Chapter one: organizing Themes in Development Flashcards
life span development:
human behavioral change from conception to death. “Behavioral” change refers broadly to change in both observable activity (e.g., from crawling to walking) and mental activity (e.g.,
from disorganized to logical thinking).
1. describes ppl’s BX
2. identify how people are likely to respond to life’s experiences at different ages,
3. formulate theories that explain how and why we see the typical characteristics
and responses that we do,
4. understand what factors contribute to developmental differences from one person
to another, and
5. understand how behavior is influenced by cultural context and by changes in culture across generations.
Reflective practice.
The idea of “reflectivity” derives from Dewey’s (1933/1998)
View of education, which emphasized careful consideration of one’s beliefs and forms of knowledge as a precursor to practice.
Freud’s psychoanalytic theory
The complex functioning of the adult personality and offers an explanation of the processes and progress of its development throughout childhood.
id,
is the biological self, the source of all psychic energy.
The id
blindly pursues the fulfillment of physical needs or “instincts,” such as the hunger drive and the sex drive.
pleasure principle,
by the
pursuit of gratification. Its function is to keep the individual, and the species, alive,
although Freud also proposed that there are inborn aggressive, destructive instincts
served by the id.
The ego
begins to develop as cognitive and physical skills emerge.psychic energy is invested in these skills, and a rational, realistic self begins
to take shape.
reality principle
garnering your understanding of the world and of behavioral consequences to devise a more
sensible and self-protective approach, such as waiting until you arrive at the ice cream
store yourself and paying for an ice cream cone.
The superego
the last of the three aspects of personality to emerge. Psychic
energy is invested in this “internalized parent” during the preschool period as children begin to feel guilty if they behave in ways that are inconsistent with parental
restrictions.
psychosexual stages
believed that changes in the id and its energy levels initiated
each new stage. The term sexual here applies to all biological instincts or drives and
their satisfaction, and it can be broadly defined as “sensual.”
oral stage,
corresponding to the first year of
life, Freud argued that the mouth is the body part that provides babies with the most pleasure. Eating, drinking, and even nonnutritive sucking are presumably more satisfying than at other times of life.
oral fixation:
might grow up needing oral pleasures more than most adults, perhaps leading to overeating, to being especially talkative, or to being a chain smoker. The grown woman might also exhibit this fixation in more subtle ways, maintaining behaviors or feelings in adulthood that are particularly characteristic of babies, such as crying easily or experiencing overwhelming feelings of helplessness.
critical (or sensitive) periods
for personality development. That is, they are time frames during which certain
developments must occur or can most fully form.
Oral stage
0-3 years
Anal Stage
1- 3 yrs.
Anal area is the source of greatest pleasure. Harsh or overly indulgent toilet training can cause an “anal fixation,” leading to later adult traits that recall this stage, such as being greedy or messy.
Phallic stage
Genitalia are the source of greatest pleasure. Sexual desire directed toward the opposite-sex parent makes
the same-sex parent a rival. Fear of angering the same-sex parent is resolved by identifying with that par-
ent, which explains how children acquire both sex-typed behaviors and moral values. If a child has trouble
resolving the emotional upheaval of this stage through identification, sex role development may be deviant or moral character may be weak.
Latency
6 -puberty yrs.
Relatively quiescent period of personality development. Sexual desires are repressed after the turmoil of the
last stage. Energy is directed into work and play. There is continued consolidation of traits laid down in the
first three stages.
Genital
Puberty through adulthood
At puberty, adult sexual needs become the most important motivators of behavior. The individual seeks to fulfill needs and expend energy in socially acceptable activities, such as work, and through marriage with a partner who will substitute for the early object of desire, the opposite-sex parent.
psychosocial stages ( Erikson)
Trust vs. Mistrust 0-1
Child develops a sense that the world is a safe and reliable place because of sensitive caregiving.
see page 32 pdf Table 1.2
Piaget’s cognitive development theory
that children’s reasoning and understanding emerges naturally in stages and that parents and educationtors can help most by allowing children freedom to explore their environments and
by giving them learning experiences that are consistent with their level of ability.
sensorimotor stage
Birth to 2 Through six substages, the source of infants’ organized actions gradually shifts. At first, all
organized behavior is reflexive—automatically triggered by particular stimuli. By the end of this
stage, behavior is guided more by representational thought.
see page 33 pdf table 1.3
(hierarchical inte-
gration)
The simpler patterns of physical or mental activity at one stage become integrated into more complex organizational systems at the next stage
a self-organizing
suggests that children (and adults) build
knowledge and understanding in a self-organizing way.
They interpret new experiences and information to fit their current ways of understanding even as they make
some adjustments to their understanding in the process.
constructivist
children actively build their knowledge, using both existing knowledge and new information.
classical conditioning
Some learning theories explain behavioral change as a function of chains of specific environmental events,
respondent conditioning/ Classical
is an automatic response to a stimulus. For example, when you hear an unexpected
loud noise you will automatically produce a startle response. This stimulus/response
association is unconditioned, built-in to your biological system. But the response can
be conditioned to a new, neutral stimulus. Suppose a child calmly watches a dog
approach her. At first, sight of the dog is a neutral stimulus. But the dog suddenly
barks loudly, causing the child to automatically startle and pull back. Suppose that the
next time the child sees the dog, it does not bark. Even so, just the sight of the dog triggers the same response as loud barking would: The child automatically startles and
pulls back. The child has learned a new response, because the formerly neutral event (sight of dog) has been paired with an event (loud barking) that automatically causes
a startle. Perhaps the startle reaction is also accompanied by feelings of fear. If so, the
child has learned to fear this dog and will likely generalize that fear to other, similar
dogs.
conditioned stimulus,
When a neutral event or stimulus is associated with a stimulus that causes an automatic response, the neutral stimulus.
meaning that it can cause the person to make the same automatic response in the future, called a conditioned response.
operant
First, a person performs some behavior. The behavior is an operant, any act with potential to lead to consequences in the environ-
ment (that is, to “operate” on the environment).
“reinforcing event,” or reinforcement,
A reinforcement is a consequence of the oper-
ant behavior that maintains or increases the likelihood of that behavior when the cue
occurs again
Positive reinforcement
Something pleasurable is presented after the operant occurs.
negative reinforcements:
An aversive
experience stops or is removed after the operant occurs.
example: If your brother releases you from a painful hammer-hold when you yell “Uncle,” you have been negatively rein-
forced for saying “Uncle” (the operant) in that situation.
Social learning theories,
focused specifically on how children acquire personality characteristics and social skills, consider conditioning processes part of
the story, but they also emphasize “observational learning,” or modeling.
modeling
one person (the learner) observes another (the model) performing some behavior, and just from close observation, learns to do it too. The observer may or may not imitate the modeled behavior, immediately or in the future, depending on many
factors, such as whether the observer expects a reward for the behavior, whether the model is perceived as nurturing or competent, and even whether the observer believes that the performance will meet the observer’s own performance standards.
generalization.
new events are experienced that are very similar to events in the
original learning context, the learned behaviors may be extended to these new events.
For example, the child who learns to say “da” when a particular dog appears may do
the same when other dogs appear, or even in the presence of other four-legged animals.
information processing theories
can be strictly classified as incremental theories, but many can. Like learning theories, these do not hypothesize broad stages,
but emphasize incremental changes in narrow domains of behavior or thought.
The
mind works on information—attending to it, holding it in a temporary store or “work-
ing memory,” putting it into long-term storage, using strategies to organize it or to draw
conclusions from it, and so on. How the information is processed depends on general characteristics of the human-computer, such as how much information can be
accessed, or made available for our attention, at one time. These characteristics can change to some
degree over time.
multidimensional or systems theories
explain and describe the enormous complexity of interrelated causal processes in development. They generally assume that in all behavioral domains, from cognition to personality, there are layers, or levels, of interacting causes for change: physical/molecular, biological, psychological, social, and cultural.
bidirectional processes.
the relationships among causes are reciprocal.
The boy’s success at wrestling
may cause his status and social dominance to rise among his male friends (social change), and this social change can reciprocally influence his biological functioning.
Specifically, it can lead to additional increases in his testosterone levels
bioecological theory
2006) described all devel-
opments—including personality and cognitive change—as a function of proximal pro-
cesses.
proximal processes.
reciprocal interactions between an “active, evolving biopsychological human organism and the persons, objects and symbols in its immediate external environment” (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998, p. 996).
In other words, proximal processes refer to a person’s immediate interactions with people or with the physical environment or with informational sources (such as books or movies).
distal processes.
Some of these are within the organism—such as genes. Others are outside the immediate envi-
ronment—such as features of the educational system or of the broader culture.
demand characteristics,
behavioral tendencies that often either encourage or discourage certain kinds of reactions from others.
A child who is shy and inhibited,
a trait that appears to have some biological roots (Kagan & Fox, 2006), may often fail to
elicit attention from others, and may receive less support when she needs it, than a child
who is open and outgoing
microsystem.
the immediate environment, where proximal processes are played out,
Babies interact primarily with family members, but as children get older, other
microsystems, such as the school, the neighborhood, or a local playground and its inhabitants, become part of their lives. The microsystems interact with and modify
each other.
mesosystem
The full set of relationships among the microsystems is called the mesosystem.
exosystem,
includes settings that children may not directly interact with
but that influence the child nonetheless. For example, a teacher’s family life will
influence the teacher and thereby the child. Or a child’s socioeconomic status influences where her family lives, affecting the school the child will attend, and thus affecting the kinds of experiences the child has with teachers.
macrosystem,
including the customs and character of the larger culture that help shape the microsystems. For example, cultural attitudes and laws regarding the education of exceptional students influences the operation of a school and therefore a
child’s interactions with teachers.
In life span developmental theories,
the same developmental processes that produce
the transformation of infants into children, and children into adults, are thought to continue throughout adulthood until death. Developmental change is part of what it means to be alive. Adaptation continues from conception to death, with proximal interactions between the organism and the immediate context modified by more distal processes both within the individual and in the environment.
Neuroplasticity
refers to changes in the brain that occur as a result of some practice
or experience.
sociocultural theories,
which trace their roots to the work of Lev Vygotsky
(e.g., 1934, 1978; see Chapter 3), argue that cognitive developments may be qualitatively different in different cultures
racial groups,
like Blacks, Whites, and Asians, were
considered to be due to heredity, identifiable primarily by skin color, but also by variations in hair, bone structure, or other physiological markers. The assumption was that
these superficial markers were indicators of deeper biological differences. But the range
of genetic differences within groups is actually equal to or greater than those between
racial groups (Richeson & Sommers, 2016). Racial groupings are now usually seen as
social constructions, founded on superficial characteristics that change across time and
circumstance (Saperstein, Penner, & Light, 2013).
culture
includes a community’s shared values, rituals, psychological processes, behavioral norms, and practices
socioeconomic status (SES),
from race and ethnic/cultural distinctions. Socioeconomic status
is based on social standing or power, and is defined by characteristics of the adults in
a household, including educational background, income, and occupation.
Translational research,
“from bench to bedside” (Woolf, 2008),
is the term commonly used to describe the spectrum of steps
involved in this process. Originating from within the field of medicine, translational research starts with basic questions about mechanisms of action and translates knowledge
gleaned from laboratory studies, which sometimes use animal models, into interventions with humans.
epigenetics
can inform
many questions about attachment in early childhood. A key feature of translational research, called back translation, describes the recursive process of applying research find-
ings to real-world settings, making revisions based on evi-
dence, and then reassessing.
Primary prevention
is an attempt to forestall the development of problems by promoting health and wellness in the general population through
group-oriented interventions.
example,
Requiring mandatory vaccinations for children or providing developmental guidance activities in schools might constitute primary prevention
activities.
Secondary prevention
is an attempt to reduce the
incidence of disorders among those who are at high risk or
to provide treatment to forestall the development of more serious psychopathology in cases that are already established. Programs developed to identify students at risk for dropping out of school and to provide them with remedial
programs might be examples of secondary-level prevention.
Tertiary prevention
is directed
toward rehabilitating persons with established disorders.
Universal prevention
directed to the general population.
Selective prevention
targets individuals at some epidemiological risk, such as
low-birth-weight babies.
Indicated prevention
addresses individuals who show subclinical symptoms of disorders,
such as children whose behavioral problems are not yet
serious enough to warrant a diagnosis of conduct disorder.
developmental
psychopathology,
offering clinicians a unique perspective on dysfunctional behavior by integrating work from many disciplines, including developmental psychology, clinical
psychology, abnormal psychology, biology, and genetics.
protective factors,
The individual’s strengths and the environment’s sup-
ports, helping to promote healthy
outcomes;
risk factors
the individual’s vulnerabilities and the environmental stressors she experiences are risk factors that can interfere with healthy development.
mediating variables
Suppose that
one factor appears to be a cause of some behavioral out-
come.
Moderating variables
are those that affect the strength of
the relationship between other variables
They interact with causal factors, altering and some-
times even eliminating their effects on outcome variables.
For example, researchers have found that not all adults
exposed to early poverty are characterized by a “pro-
inflammatory profile” (Chen, Miller, Kobor, & Cole, 2011).
Adults who suffered chronic early poverty but who report
having a warm, supportive relationship with their mothers in childhood often have normal immune system functioning. Warm mothering appears to be a protective factor
that moderates the impact of early poverty, a risk factor.
endophenotypes
as mediators and moderators.
Endophenotypes are biobehavioral processes that can be traced
to genes. These processes serve as intermediary links between
the actual genes that contribute to disorders and their expressed behavioral manifestations.
principle of multifinality
is that individual pathways of development may result in
a wide range of possible outcomes. For example, children
exhibiting conduct-disordered behavior in the elementary
school years may, as adults, display one or more of sev-
eral different disorders, including antisocial personality,
depression, substance abuse, and so on.
principle of equifinality
specifies that different early develomental pathways can produce similar outcomes.
prevention science,
which aims at design-
ing and testing prevention and intervention techniques for
promoting healthy development in at-risk groups. Devel-
opmental psychopathologists also emphasize the value of
studying individuals at the extremes of disordered behavior, for the purpose of enlightening us about how developmental processes work for everyone.