PSY Ch 9 Review ( 3 )

Here is a detailed answer to each question on development, psychology, and aging.

1. What are the stages of prenatal development? What are the specific time periods for each? What is happening during each stage?

• Germinal Stage (0-2 weeks): Begins at conception. The zygote divides and implants in the uterine wall.

• Embryonic Stage (3-8 weeks): Major organs and structures (heart, spine, brain) start to form. The embryo is highly sensitive to teratogens during this time.

• Fetal Stage (9 weeks-birth): Rapid growth and organ refinement. The fetus becomes more active and begins practicing breathing motions.

2. What is a teratogen? How can teratogens influence development?

• A teratogen is any substance or factor that can cause harm to a developing fetus, like alcohol, drugs, or environmental toxins. Exposure can result in birth defects, developmental delays, or even miscarriage depending on timing and dosage.

3. What abilities do infants have at birth? What abilities need to develop? What reflexes do infants have?

• Abilities at Birth: Vision (though underdeveloped), basic hearing, sense of touch, smell, taste, and reflexes like sucking, rooting, and grasping.

• Reflexes: Sucking reflex (for feeding), rooting reflex (to turn toward touch), and Moro reflex (startle response).

• Developing Abilities: Fine and gross motor skills, coordination, language, and social skills develop gradually in the first years.

4. What temperaments do babies have?

• Three general temperaments:

• Easy (adaptable and generally positive mood),

• Difficult (intense reactions, more negative mood),

• Slow-to-warm-up (hesitant to change but can adjust with time).

5. What parenting styles are there?

• Authoritative: High warmth, high control. Associated with positive outcomes.

• Authoritarian: Low warmth, high control. Often results in obedient but less happy children.

• Permissive: High warmth, low control. Children may struggle with self-discipline.

• Neglectful: Low warmth, low control. Often linked to poor developmental outcomes.

6. What did Harlow’s Monkey Studies tell us about attachment?

• Harlow’s studies with monkeys showed that contact comfort (physical closeness and warmth) was more important than food in forming attachment, emphasizing the emotional need for closeness.

7. What forms of attachment are seen in children? How do these children act in the strange situation test? What implications does attachment style have on future development?

• Secure Attachment: Child is upset when the caregiver leaves and comforted upon return.

• Avoidant Attachment: Child shows little reaction to caregiver leaving or returning.

• Ambivalent (Resistant) Attachment: Child is highly distressed when caregiver leaves and ambivalent upon return.

• Disorganized Attachment: Child shows inconsistent behaviors.

• Implications: Secure attachment often leads to healthier relationships and emotional regulation, while insecure attachment can contribute to challenges in self-esteem and interpersonal relationships.

8. How does language ability develop in infants and children? What are the stages?

• Stages:

• Cooing (around 2 months),

• Babbling (around 6-9 months),

• One-word stage (around 12 months),

• Two-word stage (around 18-24 months),

• Telegraphic Speech (using essential words),

• Complex Sentences (3 years onward).

9. What are schemas? Assimilation and accommodation?

• Schemas: Cognitive frameworks for organizing information.

• Assimilation: Integrating new information into existing schemas.

• Accommodation: Adjusting schemas to incorporate new information.

10. What are the stages of cognitive development according to Piaget? What abilities do we have/not have at each stage? What are the criticisms of Piaget’s theory?

• Sensorimotor (0-2 years): Object permanence develops.

• Preoperational (2-7 years): Egocentrism, struggle with conservation.

• Concrete Operational (7-11 years): Logical thought, mastery of conservation.

• Formal Operational (12+ years): Abstract thinking.

• Criticisms: Piaget may have underestimated children’s abilities, and development may be more continuous than stage-like.

11. What is Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development? What is the zone of proximal development? Scaffolding?

• Vygotsky emphasized social and cultural influences on cognitive development.

• Zone of Proximal Development: The range of tasks a child can perform with guidance.

• Scaffolding: Support provided by caregivers to help children achieve tasks within their ZPD.

12. What do we know about moral development? What are the stages?

• Kohlberg’s Stages:

• Preconventional (self-interest),

• Conventional (social rules),

• Postconventional (abstract principles).

• Criticized for focusing on justice and for being Western-centric.

13. What is gender? Sex? Gender role? Gender identity?

• Sex: Biological attributes.

• Gender: Socially influenced characteristics.

• Gender Role: Societal expectations for behavior.

• Gender Identity: Personal sense of gender.

14. How do we develop our sense of gender and gender identity? How do Gender Schema Theory and Social Learning Theory explain gender development?

• Gender Schema Theory: Children learn gender roles by categorizing behaviors.

• Social Learning Theory: Gender roles are learned through observation, imitation, and reinforcement.

15. What are Erikson’s Psychosocial development stages for adolescence and adulthood?

• Adolescence: Identity vs. Role Confusion.

• Young Adulthood: Intimacy vs. Isolation.

• Middle Adulthood: Generativity vs. Stagnation.

• Late Adulthood: Integrity vs. Despair.

16. What is going on for us during adolescence? How is parent-child relationship changing/developing? Peer relationships?

• Adolescence involves identity exploration, increased independence, and peer influence, with evolving relationships with parents as adolescents seek autonomy.

17. What kinds of physical body and brain changes happen during childhood? puberty?

• Childhood: Growth in size, motor skills, and brain development.

• Puberty: Hormonal changes, growth spurts, development of secondary sexual characteristics, and further brain maturation.

18. What is going on for us during early, middle, and late adulthood? What are our main concerns? What are the challenges?

• Early Adulthood: Focus on career, relationships, family.

• Middle Adulthood: Parenting, career satisfaction, facing midlife transitions.

• Late Adulthood: Coping with retirement, health concerns, and seeking meaning.

19. What are the Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief?

• Stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

20. What happens to our cognitive abilities as we age? What happens to our physical abilities? Is decline inevitable?

• Physical abilities generally decline (e.g., muscle mass, reaction times). Some cognitive abilities (like fluid intelligence) also decline, though crystallized intelligence can remain stable or improve. Decline is not inevitable; lifestyle factors can influence the rate of decline.

Accommodation: Adjustment of a schema by changing it to accommodate new information different from what was already known.

Adolescence: Period of development that begins at puberty and ends at early adulthood.

Adrenarche: Maturing of the adrenal glands.

Advance Directive: A written legal document that details specific interventions a person wants (see living will).

Assimilation: Adjustment of a schema by adding information similar to what is already known.

Attachment: Long-standing connection or bond with others.

Authoritarian Parenting Style: Parents place a high value on conformity and obedience, are often rigid, and express little warmth to the child.

Authoritative Parenting Style: Parents give children reasonable demands and consistent limits, express warmth and affection, and listen to the child’s point of view.

Avoidant Attachment: Characterized by a child’s unresponsiveness to the parent, does not use the parent as a secure base, and does not care if the parent leaves.

Cognitive Development: Domain of lifespan development that examines learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity.

Cognitive Empathy: Ability to take the perspective of others and to feel concern for others.

Conception: When a sperm fertilizes an egg and forms a zygote.

Concrete Operational Stage: Third stage in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development; from about 7 to 11 years old, children can think logically about real (concrete) events.

Conservation: Idea that even if you change the appearance of something, it is still equal in size, volume, or number as long as nothing is added or removed.

Continuous Development: View that development is a cumulative process, gradually improving on existing skills.

Critical (Sensitive) Period: Time during fetal growth when specific parts or organs develop.

Developmental Milestone: Approximate ages at which children reach specific normative events.

Discontinuous Development: View that development takes place in unique stages, which happen at specific times or ages.

Disorganized Attachment: Characterized by the child’s odd behavior when faced with the parent; type of attachment seen most often with kids that are abused.

Do Not Resuscitate (DNR): A legal document stating that if a person stops breathing or their heart stops, medical personnel such as doctors and nurses are not to take steps to revive or resuscitate the patient.

Egocentrism: Preoperational child’s difficulty in taking the perspective of others.

Embryo: Multi-cellular organism in its early stages of development.

Emerging Adulthood: Newly defined period of lifespan development from 18 years old to the mid-20s; young people are taking longer to complete college, get a job, get married, and start a family.

Fine Motor Skills: Use of muscles in fingers, toes, and eyes to coordinate small actions.

Formal Operational Stage: Final stage in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development; from age 11 and up, children are able to deal with abstract ideas and hypothetical situations.

Gonadarche: Maturing of the sex glands.

Gross Motor Skills: Use of large muscle groups to control arms and legs for large body movements.

Health Care Proxy: A legal document that appoints a specific person to make medical decisions for a patient if they are unable to speak for themselves.

Hospice: Service that provides a death with dignity; pain management in a humane and comfortable environment; usually outside of a hospital setting.

Living Will: A written legal document that details specific interventions a person wants; may include a health care proxy.

Menarche: Beginning of the menstrual period; around 12-13 years old.

Mitosis: Process of cell division.

Motor Skills: Ability to move our body and manipulate objects.

Nature: Genes and biology.

Newborn Reflexes: Inborn automatic response to a particular form of stimulation that all healthy babies are born with.

Normative Approach: Study of development using norms, or average ages, when most children reach specific developmental milestones.

Nurture: Environment and culture.

Object Permanence: Idea that even if something is out of sight, it still exists.

Permissive Parenting Style: Parents make few demands and rarely use punishment.

Physical Development: Domain of lifespan development that examines growth and changes in the body and brain, the senses, motor skills, and health and wellness.

Placenta: Structure connected to the uterus that provides nourishment and oxygen to the developing baby.

Prenatal Care: Medical care during pregnancy that monitors the health of both the mother and the fetus.

Preoperational Stage: Second stage in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development; from ages 2 to 7, children learn to use symbols and language but do not understand mental operations and often think illogically.

Primary Sexual Characteristics: Organs specifically needed for reproduction.

Psychosexual Development: Process proposed by Freud in which pleasure-seeking urges focus on different erogenous zones of the body as humans move through five stages of life.

Psychosocial Development (Domain): Domain of lifespan development that examines emotions, personality, and social relationships.

Psychosocial Development (Erikson): Process proposed by Erikson in which social tasks are mastered as humans move through eight stages of life from infancy to adulthood.

Resistant Attachment: Characterized by the child’s tendency to show clingy behavior and rejection of the parent when they attempt to interact with the child.

Reversibility: Principle that objects can be changed, but then returned back to their original form or condition.

Schema (Plural = Schemata): Concept (mental model) that is used to help us categorize and interpret information.

Secondary Sexual Characteristics: Physical signs of sexual maturation that do not directly involve sex organs.

Secure Attachment: Characterized by the child using the parent as a secure base from which to explore.

Secure Base: Parental presence that gives the infant/toddler a sense of safety as they explore their surroundings.

Sensorimotor Stage: First stage in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development; from birth through age 2, a child learns about the world through senses and motor behavior.

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory: Social support/friendships dwindle in number, but remain as close, if not more close than in earlier years.

Spermarche: First male ejaculation.

Stage of Moral Reasoning: Process proposed by Kohlberg; humans move through three stages of moral development.

Temperament: Innate traits that influence how one thinks, behaves, and reacts with the environment.

Teratogen: Biological, chemical, or physical environmental agent that causes damage to the developing embryo or fetus.

Uninvolved Parenting Style: Parents are indifferent, uninvolved, and sometimes referred to as neglectful; they don’t respond to the child’s needs and make relatively few demands.

Zygote: Structure created when a sperm and egg merge at conception; begins as a single cell and rapidly divides to form the embryo and placenta