AP Psychology Unit 3 Development

Vocab from the developmental unit of AP Psychology.

Zygote

This is a fertilized egg cell. If forms for about 14 days, forming an embryo.

Fetus

This is what the embryo becomes after 9 weeks. Teratogens (poisons) can harm it while a placenta helps protect it.

Newborn

• Born with reflexes that aid in survival

• Rooting reflex helps them locate food

• babies stare at new images. They become habituated to images they have already learned, thus, don’t stare at them.

Rooting Reflex

This reflex starts when the corner of the baby's mouth is stroked or touched. The baby will turn his or her head and open his or her mouth to follow and root in the direction of the stroking. This helps the baby find the breast or bottle to start feeding.

Motor Development

Neurons peak at about 28 billion at 7 month’s old. Frontal lobe shows most growth.

Maturation continues - crawl, stand, walk.

Adolescence

The years spent changing from child to adult

• begins when puberty starts (average age is 13 for boys and 11 for girls)

• brain starts to kill-off unused neurons

• prefrontal cortex is developing (Reasoning, planning)

• impulses are hard to control

• teens don’t underestimate risks, they just struggle to control immediate reward demands.

Aging

• its difficult to detect our own BLANK

• get physically weaker

• fertility declines for women as they age

• Menopause, the nedo f menstrual cycles, usually begins at 50 yrs.

Late Adulthood

• women outlive men by almost 5 years.

• life expectancy is going up

• decline of physical skills drops rapidly

• excersie = longer life.

Sex

This is the biological characteristics that define female, male, or intersex

Gender

This is the attitude, feelings, and behaviors that people have.

Intersex

This is possessing male and female biological sexual characteristics at birth.

Nature vs Nurture

How do genetic inheritance (nature) and experience (the nurture we receive) influence our behavior?

Continuity vs Stages

It development a gradual, continuous process or a sequence of separate stages?

Stability vs Change

Do our early personality traits persist through life, or do we become different persons as we age?

Sexual Orientation

This is a person’s sexual and emotional attraction to another person.

Possible origin:

• same-sex attraction in other species

• brain difference sin the hypothalamus

• genetic influences many genes involved

• Prenatal influences like hormones. (males with an older brother are more likely to be gay?)

Cognitivie Development

This is the process by which people learn to think and reason.

Jean Piagets theory:

• We create schemas (brain files) that organize information.

• We assimilate (create new files) when we learn something new

• We constantly update (accommodation) and edit existing files/schemas.

Preoperational

This is the stage from 2-7 years old, kids can now represent things with words and images.

• pretend play

• egocentrism - only see things from their view point

Theory of Mind

Created by Jean Piaget.

• Around 4 yrs old, kids develop the ability to see things from another person’s viewpoint.

• Autistic kids have trouble understanding that not everyone thinks like they do.

Concrete

This is the stage from 7-11 years old, kids begin to think logically

Formal

This is the stage from 11 yrs and onward. People begin to reason abstractly and hypothetically.

• moral reasoning

• abstract thinking: the ability to understand concepts like freedom, humor, hope, and love.

Moral Development

Jean Piaget thought that “we develop morals” while other researchers think we are born with moral instincts already in us.

Lev Vygotsky’s Cognitive Theory

• kids minds grow by interaction with the social-cultural environment

• adults can provide a scaffold (temporary support) to help kids learn quicker

• zone of proximal development - “challenge chldrens thinking, then help them understand it”

Things needed in a language

• basic sounds

• smallest units that have meaning (prefixes and suffixes)

• system of rules

Phonemes

This is the smallest distinct sound unit. We have about 40 of them.

ex. cat and chair both have 3 phonemes (sounds).

Morphemes

This is the smallest unit that carries meaning. there are 100s of them.

ex. suffixes, prefixes

Grammar

This is the system of rules in a language

• Semantics: the rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes. ex. adding “ed" tells us it is past tense

• Syntax: putting words in proper order ex. English its “green house” but in Spanish its “casa verde” (house green)

Language Stages

Babbling stage - 4 months

one word - 12 months

two words at a time (telegraphic speech) - 24 months

Complex sentences - 24+ months

Noam Chomsky’s Universal Grammar: “most of language development is inborn.”

Linguistic Determinism

This is a theory by Benjamin Whorf, and it says that “language determines the way we think”

Attachment Secure/insecure

This is a child’s emotional closeness with a caregiver

Imprinting

Some animals consider the first animal they see to be their caregiver.

Deprivation Attachment

Babies who don’t get comfort are less trusting and emotionally deficient.

Harry Harlow Experiment

• He wanted to research the importance of early attachment between mother and baby. He had to use monkeys

• Baby monkeys spent 90% of their time with the soft model and cried when it was taken away.

• It demonstrated that infant primates prioritize comfort and emotional connection over basic needs like food, proving that attachment is primarily driven by tactile comfort rather than nourishment, as shown by the monkeys consistently choosing a soft cloth "mother" over a wire "mother" that provided milk.

Authoritarian

This is a parenting style that is like a dictator. “because I said so”

Permissive

This is a parenting style in which the parents make few demands on kids and there is little to no punishment.

Neglectful

This is a parenting style in which the parents are uninvolved in a child’s life.

Authoritative

This is a parenting style in which parents have rules but also help kids understand behavior. (ideal parenting style)

Identity

This is our sense of self

Self Concept

This is our sense of self based on the groups we are in.

Classical Conditioning

This is the involuntary process of learning to associate one stimulus with another as proposed by Ivan Pavlov.

In his experiment, before conditioning, food (unconditioned stimulus) produced salivation (unconditioned response) in dogs. A bell by itself (neutral stimulus) does not produce a response. During conditioning, the neutral stimulus (bell) and unconditioned stimulus (food) are paired, resulting in salivation (unconditioned response). After conditioning, the neutral stimulus (which has now become the conditioned stimulus) elicits salivation (which has now become the conditioned response).

Acquisition

This is the moment learning occurs. For animals, the controlled stimulus needs to come half a second before the US (uncontrolled stimulus) for acquisition to occur. It can be later for humans.

Extinction

This is when the unconditioned stimulus (food) does not follow the conditioned stimulus (bell) and so the conditioned response begins to decrease and eventually causes BLANK.

Spontaneous Recovery

After behavior has become extinct, it may, weeks later, suddenly and unexpectedly reappear for a time. It will then be gone for good.

Operant Conditioning

This is the voluntary learning process that uses reinforcers (rewards) and punishments to shape a desired behavior. B.F.Skinner is the father of BLANK. He created a box to shape a desired animal behavior.

Little Albert

This was an experiment by John Watson that conditioned a baby to fear anything white and fuzzy. (rat.)

Positive Punishment

Add a punishment to stop bad behavior, like spanking.

Negative Punishment

Take away something to punish bad behavior, like a phone.

Positive Reward

Add a $20 bill to Timmy because he cleaned his room (good behavior).

Negative Reward

Take away Timmy’s chores to reward him for cleaning his room.

The Law of Effect

Written by Edward Thorndike, this states that “if it feels good, we’ll keep doing it. If it feels bad we’ll stop.” :l

Reinforcers

Primary: These are biological and innately motivated. Ex. food and water. It is not learned.

Secondary: This is a learned behavior. Ex. Timmy gets an allowance for cleaning his room and so he quickly associates money with cleaning.

Immediate: reward is given right away

Delayed: reward is delayed. Ex. paycheck comes once a month.

Reinforcement Schedules

Continuous: the reward is given every time the desired response occurs.

Partial: only rewards sometimes

Fixed-Ratio Schedule: rewards only after a specified number of responses. Ex. one dollar for every bird house you make.

Variable Ratio Schedule: responder never knows when reward will be given. Ex. playing slot machines.

Fixed-Interval Schedule: rewards only after a specified time has elapsed. Ex. $100 only after you’ve worked 20 hours.

Variable-Interval Schedule: rewards at random time intervals.

Critical Period

This is the precise period of time in which an event or experience must occur in order for it to have an effect

Alzheimer’s

A progressive disease that destroys memory and other important mental functions. The disease damages cells that produce and use acetylcholine.