during moments of war

• Stress hormones elevate heart rate, causing fetus to have heart high rate

• Stress travels into the umbilical cord/placenta

Maternal Characteristics and Behaviors: Age

• When individuals are older, children are more likely to have down syndrome 

• chromosomal risks the more you get older

• high blood pressure and gestational diabetes comes with age, inhibiting ability to provide nutrition to baby

Maternal Characteristics and Behaviors: Prenatal care

• Prenatal vitamins

• Regular visits to health practitioners

• Blood tests

• Ethnic and SES Disparities 

  • lots of people with low SES don’t have access to prenatal care, affecting child development

Biological Influences on Pubertal Timing 

• Genetics 

  • The age a parents went through puberty is about when a child will go through puberty

Contextual Influences on Pubertal Timing: Weight and Nutrition

• Leptin: produced by fat cells. More leptin= more fat cells 

• This can trigger early menstruation 

• Fast Food

  • has links to children having an early puberty

Contextual Influences on Pubertal Timing: Stress

Repeated exposure to stress increases likeliness of early menstruation

Contextual Influences on Pubertal Timing: SES

• Lower SES is correlated with early menstruation + puberty  because they’re more likely to be exposed to ACES

• Higher SES is correlated with normal to delayed menstruation

• When youth are exposed to higher chronic stressors (resource scarcity, instability, psychosocial stress) during early life, the body "programs" itself to mature and reproduce earlier to cope with harsh environments 

Off-timed Puberty 

• Early: Before 8 (girls) or 9 (boys) 

• Late: After 13 (girls) or 14 (boys) 

Psychosocial/Emotional Consequences of early maturation

• Body image concerns

• Girls are more susceptible to depression, anxiety, and heightened level of self-consciousness

• Boys look more physically mature (broad shoulders and muscle definition), which can grant them a higher social status, more popularity, and a temporary boost in self-confidence among peers 

Behavioral Consequences of early maturation

• Hang out with people who are older bc they look way older than they really are 

• Start doing age inappropriate activities for their age 

• Brain and body mismatch with prefrontal and limbic system

Synaptogenesis:

• the formation of new synapses

  • Happens during infancy and toddlerhood 

  • New synapses are created when infant’s environment is being stimulated

Synaptic Pruning:

• loss of unused neural connections 

  • Too many synapses slow things down, so if there’s a synapse that you don’t use, the brain gets rid of it 

  • Kind of like how we have to delete apps on our phone bc it fills up storage and slows phone down 

  • It’s so important for infants to be regularly stimulated because if they aren’t, synapses will be pruned and when they’re older they won’t be able to handle things because they weren’t exposed to it. Limits their opportunities

Child Maltreatment – Risk Factors for Child Abuse – Parent Characteristics

• Not having much knowledge of normal child development

  • Usually thinking that they’re being stubborn to hurt or annoy the parent, causes parents to want to control the child

• Not good coping/problem solving skills (why younger parents who don’t have a fully developed PFC are more likely to commit child abuse)

• Physically violent partners 

• Common Substance Used by Teens and Young Adults: Marijuana Use

  • Canada Statistics

• Avg. age at first consumption using THC is 14 years old 

• Survey results for THC consumption is that 25% people from ages 18-25 have used THC in the past 3 months

• Males are more likely to use it and they perceive it as less risky, more likely to drive after consumption than women

Assimilation:

• Integrating a new experience into a preexisting schema

  • Learning that a great dane is the same species as a chihuahua

Accommodation:

• Modifying or creating a schema in light of new information

  • Learning that dogs and cats are different 

Guided Participation:

• More skilled partner is attuned to needs of the child and guides her to accomplish more than she could do alone

  • They know what the child knows, and know that they are ready to learn more

  • A type of scaffolding

    • Like swim coaches: they’ll only let you advance to the next level of swimming if they see that you’re ready

Zone of Proximal Development:

• The gap between a child’s competence level (what she can do alone) and what she can do with assistance

  • Skilled partner, using guided participation, guides child through this zone 

Sensory Memory:

• Holds incoming sensory information in its original form

  • But you don’t remember every detail you’re exposed to, just the ones you pay attention to

Attention:

Awareness of information

Working Memory:

• Holds and processes information that is being “worked on”: manipulated, encoded, or retrieved

  • Figures out what sensation it is you saw, stores it, and remembers it for later

  • Has Central Executive

  • Has Executive Function

Central Executive

• Control processor that directs the flow of information and regulates cognitive activities such as attention, action, and problem-solving

  • Decides what to do with new info and tells exec function to execute it

Executive Function

• Cognitive process of understanding information, making decisions, and solving problems

  • Sees something, pays attention, moves into working memory, tells the exec function to do something with it to make it make sense. Exec function either encodes and puts it into long term memory, or retrieves smt from long term memory and merging the new info with the old to make sense of it

Long-Term Memory:

• Unlimited store that holds information indefinitely

  • Doesn’t really do any work except storing info

Adolescent decision making

capable of making rational decisions

Risk taking behaviors

limbic system is the main reason why adolescents make rash decisions because it uses emotions to make them

Flynn Effect

• An effect where Iq scores throughout the generations keeps going up

  • We’re smarter than the pop’n from 1950

  • Goes up 3 pts every decade

Why is there a flynn effect?

• With each successive decade, more individuals are finishing/graduating school. More schooling you get, higher iq score is going to be

• Expectations of generations increase because we have to learn so much about the world just to get by

• Back in the 1950s, they didn’t have to learn how to do a lot to be successful 

Group and Contextual Differences in IQ: Socioeconomic Status

• Accounts for most racial/ethnic differences in IQ scores

• Differences based on SES are not inborn

  • When infants are tested, SES hasn’t affected them yet so it could be genetic 

  • When the kids get older and have experience in their environment, SES affects their iq scores 

• SES contributes to IQ through differences in culture, nutrition, living conditions, school resources, intellectual stimulation, and life circumstances

1. Phonology:

Knowledge of sounds used in a given language

• Learning how to detect, discriminate and produce speech sounds

• Know what something sounds like but don’t know what it means

2. Morphology:

Understanding the ways that sounds can be combined to form words

• Infants learn that sounds can be combined in meaningful ways

3. Semantics:

Meaning or content of words and sentences

•  Growing vocabulary signals an increase in semantic knowledge

• Ex: there, their, and they’re

4. Syntax:

Knowledge of the structure of sentences

• Rules by which words are to be combined to form sentences

5. Pragmatics:

Understanding how to use language to communicate effectively

Contextual Influences on Language Development: Poverty

Before 18 months, children’s language knowledge are relatively the same. But after, higher SES children’s language knowledge increases and lower SES is significantly lower

Bowlby’s First Stage of Attachment Formation

•  Indiscriminate Social Responsiveness (birth to 2 months)

  • Associate caregiver with release of distress

    • Any caregiver will do as long as they relieve stress, they don’t have an attachment or care who it is

Bowlby’s Second Stage of Attachment Formation

• Discriminating Sociability (2 through 6–7 months)

  • Prefer the familiar caregivers that always take care of them rather than just anyone

Bowlby’s Third Stage of Attachment Formation

• Attachments (7–24 months)

  • Attachment has formed for that familiar caregiver

Bowlby’s Fourth Stage of Attachment Formation

• Reciprocal Relationships (24–30 months and onward)

  • Not only does caregiver reach out to keep relo going, but the toddler is also reaching out to caregiver to continue interactions

  • Strange situations experiment (recall from psyc)

  • If we learn in childhood that you’re worthy of love and can be relieved from stress, you’re able to create secure attachments

Significance of Attachment in Adulthood

• Securely Attached 

  • desire emotional closeness and intimacy

  • Likely to form a secure attachment with children

• Insecurely Attached

  • Lower internal working model

  • Don’t desire closeness as it makes them uncomfortable bc they don’t trust that closeness is possible

Self concept

• The way we describe ourselves

• Our assessment of our abilities, traits, and characteristics

• The way we see ourselves – which may not be in line with how others see us

• an ever-changing process, becoming more complex over our lifespan

Self esteem

• Based on evaluation

  • How do you FEEL about your identity, looks, and the things you’re good/bad at?

• Feelings of self-worth, self-acceptance, and self-respect

• Relies on cognitive development and a sense of self that emerges over the course of childhood

• Ex: “I’m not good a sports (description + self concept) but I don’t rlly care because I like art better (self esteem)

  • They understand that there’s things you can be good at or things you can’t be good at and it’s okay

Care Orientation:

• Desire to maintain relationships and responsibility not to cause harm

  • Women most likely to develop this

Justice Orientation:

• Based on abstract principles of fairness and individualism

  • More focused on human rights

  • Felt like men did a justice orientation reasoning

  • Found people reason in the same two ways (Care and Justice) 

Androgyny

• Integrating masculine and feminine characteristics

  • Way of behaving, thinking, communicating, being

  • More mature

  • Report higher satisfaction with work life and relationships

  • Score high on all satisfactions 

  • Linked with positive adjustment

Emerging sexuality

Normal for toddlers/preschoolers to self-stimulate

Teen pregnancy protective factors

• Knowledge of normal child development/parenting class 

• family + community support

• stable living environment

• parental involvement

Sexual Activity in Adulthood 

Frequency of Sexual Activity Is Highest in Young Adulthood

Cohabiting household statistics

• Increased 4 times as many cohabiting households than 20 yrs ago

• Canada has the highest cohabitation rate in the G7

• 23% of the majority now, 6% of the majority 20 yrs ago

Cohabiting household: who cohabits?

• Lots of people in Quebec bc they’re very liberal (they detached themselves from the Catholic church) and their relationship with France, who has a very high cohabitation households

• Typically, people who have lower education and income are more likely to cohabit. Also seen in the US

Single-Parent Families – Children’s Experiences – Protective Factors

Reduce number of changes/influence that affects child development: child support, father involvement, matching parental styles, parents continuing to communicate after separation

Perceived Control: Self Efficacy

• Gender

  • Men report that they have more of this than women

  • Women take on childcare, household chores, jobs, so they have less of this

• SES & Race/Ethnicity: influence/reduces control based on where you are

  • Non POC and minority + high SES: correlates to High Perceived Control: better lifestyle, health, better adaptability to stress

Parenting Styles: Authoritative → Type of parenting and outcomes for children

• Warmth and Control

  • High on both

  • Seen as parenting style that has best outcome for children 

  • Provide consistency, routine, stability, structure 

  • Children are well aware of the structure and expectations of behaviour 

  • Rules are open to negotiation

• Outcomes for Children

  • Most positive outcomes

  • Highest academic achievement

  • Very cooperative children with everyone, not just parents 

  • Are able to seek help from parents

Parenting Styles: Authoritarian → Type of parenting and outcomes for children

• Warmth and Control

  • High on control, low on warmth

  • They don’t explain the rules and why they have them, so the children grow up not understanding cause and effect

  • Rules aren’t open for negotiation

• Outcomes for Children

  • Lower academic achievement 

  • Tendency to be more dependent on others

  • Make bad decisions bc their parents always made the decisions for them without negotiation 

  • Lack compromise skills 

Parenting Styles: Permissive→ Type of parenting and outcomes for children

• Warmth and Control

  • High on warmth, low on control

  • Love children unconditionally and form secure attachment

  • But there’s no routine or structure, no expectations or consequences

  • Children are spoiled in permissive households 

• Outcomes for Children

  • Lower academic achievement 

  • Don’t get along with others

  • Don’t have good social skills 

  • Have tendency to lack impulse control and self regulation because they could do whatever they wanted

  • As adults, they’re terrible partners, roommates, etc.

Parenting Styles: Uninvolved→ Type of parenting and outcomes for children

• Warmth and Control

  • Low on both

  • Do minimum amount possible

  • Want to expend as little energy as they can on children

  • Either very wealthy bc smo else is raising them, or, they’re parents that are absent bc they’re abusing drugs and alcohol/significant mental health issues that prevent them from raising children

• Outcomes for Children

  • Poor outcomes for psychosocial and emotional development

  • No rules or structure, don’t feel loved 

  • Poor academic achievement and IQ 

  • Aggressive kids, bullies, behavioural problems in school, often suspended or expelled 

  • Early drug and alcohol use, early sexual activity, higher drop out rate, high likeness of criminal activity

Concerted Cultivation: For middle and upper class

they spend a lot of time and money cultivating a child's talent to optimize a child's future success, like good schools, achieving career aspirations, etc. 

Accomplishment of Natural Growth: For working and under class (poverty)

let children naturally develop any talents they have

Inductive Discipline

• Discipline method based on reasoning and guidance

  • Lay out expectations so they know what they can and can’t do

  • Provide enormous amount of guidance so they know what’s expected of them

    • Ex: saying “hey, I don’t want you running around at the restaurant because you might hurt yourself or trip the servers” before they go out to eat

    • Children almost all the time follow those guidances 

Ineffective Forms of Discipline: Parents who Use Physical Discipline

• Likely younger parents

• Likely to use authoritarian parenting style

• Mothers spank more than fathers bc moms spend more time with kids than dads

• 95% of parents justify spanking, and a lot of the times it’s out of anger, their parents have done it before, and they don’t know what else to do

Parental Contributions

• Positive

  • Be authoritative parents

  • Parents role modeling healthy relationships and get along with each other

  • Parents have strong relo’s with siblings

  • Facilitating conflict resolution

• Negative

  • Not forming secure attachment 

  • If parents fight all the time

  • If parents fight with siblings 

  • Not facilitating conflict resolution

  • Favoring one child over the other

 Physical and Socioemotional Benefits of Play

• Helps children learn rule making and boundaries

• Aids in gross motor skills, improving muscle strength and physical control

• Allows children to learn cooperation and emotional expression

Importance of Mastering Reading and Mathematics in Primary School

• If you have early reading challenges, it affects every other subject. You need reading skills to understand sciences, maths, history, etc. 

• Those who have reading deficits struggle throughout primary and secondary school

• Reading deficits increases chances of high school dropouts

• Math is a foundation of everything, also increases likeness of high school dropouts

Achievement Motivation

The willingness to persist at challenging tasks and meet high standards of accomplishment

Infants + Achievement motivation

• Lies in their earliest activities

  • Infants seem to be motivated to do things, interact with the world, and do new things

  • Infants are trying and wanting to learn and do new things

  • So something is motivating them to do new things INTERNALLY without motivation from parents and caregivers

Mastery Motivation

• Begins with an infant’s drive to explore, understand and master their environment

  • Fostered by engaging and nurturing environments in which infants, toddlers, and young children have an opportunity to exert control over stimuli and interactions

Mastery Motivation influences many aspects of development

• Better self concept

• Better self regulation

• Better prepared for primary school

• Better perceived control 

Contextual Influences on Achievement Motivation: Parents

• Parenting approach to Erikson’s stages

• Availability of opportunities and resources

  • Higher SES families can get tutors, private coaches, etc.

  • Lower SES families who have kids who need extra help can’t afford it

Parental Influences on Occupational Choice

• Social class, low or high SES

• Work to live or live to work- this lifestyle teaches children how they should view life and careers

  • Work to live: work is a necessity for survival, not a passion

  • Live to work: work is a passion to cultivate, not just for survival

Paid vs. Unpaid Work

• Women are doing 17.5 hours of hard labour without pay at home, like cleaning, doing the laundry, cooking, etc, which is a daily chores

• Men do 10.5 hours bc their labour a lot of the times are sporadic or monthly chores

• But we don’t see this trend in lesbian and gay couples, so they divide it more evenly

Sexual Coercion/Sexual Assault: Contextual Influences

• Rape myths like blaming for the way women dress, and perpetrators believing in that myth

• Gender role stereotyping that encourages male dominance, aggression, and competition

  • Including things like expectations of and social rewards for hyper masculinity and toxically masculine behaviors (“Man Up”)

  • We see higher rates of perpetrators in male groups that value hyper masculinity, like athletes, military, fraternities