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Psych 315 > Chapter 1 > Flashcards

Chapter 1 Flashcards

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1
Q

Nature

A

genes/biology

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2
Q

Nurture

A

everything else -> parents, culture, environment (and anything environmental – ie. Exposure to toxins during pregnancy), etc.

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3
Q

Nature vs. Nature debate today

A
  • how large a role does each play, and how do they interact? (ex. parents who have high verbal ability may pass this down to you, and then they might also create an environment to further foster this ability)
  • Are certain things hardwired in our DNA (ie. Why can we easily be afraid of snakes/spiders but not flowers?)
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4
Q

Nature vs. Nurture Analogies

A
  • Oak tree: acorn is limited b/c it can only be an oak tree, but there is some variability (ie. Will it be tall, thick, etc.)
  • Modelling clay: we’re all malleable, but some more than others, and we’re more malleable earlier in life than later
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5
Q

genotype

A

the genetic material we inherit from our parents (the tangible, physical material)

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6
Q

phenotype

A

the observable expression of the genotype, including bodily characteristics and behaviour (the expression – intangible)

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7
Q

environment

A

every aspect of an individual’s surroundings other than the genes themselves

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8
Q

norm of reaction

A

the range of all possible phenotypes in relation to all possible environments (eg. The oak tree analogy)

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9
Q

heritability

A
  • an estimate of the variability on a given trait in a given population (eg. In a particular environment at a particular time) due to genetic difference
  • our knowledge about this is limited
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10
Q

polygenetic

A

influenced by a number of genes

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11
Q

epigenetic

A
  • When experiences and environment change the proteins that regulate gene expression, resulting in different genes being turned on/off
  • These changes can stem from either nature or nurture
  • They serve to regulate gene activation and inactivation without altering the DNA sequence
  • These changes can be passed on along with DNA for multiple generations
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12
Q

genotype, phenotype, and environmental interactions

A

Basically, parents start out by influencing child and environment, but as child gets older, they have more influence (ie. Choosing their own environment)

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13
Q

Recent advancement in epigenetics

A

Transgenerational aspect discovered - the experiences your grandparents/parents have can be passed down to you along with their genes

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14
Q

Weak proof of epigenetic influence from documentary

A
  • placing human embryos in culture dishes (for IVF) could switch genes on/off, resulting in higher probability of Beckwith-Wiedemann’s disease (weak because it’s correlational)
  • Holocaust survivors transmitted stress effects to their children (weak because we’re not sure the mechanism of transmission)
  • pregnant women who experienced 9/11 and developed PTSD (which is due to low cortisol), passed on this low cortisol to their unborn babies if they were in 3rd trimester of pregnancy (weak because it’s too early to know if it’s truly an epigenetic effect; we’d need to study the next generation in order to figure it out)
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15
Q

Strong proof of epigenetic influence from documentary

A
  • 2 different diseases were created from the same gene, but turn into different diseases depending on whether it comes from mom or dad (Angelman’s syndrome (mom) and Proder-Willy syndrome (dad))
  • Epigenetic changes can be passed down generation to generation (as found in mice)
  • Famine could affect people 100 years later (ie. Through mortality rates, etc.), even if they never experienced a famine; diet/food supply of grandfather could influence whether grandchildren got diabetes.
    This can only happen during “sensitive periods” of development in the grandparent’s life (grandmother = while in womb; grandfather = just before puberty) -> first proof of environmental effects being inherited in humans
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16
Q

7 themes in child development

A
  1. Nature vs. Nurture
  2. The Active Child
  3. Continuous and Discontinuous Development
  4. Mechanisms of Developmental Change
  5. The Sociocultural Context of Development
  6. Individual Differences
  7. Child Welfare
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17
Q

The Active Child

A

The role children play in their own development

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18
Q

Examples of the Active Child

A
  • Preferences to attend to certain things (People over objects, caregiver over others)
  • Motivated to learn (Little “experiments” [ex. Dropping food to see what bounces, what splats, etc.], practice language in the absence of people, engage in pretend play [ex. Using a banana as a phone])
  • Actively seek out their own environment (this increases significantly with age - friends they play with, activities they engage in, places they go, books they read, etc.)
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19
Q

Continuous and Discontinuous Development

A
  • Is development fundamentally continuous or discontinuous?
  • Depends how you look at development (ex. A child’s ability to read and write might improve continuously, whereas a child’s motor abilities may appear discontinuous/stage-like)
20
Q

continuous development

A

a gradual, continuous process (ex. A tree growing taller with each passing year)

21
Q

discontinuous development

A

involves sudden dramatic changes (ex. transition from caterpillar to cocoon to butterfly)

22
Q

Mechanisms of Developmental Change

A
  • How and why change occurs
  • Ex. Brain maturation; observation/trial and error; social learning – modeling vs. Testimony; applying Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to individual development -> best adapted/effective strategies for learning become more frequent, whereas ineffective strategies aren’t used
23
Q

Sociocultural Context of Development

A
  • How the sociocultural context influences development
  • Sociocultural context refers to the physical, social, cultural, economic, and historical circumstances that make up any child’s environment
  • ex. the fact most American and Canadian toddlers and preschoolers go to day care reflects a number of sociocultural factors, including historical era, economic structure, culture beliefs, and cultural values
  • Ex. Low socioeconomic status can have negative effects on child development
24
Q

Individual Differences

A
  • Looking at the variability between different individuals (ex. Even 2 children from within the same family who share both a lot of their genes and a lot of the same environment are different)
  • What are the sources of variation?
  • Why study individual differences? To know why some individuals are resilient, for example (Ex. Why is Joey aggressive after his parent’s divorce, Mandy is sad/depressed because of it, but Emily is coping well?)
25
Q

Children’s Welfare

A
  • How does child development research help children?
  • ex. Social policy and the law; education; improved parenting techniques; improves prevention, intervention, and treatment of problems, etc
26
Q

Which of the 7 themes are highlighted in the video “Bringing up Monkey”?

A
  • Nurture: behaviour of shy monkey changed when raised by relaxed mother
  • Sociocultural: social interactions with relaxed mother and other monkeys
  • Mechanisms of change: mother models relaxed behaviour (social learning)
  • Individual differences: some baby monkeys are outgoing and relaxed while others are shy and nervous. These differences will make a difference in the way they react in stressful situations.
27
Q

3 main ways of collecting data

A
  • interviews
  • structured observation
  • naturalistic observation
28
Q

interviews

A
  • Children answer questions asked either in person or on a questionnaire
  • Advantages: reveals child’s subjective experience, inexpensive and easy means of data collection, can be geared to specific individuals (unstructured)
  • Disadvantages: reports are often biased in a positive direction, participant’s memory is often inaccurate and incomplete, participant’s ability to predict their actions are often inaccurate, subject to experimenter bias (ex. Leading questions)
29
Q

naturalistic observation

A
  • Observing child in their normal environments of interest (eg. Home, school, playground, etc.)
  • Used when the primary goal is to describe how children behave in their usual environments
  • Advantages: Useful for studying interactions (ie. Social interactions between parents and child) and other types of behavior which could not be studied “on-demand” in a lab (Ex. How child’s behaviour changes after a new baby is brought home, how children react when om and dad are fighting)
  • Disadvantages: can’t control all variables in a natural environment, hard to determine which variables influenced the behaviour, observer may influence behaviour, the behavior you are interested in might occur very rarely, reducing the opportunity to study it, subject to experimenter bias
30
Q

structured observation

A
  • aka: experimental and correlational designs
  • Researchers bring kids to a laboratory, where they are presented with a specific task or situation that will elicit the behaviour relevant to the researcher’s hypothesis
  • Advantages: ensures all children experience the same thing, allowing for direct comparison of different children/groups
  • Disadvantages: reveals less info about subjective information that interviews, not in the child’s environment
31
Q

experimental design

A
  • type of structured observation
  • Enable you to determine cause and effect
  • Must meet two premises: 2 or more groups of participants are comparable at the beginning (via random assignment); each group is presented with experience that differ in only 1 way (experimental control)
32
Q

correlational design

A
  • Used to determine if there is a relationship between 2 variables
  • If there is a strong relationship, knowing one variable helps predict the other
  • Ex. Aggressive behaviour and hours watching TV
  • correlation can’t equal causation because of: 1) direction-of-causation problem: doesn’t indicate which variable causes the other, 2) third-variable problem: a correlation between two variables may be influenced by some third variable
33
Q

cross-sectional design

A

studying a group of infants, kids, teens, and adults all at once

34
Q

longitudinal design

A
  • tracking the same group of people throughout the life course (ex. From toddler to teen)
  • Advantages: reveals information about the stability of individual differences or patterns of change in individual children; Avoids cohort effects (8 vs. 80-year-olds’ computer knowledge could change the results in a study if a computer is used during the stud)
  • Disadvantages: time consuming and expensive; subject loss (attrition) may influence the results (ex. Weight loss experiment)
35
Q

preferential looking paradigm

A
  • used to study babies who can’t speak yet
  • measured amount of time they spend looking at different stimuli
  • If they consistently look longer at one then it tells them 2 things: they can tell the difference between the two AND they prefer to look at one over the other
  • Ex. Once babies have good enough vision to see patterns, hey prefer looking at the most complex variable
36
Q

what does it mean if the preferential looking paradigm fails?

A
  • infants can’t tell the difference

- or they can tell the difference, but don’t have a preference

37
Q

habituation method

A
  • Repeatedly presents infants with one thing over and over until they become bored and decrease their looking time to a set criterion
  • Then a new stimulus is presented
  • If they can see the difference between the old and the new stimuli they should increase their looking time when the new stimuli is introduced
38
Q

violation of expectations paradigm

A

Based on the assumption that infants (or anyone) will look longer when something violates their expectations or surprises them (ex. When a magician cuts a person in two; drawbridge and block experiment with possible and impossible events – ie. Block stopping bridge and block disappearing when bridge hits it – babies should be more surprised by the disappearing block if they have object permanence)

39
Q

3 types of designs used to measure heritability (behavioural genetics)

A
  • Twin studies: twins are raised in same environment; identical and fraternal twins are compared
  • Adoption studies: looking at kids who were adopted, then compare them to their adopted parents and biological parents (ex. Compare Johnny’s intelligence to his biological parents’ and adoptive parents’ IQ to see which one he’s more similar to)
  • Twin adoption studies (rare): twins who were split up and raised in different environments are compared to see if they act in similar ways even though they were raised in different environment
40
Q

stage theories

A

Approaches that propose that development involves a series of discontinuous, age-related phases.

41
Q

cognitive development

A

The development of thinking and reasoning

42
Q

neurotransmitters

A

chemicals involved in communication among brain cells

43
Q

reasons to learn about child development

A
  • Raising Children: provides us with insight about what practices are beneficial to kids (ie. Using “turtle technique” to recognize and address anger issues rather than using physical discipline like spanking)
  • Choosing Social Policies: making decisions about changes and improvements to social policy involving children. (Ex. Avoiding asking leading questions to kids testifying in child abuse cases in order to increase accuracy of their testimony)
  • Understanding Human Nature: understanding the nature of children (Ex. Deprivation early in life (ie. In Romanian orphanages) can be overcome if they are adopted by good parents before 6 months of age)
44
Q

4 sources of variation in individual differences

A
  • Genetic and epigenetic difference
  • difference in ways parents and others treat them
  • differences in child’s choice of environment
  • similar experiences affect children differently
45
Q

structured interview

A

A research procedure in which all participants are asked to answer the same questions. Provides a quick and straightforward way for researchers to learn about children’s beliefs and attitudes.

46
Q

clinical interview

A

A procedure in which questions are adjusted in accord with the answers the interviewee provides. useful for obtaining in-depth information about an individual child.

47
Q

microgenetic design

A

method of study in which the same children are studied repeatedly over a short period where an important developmental change is thought to take place (ie. development of the counting on strategy)

Psych 315 (9 decks)

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