Untitled Flashcards Set

the methods used in studying human development, including types of data and strengths and limitations of different research designs

• Self-Report Measures : participants answer questions themselves

  • Questionnaire/survey: set of mc questions

  • Open-ended interview: no parameters; conversation style, flexible questions

  • Structured Interview: asks each participant same questions; differences in responses = actual differences in participants

  • Pros: easy and cheap to collect, Cons: subject to error, inaccurate memories, lack of insight, social desirability

• Observational Measures Researchers watch and monitor behavior, then organize information

  • Naturalistic observation: viewing and recording behavior in a natural, real world setting

  • Structured Observation: viewing and recording behavior in controlled setting

  • Pros: potential to capture more accurate behavior; Cons: very resource-intensive, observer bias, structure not reflect real behavior

• Physiological Measures:observe physiological indicators of cognition, emotion, and behavior (ex: heart rate, cortisol, etc)

  • Pros: Not subject to researcher interpretation (In theory); Cons: usually requires special equipment/training, difficult to enroll participants, results still subject to misinterpretation 

• Correlational studies: Examines relationship between two variables

  • Pros: easy to conduct, cross-sectional(fast results); Cons: difficult to control confounds, correlation does not equal causation

• Experimental Research: Manipulating one variable and measuring its effect on another (ex: exclusion vs. anxiety)

  • Pros: considered “gold standard”, can claim causality; Cons: ethical concerns, can’t control relevant variables/confounds, and requires larger samples to fulfill multiple conditions/control groups

• Qualitative Research: Collecting and analyzing non-numerical data to understand concepts, opinions and exps

  • Pros: Provides rich data, doesn’t reduce thoughts/actions to numbers; Cons: time consuming, research bias

• Cross Sectional: groups of different ages at one time

  • Pros: provides information on age-related change; Cons: cannot examine change over time, or cohort effects

• Longitudinal: One group is studied at many points in time

  • Pros: provides developmental analysis, change over time; Cons: time-consuming, attrition, practice effect

• Sequential: asses multiple cohorts over time

  • Pros: can examine cohort effects; Cons: expensive, possibility of practice effects

major theories and theorists (e.g., Erikson, Sociocultural theory, Piaget- know key terms in Piaget’s theory, such as “assimilation”)

• Freuds Psychosexual Theory: discontinued stages, passive are motivated by inborn basic drives

  • Oral > Anal > Phallic > Latency > Genital

• Eriksons Psychosocial Theory: Active minds interact with social world to resolve psychosocial tasks

  • Each stage provides a conflict and social interactions determine stages outcome, never too late to resolve

  • Infancy > Early Childhood > Play Age > School Age > Adolescence > Early Adulthood > Adulthood > Old Age

  • One of the first lifespan views of development, view with society/culture included

• Behaviorist Theory: passive shaped by environment; only observable behavior is examined 

  • Classical/Operant Conditioning

• Banduras Social Learning Theory: emphasizes role of modeling/observing learning over people behavior and consequences to that behavior

  • Can learn by thinking of potential consequences to actions

• Piagets Cognitive Development Theory: interact with the world to create their own schemas 

  • Sensorimotor > Pre-operational and Concrete Operational > Formal Operations

  • With each advancing stage, people use more sophisticated schemas to understand worlds complexities 

• Information Processing Theory: Mind is computer that takes in, stores, processes, and manipulates information

• Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory: focuses on role of society/culture in cognitive development on children learning through interactions with others who are more competent 

  • Throughout interactions, children learn rules and practices of society/their culture

• Brofenbrenner’s Bioecological Systems Theory: Connects are organized into series of systems

  • Inds are embedded and interact with one another to influence development; systems interact too

  • Microsystem (Child) > mesosystem (family, school, peers) > exosystem (parents work, neighbors) > macrosystems (politics, culture laws/policies, social class)

the dynamic interactions between heredity and environment (e.g., gene-environment correlations) and how we study them

• Twin studies determine whether post birth environments or genetics is cause for similar traits

• For biological siblings, timings differences can shape differences (macro systems, prenatal environment, family system, etc)

• Gene-Environment interaction: When different genotypes respond to environmental variation in different ways, genes cannot be understood without studying environments

• Passive: parental genes > parents behavior builds environment for child

• Active: child genes > child’s behavior, children select/shape their environments when old enough

• Evocative: child genes > others peoples behavior, evoke responses from others 

prenatal development (including stages, environmental influences), and patterns of growth/development (e.g., cephalocaudal) 

• Stages: germinal (first 14 days, where rapid cell growth and differentiation occurs) > embryonic (3-8 weeks, when organs and major body systems develop (organogenesis)reflexes and defects)> fetal (9 weeks to birth, rapid growth, complex organ development, spontaneous movement)

• Patterns of development: Cephalocaudal (from head down), and Proximodistal ( from center out)

  • Top heavy head and trunk grows before limbs then limbs etc

  • Mothers nutrition, ingested teratogens (consider critical periods, does and ind. differ) and stress all effect baby

  • Babies learn mothers voice and develop preferences in womb

  • Birthing process can be private/public, related to social status, religious practices, and more based on culture

    • Treatment of the mother, access to nutritious food, familial support, also effected by culture 

  • Apgar Scale: accesses baby’s immediate condition 

    • Appearance, pulse, grimace, respiration

  • Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale: assess subtle behavior aspects of newborns condition

    • Motor capacities, responsiveness to objects/people and self-control

concepts relating to early brain development (e.g., neurogenesis)

• Neurogenesis: creation of neurons, begins during prenatal development, and proceeds rapidly 

• Neuronal migration: neurons align themselves with glial cells (provide neurons with supplements) and migrate to different parts of the brain

  • Leads to organization if brain and localizes functions 

• Synaptogenesis: forming of new synapses, begins prenatally and makes more connections than needed

• Synaptic pruning: synapses not used die off

• Exp-expectant brain development: in anticipation to species wide events and stimuli, sensory dep. interrupts the development

• Exp-dependent brain development: in response to specific ind. learning exps, playing musical instruments isn’t universal 

  • Association between screen time and underdeveloped white matter in preschoolers

physical changes that occur with puberty, influences on pubertal timing, and the psychosocial effects of early and late puberty 

• Genetics influence rate of growth by triggering amount of hormones release

• Migration (poor and rich) > dramatic changes between generations

• Puberty is driven by hormones regulated by the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis (HPG axis) 

• Females marked by menarche and growth of uterus and ovaries; males marked by spermarche and gritty of testes/penis/scrotum

• How puberty is measure: age of menarche/spermarche, genetic onset of puberty symptoms and personal perception

  • Levels of testosterone can shift dramatically in response to stress and illness

  • Nutrition, stress, and contextual factors > pubertal timing

early motor development, including reflexes, types of motor behavior (e.g., gross), and the relationship between motor behavior and perception assessment of newborn functioning (e.g., Apgar score)

• Infants center world with rich set of involuntary image reflexes (rooting, Pelmar grasp)

• Gross motor development: use of large muscles for large movements, how we move through environment

• Fine motor skills: development and coordination of small muscles (reaching, grasping, manual dexterity)

• Maturation and context drive motor development (pruning, development of cerebellum, myelination)

  • Need for communication, writing and eating with intensive drives motor development culturally

• Dynamic systems theory : maturation motivation and context intertwine > motor development 

• Affordances: how infants gauge what they can do with what they see in environments (objects)

• Intermodal perception : integrate information from multiple sensory systems to understand the world (ex. Localizing sounds)

• Perceiving affordances is more adaptive than auto fear response (visual cliff)

  • Learn to perceive relationship with environment after developing crawling/walking experience