Developmental Psych

Question 1

What is developmental psychology?

Answer 1

The study of what changes and what stays the same, across different periods of life

Question 2

Two central questions

Answer 2

1. What development happens in stages and what happens continuously
2. How do nature and nurture influence development

Question 3

Qualitative development

Answer 3

Stages, you can see a change in quality

Question 4

Quantitative development

Answer 4

Continuous, development bit by bit

Question 5

Nature and nurture

Answer 5

• What we inherit
• What we experience
  Interplay between these two

Question 6

Nature and nurture driven similarities

Answer 6

All humans share as they develop (e.g. pre-installed reflexes or hearing speech during a critical period)

Question 7

Nature and nurture driven differences

Answer 7

Vary from person to person with development (e.g. birth weight or crawling development)

Question 8

Reflexes

Answer 8

Automatic patterns of motor responses triggered by some type of sensory stimulation

Question 9

Baby reflexes

Answer 9

Rooting reflex, sucking reflex, grasping reflex

Question 10

Habituation

Answer 10

Decreased response to a repeated stimulus

Question 11

Novelty-preference procedure

Answer 11

Demonstrates infants ability to perceive and respond: present –> observe habituation –> present old or new

Question 12

Dishabituation

Answer 12

Increased response to new stimulus after habituating to the old

Question 13

Motor development

Answer 13

Changes in the ability to coordinate and perform bodily movements

Question 14

Rules for motor development

Answer 14

Head –> toe and centre –> periphery

Question 15

Discipline of cognitive development

Answer 15

Changes in mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating

Question 16

Piaget’s theory

Answer 16

understanding the world emerges in concept-units called schemas

Question 17

Schema (and what is is used for)

Answer 17

A concept or mental model that represents our experiences, used to guide how we interpret new information

Question 18

Assimilation

Answer 18

Use an existing schema

Question 19

Accommodation (Developmental)

Answer 19

Revise a schema or create a new schema

Question 20

Theory of mind

Answer 20

Ability to think about what others think, develops at approx age 5

Question 21

Four cognitive stages

Answer 21

1. Sensorimotor (0-2)
2. Preoperational (2-7)
3. Concrete operational (7-12)
4. Formal operational (12+)

Question 22

Social referencing

Answer 22

Relying on the facial expressions of caregivers as a source of information to inform reactions

Question 23

Woodward and colleagues

Answer 23

infants at around 6 months pay more attention to the intention of an action rather than the action itself

Question 24

Conservation

Answer 24

the idea that the physical properties of an object (e.g. mass, volume, number) remain constant despite changes in shape or form

Question 25

Heuristic

Answer 25

Loosely defined rule that lets us solve problems quickly (e.g. children in pre-operational stage see height of water as an indication of volume)

Question 26

When do children pass the conservation task?

Answer 26

Concrete operational (7-12). They can consider two aspect of an object at the same time and mentally transform and imagine the result

Question 27

What capability develops at 18 months?

Answer 27

Self-awareness (i.e. recognition in a mirror)

Question 28

Egocentrism

Answer 28

difficulty with thinking about how objects or situations are perceived by other people (exhibited by pre-operational children)

Question 29

Gender socialization

Answer 29

the process by which people internalize social expectations and attitudes associated with their perceived gender

Question 30

Gender schema

Answer 30

mental representation for the concept of gender including assumptions about how people with different genders are supposed to think, feel, and act (rigid for 3-5 year olds)

Question 31

Gender constancy

Answer 31

the sense that a person’s gender identity remains consistent despite how they behave