Chapter 11

Question 1

what is development and what are the 4 stages?

Answer 1

• -development is the sequence of age-related changes that occur as a person progresses from conception to death (biological/behavioural/social and emotional)
  (1) the prenatal period, between conception and birth, (2) childhood, (3) adolescence, and (4) adulthood

Question 2

What is the prenatal period?

Answer 2

• -extends from conception to birth, usually encompassing nine months of pregnancy.
  (1) the germinal stage (the first two weeks), (2) the embryonic stage (two weeks to two months), and (3) the fetal stage (two months to birth)

Question 3

What is the germinal stage?

Answer 3

• • first two weeks after conception. Begins when a zygote is created through fertilization.
• • Within 36 hours cell division begins and the zygote becomes a microscopic mass of multiplying cells.
• • Migrates along the mother’s fallopian tube to the uterine cavity and on about the seventh day, the cell mass begins to implant itself in the uterine wall. Many zygotes are rejected at this point.
• -During the implantation process, the placenta begins to form. The placenta is a structure that allows oxygen and nutrients to pass into the fetus from the mother’s bloodstream, and bodily wastes to pass out to the mother. Block the passage of blood cells, keeping the fetal and maternal bloodstreams separate.

Question 4

What is the embryonic stage?

Answer 4

• -two weeks to two months
• -as cell division becomes more specialized, most of the vital organs and bodily systems begin to form in the developing organism, which is now called an embryo
• • Arms, legs, hands, feet, fingers, toes, eyes, and ears are already discernible and beginning to look human
• -a period of great vulnerability because virtually all the basic physiological structures are being formed; Most miscarriages occur during this period and most major structural birth defects also result from problems that occur during the embryonic stage

Question 5

What is the fetal stage?

Answer 5

• -two months through birth
• -muscles and bones begin to form and the developing organism, now called a fetus, becomes capable of physical movements as skeletal structures harden
• -Sex organs start to develop during the third month.
• -A layer of fat is deposited under the skin to provide insulation, and the respiratory and digestive systems mature (changes that ready the fetus for life outside the cosy, supportive environment of its mother’s womb)
• -the age of viability; 22-26 weeks the age at which a baby can survive in the event of a premature birth
• • threshold of viability; 23 weeks and 25 weeks the age at which a baby can survive in the event of a premature birth. 23 weeks (20% survival) 25 weeks (67% survival)

Question 6

What are terratogens?

Answer 6

–any external agents, such as drugs or viruses, that can harm an embryo or fetus

Question 7

How can maternal drug use of heroin and cocaine affect developing fetus?

Answer 7

• -Babies of heroin users are born addicted to narcotics and have an increased risk of early death due to prematurity, birth defects, respiratory difficulties, and problems associated with their addiction
• -Prenatal exposure to cocaine is associated with increased risk of birth complications and a variety of cognitive deficits that are apparent in childhood

Question 8

What is fetal alcohol syndrome disorder (FASD)?

Answer 8

• -a collection of congenital (inborn) problems associated with excessive alcohol use during pregnancy
• • Typical problems include microcephaly (a small head), heart defects, irritability, hyperactivity, and delayed mental and motor development
• -most common known cause of intellectual disability and it is related to an increased incidence of difficulties in school, depression, suicide, drug problems, and criminal behaviour in adolescence and adulthood

Question 9

How can tobacco/smoking affect a developing fetus?

Answer 9

• • increase a mother’s risk for miscarriage, stillbirth, and prematurity, and new- borns’ risk for sudden infant death syndrome
• -Prenatal exposure to tobacco is also associated with slower than average cognitive development, attention deficits, hyperactivity, and conduct problems

Question 10

How does maternal nutrition affect the developing fetus

Answer 10

• -Severe maternal malnutrition increases the risk of birth complications and neurological deficits for the newborn
• -Still, even when pregnant women have ample access to food, it is important for them to consume a balanced diet that includes essential vita- mins and minerals
• -Too much or too little weight gain during gestation is associated with a variety of birth complications, and guidelines for maternal weight gain are based on pre-pregnancy body mass index
• -maternal nutrition continues to affect the newborn during the breastfeeding period

Question 11

How does stress and emotion affect the developing fetus?

Answer 11

• -elevated levels of prenatal stress have been found to be associated with increased stillbirths, impaired immune response, heightened vulnerability to infectious disease, slowed motor development, below-average, cognitive development, and social deficits
• • stressful events can disrupt the delicate hormonal balance that fosters healthy prenatal development

Question 12

How can maternal illness affect the developing fetus?

Answer 12

• -The placenta screens out quite a number of infectious agents, but not all
• -the nature of any damage depends, in part, on when the mother contracts the illness.
• -The transmission of AIDS can occur prenatally through the placenta, during delivery, or through breastfeeding

Question 13

How can environmental toxins affect the developing fetus?

Answer 13

• • prenatal exposure to air pollution has been linked to impairments in cognitive development at age five and increased obesity at age seven
• -exposure to the chemicals used in flame-retardant materials correlates with slower mental and physical development up through age six

Question 14

How is fetal development linked to illness later in adulthood?

Answer 14

• -Evidence suggests that events during prenatal development can “program” the fetal brain in ways that influence the person’s vulnerability to various types of illness
• -prenatal malnutrition has been linked to vulnerability to schizophrenia, which usually emerges in late adolescence or early adulthood
• -Low birth weight has been found to be associated with an increased risk of heart disease many decades later in adulthood
• -Studies have also linked aspects of prenatal development to adults’ risk for depression and bipolar disorders as well as obesity, diabetes, and some types of cancer

Question 15

What are the physical developments in childhood?

Answer 15

– Reflexes
•Some persist throughout life (coughing, blinking, yawning)
•Some weaken or disappear by 7 months (grasping, sucking, stepping (if you hold a baby up the feet will do a stepping motion), startle)
– motor & perceptual develop over time
• Perceptual development (connections between eyes/brain, and processing of visual stimuli is not fully developed) is tied to motor development – in that it requires adequate perception to be able to coordinate movement.
• As our brain (wiring) & perceptual skills improve, our motor abilities also improve
• Early motor development also depends in part on physical growth (maturation -gradual expression of genes) and infants’ ongoing exploration of the world
– Brain development
• At birth, the brain has minimal connections between neurons (dendrites are underdeveloped), the myelin encasing the neurons in the brain is not yet fully formed, and there are extra neurons
• Through the process of development, the dendrites grow to facilitate the connections between the neurons.
•The myelin develops to facilitate neural communication.
•The unused neurons die

Question 16

What are developmental norms?

Answer 16

• • indicate the median age at which individuals display various behaviours and abilities
• -developmental norms are group averages so variations from the average are entirely normal

Question 17

How do cultural variations affect developmental norms?

Answer 17

• -the Kipsigis people of Kenya begin active efforts to train their infants to sit up, stand, and walk soon after birth. Thanks to this training, Kipsigis children achieve these developmental milestones (but not others) about a month earlier than babies in North America
• -In contrast, relatively slow motor development has been found in some cultures that discourage motor exploration. among the Aché, a nomadic people living in the rain forests of Paraguay, safety concerns dictate that chil- dren under three rarely venture more than a metre from their mothers, who carry them virtually every- where. As a result of these constraints, Aché children are delayed in acquiring a variety of motor skills and typically begin walking about a year later than other children
• -Nonetheless, the similarities across cultures in the sequence and timing of early motor development outweigh the differences which suggests that early motor development depends to a considerable extent on maturation

Question 18

What is temperament?

Answer 18

refers to characteristic mood, activity level, and emotional reactivity

Question 19

What is the difference between longitudinal design and cross-sectional design?

Answer 19

• -longitudinal design: investigators observe one group of participants repeatedly over a period of time
• -cross-sectional design: investigators compare groups of participants of differing age at a single point in time
• -For example, in a cross-sectional study, an investigator tracing the growth of chil- dren’s vocabulary might compare 50 six-year-olds, 50 eight-year-olds, and 50 ten-year-olds. In contrast, an investigator using the longitudinal method would assemble one group of 50 six-year-olds and measure their vocabulary at age six, again at age eight, and once more at age ten.
• -longitudinal positives; no cohort effect
• -longitudinal negatives; takes years to complete. Participants often drop out because they move away or lose interest which may produce misleading developmental trends.
• -cross-sectional positives; completed more quickly, easily, and cheaply than longitudinal studies
• -cross-sectional negatives: cohort effect

Question 20

What are cohort effects?

Answer 20

–Cohort effects occur when differences between age groups are due to the groups growing up in different time periods

Question 21

What is the longitudinal study of the development of temperament?

Answer 21

• • well established by the time the infant is two to three months old”
• -The easy child – generally in a positive mood, has regular routines, adapts easily and not readily upset(40%)
• • The slow-to-warm-up child – somewhat negative, less regular in their sleeping and eating with a low mood intensity, low activity level, low adaptability (they don’t get too worked up like the difficult child) (15%)
• • The difficult child – reacts negatively, cries frequently, irregular routine, does not adapt (10%)
• • The remaining 35 percent of the children showed mixtures of these three temperaments
• -According to Chess and Thomas, a child’s temperament at three months was a stable and fair predictor of the child’s temperament at age ten
• -Infants categorized as “difficult” developed more emotional problems requiring counselling than other children did
• -Individual differences in temperament appear to be influenced to a considerable degree by heredity

Question 22

What is attachment and separation anxiety?

Answer 22

• -refers to the close, emotional bonds of affection that develop between infants and their caregivers
• -the first important attachment is usually with the mother, because in most cultures she is the principal caregiver, especially in the early years of life
• -infants’ attachment to their mothers is not instantaneous but by six to eight months of age, they show a preference for her and protest when separated from her
• -separation anxiety: emotional distress seen in many infants when they are separated from people with whom they have formed an attachment. Typically peaks at around 14 to 18 months and then begins to decline.

Question 23

What was the study conducted on monkeys by Harry Harlow to study attachment theory?

Answer 23

• -Harlow removed monkeys from their mothers at birth and raised them in the laboratory with two types of artificial “substitute mothers.”
• -One type of artificial mother was made of terry cloth the could provide contact comfort and the other type of artificial mother was made of wire
• -Half of the monkeys were fed from a bottle attached to a wire mother and the other half were fed by a cloth mother
• -If reinforcement through feeding were the key to attachment, the frightened monkeys should have scampered off to the mother that had fed them. This was not the case. The young monkeys scrambled for their cloth mothers, even if they were not fed by them

Question 24

What attachment theory did John Bowlby propose?

Answer 24

• -According to his view, infants are biologically programmed to emit behaviour (smiling, cooing, clinging, and so on) that triggers an affectionate, protective response from adults
• -Bowlby also asserted that adults are programmed by evolutionary forces to be captivated by this behaviour and to respond with warmth, love, and protection and these characteristics would be adaptive in terms of promoting children’s survival.
• -However, contemporary theorists point out that if parents expect to pass their genes on to future generations, they need to raise their offspring to reproductive age and help them develop the social maturity required for successful mating

Question 25

What did the research by Ainsworth and colleagues find about attachment styles?

Answer 25

• -strange situation procedure; infants are exposed to a series of eight separation and reunion episodes to assess the quality of their attachment.
• -secure attachment (most children); they play and explore comfortably with their mother present, become visibly upset when she leaves because they prefer parent to stranger, and are quickly calmed by her return
• -anxious-ambivalent attachment; show confused or contradictory behaviours. They appear anxious even when their mother is near and protest excessively when she leaves, but they are not particularly comforted when she returns.
• -avoidant attachment: seek little contact with their mother and often are not distressed when she leaves

–disorganized-disoriented attachment; appear confused about whether they should approach or avoid their mother and are especially insecure

Question 26

How do maternal behaviours affect attachment styles?

Answer 26

• -mothers who are sensitive and responsive to their children’s needs are more likely to promote secure attachments than mothers who are relatively insensitive or inconsistent in their responding
• -However, infants also have an important role to play as this process unfolds; difficult infants slow the process of attachment
• -Thus, the type of attachment that emerges between an infant and mother may depend on the nature of the infant’s temperament as well as the mother’s sensitivity

Question 27

How does daycare affect attachment style?

Answer 27

• -For the most part, the evidence suggests that day-care does not have a harmful effect on children’s attachment relationships
• -When mothers are sensitive to their children, the amount and quality of day-care tend to be unrelated to attachment security
• -decreases in attachment security have been seen when mothers are relatively insensitive and their children experience low-quality day-care
• -Some studies suggest that infants with a “difficult” temperament may be particularly vulnerable to the potential negative effects of low-quality day-care

Question 28

How is culture and attachment styles related?

Answer 28

• -attachment is a universal feature of human development. However, studies have found some modest cultural variations in the proportion of infants who fall into the three attachment categories
• -That said, the differences are small and secure attachment appears to be the predominant type of attachment around the world.

Question 29

What are the eight stages of Erik Erikson’s personality development theory?

Answer 29

–According to Erikson, development occurs throughout the lifespan (unlike Freud who thought it ends after adolescence/puberty
–Each crisis involves a struggle between two opposing tendencies (for freud, it was a psychosexual conflict instead of psychosocial)
–Trust versus Mistrust: first year of life- If an infant’s basic biological needs are met by his or her caregivers and attachments are formed, the child should develop an optimistic, trusting attitude toward the world. However, if the infant’s basic needs are taken care of poorly, a more distrusting, pessimistic personality may result
– Autonomy versus Shame and Doubt: second and third years of life. The child must begin to take some personal responsibility for feeding, dressing, and bathing. If all goes well, he or she acquires a sense of self-sufficiency. But, if parents are never satisfied with the child’s efforts and there are constant parent–child conflicts, the child may develop a sense of personal shame and self-doubt
– Initiative versus Guilt: from ages three to six, children experiment and take initiatives that may sometimes conflict with their parents’ rules. Initiative (a sense of ambition & responsibility) develops when parents support their child’s new sense of purpose. Overcontrolling parents may begin to instill feelings of guilt, and self- esteem may suffer.
– Industry versus Inferiority: age six through puberty, the challenge of learning to function socially is extended beyond the family to the broader social realm of the neighbourhood and school. Inferiority develops when negative experiences at home, at school, or with peers lead to feelings of incompetence
– Identity vs. Identity Confusion (Adolescence):
The adolescent tries to answer the question “Who am I, and what is my place in society?” Self-chosen values and vocational goals lead to a lasting personal identity. The negative outcome is confusion about future adult roles.
– Intimacy vs. Isolation (emerging adulthood): Young people work on establishing intimate ties to others. Because of earlier disappointments, some individuals cannot form close relationships and remain isolated
– Generativity vs. Stagnation (adulthood): Generativity means giving to the next generation through child rearing, caring for other people, or productive work. The person who fails in these ways feels an absence of meaningful accomplishment
– Integrity vs. Despair (late adulthood): Individuals reflect on the kind of person they have been. Integrity results from feeling that life was worth living as it happened. Old people who are dissatisfied with their lives fear death

Question 30

What is a stage and what do stage theories assume?

Answer 30

• -A stage is a developmental period during which characteristic patterns of behaviour are exhibited and certain capacities become established
  (1) individuals must progress through specified stages in a particular order because each stage builds on the previous stage, (2) progress through these stages is strongly related to age, and (3) development is marked by major discontinuities that usher in dramatic transitions in behaviour

Question 31

What do nativist and evolutionary theorists suggest about cognitive abilities?

Answer 31

• -The nativists simply assert that humans are prewired to readily understand certain concepts without making any assumptions about why humans are prewired in these ways. Their principal interest is to sort out the complex matter of what is prewired and what isn’t
• -Evolutionary theorists agree with the nativists that humans are prewired for certain cognitive abilities, but they are keenly interested in why (a product of natural selection)

Question 32

What does Jean Piaget say about how children think?

Answer 32

• -Piaget believed that the brain (biological) was the driver that was pushing cognitive development, but he acknowledged that the child needs an environment that would allow this cognitive development to happen (gives the stimulation to allow the development to occur)
• • Children actively construct their cognitive world using schemas to make sense of what they experience.
• • –> Assimilation is when we use our current schemas to interpret the external world, and we incorporate new information into existing schemas. In contrast, accommodation is when we create new schemas or adjust old ones after noticing that our current way of thinking does not capture the environment completely

Question 33

What are Piaget’s different stages of cognitive development?

Answer 33

–Sensorimotor Period; from birth to about age two. •Coordination of sensory input and motor responses;
•The infant progresses from reflexive, instinctual action to symbolic thought (when they are not perceiving something, they can’t create a mental image of it so they think the object/person doesn’t exist once it is out of sight).
• Object permanence allows for the development of symbolic thought
•As children are on the cusp of developing their object permanence, they will search for things that are hidden. At 3 months if you play peek-a-boo, the child will lose interest after you hide yourself because they think you’ve ceased to exist
–Pre-operational period; two to age seven. Development of symbolic thought (through increased/expanded use of language).
• Conservation is Piaget’s term for the awareness that physical quantities remain constant in spite of changes in their shape or appearance.
• Children in this stage will think the same amount of water poured into a taller/slimmer beaker than a wider beaker means there is more water.
• Their inability to understand conservation is due to some basic flaws in:
• centration (tendency to focus on just one feature of a problem, neglecting other important aspects -concentrating on the height of the water while ignoring the width),
• irreversibility (inability to envision reversing an action) -don’t think about what would happen if the water was poured back from the tall beaker into the original beaker, and
• egocentrism (limited ability to share another person’s viewpoint) -asking a girl if her sister has a sister and her saying no (if there are only two sisters) because she doesn’t think from her sisters point of view. A notable feature of egocentrism is animism (the belief that all things are living) -attributing lifelike, human qualities to inanimate objects
–Concrete Operational Period; age 7 to age 11.
• Abstract thinking has not yet developed
• Can master reversibility and decentration.
• Decline in egocentrism and gradual mastery of conservation as it applies to liquid, mass, number, volume, area, and length. Preoperational children can’t handle hierarchical classification problems that require them to focus simultaneously on two levels of classification (describe relations between family members at different levels of the family tree and to distinguish that a particular individual will have multiple roles). Children in this stage however can master this problem.
–Formal Operational Period; begins around 11 years of age. Mental operations, applied to abstract ideas (justice, love, and free will); logical, systematic thinking. According to Piaget, youngsters graduate to relatively adult modes of thinking in the formal operations stage. He did not mean to suggest that no further cognitive development occurs once children reach this stage. However, he believed that after children achieve formal operations, further developments in thinking are changes in degree rather than fundamental changes in the nature of thinking. Children in earlier developmental stages tend to attack problems quickly, with a trial-and-error approach. In contrast, children who have achieved formal operations are more likely to think things through.

Question 34

What are criticisms of Piaget’s theory?

Answer 34

1) underestimated young children’s cognitive development (some cognitive abilities emerge earlier than predicted such as object permanence and symbolic thinking)
- - some cognitive abilities emerge later than predicted (adolescents and even adults do not reason as logically as Piaget proposed)
2) Another problem is that children often simultaneously display patterns of thinking that are characteristic of several stages. This “mixing” of stages and the fact that the transitions between stages are gradual rather than abrupt
3) Piaget underestimated the influence of cultural factors on cognitive development.

Question 35

What are the physiological changes in adolescence?

Answer 35

• -growth spurt; starts at about age 9–10 in girls and 10–12 in boys
• -secondary sex characteristics; physical features that distinguish one sex from the other but that are not essential for reproduction (facial hair and broader shoulders in males, and breast growth and wider hips in females)
• • puberty; the stage during which sexual functions reach maturity, which marks the beginning of adolescence. primary sex characteristics (the structures necessary for reproduction) develop fully. In females, puberty is typically signalled by menarche (the first occurrence of menstruation). North American boys typically experience spermarche—the first occurrence of ejaculation
• • Today’s adolescents begin puberty at a younger age, and complete it more rapidly, than their counterparts in earlier generations
• • The most obvious potential causes are widespread improvements in nutrition and medical care
• • Some theorists also believe that a variety of environmental pollutants serve as “endocrine disrupters” that hasten the onset of puberty
• • Generally, girls who mature early and boys who mature late seem to experience more subjective distress with the transition to adolescence

Question 36

What is the habituation-dishabituation paradigm?

Answer 36

• -Habituation is a gradual reduction in the strength of a response when a stimulus event is presented repeatedly
• -Dishabituation occurs if a new stimulus elicits an increase in the strength of a habituated response.
• -Working mostly with the habituation–dishabituation paradigm, researchers have discovered that infants understand basic properties of objects and some of the rules that govern them
• -At three to four months of age, infants understand that objects are distinct entities with boundaries, that objects move in continuous paths, that one solid object cannot pass through another, that an object cannot pass through an opening that is smaller than the object, and that objects on slopes roll down rather than up. Infants also understand that liquids are different from objects. For example, five-month- old infants expect that liquids will change shape as they move and that they can be penetrated by solid objects

Question 37

What study suggests that cognitive abilities are innate?

Answer 37

• • If five-month- old infants are shown a sequence of events in which one object is added to another behind a screen, they expect to see two objects when the screen is removed, and they exhibit surprise when their expectation is violated
• -this expectation suggests that they under- stand that 1 + 1 = 2
• -Similar manipulations suggest that infants also understand that 2 - 1 = 1, that 2 + 1 = 3, etc
• -infants appear to understand surpris- ingly complex concepts that they have had virtually no opportunity to learn about. These findings have led some theorists to conclude that certain basic cognitive abilities are biologically built into humans’ neural architecture

Question 38

Are there critical periods in development?

Answer 38

• -The term critical period is traditionally used to suggest that if the ability or knowledge is not acquired at that point, it will not be possible to acquire it later.
• -The term sensitive period suggests an optimal period for acquisition but one that does not obviate acquisition at a later point
• -While there seems to be suggestive evidence for critical/sensitive periods in some areas, there is a great deal more to be done before we can generate a firm list of critical periods for human development

Question 39

What is theory of mind, false belief, and introspection?

Answer 39

• • understanding about the mind and mental states, and conceiving another person’s thought processes, knowledge, beliefs, and feelings
• • this theory of mind begins to develop around 3/4
• • Around age two, children begin to distinguish between mental states and overt behaviour (before, they couldn’t understand that people have mental states, or have mental states that are different than theirs). The first mental states they understand are desires and emotions
• -By age three, children are talking about others’ beliefs, thoughts, as well as their desires. It is not until about age four, however, that children understand how people’s beliefs, thoughts, and desires motivate and direct their behaviour.
• -do not yet appreciate that people can hold false beliefs that do not accurately reflect reality
• -four-year-olds are relatively poor at introspection; they struggle when asked to reconstruct their recent thoughts about something, but their capacity for introspection gradually increases over the next several year

Question 40

What is Kohlberg’s moral reasoning stage theory?

Answer 40

–Kohlberg’s theory focuses on moral reasoning rather than overt behaviour
– Key concept is internalization: the developmental change from behaviour that is externally controlled to behaviour that is controlled by internal, self-generated standards, and principles
–pre-conventional level (younger children)
Stage 1: Punishment orientation:
•Children only obey because adults tell them to obey.
•Moral decisions are based on fear of punishment
Stage 2: Reward orientation
•If it gets rewarded, it must be “right.” (a little bit of internalization)
•Moral decisions are based on rewards for behaviour.
•They still have the punishment orientation
–conventional level (older children);
Stage 3: Interpersonal orientation
•Approval/disapproval from close relationships.
•Individuals value trust, caring, and loyalty to others as a basis for moral judgments.
•They’re starting to interact with other important adults or peers and they value approval from others
Stage 4: Social system morality orientation
•Moral judgments are based on understanding the social order, law, justice, and duty.
•These rules must be obeyed by all people at all times
•They’ve internalized all these laws strictly
–post-conventional level (adolescence);
Stage 5: Social contract or utility and individual rights
•Individuals reason that social values (rights and principles) might transcend the law.
•Acknowledging that the law sometimes may not apply (i.e., the law can be fallible).
•Starting to realize this but not yet fully there
Stage 6: Universal ethical principles
•Moral judgments are based on universal human rights.
•Realizing that society is filled with unjust people and laws, and that some laws may not be helping with human rights
•Universal ethical principles such as justice and equality transcend social rules or the law.

Question 41

What are some critiques of Kohlberg’s stage theory?

Answer 41

– Studies have shown that youngsters generally do move through Kohlberg’s stages of moral reasoning in the order he proposed and relations between age and level of moral reasoning are in the predicted directions
–Criticism of this theory: doesn’t account for the power dynamics between parent/child. Parents may not be the best transmitter of moral thinking. Parents contribute little to children’s moral thinking because parent- child
relationships are often too power-oriented
–Moral reasoning does not necessarily mean moral behaviour. We might understand that something is wrong, but that doesn’t always translate to our actions
– critics note that it is not unusual to find that a person shows signs of several adjacent levels of moral reasoning at a particular point in development (this mixing of stages is a problem for virtually all stage theories)
– Evidence is also mounting that Kohlberg’s theory reflects an individualistic ideology characteristic of modern Western nations that is much more culture specific
– Criticized for not accounting for an interpersonal morality (caring for others) – and focusing instead on an intrapersonal morality (the rights of the individual).
–Contemporary theorists note that moral behaviour depends on many factors besides reasoning, including emotional reactions, variations in temperament, and cultural background

Question 42

What are the neural changes in adolescence?

Answer 42

• • brain-imaging studies have shown that the volume of white matter in the brain grows throughout adolescence, while the volume of grey matter declines
• • The growth of white matter suggests that neurons are becoming more myelinated, leading to enhanced connectivity in the brain, whereas the decrease in grey matter is thought to reflect synaptic pruning, which plays a key role in the formation of neural networks
• • increased myelinization and synaptic pruning are most pronounced in the prefrontal cortex. Thus, the prefrontal cortex appears to be the last area of the brain to fully mature. This maturation may not be complete until one’s mid-20s. Theorists have suggested that the immaturity of the prefrontal cortex may explain why risky behaviour peaks during adolescence and then declines in adulthood
• • Studies have also demonstrated that adolescents exhibit heightened sensitivity to various types of rewards, such as the pleasures associated with tasty foods, financial payoffs, psychoactive drugs, and thrilling adventures
• • Thus, the current thinking is that adolescent risk taking is fuelled by a mismatch in the maturation of subcortical reward centres in relation to the prefrontal areas underlying cognitive control

Question 43

What are the statistics on adolescent depression/suicide?

Answer 43

• • depression rates in adolescents can be as high as 20 percent
• • Suicide rates among teens have increased alarmingly over the past few decades
• • It is important to note, however, that even with this increase, the rates for this age group, are lower than for older age groups. This highest rate of suicide in Canada is for those between the ages of 40 and 59
• -Recent analyses of suicide rates have found that ethnic and racial groups differ both in suicide rates and their precipitants
• • suicide rates in First Nations are particularly high
• • Overall, recent consensus of the experts has been that adolescence is not an exceptionally difficult period

Question 44

What is the search for identity in adolescence?

Answer 44

• -Erik Erikson was especially interested in personality development during adolescence, which is the fifth of the eight major life stages he described
• • the premier challenge of adolescence is the struggle to form a clear sense of identity.
• -identity confusion is associated with an increased risk for substance abuse, unprotected sexual activity, anxiety, low self-worth, and eating disorders

Question 45

According to James Marcia, what are the four stages of identity statuses?

Answer 45

• • identity diffusion, a state of rudderless apathy, with no commitment to an ideology
• • Identity foreclosure is a premature commitment to visions, values, and roles—typically those prescribed by one’s parents (associated with conformity and not being very open to new experiences)
• -identity moratorium involves delaying commitment for a while to experiment with alternative ideologies and careers
• • Identity achievement involves arriving at a sense of self and direction after some consideration of alternative possibilities (associated with higher self-esteem, conscientiousness, security, achievement motivation, and capacity for intimacy)
• • However, research suggests that people tend to reach identity achievement at later ages than originally envisioned by Marcia
• • Thus, the struggle for a sense of identity routinely extends into young adulthood

Question 46

How stable are personality traits?

Answer 46

studies show that

(1) there are variations among people in the extent to which they experience personality change,
(2) the biggest changes in raw scores tend to occur between the ages of 20 and 40,
(3) significant changes can even occur in old age, and
(4) the typical developmental trends rep- resent “positive” changes that move people toward great social maturity

Question 47

How do adults adjust to marriage?

Answer 47

• -the divorce rate in Canada increased to 11.5 percent in 2011 from 5.1 percent in 1981
• -the most commonly reported problems being difficulties balancing work and marriage and financial concerns
• -One recent study found that the personality trait of optimism, which involves a general tendency to expect good outcomes, fosters constructive problem solving and marital well-being
• -However, this study found that relationship-specific optimism, which involves idealistic expectations about marriage was associated with less constructive problem solving and steep declines in marital well-being during the first year of marriage. So, it may help to have realistic expectations about marriage.
• -Studies found an association between premarital cohabitation and increased divorce rates
• -One reason may be that cohabitation prior to marriage has gradually become the norm rather than the exception
• • One major source of conflict in many new marriages is the negotiation of marital roles in relation to career commitments. research shows that husbands’ careers continue to take priority over their wives’ career ambitions. Moreover, many husbands maintain traditional role expectations about housework, child care, and deci- sion making. But studies of couples with children indicate that wives are still doing about twice as much housework/ child care as their husbands. This is true even among highly paid and highly stressed female executives.

Question 48

How do adults adjust to parenthood?

Answer 48

• -A survey of Canadian women who recently gave birth indicated that the majority of them found the experience itself to be “very positive”
• -(1) parents exhibit lower marital satisfaction than comparable non- parents, (2) mothers of infants report the steepest decline in marital satisfaction, and (3) the more children couples have, the lower their marital satisfaction tends to be
• • Ironically, the more satisfied couples were prior to birth of their first child, the more their marital satisfaction declined.
• • however further analyses revealed that the average was dragged down by subgroups of parents who experienced steep decreases in satisfaction
• -When youngsters reach ado- lescence and seek to establish their own identities, gradual realignments occur in parent–child relation- ships
• -When conflicts occur, they seem to have more adverse effects on the par- ents than the children

Question 49

What are the physiological changes that occur when aging?

Answer 49

• • In both sexes, hair tends to thin out and become grey, and many males confront receding hairlines and baldness
• -Overall, weight tends to increase in most adults through the mid-50s
• -Evidence suggests that feeling younger than one’s real age is associated with better health and cognitive functioning and reduced mortality risk
• • farsightedness and difficulty seeing in low illumination become more common
• -Hearing loss tends to be greater in men than in women, and for high-frequency sounds more than low-frequency sound
• • menopause: This ending of menstrual periods, accompanied by a loss of fertility, typically occurs at around age 50. Menopause is also accompanied by an elevated vulnerability to depression.
• • good health in old age may be as much about psychological processes as physiological processes

Question 50

What neural changes occur when aging?

Answer 50

• -The amount of brain tissue and brain weight decline gradually in late adulthood, mostly after age 60
• -Dementia is an abnormal condition marked by multiple cognitive deficits that include memory impairment (can be caused by quite a variety of diseases)
• -The prevalence of many of these diseases increases with age
• -Alzheimer’s disease accounts for roughly 60–80 percent of all cases of dementia
• -profound and widespread loss of neurons and brain tissue, especially in the hippocampal region known to play a key role in memory
• • risk is reduced among those who engage in regular exercise and those with lower cardiovascular risk fac- tors, such as absence of high blood pressure and no history of smoking or diabetes, frequent participation in stimulating cognitive activities, and mainte- nance of active social engagement with friends and family
• -As the disease continues, many patients become restless and experience hallucinations, delusions, and paranoid thoughts.
• -Eventually, victims become completely disoriented and are unable to care for themselves
• -Recent evidence also implicates chronic inflammation as a contributing factor

Question 51

What are the cognitive changes when aging?

Answer 51

• -Episodic memory appears to be more vulnerable than semantic memory to age-related decline
• -Many studies indicate that speed in learning, solving problems, and processing information tends to decline with age
• -people who continue to work further into old age, especially people who remain in mentally demanding jobs, tend to show smaller decrements in cognitive abilities than their age-mates
• -three months of sustained engagement in learning new skills (quilting or digital photography) enhanced episodic memory

Question 52

What are the five stages that people go through when confronting their death?

Answer 52

(1) denial, (2) anger, (3) bargaining (with God for more time), (4) depression, and (5) acceptance.

Question 53

How do different cultures view death/dying?

Answer 53

• -Because death is a taboo topic in modern Western society, the most common strategy for dealing with it is avoidance.
• -For example, in Mexican culture, death is discussed frequently and is even celebrated on a national feast day, the Day of the Dead
• -In North America and western European countries, the bereaved are typically encouraged to break their emotional ties with the deceased relatively quickly and to return to their regular routines.
• -In Asian, African, and Hispanic cultures, the bereaved are encouraged to maintain emotional ties to their dead loved ones

Question 54

What are the five patterns of grief?

Answer 54

• -Absent grief or the resilient pattern is characterized by low levels of depression before and after the spouse’s death
• -In chronic grief, low pre-loss depression is followed by sustained depression after the spouse’s death.
• -Common grief is characterized by a spike in depression shortly after the spouse’s death and a decline in depression over time
• -depressed-improved pattern, high pre- loss depression is followed by a relatively quick and sustained decline in depression after the spouse’s death
• -Chronic depression describes those who experience high levels of depression both before and long after spousal loss
• -Surprisingly, absent grief/ resilience is the most common pattern, exhibited by roughly one-half of bereaved spouses.

Question 55

What physiological changes occur during adolescence?

Answer 55

• -secondary sex characteristics; physical features that distinguish one sex from the other but that are not essential for reproduction, such as facial hair and broader shoulders in males, and breast growth and wider hips in females
• -Soon, youngsters reach puberty, the stage during which sexual functions reach maturity, which marks the beginning of adolescence. It is during puberty that the primary sex characteristics (the structures necessary for reproduction) develop fully
• • in females, puberty is typically signalled by menarch, the first occurrence of menstruation,
• • in males, it is signalled by spermarche, the first occurrence of ejaculation
• • Today’s adolescents begin puberty at a younger age, and complete it more rapidly, than their counterparts in earlier generations
• • The most obvious potential causes are widespread improvements in nutrition and medical care, which would probably explain why the trend toward younger puberty has mostly been seen in modern, “developed” countries. Some theorists also believe that a variety of environmental pollutants serve as “endocrine disrupters” that hasten the onset of puberty
• • Generally, girls who mature early and boys who mature late seem to experience more subjective distress with the transition to adolescence
• • However, in both males and females, early maturation is associated with greater use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs; more high-risk behaviour; greater aggression; and more trouble with the law
• • Among females, early maturation is also correlated with a greater risk for eating problems

Question 56

What are the different types of development?

Answer 56

1) Physical processes involve changes in an individual’s biological nature (maturation).
ex. walking, dexterity, coordination, brain development (ex. pruning)
2) Cognitive processes involve changes in an individual’s thought patterns, intelligence, and language (The way we think, problem solving)
3) Social & Emotional processes involve changes in an individual’s relationships with other people, changes in emotions, and changes in personality

•All three are interdependent (grow together)

Question 57

What is the early/late experiences doctrine?

Answer 57

• • Early-experiences doctrine: there is a relatively short period of early development that is crucial, where our “self” or our personality is largely determined and is “set.”
• • Later-experiences doctrine: early experiences are important, but we (our self and our personality) are changeable, based on experience, throughout our lifespan. Thus, early experiences do not dictate how we will be for the rest of our lives

Question 58

How did Field study the effects of massage on premature infants?

Answer 58

• • Fetuses in the womb get a lot of physical stimulation (rhythm from mother’s heartbeat, breathing, physical movement of mom, etc). When babies are born preterm, they are put in these incubators, which means they do not get any physical stimulation unlike if they had stayed in the womb
• • Two conditions: One condition/group was the treatment as control (TAO – they premies get the regular, normal treatment). The other condition (experimental), the premies get the massage multiple times a day
• • Improved weight gain, more active and alert, and performed better on developmental tests (startle response, grasping response, etc)

Question 59

What is Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory?

Answer 59

• -emphasized that social & cultural contexts affect their thinking
• • Infants are endowed with basic perceptual, attention & memory capacities – but with the development of the ability to communicate via language, children are able to participate in dialogue with more knowledgeable individuals who encourage them to master culturally important tasks
• • Zone of achieved: things they can do alone
• • Children’s learning and development takes place within the “Zone of Proximal Development” – a range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to do alone but possible with the help of adults and more skilled peers.
• • Scaffolding occurs when the assistance provided to a child is adjusted as learning progresses

Question 60

How do attachment styles in adulthood develop?

Answer 60

– The attachment style developed in childhood influences adult attachment
– These early experiences and reactions of the infant to the parents become ‘working models’ for later adult relationships. These working models are internalized in the form of unconscious expectations about relationships
1) Secure
Feel comfortable getting close to others; don’t worry about becoming overly dependent; don’t worry about being abandoned
2) Anxious
Desperately want to have a close relationship but have difficulty trusting, and are fearful of abandonment; become jealous and possessive
3) Avoidant
Less interested in close relationship and are less invested in the relationships
– Attachment styles are fairly stable across different relationships (with parents, siblings, friends, significant others, etc.)

Question 61

How does identity develop?

Answer 61

– Identity Status: where we currently are with regard to establishing our sense of identity
– James Marcia proposed four identity statuses based on two dimensions:
•Exploration – whether a person is exploring options in life, such as one’s values and possible careers.
•Commitment – one’s commitment to a specific option (making a decision about a specific path to follow).

• • Identity Diffusion: not yet explored identity possibilities, and not yet made a commitment to a specific identity. Absent exploration and absent commitment
• • Identity Foreclosure: has made a commitment without first adequately exploring possibilities. Present commitment but absent exploration.
• • Identity Moratorium: actively exploring various identity options, and is holding off on making a commitment. Absent commitment but present exploration
• • Identity Achievement: has explored various possibilities and has then made an (educated) choice about an identity to pursue. Present exploration an present commitment.