PSY210 - Unit 1 Exam

Studying childhood

period of rapid change and development, long-term influences, insight into complex adult processes, real world applications

Age group labels

prenatal, infancy, early childhood, middle & late childhood, adolescence

Prenatal

before birth

Infancy / toddlers (sometimes)

birth to 18/24 months

Early childhood

2 years to 5/6 years

Middle & late childhood

6 to 11 years

Adolescence

10/12 to 18/19 years

Grade labels

preschool, early elementary, late elementary

Preschool

3 & 4 years

Early elementary

kindergarten, 1, 2 grade

Late elementary

3, 4, 5 grade

Development is

jointed by heredity and environment (nature and nurture)

Change is

cumulative (continuity)

Occurs in stages

discontinuity

Continuity example

shoe size changes

Discontinuity example

caterpillar turning into a butterfly

Early or late experience argument

The first years or the more recent ones

Development in different

domains is connected

Children influence

their own development

Plato

knowledge is innate (nature)

Aristotle

knowledge all comes from perceptual experience (nurture)

Rousseau

born morally right (children can do no wrong) (nature)

Locke

we are blank slates and experience develops us (nurture)

Psychoanalytic theories

Freud, Erikson

Freud

personality is driven by unconscious urges, EARLY experiences matter*, conflict is experience* (tell me about your mom!)

Erikson

conflict! everything is conflict. psychosocial, social aspects of conflict, unique crisis per age period

Cognitive theories

Piaget, Vygotsky, Siegler, and others

Piaget

how child think and how thinking changes (considered the father of cognitive developmental psychology)

Vygotsky

culture influences

Information processing

Siegler and others

Behavioral & social cognitive theories

(echoing tabula rasa - blank slate) Pavlov & Watson, Skinner, Bandura

Pavlov & Watson

operant conditioning (reward + reinforcement)

Bandura

social cognitive theory, self-efficacy

Social Cognitive Theory

Bandura's theory of personality that emphasizes both cognition and learning as sources of individual differences in personality

Ethological Theory

Lorenz

Lorenz

critical period - things have to happen at certain times

Ecological theory

Bronfenbrenner

Bronfenbrenner

culture & context matter - you are part of a group that impacts all of your behaviors and thoughts (what is surrounding you when you grow up)

Naturalistic Observations

observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations without trying to manipulate and control the situation

Laboratory based observations

more control, can film

How do we study kids/measure?

observations, standardized tests (and tasks), surveys & interviews, *case studies (sometimes), physiological measures

Surveys + interviews

self-report measures are hard to do with kids, take into consideration --\> age, reading + writing level, response bias (what do they want to hear?)

Issues of measures

reliability, validity, sampling

Reliability

get the same results from time to time

Validity

measuring what you're intending to measure

Sampling

where did you get your data?

Experiments

Only way to test causality; control and experimental group. independent variable affects the dependent variable

Correlation studies

no assignments - people to conditions, LITTLE control, causality claims not always possible, other variables at play

Correlation studies issues

direction (variable A

Conclusions

indirect or direct claims

Indirect claim example

ask mom how child is feeling

Direct claim example

Ask child how child is feeling

Developmental designs

designed to observe change and development over time

Indirect measure change

cross sectional studies

Directly measure change

longitudinal studies

Cross sectional studies

different age groups at the same time, compare performance across the ages, convenient but continuity? Cohorts?

Cross sectional studies example

3 vs 5 vs 7 vs 9

Longitudinal studies

one group over time, compare performance across time, direct but expensive + time consuming

Longitudinal studies example

3 years --\> 5 --\> 7 \---\>9

Microgenetics

"special" longitudinal studies; close examination of change involving dense, intensive observations or measures before and after the change is expected to happen

Microgenetics example

how quickly physical change happens in infancy

Ethics of studies

protecting the children, parents, schools

3 major prenatal periods

zygote (germinal), embryo, fetus

Zygote period

conceptual age (weeks 1-2), gestational age (1-4)

Conceptual age

time since ovulation

Gestational age

time since first day of LMP (normally what women measure pregnancy by)

Embryo period

conceptual (3-8), gestational (weeks 5-10)

Fetus period

conceptual (9-38), gestational (12-40)

Conceptual vs gestational age

2 week difference

What happens in Zygote?

(1-2), rapid division of cells, ovulation, fertilization, implantation

What happens in embryo?

(3-8) growth of body structures/internal organs, getting things into place

3 layers made in embryo

ectoderm, mesoderm, endoderm

Ectoderm

hair, skin, nervous system

Mesoderm

muscles, bones, circulatory system

Endoderm

digestive system and lungs

Important prenatal structures (formed during embryo)

placenta, amniotic fluid, umbilical chord, etc.

What happens in fetus?

LONGEST time period - fast growth, starts at 3oz.

Jobs for the fetus

kickstarting the systems, getting functions underway, gaining weight + bigger, movement (promotes growth), brain development, sensory systems and memory

Mom starts feeling baby at

around 16 weeks

Age of viability

22-28 weeks - has a chance of surviving if born now (earliest 22 weeks - gestation)

Risks and delays to being born early

lungs - last to develop, body fat - added in last months

Fetal memory: an empirical example

DeCasper & Spence (1986) - pregnant moms read Cat in the Hat daily until end of pregnancy

DeCasper & Spence (1986)

tested "fetal hearing ability", measures memory after birth, recognizing cadence of story, if babies are exposed + retain memory, will react differently?

DeCasper & Spence results

infants sucking in different way when mother read two stories - infants recognized pattern and tone of Cat in the Hat.

Prenatal risks and damages

nutrition, stress, mom's age, teratogens

Prenatal nutrition

low birth weight, low brain weight, crucial nutrients (folic acid - spina bifida)

Spina bifida

hole at bottom of spine (folic acid - spinach, etc.)

Prenatal stress

hormone levels and attitudes

Mom's age prenatal

too young - social risks**, too old - **physical risks

Teratogens

diseases, drugs - an environmental agent that can cause abnormal development in a fetus/embryo

Prenatal exposure to teratogens

functional deficits, growth deficiencies, malformation, death

Examples of teratogens

medication, diseases, nicotine/smoking; alcohol, cocaine

Thalidomide

drugs used to treat pregnancy nausea (1957-61, mainly in Germany and UK) - causes malformation to and missing body parts

Zika virus (2015-16)

central, south America - Microcephaly: below average head size and failure of brain growth rate

Microcephaly brain size

31.5-32 cm at birth, affects 25k children (US)

Alcohol

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD)

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder - FASD

small head, underdeveloped brains, eye abnormalities, hearing issues, malformation of face, mental retardation, memory/attentional issues

Sreissguth et al (1990)

maternal reports of alcohol use - significantly related to IQ, achievement test scores, classroom behaviors (2 daily - IQ decrement, 5 daily - learning problems)

Autti-Ramo et al (2002)

1-20 drinks daily, all 17 children demonstrated brain malformations, severe learning disabilities and some psychiatric symptoms

Impacts of teratogens

depends on mom's health, fetus and mom impact differently, damage not always evident, each teratogen has specific affects, impacts change over development + dose, depends on genotype