Development 1 Flashcards
Why can’t we study kids using the same methods we use for adults?
Babies and young children can barely walk, talk, follow instructions, fill
questionnaires, etc.
What are the 2 “camps” of developmental theories?
Nativism (Innate): children are born with specific abilities or will naturally gain them with maturity (e.g., puberty, perceiving colours).
Empiricism (Learned): children must learn certain skills with experience and practice and would never gain them without such exposure (e.g., reading).
What are development theoreis separated as?
Stage-Theories: children develop through a series of universal “stages”; different abilities come from different stages. (styles of theories where they think children develop through discrete steps. Every single person must go through the same series of stages in the same order, and every stage is better than the last. )
Continuous-Theories: development is fluid and continuous and any ability can emerge at any time depending on the child’s own experiences and/or genetics. (this is the much more popular way of thinking about development today. Children can have very dramatically different paths. In one culture you will learn something quickly and another slowly (not the same things in every culture))
What designs do we use to measure change in Developmental psychology?
Cross-Sectional Design: a methodological design where we recruit participants of different ages/cohorts and measure their performance them simultaneously to compare it.
Longitudinal Design: a methodological design where we recruit one group of participants and then sequentially re-test them as they get older, comparing their performance to their past selves.
What is a pro of the cross sectional design? A con?
Pro: quick and (relatively) easy to do.
Con: Cohort Effects: a unique type of third-variable problem in cross-sectional research; differences between the younger and older participants could be attributed to changes in socialization, life events, nutrition, or experience rather than to age itself.
What is a strong cohort effect seen in recent years?
Covid
What is a pro of longitudinal designs? A con?
Pro: removes cohort effects, as the same group of people are tracked over time.
Con: extremely time intensive (we have to wait for people to get older), very expensive, very high “attrition rates” (people dropping out of the study before it is officially done).
What is the reality in regards to study designs in developmental psych?
Developmental psychologists want most studies to be longitudinal, but in reality most are cross-sectional.
What are the 4 tactics used to measure behaviour in children?
- Universal Behaviours: rely on behaviours that everyone has access to (e.g., sucking reflex).
- Looking Preferences: rely on the early maturity of the visual system.
- Searching and Foraging: once children learn to crawl or walk, rely on their
natural tendency towards wanting to explore their environments. - Embedding Into Games: create psychological tasks that resemble games and toys to have children be more likely to engage with them.
Can New borns imitate facial expressions they see?
yes. Within days of birth (they are capable of percieving a face, encoding its expresssion and emulating it
What is new born language preference how is it measured?
Newborn Language Preferences: within hours of birth, babies who hear the language of their parents begin sucking a pacifier harder.
What are the 2 universals in developmental psych?
facial expressions and language preference
What is the looking preference?
a baby can choose to look at one of two things, and a preference for one display over another is measured
What study examined the looking preference?
The Face Preference Study: when newborns are shown two paddles, one that that has three dots arranged so that they resemble a face, they look longer to the paddle that is “face-like”, suggesting an innate preference for faces.
What does habituation measure?
a child’s ability to detect differences between
several stimuli (e.g., human versus primate faces).
How do we use habituation to measure the looking preference?
An infant is shown the same stimulus over and over and over again, while we measure for how long they look at it.
The infant will eventually be bored (”habituated”) and stop looking at that stimulus. At this point, we show the infant a new stimulus that is either very different or only a little bit different from the old one
If the infant can tell the difference, they will recognize it as something new and
look again with high interest (they “dishabituate”). If they cannot, they continue
being bored and not looking at the new stimulus.
What is the number study?
6-month-old infants are shown a display of 6 dots over and over again until they are bored. They will then dishabituate when shown 12 dots (but not 6 dots) suggesting they have a basic sense of number.
what are a common way of researching attention and memory in developmental psych?
Movement and search behaviours
How many objects can toddler’s remember? Does their memory get more precise with age? How does this relate to hide and seek methods for testing memory and attention?
objects are are hidden inside a box, and the toddler is allowed to search the box; by measuring how long they search for we can understand how many objects they think are hidden inside the box.
if you hide objects in a sandbox, the place children search first gets more and more precise with age (i.e., they make smaller and smaller mistakes).
At what age can we create toys and games that are actually psychology measurements in disguise?
3
What happens to the amount of time a child spends exploring a new toy when they are instructed on how to play with it? What does this suggest?
They spend less time. a child is shown a weird toy that has many different parts and things it can do; if an adult shows one function children are likely to just do that and not explore the other things the toy can do.
the child will believe that theres nothing to explore. This suggests that if we want people to explore new spaces, don’t tell them anything about how they actually work.
What is prenatal development?
development that occurs in the ~40 weeks from conception to birth (i.e., while the baby in in the womb). While we will talk about “stages”, prenatal development is continuous and fluid (not in stages).
What are 2 ways in which prenatal development is an important aspect of psychological development?
In the last trimester, fetuses are psychologically active in the womb: fetuses can listen, taste, and experience many things in the womb that alter their preferences once they are born. (there is some degree of change in development and psychological activity that is meaningful to the fetus even once they are born )
Things can go wrong in the womb: many psychological factors that affect later development often begin in the womb (e.g., exposure to alcohol).
What are 2 ways in which prenatal development is an important aspect of psychological development?
In the last trimester, fetuses are psychologically active in the womb: fetuses can listen, taste, and experience many things in the womb that alter their preferences once they are born. (there is some degree of change in development and psychological activity that is meaningful to the fetus even once they are born )
Things can go wrong in the womb: many psychological factors that affect later development often begin in the womb (e.g., exposure to alcohol).
What are teratogens?
What are teratogens?
chemical agents that impair or alter prenatal development (e.g.,
tobacco; alcohol, usually by changing the expression of various genes).
What is fetal alcohol syndrome? What are common symptoms? Are the effects different at different stages? When would the worst outcomes emerge?
a disorder caused by exposure to ethanol alcohol during the prenatal period.
Common symptoms include: low body weight, distinctive facial features, and brain damage.
The exact effects of alcohol are different during different developmental stages and depending on the amount exposed to.
The worst outcomes emerge if alcohol is introduced in the embryotic stage when organs are differentiating.
When do genetic disorders usually emerge?
