Ch. 1 Flashcards by Caitlin Polini

Typical

Normative development

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“what are the reasons that people are different?”

whole range of individual differences
has to do with individual history (individual development)
- aka individual path
may also be interested in how a person will change over time

Individual development

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concept that emphasizes on the idea that the environment is limited
heavily genetically influenced
Waddington came up with this idea

Canalization

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the idea that experience can affect biology
shape development
Ex: children who grew up in poverty - biologically adapting to environmental adversity

Experiential canalization

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gap between current level of performance and your potential performance on a task given proper guidance from an“expert”.
-Benefit of guidance = help them to achieve full potential
-people closests to your own level of thinking may help more than a person at a higher level
Ex: ask peer about point vs asking a professor
-peer may help you better understand the material more than a professor would = same level of thinking/learning

Zone of proximal development (ZPD)

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make it our own

Ex: stop pulling your sisters hair even if your parents are not there to punish you

Internalization

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(referring to ecological systems theory) interactions of children with their family, school, etc.

Direct effects

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ex: workplace made parent’s tired = not wanting to play with their children

Indirect effects

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parent effects child and child effects parent
Ex: parents interact differently depending on sex of their child (gender)
Ex: parents are affected by age of their child
Discipline = parents are nicer when their children are younger and more hard on them as they get older

Bidirectional effects

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bidirectional effects over time

ex: parent has a child with a disability
- parent gets discouraged with progress on child and start to give up

Transactions (effects over time)

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how people act in everyday life

Ecological validity

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perceptual overlap between emotion expressions and certain trait markers, which then influences emotion communication.

Functional equivalence

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a historical event on a group may not have “normal” developmental effects of other children their age
Book definition - effects due to a person’s time of birth, era, or generation but not to actual age.

Cohort effects

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limits of representativeness or generalizability

Subject attrition

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what the person controls, introduces to people

Independent variable

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outcome , depends on the independent variable

Dependent variable

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G.S. Hall

study of psyc more scientific
founder of professional psych
”father” of child study movement
Better understanding of how children think
Methodologist → how?
Proposed objective way
Interviews and questionnaire
Problems : not all children are able to understand and verbally answer questions
Children may be nervous and can cause them to answer questions that are socially desirable

Freud

id, ego & superego pg. 17

“Childhood is a critical time for personality development and stressed importance of early relationships.”

Watson (mechanistic)

behaviorist

- practical view - development defined by Watson - learning
- most emotions are learned - only 3 emotions to be learned but fear is most important
- only two things will cause fear = loud sudden noise and sense of anticipation &amp; loss of support - he wanted to teach people how to not be afraid - Watson took children from orphanage with no consent and cameras
- studied a baby name “little Albert” 
- taught him to be afraid of a rat
- every time the rat would come along, a sudden loud noise would occur

Piaget (organismic)

180 degree from Watson
-development results from the interactions between maturational change and experience
-development happens when you are “ready”
-readiness = experience might occur but unless you are mature, you will not be ready and/or benefit from it
- beneficial interactions with physical things in the world
-cognitive balance
Ex: child first seeing a tomato on the floor
-perfectly round and red
-things it is a ball
-pick up tomato and throw it against the wall
-disequilibrium because ball didn’t bounce
-learn through everyday interactions
-Problem: not every kid is curious; some will walk away

Vygotsky (contextualism)

Russian psychologists
Theory called sociocultural theory of cognitive development
Learn of social and cultural experiences/values during cognitive development
Political institutions and schools influence cognitive development
2 concepts from Vygotsky =
Zone of proximal development (ZPD)
Internalization

Darwin

adaptation main concept
-definition of human development is product of genetic makeup, developmental history, and current environmental condition.

Locke (mechanistic)

known for “blank slate”
Address issues and discipline for children
Environment is important b/c it helps shape children into who they are going to be

Rousseau (organismic)

unfolds naturally in positive ways unless society messes you up

Bronfenbrenner (contextualistic)

Ecological theory (aka: “ecological systems theory” or “concentric rings model”) Holds that development reflects the influence of several environmental systems Theory identifies 5 environmental “systems” with the child at the center

What are the 5 environmental systems?

Microsystem - most direct interactions (i.e., family, school, etc.) Mesosystem - connections between contexts (i.e. family to school relationships) Exosystem - links between settings that might result in certain indirect effects Macrosystem - culture Chronosystem - transitions over the individual’s life course (systems 1-4) Microsystem & Mesosystem = immediate environment Exosystem = Social [societal] & economic context Macrosystem & Chronosystem = Cultural [& subcultural context]

What are some key goals of developmental psychology as discussed in lecture?

Understanding the process of development Create scientific method to gather information Address problems based by children and provide solution

What are the basic characteristics of “Developmental Change” as discussed in lecture (e.g., change that is directional, cumulative, etc.)?

Orderly: follow logical, sequence of some kind Cumulative: building on what came before Directional: complexity (greater) than before Enduring: relatively lasting- can be cognitive, physical, social, emotional, etc.

Describe the theoretical issues (developmental “debates”) about which developmental psychologists and theories often have different views: nature vs. nurture; active vs. passive; continuity vs. discontinuity, etc. Know all of the theoretical issues explained in the textbook as well as those discussed in class.

Nature vs. nurture - issue regarding whether development is primarily influenced by nature or nurture. -The “nature” proponents claim that biological inheritance is the more important influence on development; the “nurture” proponents assert that environmental experiences are more important. (book definition) Active vs. passive Active - a lot of impact on their own development Ex: piaget “readiness”, “organismic worldview” Passive - society and environment have a greater impact on children’s development Ex: “Mechanistic” worldview (e.g. Watson, Skinner, Locke) Continuity vs. discontinuity - does development involve gradual, cumulative change (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity).

See chapter 1, Figure 12 (on or about page 27). Note the views of the theories and theorists presented on Fig. 12 in terms of their emphasis on the theoretical issues on which they are compared. For example, do some theories/theorists mainly emphasize nature or nurture; do other theories demonstrate appreciation of both nature and nurture?

Psychoanalytic - freud - biological & culture perspective Cognitive - Piaget - emphasis on interaction & adaptation (nurture) -Vygotsky - nature & nurture (strong emphasis on culture) Behavioral and Social Cognitive - environmental view as main influence on development (nurture) Ethological - strong biological view (nature) Ecological - strong environmental view (nurture)

As discussed in class lecture, explain some of the controversial assumptions about the technical meaning of the concept of “stages” -i.e., universal, invariance (changes occur in a specific order), and consistency (that we act or behave in a way that is consistent with how we think about an issue).

Universal - moral development, social-evaluative, physical changes? Invariance - whatever change trying to describe they go in order that is specified Order, no variance No “backsliding” Consistency - match between understanding and how you behave Ex: lying (we know it’s bad, but we still do it)

Review the three “world views' ' or general philosophies of development discussed in class lecture- mechanistic, organismic, and contextualism. Describe each “world view” and know individual persons/theories associated with certain “world views”.

Mechanistic - outside forces (nurture side) Organismic - compares humans to other living things What makes us tick = forces within us Nature side Contextualistic - development represents a contextual between internal and external force Includes social & historical setting context “Gives meaning” to one’s environment

In terms of the “contextualist” worldview, describe the specific meaning of “context”.

Context = culture - values of a nation; also refers to a condition (ex: female vs male; economic circumstance; ethnic background) Context definition from book = refers to settings → economic, cultural

What are limitations or criticisms of the ecological theory created by Bronfenbrenner?

Not focussing on biological issues Not enough emphasis on cognitive factors Very hard to test Have to know so much about a person to test it

a carefully regulated procedure in which one or more of the factors believed to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated, while all other factors are held constant.

Experiment

comparing naturally occurring groups (experimenter did not create) --conclusions have to be very qualified because the experimenter does not have control --Quasi Independent Variable - no control over -age -gender (sex) -event Advantages: useful when it is unethical to manipulate the independent variable -studies the ‘real effects’ so there is increased realism and ecological validity Disadvantages: confounding environmental variables are more likely = less reliable -must wait for independent variable to occur -can only be used where conditions vary naturally -Participants are aware that they are being studied = less internal validity Ex: Milgram Study

Natural (quasi) experiment

observing behavior in real-world settings - -LIMITATIONS (No Control; Cannot Establish Causality) - -Natural Environment - - Most naturalistic observations are considered unobtrusive - High in ecological validity - how people act in everyday life - -Hard to pinpoint what causes what - can’t establish causality * Multi-method - -Used to identify important variables through a naturalistic observation - -Then use these variables to test them in an experiment

Naturalistic observation

observe different groups at a specific time -can show how different cohorts respond, but can also confuse age changes and cohort effects Main advantage: researchers don’t have to wait for children to grow older. Disadvantage: gives no information about how individual children change or about the stability of their characteristics. -can obscure the increases and decreases of development- the hills and valleys of growth and development Ex: we might choose to measure cholesterol levels in daily walkers across two age groups, over 40 and under 40, and compare these to cholesterol levels among non-walkers in the same age groups. We might even create subgroups for gender. However, we would not consider past or future cholesterol levels, for these would fall outside the frame. We would look only at cholesterol levels at one point in time.

Cross-sectional

follow the same group of people for a long period of time, usually 7 years or more -are effective in studying age changes but only within one cohort Advantages: provide a wealth of information about important issues such as stability and change in development and the influence of early experience on later development Disadvantages: expensive and time consuming; the longer the study lasts, the more participants drop out Ex: we might choose to look at the change in cholesterol levels among women over 40 who walk daily for a period of 20 years. The longitudinal study design would account for cholesterol levels at the onset of a walking regime and as the walking behavior continued over time. Therefore, a longitudinal study is more likely to suggest cause-and-effect relationships than a cross-sectional study by virtue of its scope.

Longitudinal

``` design takes multiple single cohorts, each one starting at a different age. Advantage: its ability to span the age range of interest in a shorter period of time than would be possible with a single cohort longitudinal design. Ex: 3 groups --TIME 1: 5 year olds 7 year olds 9 year olds --2 years later, TIME 2: 5 year olds will be 7 year olds 7 year olds will be 9 year olds 9 year olds will be 11 year olds ``` - end with a wider range of information - 5 - 11 year olds Time 1: 7 year olds & Time 2 : 7 year olds may have similar findings = most likely valid findings within 7 year olds.

Accelerated longitudinal