Unit 3 development Vocab Psychology (midterm and Unit 3)

Unit 3 - Development

Development Research

• Longitudinal study: studies a person or group of people over an extended period of time.

• Cross-sectional study: compares individuals of various ages at one point in time.

Prenatal

• Zygote: the fertilized egg. The zygote stage lasts 2 weeks in which there is a period of rapid cell

division. About day 10, the zygote attaches to the mother’s uterine wall.

• Embryo: the developing human organism from 2 – 8 weeks (2nd month). At this time organs begin to form and function (the heart beats, liver produces red cells, etc.), the umbilical cord forms, and arms and legs are beginning to form.

• Fetus: the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth. At this time hands and feet are developing, at around the 6th month, organs such as the stomach have developed enough to allow a premature born fetus a chance of survival. The fetus is also responsive to the mother’s voice.

• Teratogens: toxic substances that can harm the embryo or fetus if ingested or contracted by the mother. Examples are alcohol, drugs, nicotine, HIV, AIDS, etc.

• Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS): physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. Some characteristics include: disproportioned head, learning disabilities, emotional problems, etc.

Cognitive Development

• Habituation: a decrease in responsiveness with repeated stimulation. Ex. a baby no longer being excited by a toy.

• Schema: a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.

• Assimilation: the process of absorbing new information into an existing schema.

• Accommodation: the process of adjusting old schemas or developing new ones to incorporate new information.

• Object permanence: the understanding that objects and people continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Develops in the sensorimotor stage.

• Conservation: the understanding that two equal quantities remain equal even though their form or appearance is rearranged. Ex. understanding that your sandwich is the same size if it is cut into halves or quarters.

Attachment and Parenting

• Attachment: emotional tie with others; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to caregivers & showing distress on separation

• Body contact : Harry & Margaret Harlow separated baby monkeys & raised them in individual cages - found that the babies became very stressed when they were separated from the blankets they were given

• The Stranger Situation: procedure for studying child-caregiver attachment developed Mary Ainsworth

• Secure attachment: infants who comfortably explore environments when caregiver is present, temporary distress when the caregiver leaves, and find comfort in the caregiver’s return

• Insecure attachment: clinging, anxious attachment, an avoidant attachment that resists closeness, disorganized attachment with no consistent behavior

• Authoritarian parenting style: impose rules & expect obedience (“My way or the highway”)

• Permissive: make few demands; set few limits; use little punishment

• Neglectful: neither demanding or responsive; careless & inattentive; do not seek a close relationship

• Authoritative: demanding & responsive; exert control by setting rules, but encourage open discussion (regarded as the healthiest parenting style)

Identity

• Self-concept: all our thoughts & feelings about ourselves, in answer to the question “Who am I?”

• Identity: our sense of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent’s task is to solidify a sense of self by testing & integrating various roles

• Social identity: the “we” aspect of our self-concept; the part of our answer to “Who am I?” that comes from our group membership

Erikson’s Theory of Development

Adulthood

• Emerging adulthood: period from about age 18 to the mid-20s, when many persons in prosperous Western cultures are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence as adults

• Well-being in Adulthood: Self-esteem & psychological well-being remain stable, positive emotions increase after midlife, older adults have smaller social networks, with fewer friendships & greater loneliness

• Greif: People do not grieve in predictable stages, can be harder to process when a death is sudden and unexpected

Gender Development and Sexual Development

• Sex: biologically influenced characteristics by which people define male, female, & intersex

• Gender: socially and culturally constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for different sexes

• Intersex: possessing male & female biological sexual characteristics at birth

• Puberty: 2 year period of rapid sexual maturation

• Role: set of expectations (norms) defining how people ought to behave based on their position in society

• Gender role: set of expected behaviors, attitudes, & traits for men & for women

• Sexual Aggression: any physical or verbal behavior of a sexual nature that is unwanted or intended to harm someone physically or emotionally

• Gender identity: a person’s inherent sense of being a man, woman, neither, or some combination

• Sexuality: our thoughts, feelings, & actions related to our physical attraction to others

Language Development

• Language: our agreed-upon systems of spoken, written, or signed words, & the ways we combine them to communicate meaning

• Noam Chomsky: proposed that we are born with a language acquisition device (LAD), which allows us to learn any human language

• Phonemes: smallest distinctive unit of sound in a language

• Morphemes: smallest unit in a language that carries meaning

• Grammar: system of rules that enables us to communicate with & understand others

• Babbling stage: stage in speech development, beginning around 4 months, during which an infant spontaneously utters various sounds (not mimicking language)

• One-word stage: stage in speech development, from about age 1 to 2, during which a child speaks mostly in single words

• Two-word stage: stage in speech development, beginning about age 2, during which a child speaks mostly in two-word sentences

• Critical periods:children who have a late start on learning language follow the normal sequence, but at a faster pace

  • If not exposed to language before age 7, it is unlikely that they will be able to master any language

• Linguistic determinism: Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think

• Linguistic relativism: idea that language influences the way we think

Learning

• Learning: process of acquiring through experience new & relatively enduring information or behaviors

• Associative learning: learning that certain events occur together; the events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response & its consequences (as in operant conditioning)

• Stimulus: any event or situation that evokes a response

• Cognitive maps: mental representation of the layout of one’s environment; for example, after exploring a maze, rats act if they have learned a cognitive map of it

Classical Conditioning

• Classical conditioning: an organism associates different stimulus that it does not control and responds automatically; one learns links to two or more stimulus and anticipates events

• Formula: 

  • UCS----->UCR

  • UCS + NS ----> UCR

  • CS------>CR

• Example of Classical Conditioning

• Ivan Pavlov: Russian psychologist who was the first to put classical conditioning to practice, famous dog, bell, salivation conditioning experiment

• John B. Watson: Built upon the research of Pavlov with his own classical conditioning project in the 1920’s, performed the controversial “Little Albert” experiment which conditioned an infant to fear fuzzy white things

Classical Conditioning Components

• Acquisition : A stage of the conditioning processes and occurs when a certain response has been established (NS better before UCS, no more than two seconds between)

• Discrimination: The ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not with paired with an unconditioned stimulus 

• Generalization: Tendency to evoke similar responses after a response has been conditioned ( little albert experiment) 

• Spontaneous recovery: A sudden reappearance of a previously extinguished response

•  Extinction: When the CS no longer elicits the CR

Operant Conditioning

• Operant Conditioning: An organism associates its behavior (their environment) with their consequences

• Big Question: Do you want the behavior to continue?

  • Yes- Use reinforcement

  • No - Use punishment

• Positive Reinforcement: Adding something to reinforce a certain behavior

• Positive Punishment: Adding something to stop a certain behavior

• Negative Reinforcement: Taking away something to reinforce a certain behavior

• Negative Punishment: Taking away something to stop a certain behavior

• B.F. Skinner: One of the first and influential psychologist to test operant conditioning

  • Created the “Skinner Box” aka the Operant Chamber

  • Controversy

    • Psychologists argue that Skinner ignored human side in conditioning

    • Dehumanization by ignoring free-will

• Fixed Ratio: depends on behavior itself, a certain number of behavior are necessary before reinforcement occurs

• Variable Ratio: reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses

• Fixed intervals: involves time, time must pass before reinforcement will occur

• Variable intervals: reinforced the first response after varying time intervals

• Continuous Reinforcement: reinforcing the desired response each time it occurs

  • Quickest acquisition, easiest to extinguish

• Partial (intermittent) Reinforcement: reinforcing a response only part of the time

  • Slower acquisition, harder to extinguish

• Immediate Reinforcer: A reinforcer that occurs closely to a behavior in time

  • Rat presses bar, rat gets food

• Delayed Reinforcer: A reinforcer that is delayed in time for a certain behavior

  • Weekly paycheck

Observational learning

• Albert Bandura: Psychologist who studied observational learning, coined the term “Social Learning Theory,” conducted the Bobo Doll experiment

• Observational learning: learning that occurs when behavior is observed then modeled

  • Majority of learning

• Modeling: when behavior is observed then copied, limitations include desire to model, ability, attention, and retention

• Pro-social behavior: Behavior that is viewed as good, constructive, or helpful

• Anti-social behavior: Behavior that is viewed as bad, destructive, or unhelpful

• Mirror Neurons: Neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brain's mirroring of another's action may enable imitation and empathy