Dan & Clarie Learning Pack 2 Flashcards
1
Q
When does stranger fear develop?
A
- Emerges at 6 months, increasing throughout infancy
- Remains dominant in toddlerhood
- It is a normal behaviour
2
Q
What is the evolutionary. perspective on the development of stranger fear?
A
- Thought to offer balance to infants’ natural inquisitive nature for approach and exploration
- Contributes to healthy attachment systems (Ainsworth, 1973)
3
Q
What is the strange situation?
Mary Ainsworth
A
- Designed to assess the quality of attachment between the infant and primary caregiver
- Various stages of the infant being left with both mother and stranger, stranger alone, mother alone, completely alone
- Can also tell us about stranger fear
4
Q
What happens in the strange situation with stranger anxiety: Secure attachment
A
Avoidant of stranger when alone, but friendly when the mother is present
5
Q
What happens in the strange situation with stranger anxiety: Resistant attachment
A
The infant avoids the stranger –> shows fear of the stranger
6
Q
What happens in the strange situation with stranger anxiety: Avoidant attachment
A
The infant is okay with the stranger and plays normally when the stranger is present
7
Q
Relationship between behavioural inhibition and stranger fear
A
- Temperament research shows stranger fear to be a clear and reliable marker for heightened behavioural inhibition
- Behavioural inhibition is a risk factor for the development of anxiety (Kagan, 2000; Kagan et al., 1987)
8
Q
How do children self-regulate stranger fear?
A
- The ability to self regulate is one of the best early indicators of future socioemotional competence and health
- Includes the ability to regulate fear-related action
- Generally assumed that children expand and use their repertoire of executive processes to regulate prepotent responses
9
Q
What is self-regulation?
A
- A fundamental and dynamic process to engage executive processes to reduce prepotent responses - Executive processes refers to emotional/cognitive control
- Prepotent responses refers to automatic emotional reactions
10
Q
Do prepotent responses decay overtime, or do executive processes develop and become more effective?
A
Morales et al. (2017)
- Found that there is a critical period between 2-5 years of age where children become faster at reducing their prepotent responses, and more effective at employing their executive processes
11
Q
Examples of psychological abuse
A
- Spurning - ridiculing or humiliating
- Terrorising - threatening violence against child or child’s loved one
- Isolating - restricting social interactions
- Corruption/exploitation - involving in illegal activities
- Denying emotional responses - providing no praise
Psychological abuse is difficult for clinicians to detect and assess
12
Q
What are the conflicting motivational systems for children who experience abuse
A
Children who grow up with abuse often face conflict between two inborn and powerful dispositions
- The tendency to ask for soothing and help (regulated by the attachment system)
- The impulse to protect themselves through fight-flight responses (regulated by the survival defence system)
- Fright without solution (Main and Hesse, 1990)
13
Q
What is the polyvagal theory?
Porges (2007)
A
- Dorsal nucleus of the vagal nerve is activated for both
1. Impending danger when fight/flight is impossible
and
- Attachment system is activated, but help might not come
- Dorsal nucleus activation can lead to symptoms associated with the development of dissociation:
1. collapsed body posture
2. Loose muscular tone
3. Low heart beat
4. Numbing
5. Deep feeling of helplessness
14
Q
HPA axis functioning in children
A
- Higher morning cortisol levels in sexually abused girls aged 6-15, within 6 months of trauma
- Elevated salivary cortisol in 6 to 12 year old children raised in orphanages for > 8 months, compared to children 6 and a half years post-adoption
15
Q
What is theory of mind?
A
- Our ability to interpret others’ behaviour in terms of mental states (e.g. thoughts, intentions, desires, beliefs)
16
Q
Relationship between childhood trauma and theory of mind
A
Children with severe traumatic brain injury show poor executive functions and theory of mind
17
Q
What is risk?
A
- Stressors that have proven or presumed effects on increasing the likelihood of maladjustment
18
Q
What is resiliience?
A
- The experience of positive outcomes despite experiencing significant risk
Children must experience:
- Exposure to threat or severe adversity
- Achievement of positive adaptation
19
Q
What is the cumulative risk theory?
A
- The sum of risks (regardless of context) leads to dysfunction
- Overwhelms adaptive capacities of the child
20
Q
Protective/Vulnerability factors: Personal characteristics
A
- Older evidence suggests young boys are at greater risk of maladaptive responding to family issues than young girls
- New evidence suggests that modern fathers are more involved post separation/divorce
- Positive constellation of characteristics appears to counteract risk effects:
1. Easy temperament
2. Social responsiveness
3. Humour
21
Q
Protective/Vulnerability factors: Family characteristics
A
- Secure parent-child attachment
- Authoritative parenting with appropriate amounts of structure and discipline
- Family-level resources such as cohesion, positive interactions and support
22
Q
Protective/Vulnerability factors: External support systems
A
- Reciprocal, positive friendships
- High-quality child care is a protective factor for children living in low-income areas
- Supportive teachers
- Community extra-curricular actiivities
23
Q
What are Masten and Powell’s (2003) intervention designs for bolstering resilience?
A
- Risk-focused programs
- Attempt to reduce the level of risk - Asset-focused programs
- Increase the quality/quantity of assets in children’s lives - Process-orientated programs
- Attempt to improve the most important adaptational systems for children such as key relationships, intellectual functioning, and self-regulation systems
24
Q
What is the study of ageing called?
A
Gerontology
25
What are the 3 major factors that interact to form our own personal experiences throughout life?
1. Biological - physiology, genetics
2. Psychological - cognition, emotion, personality
3. Social - cultural, interpersonal relationships
26
What are the 4 principles of ageing?
1. Continuity - early experiences influence later life
2. Survivor - self-selection through healthy behaviour
3. Individuality - variation within (intra) and between (inter) age groups
4. Health vs. pathology - 'normal' and pathological ageing involve fundamentally different processes
27
What is primary ageing
- Gradual and inevitable
- Biological
- Starts in early adulthood
- Genetic/pre-programmed coding
- Intrinsic
- Progressive deterioration in physical structure and biological function
- Independent of disease and environment
- Skin wrinkling
- Hair loss/greying
- Cardiovascular changes
28
What is secondary ageing
- Not inevitable or experienced by everyone
- Environmental and disease-related
- Habits/behaviour largely under your own control
- Alters life expectancy
- Skin + eye damage/sun exposure
- Hearing/loud music
- Smoking: cardiovascular disease
- Obesity/diet
- Lack of physical activity: reduced bone density/osteoporosis
- Alcohol/drug use: cognitive decline
- Neurodegenerative diseases: Dementia
29
Social factors of the ageing process: Sex and Gender
- The prevalence of deficits is often different for males and females
- Oestrogen influences women's cognition, risk of heart disease and bone loss (minimum pre-menopause)
- Sex differences can produce restricted education and employment opportunities that lead to low earnings
30
Social factors of the ageing process: Socioeconomic status
- Rank in society: Based on education/occupation
| - Lower end is associated with poor health
31
Social factors of the ageing process: Race/ethnicity
- Minority groups (south asian and Caribbean) have a higher chance of heart attack/stroke
- May be based on culture and socioeconomic factors as opposed to biology
32
Social factors of the ageing process: Relationships
- Protective value of a support network i.e. family, partner, friends
33
Social factors of the ageing process: Religion
- Social support extends lifespan
34
Social models of development: Ecological systems perspective
Bronfenbrenner (1989)
- How you interact with various different types of environmental influence, depending on their proximity to you as an individual
35
What are the 5 levels of the 'environment' in the Ecological systems perspective of development
1. Microsystem - daily interactions, most direct impact
2. Mesosystem - interactions of one or two more microsystems e.g. difficulty at home affecting work
3. Exosystem - workplace, extended family
4. Macrosystem - social norms, indirect influence through the exosystem
5. Chronosystem - change in systems over time
36
Social models of development: The life course perspective
Bengston and Allen (1993)
- Increased importance of social context, norms, roles and attitudes
- Reaching age-related milestones is called the 'social clock'
- It is distressing to be 'off-time' and may make it seem like you're not developing in the appropriate time frame
37
What is ageism?
- Stereotyping old people
- Negative
- Loss of utility to society
- Can lead younger people to avoid close proximity to older people
- Exposure to ageism can impact upon physical health
38
What are the psychological factors of the ageing process?
1. Memory loss
- Many aspects are largely preserved (procedural and semantic) but others decline (episodic and working memory)
2. Reaction time
- Slower, intra-individual variation
3. Attention
- Less efficient inhibitory mechanisms, unable to suppress stimuli that represent distractions
39
Psychological models of development: Erikson's psychosocial theory (1963)
- 8 stages which indicate how individuals adapt within the context of events that take place across the lifespan
- Importance in later stages
Stage 6: young adulthood as intimacy vs. isolation, commitment or non-commitment to close relationships and development as a result of that choice
Stage 7: middle adulthood as generativity vs. stagnation, issues of procreation and productivity
Stage 8: later adulthood as ego vs despair, accepting past experiences and the end of life
40
Psychological models of development: Piaget's cognitive developmental theory
Cognitive change driven by experience of engaging with the environment
41
Psychological models of development: Continuity theory
Atchley (1989)
Individuals tackle new challenges with adaptive strategies based on past experiences
42
Psychological models of development: Disengagement theory
Cumming and Henry (1961)
Turning inwards, distancing from society, old roles/expectations, often triggered by retirement
43
Biological factors of the ageing process: Appearance
Skin:
- Winkles, discolouration
- Elastin becomes less able to return to normal shape
Hair:
- Greying/loss of pigment
- Melanin production stops
- Thinning, pattern balding/hair loss
44
Biological factors of the ageing process: Body build
- Loss of lean tissue and increase in body fat
| - People get shorter due to loss of bone material in the vertebrae
45
Biological factors of the ageing process: Cardiovascular system
- Walls of left ventricle lose ability to contract
46
Biological factors of the ageing process: Respiratory system
- Lung tissue is less able to expand/contract
47
Biological factors of the ageing process: Endocrine system
- Regulates organ systems and hormones
1. Change in body composition e.g. bone, fat, muscle mass
- Due to lack of growth hormone production
2. Rate of metabolism slows
- Due to lack of thyroid-stimulatiing hormone
3. Sleep dysregulation
- Due to decline in melatonin
48
Biological factors of the ageing process: Immune system
- Regulates resilience to illness
| - Loss of efficiency in t-cells and b-cells
49
Biological factors of the ageing process: Central Nervous System
- Change in information processing and responses to stimuli
| - Due to volume of hippocampus, deterioration of frontal lobes, white matter hyperintensities
50
Biological factors of the ageing process: Balance
- Prevalence of falls
| - Linked to poor vision and depth perception
51
Biological factors of the ageing process: Smell and taste
- Number of receptors decreases throughout adulthood
52
Biological factors of the ageing process: Somatosensory
- Loss of discriminative touch, pressure/location of stimuli
53
What are the programmed ageing theories of development?
- Ageing and death are part of the genetic code
1. Hayflick limit (Hayflick 1977; 1987)
- Ultimate limit on length of life but compensatory factors can be used to alter the timing of events
2. Autoimmune theory (Waldford, 1969)
- Immune system malfunction
- Eventually ends up attacking cells of our own body
3. Genetically programmed senescence (Buss, 1999)
- Reduced ability of cells to divide
- Loss of protective part of the chromosome (telomeres) over time, leaving DNA vulnerable
4. Terminal drop (Kleemeier, 1962)
- Physical and cognitive functions only decline dramatically prior to death
54
What are the random error theories of development?
- Age reflects unplanned changes, 'wear and tear'
1. Cross-linking theory (Tice and Setlow, 1985)
- Collagen fibres become rigid as strands bind to each other
2. Free radical theory (Harman, 1956)
- Unstable oxygen molecules are left over from when cells create energy
- Molecules that. bind with these free radicals lose function
55
What do we mean by young adulthood?
- 18-40
- There is an 'emerging adulthood' at late teens-early 20s as a transition period
- Setting up your developmental trajectory
- Compensation through lifestyle choices: attenuating the effects of primary ageing and attempting to prevent aspects of secondary ageing
56
What are things that lead to good health/ageing in young adulthood?
- Being optimistic
| - Experiencing positive emotions and behaviours such as adequate exercise and following medical advice
57
What are things that lead to bad health/ageing in young adulthood?
- Anger
- Hostility
- Pessimism
- Depression
- Social isolation
- Hopelessness
- Lack of exercise
- Poor diet
- Smoking and substance abuse
58
Biological changes in young adulthood: Brain changes
- Development of inhibitory processes as frontal lobes become fully formed
- We begin to see volume loss, which produces slower information processing
- Production of new neurons is driven by physical exercise and environmental stimulation
59
Biological changes in young adulthood: Reproduction
- Reduced ability to conceive
- Higher miscarriage rates
- IVF options
60
Biological changes in young adulthood: Heart and lungs
VO2 max 1% decline per year rom age 35
61
Biological changes in young adulthood: Immune system
- Failure to fight off disease
| - Linking social support to the immune system/response to stress
62
Psychological changes in young adulthood: Intimacy vs Isolation
- Engage in a supportive affectionate relationship without losing a sense of self
- New life structure e.g. from child/sibling to husband/wife/ partner
- Single people are less healthy and satisfied
- But perhaps more scope for autonomy/personal growth
63
Psychological changes in young adulthood: Mental health
- Emotional disturbance is highest at 18-24 years old
- High expectations from spouse, parent worker etc
- Greater fear of failure (bio-psycho-social impact)
- Anxiety and depression are most common
64
Psychological changes in young adulthood: Decision making
Dealing with abstract concepts as opposed to those that are straightforward
65
Psychological changes in young adulthood: IQ
- Dip during mid-30s but not in all aspects
- Fluid intelligence declines
- Crystallised intelligence (based on skills) is stable
66
Psychological changes in young adulthood: Creativity
- Peak productivity at 30-35
| - Most innovative/groundbreaking work is conducted at this age
67
Social changes in young adulthood: Parenthood
- Stressful but emotional high point
- Delayed due to career development
- Single parent --> having a child can prevent career progression
68
Social changes in young adulthood: Occupation
- Choosing a career
- Committing to a future
- Are you choosing for financial reward or for service to the community
- Job satisfaction rises from early adulthood to retirement
- Dependent on job security/ work-life balance
69
Social changes in young adulthood: Social network
- New relationships formed
- Detachment from family (based on proximity)
- Familial relationships still remain important, particularly for African Americans
- Reduced number of friends by middle adulthood
