Chapters 1-7 Kail + Barnfield Key Words Flashcards
Baby Biographies
Darwin’s theory of selective evolution.
Wrote detailed systematic observations of individual children.
Often subjective, but still paved the way for objective, analytical research.
Applied developmental science
uses developmental research to promote healthy development, particularly for vulnerable children and families
Plato
believed that experience couldn’t not be the source of knowledge because human senses are too fallible.
Children are born with innate knowledge of many concrete objects and abstracts.
Aristotle
Denied innate knowledge;
Knowledge is rooted in perceptual experience;
Locke
The human infant is a tabula rasa - blank slate
Experience molds one into a unique individual
Parents should be strict and relax as the child gets older.
Supported by the Learning Perspective.
Rousseau
Newborns come with an innate sense of justice and morality;
Parents should be receptive to child’s needs.
Maturational Theory
Child development reflects a specific prearranged scheme or plan within the body
Ethological Theory
views development from an evolutionary perspective.
Many behaviours are adaptive and have survival value.
All animals are biologically programmed such that some kinds of learning only occur at certain ages (critical periods)
Critical period
The time when a specific type of learning can take place; before or after the critical period the same learning is difficult or impossible.
Supported by imprinting
Imprinting
Creating an emotional bond with the mother.
The first moving object a chick sees after hatching - they will follow anything
Psychodynamic Theory
Created by Freud using case hitories;
HOlds that development is largely determined by how well people resolve certain conflicts at different ages;
Three components of personality according to Freud
1) Id - a reservoir of primitive instincts and drives
2) Ego - practical, rational component of personality. Emerges in the first year of life.
3) Superego - the ‘moral agent’ in the child’s personality. Emerges during preschool yeras.
Psychosocial Theory - Erikson
Development comprises of stages, each defined by a unique crisis or challenge.
The earlier stages provide a foundation for the later stages.
Classical Conditioning
A previously neutral stimulus can become associated with a naturally occurring response and eventually come to elicit a similar response on its own.
Operant Conditioning
Consequence of a behaviour determines whether or not that behaviour is repeated in the future
Reinforcement
Punishment
Observational learning
AKA imitation
Children sometimes learn without reinforcement or punishment, by simply watching those around them
Social Cognitive Theory
Bobo doll
Example of direct observational learning and that observation doesn’t always lead to imitation
Children are more likely to imitate if they perceive the personal as smart, popular or talented.
Self-efficacy
Experience gives children a sense of self-efficacy - beliefs about their own abilities and talents.
This influences their behaviour.
Cognitive developmental perspective
How children think and how their thinking changes as they grow.
Children naturally try to make sense of the world.
Children are like little scientists - theories and revisions.
Piaget had a four-stage model about how children come to understand the world.
Culture
The knowledge, attitudes and behaviour associated with a group of people.
Contextual perspective
Vygotsky - learn your cultural skills.
Theory of ecological systems
Microsystem - consists of people and objects in the immediate environment;
Mesosystem - created by the connections among the microsystem;
Exosystem - social settings that a person may not experience first-hand but that still influence development;
Macrosystem - the subcultures and cultures in which the microsystem, mesosystem and exosystem are embedded;
These system all change over time, in a dimension known as the CHRONOSYSTEM
Continuity-vs-discontinuity issue
Early development is related to later development.
Continuity = if a child starts on a path, they continue that way
Discontinuity = previous way of being can’t predict the future way of being
It’s a mixture!
Nurture-nature issue
The roles of biology and environment in development
Active-passive child issue
Are children simply at the mercy of their own environment (passive child) or do they actively influence their own development through their unique individual characteristics (active child)?
Passive - Locke’s blank slate
Active - Rousseau’s natural unfolding that takes place within the child.
it goes both ways. Duh.
Parent-child relat is bidirectional.
Systematic observation
Watching children and carefully recording what they do or say.
Naturalistic observation
Children are observed as they behave spontaneously in a real-life situation.
Record predetermined variables.
Structured observation
The researcher creates a setting likely to elicit the behaviour of interest
Observer Bias
Occurs when the researcher tends to notice those behaviours that support the hypothesis and to discount those that do not, or interpret behaviours in such a way that they support the hypothesis.
Observer Influence
Form of participant bias, occurring when the the participants change their behaviour because they are being observed
Habituation
Allows participants to get used to the researcher’s presence
Self-reports
children’s own responses to questions about the topic of interest
Response bias
Some responses may be more socially acceptable than others and participants, particularly children, are more likely to select those than socially unacceptable answers
Validity
A measure has validity if it measures what researchers think it measures.
Consturct validity - if a test measures a theoretical construct tit is supposed to be measuring
Concurrent validity = when two forms of measurement correspond
Samples and population
We are interested in a population, but most studies only test a SAMPLE of that population. Mus tbe careful that the sample is representative.
Correlational study
Relations between variables as they exist in the world.
Correlation coeffecient = -1 - +1 where 0 is unrelated and then negative and positive correlation.
null hypothesis
nothing that they experimenter did has had any effect on anything done as part of the experiment
Longitudinal study
the same children are tested across a span of many years
microgenetic study
Special type of longitudinal design
Children tested repeatedly over a span of days or weeks to observe change directly as it occurs
Cohort effects
When children in a long. study are observed over a period of several years, the developmental change may be particular to a specific generation of people/cohort
Cross-sectional study
Developmental changes are identified by testing children of different ages at one particular point in their development.
Drawback - says nothing about continuity in development
Pro - faster becasue you don’t have to wait for kids to grow up.
Longitudinal sequential study
sequences of samples, each studied longitudinally.
Can determine if the study has cohort effects or practice effects.
Provides information on continuity
6 prototypic designs for experiments
Longitudinal, cross-sectional, longitudinal-sequential
can each be combined with
observational or experimental
quasi-experimental design
Includes multiple groups that were not formed by random assignment.
Help link with improving policy - so better research.
How many chromosomes in a nucleus
46 - 23 pairs
22 pairs are autosomes and the 23rd are sex chromosomes
gene
Each group of nucleotide bases that provides a specific set of biochemical instructions.
Come in different forms, called ALLELES.
genotype
The complete set of genes that makes up a person’s heredity
Phenotype prod by
Genetic instructions as well as env influences
Huntington’s Disease
Fatal disease - progressive degeneration of NS;
Caused by a dominant allele on chromosome 4;
Hemophelia
Sex-linked trait on X chromosome. Recessive, so more common in males;
Down Syndrome
Trisomy 21 - extra chromosome;
Physical differences and intellectual disability;
Behavioural genetics
deals with the inheritance of behavioural and psychological traits;
Often inheritance reflects polygenic traits;
Often use twin studies and adoption studies;
Twin studies
Studies of identical and fraternal twins to measure influence of heredity. If identical twins are more alike than fraternal twins, heredity is implicated.
adoption studies
If a behaviour has genetic roots, then the behaviour of adopted children should be more similar to their biological parents than their adoptive parents.
Reaction Range
the range of phenotypes that the same genotype may produce in reaction to the environment where development takes place.
Could be a matter of developing or not developing a disease. Ex. PKU
Heritability Coefficient
estimates the extent to which differences between people reflect heredity.
.5 would mean that 50% of of the differences in intelligence between people in a group is due to heredity. DOESN’T mean that 50% of an individual’s intelligence is due to genetics.
Niche-picking
The process of deliberately seeking environments that fit one’s heredity;
Non-shared environmental influences
The environmental forces that make siblings different from one another.
Siblings are raised in slightly different environment.
Darwin
His ideas sparked interest in the origins of behaviour in children as well as changes in behaviour over time.
Observation and research to promote healthy development.
Lended to applied developmental science (focus on vulnerable families and children)
Incomplete dominance example
sickle-cell anemia
Turner’s Syndrome
Appear female Short stature High risk of heart disease Skin folds at neck Widely spaced nipples
Way’s to treat genetic disorders
- In-utero surgeries
- Delivery of drugs/hormones
- Bone marrow transplants
- Surgical repair
- Routine screening for PKU and other metabolic disorders
The Epigenetic View
- Heredity and multiple levels of the env interact dynamically throughout development
- Our experiences are influenced by timing of when our genes are expressed.
- The timing of our genetic expression can be influenced by experience.
Period of the zygote
Weeks 1-2
Fertilized egg in fallopian tube to implantation in the wall of the uterus;
Period of the embryo
weeks 3-8
Once blastocyst is completely embedded int he uterine wall;
Body structure and internal organs developing;
transition from salamander to little person;
Period of the fetus
9-38 weeks;
Growth initially v rapid and then slows in final weeks;
Finishing touches on body systems;
Brain growth, specifically cerebral cortex;
age of viability
22-28 weeks
fetus can survive outside the uterus
when does fetal movement begin?
4thmonth
Nutritional risk factors
mother need enough folic acid to prevent spina bifida - embryo’s neural tube doesn’t close propoerly
teratogen
any agent that causes abnormal prenatal development
nicotine
risk factor that increases risk of miscarriage, prematurity, low birth weights, respiratory problems, ADHD, SIDS
