Developmental Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
- Identify and explain the changes in behaviour that individuals undergo
- Moment of conception until they die
Sources of Behaviour
- Biological/Maturation (nature) - something emerges or changes over time as cognitive capacity grows
- Experience (nurture) - how you interact with the environment, and how the environment reacts back
Methodological Considerations
- Lab Studies - high experimental control, can isolate and all participants receive same environment
- Naturalsitic studies - how children in the real world behave BUT can’t control variables
Design Issues
- Sampling bias
- Observer effects
- Selective attribution
- Practice effects
- Validity/reliability
Types of Reserach Designs
- Cross Sectional Approach - different subjects are studied at different ages
- Longitudinal Approach - studies the same subjects at a variety of ages as they develop
- Longitudinal-Sequential Design - studies multiple subjects at different ages at the same time as they develop
Monkeys
- Isolation of monkeys for 3, 6, 9 and 12 months
- Findings: The severity of the behavioural disruption depends on both duration of isolation and age at which it begins
Orphanage
- Compared <3 months of age with late >3years of age placement of children in foster homes from orphanages
- Findings: When institutional effects go on for 3 yrs or more the effects are long lasting and irreversible
English/Romanian Adoption
Examine recovery in orphans following removal from impoverished circumstances
Post Natal Depression
- At 13 years old, children from PND mothers during infancy had increased cortisol levels
- At 21 years old, more reactive to stressful situations and greater risk of depression
Abecedarian Project
Poor children provided early education intervention
Findings:
- 4 year old benefits in language, social interactions and IQ
- 12-21 years old benefits in reading and maths
- At 21 years old, intervention group had a higher education level and lower unemployment
Schemes
Mental structures that capture common properties of behaviours
Adaptations
- Assimilations - Adding information to existing schema
- Accomodation - New schema is formed
Piaget’s Stages
- Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years old)
- Preoperative Stage (2-7 years old)
- Concrete Operations Stage (7-11 years old)
- Formal Operations Stage (11+ years old)
- Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years old)
- Understand object permeance - objects have seperate and permanent existence independet of our actions
- Preoperational Stage (2-7 years old)
- Thought is illogical and inconsistent
- Lacks egocentric thinking
- Concrete Operations Stage (7-11 years old)
- Can take other perceptions
- Time and space begins to develop
- No abstract and hypothetical thoughts
- Formal Operations Stage (11+ years old)
Reflective, abstract and hypothetical thinking
Problems with Piaget’s Stages
- Adults fail formal tests of logical reasoning
- Abstract thinkers often need concrete examples
- Underestimation of young children’s abilities
Sociocultural Theory
- Start with blank slate and develop from there
- Culture dependent
Contextual Theory
- Zone of proximal development
- The things they can do with assistance is internalised to what they can do next
Caudill & Weinstein (1969)
- Infants in the US are seen as dependent and must learn independence
- Infants in Japan are seen as independent and must be taught interdependence
Cole (1992)
- US have small classes so more individual time with teacher
- Japanese mothers heard this and wondered how children will learn the value of group membership
Correa-Chavez & Rogoff (2009)
- The way you learn is from the way you are taught
- Guatemalan Mayan children with little exposure to western schooling learned from simply observing siblings being taught
Psychological Tools
- Language systems
- Strategies for learning
- Memorising
Bandura Social Learning Theory
Observational/Vicarious Learning
- People they regard as prestigious
- Models of their own sex
- Models who receive rewards
- Models they perceive as being like themselves
Bobo Doll
- Children showed videos of wither adults acting violently and nicely towards bobo doll
- Children who saw adults act violently were more violent
- Children who saw adults act nicely were nicer
Developmental Theory of Mind
Ability of individual to understand that others have thoughts different from their own
- 12 month old watch an adult with full hands try to move widely open an ajar door with his head
- Infants imitates based on perceived intentions and goal
Moral Judgment
Older children take intention into account, younger children do not
3 Stages of Moral Judgement
- Pre-conventional (early childhood)
- Conventional (8-10)
- Post-conventional (adolescence, but many never get here)
- Pre-conventional (early childhood)
- What is right is rewarded
- What is wrong is punished
- Conventional (8-10)
Fairness, empathy, helping each other defines right and wrong
- Post-conventional (adolescence, but many never get here)
People realise human rights that may be more important than laws
Types of Moral Judgement
- Externally regulated (5-8)
- Self-regulated (8+)
- Externally regulated (5-8)
- Rules from another
- Little understanding of the intentions
- Self-regulated phase (8+)
- Rules from self
- Judge in light of intentions
Empiricists
- Knowledge comes from a blank slate
- Skinner: learning via positive reinforcement
- Bandura: learning via imitation and reinforcement
Nativists
- Knowledge is hard wired into brain at birth and emerge naturally
- Chomsky: Humans are born with Language Acquisition Device
Language Acquisition Device
Recursions: sentences can be embedded within sentences
Interactionist
Learning occurs as a result of interactions between individual and environment
- Sociocultural Theory
Constructivist
Learning is a result of reflecting on personal experiences rather then acquriing information from external sources
- Piaget’s Stages