Chapter 10: Motivation across the lifespan

Question 1

Define developmental psychology.

Answer 1

A field of psychology that studies the growth (early growing), stability (peak in adult years), and change (wear and tear of the body)over the lifespan

Question 2

Differentiate primary and secondary aging.

Answer 2

Primary aging is the aging that naturally occurs over the lifespan. Secondary Aging is the aging due to our choices such as healthy eating and exercise slowing our decline and drugs and alcohol hastening it.

Question 3

List the eight developmental periods.

Answer 3

Prenatal Development – Lasts from fertilization of the egg cell up to the birth of the neonate or newborn.

Infancy/Toddlerhood – From birth to about age 3

Preschool Years – From age 3 to 6 years

Middle Childhood – From 6 to 12 years

Adolescence – From 12 to 20 years

Early or Young Adulthood – From 20 to 40 years

Middle Adulthood – From 40 to 65(ish – retirement) years

Late Adulthood – From 65(ish – retirement) to death

Question 4

List and describe the types of development.

Answer 4

Cognitive Development that focuses on intellectual development and how it affects behavior.
Social/Personal development is how our social interactions interact with the world and change our personality over the lifespan

Question 5

Outline the four principles of development.

Answer 5

Cephalocaudal principle, Proximodistal principle, Hierarchical integration, Independence of systems

Question 6

Cephalocaudal principle

Answer 6

States that development proceeds from head (cephalo) to toe or tail (caudal). For example, your nervous system develops before you can walk or run.

Question 7

Proximodistal principle

Answer 7

States that development proceeds from near (proximo) to far (distal). We used these two terms when we talked about goals so you should know what they mean already. An example in the context of development is gross and fine motor skills. The former represents whole body movements centered on your trunk, and develop before the latter, which can be represented by learning to write (using the hands which are far away from your trunk, or distant).

Question 8

Hierarchical integration

Answer 8

States that development goes from simple to complex. For example, before you can pick up objects with your hands, you must learn to control individual fingers. And as you will see in Section 10.2, play goes from simple (solitary) to complex (cooperative) with a few other types in the middle.

Question 9

Independence of systems

Answer 9

States that different systems in the body develop at different rates. For instance, your nervous system develops before your reproductive system, which also represents cephalocaudal principle too

Question 10

Clarify measures the body takes to maintain the efficiency of the nervous system.

Answer 10

When we are born, we are born with 100-200 billion neurons but we lack connections as we grow. Within the first two years of life, billions of connections will form called synaptogenesis. Of these neurons that do not form connections will eventually die out called synaptic pruning

Question 11

Describe how reflexes aid in our survival.

Answer 11

All neonates are born with reflexes to help them survive since they don’t have much of an ability for conscious action. Some include the rooting (looking for milk), Moro (like the star sit up), also imitations of authoritative figures

Question 12

Outline the status of the five sensory systems at birth and how their development proceeds.

Answer 12

Infants have a poor vision which gets better over time, the rooting reflex is connected with touch. Infants have some degree of echolocation and even infants like complex sounds over simple ones. Finally, all infants prefer high calorie sweet foods to anything else

Question 13

Define depth perception and describe the seminal experiment that elucidated it.

Answer 13

The visual cliff experiment had a perceived drop (there was clear glass over it) and on the other side was the infant’s mom. Infants of four months and under could not perceive it . But depth perception occurred from 6-12 months and they stopped before reaching the perceived cliff.

Question 14

Describe how infants integrate the information about the world around them.

Answer 14

We all have schemes and we either assimilate (put new information into our existing schema) or accommodate (accommodate our worldview to fit the new information)

Question 15

Describe how infants learn about the world and clarify key components of Piaget’s theory. (Describe how their exploration develops over time)

Answer 15

0- 2 months: sensorimotor stage: infants are focused on developing their senses (which is why they put everything in their mouths). Object permanence manifests in the first few months

4 months: they learn coordination schemes primary (coordination) and secondary (trial and error) circular reactions.

9-12 months. they focus on exploring the world

12-18 months they begin deferred imitation or the process of imitating their parents as best they can.

Question 16

Explain the development of language as a way infants are motivated to communicate with others.

Answer 16

First they babble when they can’t use words, then they use holophrases or one word sentences meant to mean something more complex. Then they do telegraphic speech when they form sentences using as few words as possible

Question 17

Describe changes in sociability and how they affect how we interact with others in our world during the sensorimotor stage

Answer 17

Within 6-9 weeks of life, they smile at things that please them.

6 months they show stranger danger or stranger anxiety.

8-9 months they look to a caregiver for how to react to a new situation called social referencing.

Children usually play by themselves up till about 18 months.

18 months to two years they engage in parallel play or playing next but not with each other.

At 3 years they begin cooperative play

Question 18

Outline the development of personality during infancy.

Answer 18

Erickson stages of Trust vs Mistrust, and Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

Question 19

Describe physical changes during the preschool years.

Answer 19

Our gross motor skills develop, and we can play more physical games. Our fine motor skills develop as well and we can engage in more precise tasks.

Question 20

Clarify what occurs during the preoperational stage of cognitive development.

Answer 20

At 2-7 years

Centration (focus on one aspect), Egocentrism, animistic thinking (assigning lifelike qualities to inanimate objects) and having trouble with reversibility (that things can go one way and then backward)

Question 21

Outline changes in language development during the preschool years.

Answer 21

Fast mapping helps language develop rapidly during preschool years. By age 6 they have a vocabulary of 15,000 words

Question 22

Describe Erikson’s initiative vs. guilt stage of personality development.

Answer 22

Conflicts to do things on their own and the guilt of the failure that comes when they fail in this endeavor.

Question 23

Describe changes in the use of aggression during the preschool years.

Answer 23

Aggression gets more sophisticated in these years with the development of language and more sophisticated physical abilities

Question 24

Describe the development of prosocial behavior over time.

Answer 24

1. Prosocial behavior first manifests between 2-3 years.
2. Older toddlers tend to share when needs of sharing are verbally expressed by other, younger toddlers do not.
3. Girls share more often but share more often with other girls. Boys use the display rule of reciprocity but share with boys and girls equally.
4. Sharing was positively correlated with negative mother attributes. This was stronger for boys.
5. Children with older siblings are less likely to share
6. Preschoolers have a lack of understanding of failure to act prosocial
7. With preschoolers, prosocial altruistic behavior is inversely related to aggression. However prosocial non-altruistic behavior is positively related to aggression. Basically, even at this age, children may help than thwart.
8. An interesting finding is, Children in Japan tended to be prosocial to other children regardless of friendship status as long as the other children display prosocial behavior.

Question 25

Describe physical changes during middle childhood.

Answer 25

Children during this age are capable of even better fine and gross motor skills.

Obesity is a more prevalent problem during these years and even has a higher emotional toll.

Question 26

Clarify what gains the child makes in terms of their cognitive development during the concrete operational stage

Answer 26

According to Piaget, Children now understand concrete operations such as conservation, reversibility and cause and effect thinking. They can also be less egocentric

Question 27

Clarify what gains the child makes in terms of their language development during the concrete operational stage

Answer 27

Their word vocabulary is up to 60,000 words

Question 28

Describe changes in memory in middle childhood.

Answer 28

This is the state they engage in metamemory. Which leads to learning strategies such as mnemonics, rehearsal, elaborative rehearsal and chunking

They also engage in metacognition or thinking about thinking (yah we do this a lot)

Question 29

Describe changes in personality in middle childhood.

Answer 29

Their views become more complex, more psychological and less physical based.

This is the industry vs inferiority stage

Children during this stage act more morally

Question 30

Outline changes in self-concept in middle childhood.

Answer 30

This is the age of social comparison. We rate ourselves based on others to see how high or low we are on the totem pole. We look lower to feel superior or higher to see what we need to do to improve.

Question 31

Describe how aggression is expressed in middle childhood

Answer 31

They also use more sophisticated aggression such as relational aggression (Hurt others self-esteem) or retaliatory aggress (revenge)

Question 32

Describe physical changes and puberty during adolescence.

Answer 32

Puberty, yay! We gain reproductive capacity along with being an asshole

Primary sex characteristics are genitals and secondary is body hair tits and stuff

Women go through menstruation or menarche starting from 11-15 years. Boys have their first ejaculation or spermache at 13

Obesity can cause early puberty and eating disorders are really common at this age

Question 33

Explain changes in cognitive development during adolescence.

Answer 33

Piaget said children at adolescence engage in formal operations which is when they are capable of abstract thought to contemplate their problems. Such as propositional thought which thinking about words without needing real world examples and then hypo-deductive reasoning which is the scientific method

Two misconceptions common at this age is the imaginary audience or the feeling everyone is watching them. The other is the personal fable or a false sense of uniqueness

Question 34

List and explain changes in social and personality development during adolescence.

Answer 34

This is the identify vs role confusion stage. Children often go through an identify crisis to find out who they are. One possibility is identity achievement, the other is identity foreclosure where they don’t go through a crisis but take up a commitment that others provide for them. The other is identity diffusion where there is no crisis or commitment

Children are motivated in these years by needs of autonomy and affiliation

Question 35

Describe physical changes across adulthood.

Answer 35

Age-related changes called senescence take place in early adulthood which are natural and called primary aging, secondary aging is affected by our environment and health-related behaviors

In middle adulthood we lose strength, vision (presbyoipia, can’t hear high pitches as well (presbycusis), women go through menopause.

Then you just get old man

Question 36

Describe changes in our cognitive abilities across adulthood.

Answer 36

Postformal thought states the ability to realize what might work for one person may not work for another. Also consider dialectical reasoning which is when an adult considers the position of conflicting viewpoints

Memory declines in later years. Prospective memory or memory of what to do in the future also declines

Question 37

Outline major developments in personality and social development in adulthood.

Answer 37

In early adulthood, we experience intimacy vs. isolation and we settle down with a partner, find peace with them and have children.

In middle adulthood there is generativity vs despair. We become aware of death and want to leave something behind. We often do this with children. We also experience the midlife crisis during this stage.

Boomerang children are children whom move out then move back in due to economic pressures.

The sandwich generation are children who move home to care for aging parents

Empty nest is the excitement or despair with their kids leaving home

In late adulthood we experience ego integrity vs. Despair. Conflicts of this age include acceptance of death, finding value outside of work and accepting the aging process.

Those who stay physically and socially active often age and do better than those who don’t

Finally the giraffe with the acceptance of death. First Denial (I am not in quicksand), Anger (stupid quicksand), Bargaining (God please get this giraffe out of quicksand) Depression (I want my mommy) and acceptance (death isn’t so bad. Wait, I think I hit the bottom)