1. Themes and Contexts Flashcards
What did Charles Darwin research on? What did he introduce to devt psych?
infants’ sensory capacities and young children’s emotion. Introduced the view of the view of childhood as a different phase of life from adulthood.
What are the 3 key themes of psychological growth?
Origins of behaviour
Specificity or generality of change
Individual and contextual forces that define and direct development
What are the 5 aspects of development
Biological Cognitive Linguistic Emotional Social
What is empiricism and nativism?
Empiricism – development determined by environmental influences
Nativism – development determined by inherited factors (ie genetics)
What has the nature vs nurture debate evolved to become?
debate is about relative importance of inheritance & environmental factors. Emphasis on nature & nurture interaction to produce developmental variation. Active nature of humans supports this.
What are the 2 patterns of developmental change?
Continuous development
Discontinuous development
Contemporary researchers see development as basically continuous, but sometimes interspersed with discontinuous periods of change.
Describe continuous development.
Smooth and gradual accumulation of abilities
Development changes build on earlier abilities in a cumulative way (quantitative)
Gradual improvement from day to day
Describe discontinuous development.
Abrupt change in ability (qualitative)
Series of discrete stages – behaviours get reorganised into new set of behaviours
What is a critical period?
an age range during which specific experiences are required for development to proceed in a typical way
What is a sensitive period?
an age range during which specific experiences are optimal for development to occur in a typical way. If those experiences do not occur, or occur at a different time, typical development may still occur.
What is domain-general development?
The idea that development can have impacts on a wide range of abilities. Piaget – strong proponent.
What is domain-specific development?
The idea that the development of various abilities occur independently and has little impact on skills in other domains. Theorists arguing for innate cognitive abilities have often characterised such abilities as being domain-specific.
What are the different explanations for development? (locus of change)
Biological
Behavioral
Social
Emotional
