Unit 2 Life Span Psychology

Prefrontal Cortex

Involved in the control of impulses, organization, planning, and making good decisions

Left and Right Hemispheres

Left hemisphere: Involved with language skills, dramatic growth

Right hemisphere: Required for spatial skills and recognizing shapes and patterns, continues to grow throughout childhood

Corpus Callosum

Dense bound of fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain

Piagets preoperational stage

2 - 7; children use symbols to represent words, images, and ideas. Reason why they engage in pretend play

Symbolic Function Substage

2-4; characterized by the child being able to mentally represent an object that is not present and dependence on perception in problem solving.

Intuitive Thought Substage

4-7; Marked by greater dependence on intuitive thinking rather than perception

Egocentrism

Refer to the tendency of young children not to be able to take perspective of others, and instead the child thinks that everyone sees, thinks, and feels just as they do.

Mountain Experiment

Children tend to choose a picture that represents their own, rather than the doll’s view.

Conservation errors

Refers to the ability to recognize that moving or rearranging matter does not change quantity

Centration

Focusing on only one characteristic of an object to the exclusion of others.

Liquid Experiment

Pre operational child typically saying the taller glass has more liquid because it is taller.

Animism

Refers to attributing life-like qualities to objects

Social Interaction

Social interactions with adults and more learned peers can facilitate a child’s potential for learning.

Zone of proximal development

Occurs when they can almost perform a task, but not quite on their own without assistance

Scaffolding

Temporary support that parents or teachers give to a child

Private or inner speech

Children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts

Theory-Theory

The tendency of children to generate theories to explain everything they encounter

Theory of mind

The ability to think about other peoples thoughts

Give up egocentrism

The child must also understand that what guides people’s actions and responses are what they believe rather than what is reality.

Collectivistic vs. Individualistic Cultures

Collectivistic: Emphasize conformity to the family and cultural values

Individualistic: Encourage children to think for themselves and assert their own opinion

Fast-mapping

Words are easily learned by making connections between new words and concepts already known.

Literal meanings

Children can repeat words and phrases after having heard them only once or twice, but they do not always understand the meanings of the words or phrases

Bilingual Benefits

Understand and uses two languages

Mutual exclusivity bias

The assumption that an object has only a single name

Autism spectrum disorder

Children with disorder show signs of significant disturbances in, social interactions, communication, and show repetitive patterns or behavior or interests.

Autism and it’s effects on boys

The disorder is 3.8 times more common in boys

Vaccines and autism

There is no scientific evidence that links exists between autism and vaccinations.

Initiative vs. Guilt

Trust and autonomy develop into a desire of initiative or to think of ideas and initiative action.

Praise effort

Caregivers should offer praise for the child’s efforts and void being critical of messes or mistakes

Self-esteem

Evaluate judgement about who we are

Self concept

Self description according to various categories

Categorial Self

Focus on external qualities

Response initiation

The ability to not initiate a behavior before you have evaluated all the information

Response inhibition

The ability to stop a behavior that has already begun

Delayed Gratification

The ability to hold out for a larger reward by forgoing a smaller immediate reward

Marshmallow Test

Children are confronted with the choice of a small immediate reward and a larger delayed reward

Gender

Is a cultural, socialand psychological meanings associated with masculinity and feminity

Gender Identity

A persons sense of self as a member of a particular gender

Gender roles

The expectations associated with being male or female

Gender socialization

Focuses on what young children learn about gender from society, including parents, peers, media, religious institutions, schools, and public policies

Social Learning Theory

Argues that behavior is learned through observation, modeling, reinforcement, and punishment

Gender Schema Theory

Children develop their own conceptions of the attributes associated with maleness or femaleness

Transgender

Identifying with the gender opposite their natal sex

Gender dysphoria

Marked incongruence between one’s assigned gender and their experiences/expressed gender

Cisgender

Those whose gender and sex assignment at birth matched

Turner Syndrome

The absence of, or an imperfect second X chromosome

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia

A genetic disorder caused by an increased production of androgens

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

Or when a person has one X and one Y chromosome but is resistant to the male hormones or androgens

Authoritative

Authoritative parents are supportive and show interest in their kids’ activities but are not overbearing and allow them to make consecutive mistakes

Authoritarian

The traditional model of parenting in which parents make the rules and are expected to be obedient

Permissive

Parenting involves holding expectations of children that are below what could be reasonably expected from them.

Uninvolved

Parents are disengaged from their children, they do not make demands on their children and are non-responsive

Stress harms on brain development

Toxic stress over time can lead to the structures in the brain such as the hippocampus and amygdala to reduce in size.

Concrete Operational Stage

Ages 7-11; Involves mastering the use of logic in concrete ways.

Inductive Reasoning

Logical process in which multiple premises believed to be true are combined to obtain a specific conclusion

Identity

Understands that objects have qualities that do not change even if the object is altered in some ways

Reversibility

The child learns that some things have been changed can be returned to their original state

Conservation

The changing of one quality can be compensated for by changes in another quality

Decentration

No longer focus on only one dimension of any object, and instead consider the changes in other dimensions too.

Gender Stereotypes & Self Efficacy

Stereotypes held by parents and teachers can influence children’s self-efficacy in various domains.

Children who have an internalized view of others are more likely to show declines in their performance consistent with the stereotypes.

Family Capital

A form of power that can be used to improve a child’s education

Bilingualism

At one extreme some students speak both English and another language fluently; at the other are those who speak only limited versions of both languages. In between are students who speak their home language better than english

Leaning Disabilities

A brain-based impairment of academic learning that interferes with a specific aspect of schoolwork and that reduced a student academic performance significantly

ADHD with boys

Boys (15%) were more likely to be diagnosed than girls (8%)

Boys with ADHD have a greater tendency to engage in aggressive and antisocial behavior.

Industry vs. Inferiority

The child learns to things well or correctly according to standards set by others, particularly in school

Self Concept

Refers to belief about general personal identity

Self esteem

An evaluations of ones identity

Self efficacy

The belief that you are capable of carrying our a specific task or of reaching a specific goal

Level 1: Preconventional Morality

Moral reasoning is based on concepts of punishments

Level 2: Conventional Morality

People care about the effect of their actions on others

Post-conventional Morality

Going beyond convention or what other people think to a higher, universal ethical principle of conduct that may or may not be reflected in the law

Male Justice vs. Female helping & caring

Males tend to value principles of justice and rights, whereas females value caring for and helping others.

Early childhood

Friendship based on proximity, such as they live next door, attend the same school, or it refers to whomever they just happen to be playing with at the time

Mid/Late childhood

Emphasize similar interests as the main characters of a good friend.

Popular children

Receive many votes in the “like” category, and very few in the “do not like” category

Rejected children

Receive more unfavorable votes, and a few favorable votes

Controersial Children

Several children like them, and several do not

Neglected children

Very few friends, anxious, shy, and don’t initiate

Average child

Few positive votes and few negative votes

Longterm consequences of social status

Likability in childhood leads to positive outcomes throughout one’s life.

Those at risk for bullying

Increased risk for being bullied include those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, those with disabilities, and those who are socially isolated.

Those who are more likely to bully

Often thought of having low self esteem and bully others to feel better about themselves, but do not lack self esteem and instead lack empathy for others. They like to dominate or be in charge of others.

Family Tasks

One of the ways to assess the quality of family life is to consider the tasks of families

Authoritative joint decision making

The authoritative style, which incorporates reason and engaging in joint decision-making whenever possible may be the most effective approach.

Children of divorce

Children from divorced families had significantly more behavior problems than those from a matched sample of children from non-divorced families

Blended families

Most blended families today are a result of divorce and remarriage, and such orgins lead to new considerations.