Chapter 1 Child Development: Theories and Themes

Question 1

What did English philosopher John Locke claim about infants nearly 400 years ago?

Answer 1

That the human infant is born tabula rasa

Question 2

What is tabula rasa?

Answer 2

Blank slate, meaning belief that experience moulds a person into a unique individual

Question 3

Locke’s view was challenged by which French philosopher?

Answer 3

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Question 4

What did Jean-Jacques Rousseau believe about newborns?

Answer 4

That they’re endowed with an innate sense of justice and morality that unfolds naturally as children grow.

Question 5

In child development, what is theory?

Answer 5

an organized set of ideas designed to explain (behaviour) and make predictions about development

Question 6

Theories are also a source of predictions that can be tested how?

Answer 6

Through research

Question 7

What are the 5 major theoretical perspectives in child development research?

Answer 7

Biological, Psychodynamic, Learning, Cognitive-Developmental and Contextual

Question 8

Why was James Mark Baldwin’s appointment largely controversial?

Answer 8

Because he was a “materialist”

Question 9

What is a “materialist”?

Answer 9

someone interested in studying the mind empirically (experientially) and not philosophically

Question 10

What did Baldwin set up?

Answer 10

the very first psych lab in Canada and first in the British empire

Question 11

What did Baldwin strongly believe about theory?

Answer 11

that theory must guide experimentation - theory should come first

Question 12

From a now social-psychological perspective, what did Baldwin insist?

Answer 12

that children’s development occurs in stages

Question 13

Who later advanced the idea that children’s development occurs in stages?

Answer 13

Jean Piaget

Question 14

Baldwin believed that development proceeded from what?

Answer 14

simple behavioural movements gradually coordinated into more complex behaviours and leading to adult forms of abstract thought

Question 15

What does Canada have a strong history of?

Answer 15

research in child development

Question 16

According to the biological perspective, what proceeds according to a biological plan?

Answer 16

cognitive, personality, physical and motor development

Question 17

Who was the earliest researcher to empirically study and describe children’s development?

Answer 17

G. Stanley Hall (1846 - 1924)

Question 18

What was G. Stanley Hall’s goal?

Answer 18

to restructure the the study of psychology to include the study of children

Question 19

What did G. Stanley Hall base his work on?

Answer 19

evolutionary biology rather than the physical sciences

Question 20

Charles Darwin published which theory?

Answer 20

Theory of evolution

Question 21

What was the most important concept that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution outlined?

Answer 21

Natural Selection

Question 22

What is Natural Selection?

Answer 22

an ongoing process in nature that results in survival of those organisms that are best adapted to their environments

Question 23

What was one of the first biological theories proposed by Arnold Gesell (1880 - 1961) ?

Answer 23

a theory that views development as unfolding according to a specific and pre-arranged scheme or plan within the body

Question 24

To Gesell, what matters little when it comes to development?

Answer 24

Experience

Question 25

What kind of perspective do ethological theorists view development from?

Answer 25

an evolutionary perspective

Question 26

What does ethological theory suggest?

Answer 26

views development from an evolutionary perspective, such that human behaviours can be adaptive and have survival value

Question 27

While ethological theorists assume that people inherit many adaptive behaviours, what do they also believe?

Answer 27

that experience is important for development

Question 28

What is a critical period?

Answer 28

the time in development when a specific type of learning best takes place

Question 29

Before or after the critical period, what is difficult or impossible?

Answer 29

the same learning

Question 30

What did Konrad Lorenz notice?

Answer 30

that newly hatched chicks follow their mother

Question 31

What did Lorenz theorize?

Answer 31

that chicks are biologically programmed to follow the first moving object they see after hatching

Question 32

What is imprinting?

Answer 32

the instinctive creation of an emotional bond between a newborn animal and the animal's mother

Question 33

What is attachment?

Answer 33

the emotional bond that forms between people, particularly children and their parents; an enduring social-emotional relationship

Question 34

For adaptive behaviours, even though the underlying mechanism is biological, what is also essential?

Answer 34

experience is essential for triggering programmed, adaptive behaviours

Question 35

Biological theorists remind us that children's genes, the product of a long evolutionary history, influence what?

Answer 35

virtually every aspect of children's development

Question 36

The psychodynamic perspective comes from whose work?

Answer 36

Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)

Question 37

What did Freud specialize in?

Answer 37

diseases of the nervous system

Question 38

Many of Freud's patients were adults suffering from conditions with no obvious biological cause, and he theorized what in response?

Answer 38

that early experiences establish enduring, lifelong patterns

Question 39

What is psychoanalysis?

Answer 39

a psychological theory and method proposing that development is largely determined by how well people resolve unconscious conflicts that arise during development

Question 40

What has Freud's original theory been highly criticized for?

Answer 40

its limited base of initial research and controversial claims about women

Question 41

Which of Freud's ideas have been influential in developmental research?

Answer 41

his ideas about personality and psychosexual development

Question 42

Freud proposed that personality includes which 3 primary theoretical components that emerge at distinct periods of development?

Answer 42

id, ego and superego

Question 43

What is the id?

Answer 43

a reservoir of primary instincts and drives

Question 44

The id is present at birth and presses for what?

Answer 44

immediate gratification of bodily needs and wants

Question 45

What is the ego?

Answer 45

the practical, rational component of personality

Question 46

When does the ego begin to emerge?

Answer 46

during the first year of life, as infants learn that they can't always have what they want

Question 47

The ego tries to resolve conflicts that occur and meet the id's desires with what?

Answer 47

realistic and socially acceptable objects and actions

Question 48

What is the superego?

Answer 48

the "moral agent" in the child's personality - the conscience

Question 49

When does the superego emerge?

Answer 49

during the preschool years as children begin to internalize adult standards of right and wrong

Question 50

Freud believed that humans, through a force called libido, are instinctively motivated from birth to do what?

Answer 50

experience physical pleasure

Question 51

As children grow, libido shifts to different parts of the body, termed what?

Answer 51

"erogenous zones"

Question 52

Freud proposed several developmental stages, each characterized by what?

Answer 52

gratification of needs associated with an erogenous zone

Question 53

What is the task associated with the oral stage of Freud's psychosexual stages?

Answer 53

erogenous zone: mouth; gratify oral sucking urges (birth to 1 year)

Question 54

What is the task associated with the oral stage of Freud's psychosexual stages?

Answer 54

erogenous zone: mouth; gratify oral sucking urges (birth to 1 year)

Question 55

What is the task associated with the anal stage of Freud's psychosexual development?

Answer 55

erogenous zone: anus; release and withhold feces (1 to 3 years)

Question 56

What is the task associated with the phallic stage of psychosexual development?

Answer 56

erogenous zone: genitalia; learn to suppress attraction to the parent of the opposite sex and identify with the parent of the same sex (3 to 6 years)

Question 57

What is the task associated with the latency stage of psychosexual development?

Answer 57

erogenous zone: none, libido is repressed as children go about daily business (6 years to adolescence)

Question 58

What is the task associated with the genital stage of psychosexual development?

Answer 58

erogenous zone: genitalia; attraction to the opposite sex (not the parent) (adolescence)

Question 59

Freud believed that development proceeds best when what?

Answer 59

children's needs at each stage are met but not exceeded

Question 60

According to Freud, what 2 things happen if children's needs are not met adequately?

Answer 60

- children become frustrated and find moving on to more mature forms of pleasure difficult - they become developmentally fixated at a certain stage

Question 61

According to Freud, if children are overindulged at one stage, what happens?

Answer 61

they see little need to progress to more advanced stages

Question 62

In Freud's view, parents have the difficult task of what?

Answer 62

satisfying children's needs without spoiling them

Question 63

While modern psychoanalytic theorists understand that heredity and environment both influence children, they also recognize that what shapes children's adjustment and development?

Answer 63

environmental reactions

Question 64

What are environmental reactions? What do they shape?

Answer 64

a family's responses to hereditary conditions; shape children's adjustment and development?

Question 65

What is body ego?

Answer 65

a person's sense of self as an individual

Question 66

When does body ego develop?

Answer 66

in the early years during the process of closeness and separation between child and parent

Question 67

Nurturing a child through physical and emotional care helps to create what?

Answer 67

a psychic skin

Question 68

What is a psychic skin?

Answer 68

a person's capacity for protecting and containing his or her internal emotional states

Question 69

What is neuropsychoanalysis?

Answer 69

study of the relationship between psychoanalytic theory and biological approaches in psychology

Question 70

What did Erik Erikson (1902 - 1994) believe?

Answer 70

that the psychological and social aspects of development are AS IMPORTANT as the biological and sexual aspects that Freud emphasized

Question 71

What is a psychodynamic theory?

Answer 71

theories that are offshoots of Freudian psychoanalysis

Question 72

What is Erikson's psychosocial theory?

Answer 72

psychoanalytic theory that development occurs in a sequence of stages defined by a unique crisis or social challenge

Question 73

Who extended and elaborated upon Erikson's original theory and added 6 developmental stages extending from early adulthood to old age?

Answer 73

George Vaillant