Development And Mental Health Flashcards
What is physical development?
Physical development is the changes in the body eg. Brain development and puberty
What is social development?
Development of people’s relationships and skills of communicating with others.
What is cognitive development?
Changes in people’s metal ability, learning, memory, perception
What is emotional development?
Changes in how a person experiences and expresses emotions.
What is hereditary?
The set of characteristics you inherit from your parents. Nature. We inherit genetic information from both biological parents. The genes determine our unique characteristics. You get half your chromosomes from each parent through the sperm and ova
What is environment or nurture?
The set of factors that have acted on you throughout your life.
What is stronger between nature and nurture?
Sometimes it is difficult to determine where the influences of heredity end and
environmental influences begin. However, everyone’s characteristics- physical, psychological and emotional- are influenced by heredity (nature) and environment (nurture).
How do identical twins develop?
They develop when a fertilised egg splits.
How does when the split occurs change the twins? Is the chance of having twins genetic?
It will determine if the twins share the placenta or if they develop their own. The later the split occurs the more likely it is for the twins to share a placenta. The chance of having identical twins is generally not genetic.
What are fraternal twins?
They are the result of two different ova being fertilised by two different sperm.
How do placentas develop for fraternal twins?
Two separate placentas are formed.
How common are fraternal twins?
More common that identical twins. They account for about 2/3 of twin pregnancies.
What is a sensitive period?
A period of time during development when an individual is more responsive to certain types of environmental experiences or learning.
When do humans learn their language?
During the sensitive period for about the first 12 years of life.
What happens if language is learnt after the sensitive period?
It will take longer, be more difficult and not as effective.
What is the critical period?
A very narrow period in an animals development in which the animal in preprogrammed for learning to occur.
What is an example of a study of the critical period? What happened?
Lorenz studied how young birds imprint on the first moving object they see after they hatch. The greylag geese imprinted on him. For these birds the critical period was the first few moments of life.
Define imprint
To form an immediate attachment
Why are emotions important?
They assist us to develop and maintain relationships.
What is the study of emotions involved in?
It explores when people learn emotions and how people deal with emotions.
Are emotions learnt?
They appear to be unlearnt (we are born with them) but they take time to develop.
What is one of the last emotions to develop?
Jealousy
What is attachment?
An emotional connection or bond between a child and a principal care giver.
What did Mary Ainsworth suggest (1913-1999)?
That infants can learn different types of attachment depending in how responsive their caregiver is to their needs.
What are the three different ways that Mary Ainsworth suggested that infants show attachment?
When separated from their caregiver (anxiety), when reunited with their caregiver (reunion behaviour), when stranger is present (stranger anxiety)
What test did Ainsworth use to test the three ways infants show attachment?
With a controlled observation test, called the strange situations test. The experiment was in a room surrounded by one way glass so the infants actions could be observed.
How old were the infants?
12-18 months
What was the procedure of the strange situations test?
Caregiver and child played together, child plays alone as parents sits in a chair, a stranger comes in and talks to parent, parent leaves the room and stranger gives comfort to infant if needed, parent returns and greets infant while stranger leaves, the parent leaves and only the baby is in the room, the stranger enters and offers comfort, the parent enters the room and offers comfort.
What were the two proposed attachment types? What was the sub type?
Secure attachment, insecure avoidant attachment and insecure resistent attachment
What are the reactions of a secure attachment child?
Shows a balance between dependence on caregiver and exploration.Very attached to the caregiver. Moderate protest when caregiver left the room, anxiously looked for her during absence and respond with pleasure when return. The child will go to the mother for comfort when scared, concerned, hungry, or sick, for example. They develop the ability to use their parent to help them settle down.
How many infants have secure attachment?
65-70%
What are the reactions of a child with insecure avoidant attachment?
Does not seek closeness or contact with their caregiver.
Infant is distant and protective of itself. Rarely cries when caregiver leaves the room and ignores them upon their return. The child has gotten the message that he will not be reassured when hurt/upset, so he doesn’t ask for it.
How many infants have insecure avoidant attachment?
15-20%
What are the reactions of an infant with insecure resistant attachment?
Great distress when caregiver leaves and is not calmed
easy upon return. Infant is uncertain and anxious. Continuously checks caregivers’ whereabouts and clings to them, appears anxious even if caregiver is near. Often behave in fussy and inconsolable ways when upset. They appear to want contact with their parents, yet resist that contact.
How many infants have insecure resistant attachment?
12-15%
Explain the focus on attachment to mother criticism for the Ainsworth study.
The child may have a different type of attachment to the
father or grandmother, for example. This means that is lacks validity, as it is not measuring a general attachment style, but instead an attachment style specific to the mother.
What is another criticism of the Ainsworth study?
The infant is put under much stress (separation and stranger anxiety)
Explain the sample was biased criticism for the Ainsworth study.
(100 middle class American families). Therefore, it is difficult to generalise the findings outside of America and to working class families.
Explain the it has low ecological validity criticism of the Ainsworth study.
the child is in a strange and artificial environment and the mother is following a script – this isn’t ‘real life’
What did Harry Harlow’s study involve?
looked at attachment in Rhesus Monkeys. Harlow was interested in the factors that
contribute to attachment (emotional bonds). He believed infants did not form attachment due to the caregiver supplying food, but that they required ‘contact comfort’. He aimed to find out what factor most influenced the attachment to a caregiver: food or comfort
What were the participants of the Harry Harlow study?
Infant rhesus monkeys that had been separated from their mothers at birth.
What was the method of harry harlow’s experiment?
The monkeys were put in a cage with two surrogate monkeys. One was wire and was covered in cloth (comfort) and the other was wire and had food. He measured the amount of time the monkeys spent with each monkey.
What were the results of Harry Harlow’s experiment?
Monkeys spent more time with the cloth mother and only went to the wire one when they needed food.
What is the conclusion of Harry Harlow’s experiment?
Contact comfort was more important than providing food to an infant when forming attachment with the caregiver.
What does cognitive development look at?
How the human mind comes to know things about the world and how it used this knowledge. Involves changes in an individuals mental abilities such as personality, perception, learning, memory, language, moral reasoning, problem solving and decision making.
What did Jean Piaget notice about children’s thinking? (1896-1980)
That the quality of their thinking changed as they grew older and that children made similar errors at similar ages.
What did Piaget suggest about the thinking of children?
not only do different aged children think about different things and know different things but they think in different ways.
What did Piaget believe about thinking development of children? What were these stages?
That the thinking develops through stages that are based on biological maturity and interactions with the environment.
What is adaption?
Continuous process of using the environment to learn and learning to adjust to changes in the environment
What are the two categories of adaption?
Assimilation and accomodation