Development Flashcards
What is development?
Study of continuity and change across life span, from conception/birth to adolescence to adulthood.
Process of fertilization
200 million sperm travels through the vagina and uterus to the Fallopian tubes. There, 1 in every million get close enough to release enzymes that breaks down the protective layer of the egg. The egg reseals this layer, and the sperm sheds its tail and fertilizes it.
Zygote
Fertilized egg that contains chromosomes from both an egg and a sperm. XX = Female and XY = Male
Germinal stage
2 weeks after conception. The zygote divides into trillions of cells, and migrates and implants itself in the uterus. Once it’s implanted, it’s called an embryo.
Embryonic stage
2nd week -> 8th week.
Embryo continues to divide and cells undergo differentiation. It becomes an inch long and has a beating heart and arms and legs. By 3rd or 4th week after conception, cells that become brain are already dividing.
What do embryos with XY chromosomes do in the embryonic stage?
Produce testosterone to masculinize reproductive organs
Fetal stage
9th week-birth.
Develops skeleton, muscles and ability to move; thick insulting layer of fat beneath skin; maturing of digestive and respiratory systems; and brain is developing, neurons undergoing myelination.
Why does 75% of brain development occur outside the womb?
Otherwise, the head would be too big for the baby to exit the birth canal safely
Prenatal environment
Bloodstreams of mother and embryo/fetus are linked; permits exchange of chemicals.
Teratogens
Substance that passes from mother to unborn child that impairs development (e.g. environmental poisons like lead, alcohol which can cause abnormalities, tobacco which can cause death/low birth weight, caffeine in excess and sugar which can lead to diabetes mellitus)
Infancy stage
Birth to 18-24 months - this range is determined by developmental milestones.
What is perception like in the infancy stage?
Limited range of vision, but visually responsive. Attentive to social stimuli; mimic facial expressions.
What is motor development like in the infancy stage?
Ability to execute physical actions. Born with reflexes, which are patterns of motor responses triggered by patterns of sensory stimulation (e.g. sucking)
Childhood
18-24 months to about 11-14 years.
Rules for development
Cephalocaudal rule and proximodistal rule
Cephalocaudal rule
Greatest development takes place at the top of the body, i.e. the head, and physical development moves gradually downwards: e.g. neck, shoulders, trunk, etc.
Proximodistal rule
Development from centre of the body outwards - tendency for more general functions of limbs to develop before more specific or fine motor skills.
Cognitive development
Emergence of ability to think/understand.
What are the 3 goals of cognitive development?
1) How physical world works
2) How minds represent the world
3) How other minds represent the world
Piaget’s 4 stages
- Sensorimotor stage
- Preoperational stage
- Concrete operational stage
- Formal operational stage
Sensorimotor stage
Developing the ability to sense and move to acquire information about the world.
Age range: Birth to end of infacy
Develops schemas, assimilation and accomodations; lack complete objective permanence (belief that objects exist even when they are not visible)
Schemas
Theories about the world
Assimilation
Apply schemas in novel situations
Accomodations
Infants revise schemas in light of new information.
Preoperational stage
Preliminary understanding of the physical world.
Age range: 2-6 years.
Involves centration and egocentrism.
Centration
Focus on one property of an object to exclusion of others. Lack of reversibility. (e.g. 2+4 = 6 or 3+3 = 6)
Egocentrism
Failure to understand world is different for different people. If they’ve master the false belief task, AKA to recognize that others can have beliefs about the world that are diverging, then they’ve advanced out of this stage.
Concrete operational
Learn how actions or operations transform concrete objects of physical world.
Age range: 6-11 years.
Involves conservation. Realization that things in the world are not what they always seem.
Conservation
Quantitative properties of an object are invariant despite changes in the object’s appearance.
Formal Operational
Can reason systematically about abstract concepts (e.. love, liberty), hypotheticals and counterfactuals (things that aren’t necessarily true). Starts around age 11. Includes theory of the mind.
Theory of mind
Understanding that the mind produces representations of the world that guides behaviour. Children benefit most from language and discussion of feelings and emotions.
Criticisms of Piaget
- Children do not graduate from one stage to another in a formalized stepwise fashion; more flowlike
- Stages happen earlier than Piaget believed
Role of culture
What allows us to learn from members of our species. Includes joint attention, imitation and social referencing.
Joint attention
Ability to focus on what another person is focused on (I see what you see)
Imitation
Perform the intended action; often overimitations (I do what you do)
Social referencing
Use another person’s reactions as cues of how we should think about the world (I think what you think)
Harlow and his monkeys (contact monkey)
- Deprivation of social contact for first 6 months led to behavioral abnormalities
- Requires more than just caregivers
Lorenz and his ducks (imprinting)
- Nature’s design that the first moving object they saw imprints on their brains
- Seen even in humans
What did Bowlby claim?
Infants cry, gurgle, coos, smiles and makes eye contact to keep humans close. Within 6 months, they figure out who responds the most to their signals (primary caregiver) and form an attached bond.
Strange Situation Test of Attachment Styles
Bring child and caregiver into lab room and record what happens when caregiver leaves room and returns.
Ainsworth’s Attachment Styles
Secure, avoidant, ambivalent and disorganized
Secure
60% of infants; may or may not show distress when caregiver leaves; acknowledges caregiver’s return and is calmed
Avoidant
20% of infants; no distress when caregivers leave; no acknowledgement when they return
Ambivalent
15% of infants; distressed when caregivers leave, unsure of how to feel when they return
Disorganized
5% of infants; no consistent pattern
Temperament
Characteristic patterns of emotional reactivity - where attachment styles come from. Includes easy babies, difficult babies and slow to warm babies.
Easy babies
40%: adjust easily to new situations; establish routines; easy to calm
Difficult babies
10%: slow to adjust to new experiences; react negatively/intensely to novel stimuli and events
Slow to warm babies
15%: difficult at first, then get easier with time
What influences attachment style?
Temperament and caregiver’s sensitivity and responsiveness.
Internal working model of relationships
Set of beliefs about the self, primary caregiver and relationship between them
What reactions from caregivers determine certain attachment styles?
Secure: Certain caregiver will respond
Avoidant: Certain caregiver will not respond
Ambivalent: Uncertain if caregiver will respond
Disorganized: Confused about caregiver’s role; seen in children who have been abused
Piaget’s Moral Development
Children develop morally in 3 steps:
Realism to relativism
Prescriptions to principles
Outcomes to intentions
Realism to relativism
Rules are truths, no grey areas -> as they mature they realize there are exceptions
Prescriptions to principles
Guidelines for specific actions in specific situations; as they mature, realize principles of equity overrule these
Outcomes to intentions
Judge morality of action by outcome rather than intention; as they mature realize consequences are dependent on intention
Kohlberg’s 3 stages
Preconventional
Conventional
Postconventional
Preconventional
Morality of action is determined by consequences and punishment
Conventional
Morality of action determined by extent it conforms to social rules/laws
Postconventonal
Morality of action is determined by set of general principles that reflect core values; ethical principles
Moral instuitionist perspective
Moral judgements are the consequences - not the causes - of emotional reactions
Moral compassion perspective
Brains respond to people’s expression of suffering by generating within us an experience of suffering
Adolescence
Begins with the onset of sexual maturity and lasts until adulthood. Involves synaptic proliferation (generating more of) and pruning (trimming down).
Primary sex characteristics
Structures directly involved in reproduction
Secondary sex characteristics
Structures not directly involved in reproduction
Why is there earlier reported puberty in women?
Diet (body fat contains estrogen which speeds up puberty), stress, and environmental toxins (mimics effects of estrogen)
Consequences of early puberty
- Bodies are ready earlier, but delay having children
- Physically adults but psychologically children
What did Erikson say about adolescence?
Major task of adolescence is to develop an adult identity; from family relations to peer relations
Difficulties adolescents face
- Choosing of peers and the development of values, attitudes, beliefs, and perspectives
- Parents disagree on age when certain behaviours are allowed, leads to conflicts
Adulthood
- Around 18-21 years until death
- Early 20s are peak years for health, stamina and cognition
- Body starts to deteriorate between ages of 26-30
Memory in adulthood
- Greater decline in working memory vs. long term memory
- Greater decline in episodic memory vs. semantic memory
- Greater decline in retrieval vs. recognition accuracy
What compensatory brain behaviours occur in adulthood?
Experiences help them know what to expect, so they’re better at what they do
Socioeconomic selective theory
Young adults store information that will be useful to them in the future; older adults store information of emotional satisfaction
Does marriage make you happier?
People who marry are happier than those who don’t, but maybe happy people are more likely to marry?
Do children make you happier?
Children do not increase happiness, may even decrease
