Chapter 1

Question 1

What are the 3 fundamental characteristics of human development?

Answer 1

• Nature and nurture
• Continuity and discontinuity
• Universal and context-specific development

Question 2

Nature and Nurture

Answer 2

Nature:

• biologically given, born
• based on genetic inheritance

Nurture:
-all environmental influences including the physical, social, and cultural world

Both aspects, biological and environmental influences, are intertwined,

Question 3

Continuity and discontinuity

Answer 3

continuity: do personality characteristics remain the same or progress smoothly

Discontinuity: are personaility characteristics a series of abrupt shifts

EX: whistling (at one time you can’t whistle then BAM you can)

Question 4

Universal vs. Context-specific

Answer 4

• Is there just one developmental path or several?
• Are developmental changes common to all humans or different across cultures, subcultures, contexts, and individuals?

The US is individualistic culture whereas other countries are more communalistic.

Question 5

Theory

Answer 5

an organized set of ideas

Question 6

A good theory produces

Answer 6

testable hypotheses.

Question 7

Psychodynamic Theory

Answer 7

• Freud
• Central notion: humans have instincts that motivate behavior.
• unconscious motivation

Question 8

Id

Answer 8

impulsive, selfish part of personality

Question 9

Ego

Answer 9

rational aspect that seeks to gratify instincts

Question 10

Superego

Answer 10

internalized moral standards

Question 11

What did Freud do right?

Answer 11

• publicized psychology
• highlighted impact of unconscious mind
• emphasized importance of early experience
• emphasized importance of emotions and emotional conflicts.

Question 12

Erikson

Answer 12

• most influential neo-Freudian
• lifespan theory
• successful resolution of crises leads to proper development

Question 13

strengths of Erikson

Answer 13

• emphasis on rational and adpative nature
• emphasis on interaction between biological and social influences
• influenced research into adolescence and adulthood

Question 14

Learning Theory

Answer 14

• behaviorism

- social learning theory

Question 15

behaviorism

Answer 15

• Skinner

- consequences of a behavior determine whether or not that behavior is repeated in the future

Question 16

social cognitive theory

Answer 16

• Bandura

- learning occurs through imitation or observational learning.

Question 17

Cognitive-Developmental Theory

Answer 17

• how people think and how thinking changes over time

Question 18

Piaget’s theory

Answer 18

children create theories about the world and test them out through experience.

Question 19

information processing theory

Answer 19

human cognition consists of mental hardware (cognitive structures) and mental software (sets of cognitive processes)

Question 20

Vygotsky’s theory

Answer 20

every aspect of a child’s development must be considered against backdrop of culture.

Question 21

Ecological and Systems Perspective

Answer 21

• development is inseparable from the environment in which a person develops.

Question 22

Lifespan Theory

Answer 22

• development cannot be understood in the scope of one framework
• must appreciate an adult’s childhood and adolescence in order to understand them.

Question 23

Lifespan Development

Answer 23

ontogenic development is a lifelong process. No age period hold supremacy

Question 24

Multidirectionality

Answer 24

considerable diversity or pluralism is found in the directionality of changes

Question 25

Gain-Loss dynamic

Answer 25

• the process of development is not a simple movement toward higher efficacy.
• development across consists of the joint occurrence of gain and loss

Question 26

Plasticity/Constraints

Answer 26

the key developmental agenda is the search for the range of plasticity and its constraints

Question 27

Historical Embeddedness

Answer 27

age-related development is markedly influenced by sociocultural conditions existing in a given historical period

Question 28

Contextualism as Paradigm

Answer 28

individual development can be understood as the outcome of the interactions among three systems of developmental influences and variations therein: age-graded, history-graded, and non normative influences

Question 29

Naturalistic observations

Answer 29

• observing a person in real-life situation

how they started studying aggressive behavior in children

Question 30

Structured observations

Answer 30

• creating a setting to bring out the behavior of interest

- pitfall is bringing out an unnatural or unrealistic behavior.

Question 31

Reliability

Answer 31

extent to which a measure provides a consistent index of a characteristic

Question 32

validity

Answer 32

the extent to which a measure assess what the reachers thinks it is assessing.

Question 33

correlational studies

Answer 33

relationships between variables that exist naturally in the world

Question 34

Experimental studies

Answer 34

systematic ways of manipulating the independent variables in order to cause a particular behavior (dependent variables)

Question 35

experimental studies operate by

Answer 35

randomly assigning people to one condition or the other.

Question 36

qualitative research

Answer 36

allows the researcher to gain an in-depth understanding of human behavior and what governs it.

Question 37

qualitative research is helpful if

Answer 37

if you want a generate a quantitative study which is just numbers.

Question 38

longitudinal studies

Answer 38

• same individuals are tested throughout their lives.

- most direct way to identify change.

Question 39

cross-sectional studies

Answer 39

• compares the performances of people of different age groups or cohorts (group of individuals born at the same time)
• provides information about age differences

Question 40

age effects

Answer 40

relationship between age and a particular aspect of development

Question 41

cohort effects

Answer 41

effects of being born a member of a cohort or a generation in a historical context.

Question 42

sequential designs

Answer 42

combine the cross-sectional and the longitudinal approach and improve on both