Exam #1

What are some of the big idea take aways about the babies film regarding how they were all raised differently and their advantages

• all the babies ended reaching those developmental miles stones even the ones that we worried were not given enough attention ex. bayar in mongolia

• they were shown experiences that would benefit them given their specific environment and context

What is the role of parents that we do know for sure?

• socialization - how new members of a group are assisted by more experienced group members to act in accordance with

  • values, attitudes, beliefs, actions of the group

true or false: the way we perceive children is a product of the times

give an example.

True: in the middle ages we believed they were just smaller adults and childhood was not a distinct period of life

What values to Christianity, judaism, and islam all emphasize?

• family

• morality

• obedience

What are early christian theologian views of children?

1. infants are sinful

2. fathers should be authority and moral guide of home

3. you must beat down the natural pride

What are some basic parenting beliefs of Judisiam?

1. avoid favoritism

2. discipline children with flexibility

What does the Islamic Source, the Quran, say about parenting

• children are born pure

• the essential of upbringing are kindness and mercy

What did Aristotle say about children?

they are blank tablets

What did john Jean-Jacques Rousseau say about children?

children are born innocent and amoral, it is society that corrupts them

Do experts agree on parenting practices? Why or why not?

No, because much advice is based more on polictical party than research

What is the biggest issue with contemporary parenting research?

Research mostly only considers certain demographic, making it hard to be applicable to every one.

• Western

• Educated

• Industrialized

• Rich

• Democratic

What are lay beliefs? Give an example or two.

Lay beliefs are captured in expressions of cliche

• the apple doesnt fall far from the tree

• hes following in his fathers footsteps

Give an overview of Freud’s Psychosexual Theory. What are the five stages?

States that development is driven by the build up and release of sexual energy

1. oral - birth to 1 yr

2. anal 1 yr to 3 yr

3. phallic 3 yr to 6yr

4. latency 6 yr to 12 yr

5. genital 12 yrs +

Precocial vs. Altricial Species

• precocial - don’t rely on caregiver in early life

• altricial - needs substantial caregiving

Give overview of attachment theory (will ask about attachment types later)

Behavioral System for survival

Specific set of behaviors seen in children

• secure base

• stranger wariness

• separation anxiety

• reunion

What are the attachment types, give brief description

• Secure - knows needs will be met, will be attuned to and emotionally regulated, feel free to explore environment safely

• Insecure - emotional needs will not be met, hold into tightly to what they get or repress emotions

  • avoidant - emotionally distant, doesn’t depend on partner, avoids conflict

  • anxious - insecure, fear of abandonment, highly sensitive

  • disorganized - emotions are messy, agressive, lacks empathy

What was John Watson’s behavioral theory

• extreme view of environment

• key learning mechanism: classical conditioning, to form any outcome he wanted

What was Skinner’s contribution to behavioral theories?

• use of operant conditioning

  • positive reinforcement - give a reward to increase behavior

  • negative reinforcement - take away unpleasant stimulus to increase behavior

  • positive punishment - give a punishment to decrease behavior

  • negative punishment - take something away, to decrease behavior

What is evolutionary developmental psychology?

individuals better suited to their environment will likely leave behind more offspring than those who are less well suited

• based on darwin’s concept of natural selection’

• infants with “cute” features

• a baby’s cry and how we want to make it stop

  • then why child abuse?

    • child abuse more likely the less the genes are passed down

What is the behavioral genetics theory?

Understanding unique contributions of both genetic inheritance and the environment

• twin studies

Genetic heritability between parent and child?
- 30%-60%

Gene x environment interaction

• given a specific gene, upon receiving not warm caregiving they are more susceptible to someone who also didn’t receive warm caregiving, but they don’t poses that gene.

What is the ecological systems theory?

Bronfenbrenner states that children develop within multiple contexts

• holistic approach

• not just parents, but also school, health services, neighborhood, industry, attitudes of culture.

What are the 5 social learning and social theories?

1. Social Cognitive Theory

2. Social Relational Theory

3. Parental Role Theory

4. Vygotsky’s Theory

5. Self-Determination Theory

What is bandur’s social cognitive theory?

• bobo doll studies

• observational learning and reinforcement

What is a parent-child coercive cycle

• parents requests a chore performed

• child ignores

• mother requests agian

• child puts off

• mother warns child

• child refuses to comply

• mother escalates with yelling

• child yells back

• escalation continues

Mother often caves in and child learns with escalation they wont have to comply

• taught because mother doesn’t follow through on her word

Social Relational Theory

Traditional View: parent → child

Transactional effects: P ← → C

• dynamic nature of parenting

Parental role theory

• Concerns Roles: expectations, behaviors, rights, and obligations of the parent

• Role conflict - negotiating roles as parent, spouse, employee, etc

• Role strain - tension between roles that share the same status

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory. What is scaffolding? Stretching?

• learning occurs in the zone of proximal development

  • what they can do if guided

• Scaffolding → process in which more competent people provide a temporary framework that supports children thinking at a higher level than children could manage on their own

• the children performing one step above their competence with scaffolding provided by the caregiver scaffolding

Self determination Theory

• Basic Needs: Autonomy, competence, and relatedness

• focuses on agency of the child

• parent’s role is to support autonomy

Family Systems Theory

Recognizing the influence of all family members on parenting behaviors

• 2nd order effects — family structure, not just surface behavior

• co-parenting effects

Emotional Security Theory

• children’s perceptions of paternal conflict

  • infrequent discord —> secure

  • frequent → insecure

Explain how experiments of nature, Feral Children and severely isolated children, like Genie, provide evidence about parental influence.

• these children often had language or other social issues

Explain how imprinting provides about parental influence?

• theres got to be an evolutionary reason why ducks imprint for example

• they need caregiving to survive

Explain how the children in institutions, “hospitalism” is evidence for parental influence?

• without caregivers or parents, these children has physical development issues, disruption to their perceptual-motor skills, and language due to lack of social contact

What is the amygdala and what does it do? What are the effects of no caregiver on the amygdala?

• involved with processing emotion and memories associated with fear

  • fight or flight

  • can measure it with fMRI

• Absence of caregiver prematurely engages the amygdala in learning about the environment

  • premature activation results in hyper vigilance and can alter emotional responding

Can we reverse the effects of no caregiver? What happened when we tried and they were put into foster care to have caregivers? What did this reveal about sensitive periods?

1. children showed large gains in cognitive development

2. the younger the child was put into foster care, the better the outcome for the child

• This reflected sensitive periods in which by this time later in childhood, cognitive function is in a sensitive period and more susceptible to changes. Amygdala dependent learned occurred early in infancy and had already passed