Chapter 1- Background & Theories Pt. 1 Flashcards
What is developmental psychology?
Is concerned with changes in behaviour and abilities that occur as development proceeds
What are the two goals of developmental psychology? Explain them
2pts
- Description: Identify children’s behaviour at various developmental points
- Explanation: Determine the causes and processes that govern developmental change
Early Theorists:
What did John Locke believe?
3pts
- Children gain knowledge through experience and learning
- Environmentalist point of view: children are products of their environment and upbringing
- “Tabula rasa”: the mind is a blank slate at birth (suggesting that all behaviors are learned)
Early Theorists:
What did Jean-Jacques Rousseau believe?
Give an example
2pt
- Argued that children are born with innate knowledge that drives development (nativism) and children are drawn to certain things of their innate knowledge
Ex- a baby may know exactly who their mom is
Early theorists:
What did Johann Gottfried Von Herder believe?
1pt
- Examining and evaluating the specifics of a culture is crucial to understanding human development (cultural relativism)
Early theorists:
Who is Charles Darwin?
3pts
- Developed concept of “natural selection”
–> Traits that confer advantages allow the organism to survive - Theory gave rise to concept of recapitulation
- Employed early baby biography research method
Early theorist- Charles Darwin:
Name the concept:
- As people develop, they repeat behaviours of their evolutionary ancestors.
- The development of the embryo of every species repeats the evolutionary development of that species fully.
- You see the same patterns happening overtime
Recapitulation
Early theorist- Charles Darwin:
Name the concept:
- The process through which populations of living organisms adapt and change
- Variations in individuals in populations have traits better suited to certain environments that others.
- Those with adaptive traits that give them more advantage, are more likely to survive and reproduce
Natural selection
Pioneers of child psychology:
Who is G. Stanley Hall?
2pts
- Father of child psychology
- Founded the field of developmental psychology
Pioneers of child psychology:
Who is James Mark Baldwin?
1pt
- First Canadian academic psychologist to study development
Pioneers of child psychology:
Who is John B. Watson?
3pts
- Focused research on observable behaviour
- Behaviorist theory of development
- Development results from conditioning and learning
Pioneers of child psychology:
Who is Arnold Gesell?
2pts
- Focused on biological and maturational processes
- Produced age-related norms for development
Pioneers of child psychology:
Who is Sigmund Freud?
2pts
- Focused on early childhood experiences
- Proposed a five-stage theory of psychosexual development
Pioneers of child psychology:
What did Sigmund Freud propose in his five-stage theory of psychosexual development ?
5pts
- Children are born with innate sexual energy (libido)
- At various stages of development, libido is focused within certain bodily regions called erogenous zones
- Stimulation of these regions results in pleasure and gratification
- Stages include: oral, anal, phallic, latent, genital
- Children move from stage to stage; failure to do so results in being fixated within a stage
Pioneers of child psychology:
What did Sigmund Freud propose about fixation in his five-stage theory of psychosexual development ?
2pts
- Inappropriate childhood experiences cause a child to become fixated (stuck) in the earlier stage
-This fixation will manifest itself in later adult
behaviour