Developmental Psychology Flashcards

1
Q

Rejected/Neglected Children

A

Rejected children = actively disliked by their peers and are often disruptive and have poor social skills

Neglected children = often shy, have fewer-than-average interactions with peers, and rarely engage in disruptive behaviors.

Outcomes tend to be worse for rejected children, who report more loneliness and peer dissatisfaction and are less likely to experience an improvement in peer status when they change peer groups.

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2
Q

Head Start

A

Studies investigating the impact of Head Start and other compensatory preschool programs have found that initial IQ test score gains are often not maintained but that children who attend these programs often obtain higher scores on achievement tests, have better attitudes toward school, and are less likely to be retained in a grade or drop out of high school.

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3
Q

Columbia Mental Maturity Scale (CMMS)

A

The CMMS = measure of general reasoning ability

Children ages 3 years, 6 months through 9 years, 11 months

It was originally developed for children with cerebral palsy but is also useful for children with brain damage, a speech or hearing impairment, or limited English proficiency.

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4
Q

Phonemes/Morphemes

A

Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that are understood in a language (p, m, sh), while morphemes are the smallest units of sound that convey meaning and include simple words, suffixes, and prefixes (un, ing)

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5
Q

Genotype/Phenotype

A

Genotype = characteristics that are determined by information coded on the genes

Phenotype = observable characteristics that are affected by both genes and environment.

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6
Q

Teacher Behaviors

A

Studies on teacher behaviors have confirmed that male and female teachers interact differently with male and female students and that these differences are consistent with gender stereotypes.

For example, Sadker and Sadker (1994, 2003) found that, from elementary through graduate school, male students are more likely than female students to receive attention, praise, and feedback from teachers that fosters academic achievement.

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7
Q

Sexuality in Adulthood

A

In their survey of over 6,000 adults ages 25-85, Lindau and Gavrilova (2010) found that most respondents reported being interested in sex and being sexually active.

However, men were more likely than women to report being sexually active, to have a good sex life, and to be very interested in sex, with the gender gap increasing with increasing age.

Other studies have found that, among both men and women, the best predictor of sexual activity later in life is sexual activity in previous decades.

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8
Q

Patterns of Attachment

A

Ainsworth and colleagues studied attachment using the Strange Situation, in which the baby spends time alone, with his/her mother, and with a stranger and identified four patterns of attachment:

  1. secure
  2. anxious/avoidant
  3. anxious/resistant
  4. disorganized/disoriented.

Each pattern is associated with different caregiver behaviors and child outcomes. For example, abused children often exhibit the disorganized/disoriented pattern.

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9
Q

Brain Development

A

Continues following birth, with the prefrontal cortex continuing to develop into the late teens or early 20s.

Most neurons are present at birth, so development following birth involves the growth of new dendrites, creation of new synapses, and myelination.

The brain begins to decrease in weight around age 30 as the result of a loss of neurons, and this decline accelerates after age 60.

However, the brain compensates for some neuron loss by developing new connections between neurons and by the production of new neurons in the hippocampus.

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10
Q

Huntington’s Disease

A

Huntington’s disease is a degenerative, autosomal dominant gene disorder of the central nervous system

Involves cognitive, motor and psychiatric symptoms.

Offspring of an afflicted parent have a 50% chance of inheriting the disorder.

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11
Q

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

A

According to Vygotsky, cognitive development depends on the social, cultural, and historical context and always occurs on two levels: first between the child and another person (interpersonal) and then within the child (intrapersonal).

A key concept is the zone of proximal development, which is the gap between what a child can currently do alone and what he or she can accomplish with help from parents or more competent peers.

Learning occurs most rapidly when teaching is within this zone.

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12
Q

Niche-Picking

A

The term Gene-Environment Correlation refers to associations that are often found between people’s genetic make-up and the environmental circumstances they are exposed to.

One contributor to these associations is niche-picking, which refers to the tendency of people to seek out environments that are compatible with their genetic make-up.

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13
Q

Ecological Model (Bronfenbrenner)

A

Bronfenbrenner proposed that environmental influences on development can be described in terms of five interacting systems - microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.

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14
Q

Effects of Divorce on Children

A

The effects of divorce are moderated by age, gender, and other factors. Because children who are in preschool at the time of the divorce are unable to understand the reasons for it, they often blame themselves and revert to more immature behaviors; however, children who are older at the time of the divorce may have worse long-term outcomes. Also, while boys tend to exhibit more externalizing behaviors after the divorce, girls are more prone to internalizing behaviors and may experience a sleeper effect that is characterized by few problems initially but the emergence of problems during adolescence. Continuing open conflict between divorced parents is a strong predictor of negative outcomes for children.

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15
Q

Infant Reflexes

A

Early infant reflexes include the Babinski reflex (in which the infant extends his/her big toe and fans out his/her small toe when the sole of the foot is stroked) and the Moro reflex (which occurs when the infant is held in a horizontal position and the infant arches his/her back, extends his/her legs outward, and then brings them back toward the body in response to his/her head being allowed to drop or to a sudden loud noise).

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16
Q

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

A

According to Kohlberg, moral development is related to cognitive development and social perspective-taking and involves three levels that are each divided into two stages: preconventional (punishment and obedience, instrumental hedonistic orientations); conventional (good boy/good girl, law and order orientations); and post-conventional (social contract/individual rights, universal ethical principles orientations).

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17
Q

Ethological Theory of Attachment

A

According to Bowlby’s (1969) ethological theory, infants and their mothers are biologically programmed for attachment - i.e., infants are endowed with innate attachment-related behaviors that serve to keep the mother in close proximity and increase the infant’s chance of survival. As the result of early attachment experiences, children develop internal working models of the self and attachment figures that influence their future relationships.

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18
Q

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV)

A

The WAIS-IV is an individually administered intelligence test for examinees ages 16 through 90. It provides a Full Scale IQ (FSIQ), scores on four Indexes (Working Memory, Verbal Comprehension, Processing Speed, and Perceptual Reasoning), and scores on 10 core and five supplemental subtests. The FSIQ and Index scores have a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15; the subtests have a mean of 10 and standard deviation of 3.

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19
Q

Gay and Lesbian Parents

A

The research has found that, overall, children of gay and lesbian parents are similar to children of heterosexual parents in terms of social relations, psychological adjustment, cognitive functioning, gender identity development, and sexual orientation.

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20
Q

Developmental Scales for Infants and Preschoolers

A

Developmental scales are useful as screening devices for developmental delays and disabilities; but, when administered to children less than two years of age, they are not good predictors of future IQ. They include the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Denver Developmental Screening Test, and Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence.

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21
Q

Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (KABC-II)

A

The KABC-II is a measure of cognitive ability for children ages 3 through 18 years and was designed to be a culture-fair test by minimizing verbal instructions and responses. Interpretation of scores can be based on one of two models - the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of cognitive abilities or Luria’s neuropsychological processing model.

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22
Q

Parenting Styles

A

Baumrind and colleagues used two dimensions of parenting behavior to derive four parenting styles: (a) Authoritative parents are high in acceptance/responsiveness and demandingness/control. Their children have the best outcomes. (b) Authoritarian parents are low in acceptance/responsiveness and high in demandingness/control. (c) Permissive parents are high in acceptance/responsiveness and low in demandingness/control. (d) Uninvolved parents are low in acceptance/responsiveness and demandingness/control. This style is associated with delinquency and antisocial behavior.

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23
Q

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, 4th Edition (PPVT-4);

A

The PPVT-4 is a measure of receptive vocabulary for examinees ages 2 years, 6 months to 90+ years. It is useful for examinees with a motor or speech impairment and can be administered to any examinee who can hear the stimulus word, see the pictures, and communicate a response in some way.;

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24
Q

Down Syndrome

A

Down syndrome is due to an extra number 21 chromosome. It causes mental retardation, retarded physical growth and motor development, distinctive physical features, and an increased risk for heart defects, leukemia, and Alzheimer’s dementia.

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25
Q

Cognitive Contributors to Aggression

A

Some investigators attribute high levels of aggression in children to cognitive factors - e.g., Dodge and Crick found that aggressive children are more likely than nonaggressive children to interpret the ambiguous acts of others as intentionally hostile.

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26
Q

Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA)

A

IDEA requires that (a) a free and appropriate public education be available to all individuals between the ages of 3 and 21 regardless of their ability; (b) an Individualized Educational Program (IEP) be developed for each disabled student that provides education in the “least restrictive environment” and that has been approved by the child’s parents; and (c) while reliable, valid, and nondiscriminatory tests can be used, assignment to special education classes cannot be made on the basis of an IQ test or any other single procedure.

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27
Q

Genetic Influences on Intelligence

A

Studies investigating the correlations between the IQ scores of people with varying degrees of genetic similarity provide evidence of the impact of genetics on intelligence. They have confirmed that, the closer the genetic similarity, the higher the correlation (e.g., for identical twins reared together, r = .85; for identical twins reared apart, r = .67).

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28
Q

Personality in Adulthood

A

Research on personality in adulthood has found that there is considerable continuity for some traits but that other traits change over time. For example, research on the “Big Five” personality traits suggests that, in adulthood, agreeableness and conscientiousness continue to increase, while neuroticism decreases and extraversion and openness to experience remain relatively stable.

29
Q

Effects of Maternal Employment on Children

A

Maternal employment is associated with fewer gender-role stereotypes and higher levels of self-esteem in the children and greater personal satisfaction for the mother, especially when employment is voluntary.

30
Q

Early Physical Maturation

A

Research comparing the effects of early physical maturation during adolescence has found that early maturation has a number of benefits for boys (e.g., better adjustment, greater popularity with peers, and superior athletic skill) but may have negative consequences for girls (e.g., poorer self-concept, increased risk for depression and substance use). However, many of the effects of early maturation have largely dissipated by adulthood so that those who experienced early-, late-, or average-maturation are fairly indistinguishable.

31
Q

Goodness-of-Fit model

A

According to Thomas and Chess, a child’s healthy psychological development requires a goodness-of-fit between the child’s temperament and environmental factors, especially the behaviors of the child’s parents.

32
Q

Infantile Amnesia

A

Although children as young as two or three years of age exhibit episodic memory, when adults are asked about their earliest memories, most exhibit infantile amnesia - i.e., they cannot recall anything that occurred prior to three or four years of age.

33
Q

Stanford-Binet, Fifth Edition (SB5)

A

The SB5 is an individually administered intelligence test for examinees ages 2 to 85+. It is based on a hierarchical model of intelligence that includes “g” and five cognitive factors - Fluid Reasoning, Knowledge, Quantitative Reasoning, Visual-Spatial Processing, and Working Memory. Full Scale IQ and Factor scores have a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15, and subtest scores have a mean of 10 and standard deviation of 3

34
Q

Leiter International Performance Scale (Leiter-R)

A

The Leiter-R was designed as a culture-fair measure of cognitive abilities for individuals ages two through 20 years. Because it can be administered without verbal instructions and does not require verbal or written responses, it is useful for non-English speaking examinees and examinees who have a language or hearing impairment.

35
Q

Piaget’s Theory of Moral Development

A

Piaget identified three stages of moral development: During the premoral stage (birth to about 5 years), children have little understanding of rules and other aspects of morality. During the heteronomous stage (which begins at about 5 or 6), children believe that rules should always be followed and base their judgment of an act primarily on its consequences. Finally, during the autonomous stage (which begins at about 10 or 11), children believe that, in some circumstances, rules can be changed, and they judge an act primarily on the basis of the intention of the actor.

36
Q

Early Reflexes

A

Early infant reflexes include the Babinski reflex (in which the infant extends his/her big toe and fans out his/her small toe when the sole of the foot is stroked) and the Moro reflex (which occurs when the infant is held in a horizontal position and the infant arches his/her back, extends his/her legs outward, and then brings them back toward the body in response to his/her head being allowed to drop or to a sudden loud noise).

37
Q

Effects of Divorce on Parents

A

Divorced parents often experience a “diminished capacity to parent” that continues for about two years after the divorce - e.g., mothers may show less affection toward their children, especially their sons, and may start to treat their sons more harshly; while fathers become more indulgent and permissive.

38
Q

Gender Differences in Communication

A

Gender differences in communication may be related to differences in gender roles - i.e., men rely more on strategies that are consistent with a dominant role, while females rely on strategies that are consistent with a subordinate role. For example, in conversations, men talk for longer periods of time, while women use more qualifiers and add more tag questions to their statements.

39
Q

Klinefelter Syndrome

A

Klinefelter syndrome affects males and is caused by an extra X chromosome. Males with this disorder develop a normal male identity but have incomplete development of secondary sex characteristics and are often infertile.

40
Q

Effects of Stepparents

A

When compared to children in intact biological families, children in stepfamilies have more adjustment problems, but the differences between the two groups of children tend to be small. Problems in the stepchild-stepparent relationships are often most severe when remarriage occurs when the child is in early adolescence. In terms of parenting style, the typical stepfather is distant and disengaged from his stepchild; while the stepmother’s relationship with a stepchild involves more frequent, but often abrasive, interactions.

41
Q

Gender Role Identity Development

A

Bem’s gender schema theory attributes gender role identity development to a combination of social learning and cognitive development. According to Bem, children develop schemas of masculinity and femininity as the result of their sociocultural experiences, and these schemas organize how they perceive themselves and others. Kohlberg’s cognitive-developmental theory describes it as involving a sequence of stages that parallels cognitive development - gender identity, gender stability, and gender constancy.

42
Q

Bilingual Education

A

Overall, the research suggests that language-minority children in good-quality bilingual programs do as well in acquiring English skills and learn subject matter as well or even better than do their peers in English-only (immersion) programs.

43
Q

Age-Related Decline in Memory

A

Older adults show the greatest declines in recent long-term (secondary) memory followed by the working memory aspect of short-term memory.

44
Q

Prenatal Exposure to Cocaine

A

Prenatal exposure to cocaine can cause spontaneous abortion in the first trimester, retarded fetal growth, prematurity, seizures, and malformations in the brain, intestines, heart, and genital-urinary tract. Cocaine-exposed infants may be highly reactive to environmental stimuli and difficult to soothe and exhibit excessive irritability, an abnormally shrill cry, and abnormal reflexes.

45
Q

Coercive Family Interaction Cycle (Patterson)

A

Patterson et al.’s social learning approach proposes that the families of highly aggressive boys are typically characterized by a coercive family interaction cycle that becomes increasingly aggressive over time as children imitate their parents’ aggressive behaviors and are reinforced by their parents for acting aggressively.

46
Q

Triarchic Model (Sternberg)

A

The triarchic model distinguishes between three interacting aspects of intelligence: The componential (analytical) aspect refers to methods that are used to process and analyze information; the experiential (creative) aspect refers to how unfamiliar circumstances and tasks are dealt with; and the practical (contextual) aspect refers to how people respond to their environment.

47
Q

Turner Syndrome

A

Turner syndrome affects females and occurs when all or part of an X chromosome is missing. Females with this disorder do not develop secondary sex characteristics, are infertile, and have a short stature, stubby fingers, and a webbed neck.

48
Q

Psychosexual Development (Freud)

A

Freud proposed a five-stage model of psychosexual development (oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital). According to Freud, a person’s sexual impulses are centered in a different area of the body in each stage; and either too much or too little gratification of these impulses at a particular stage can result in fixation at that stage.

49
Q

Critical/Sensitive Period

A

A critical period is a period of development during which the attainment of a developmental milestone depends on the presence of particular environmental stimulation. A sensitive period is more flexible and refers to the optimal period for development to occur.

50
Q

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)/Fetal Alcohol Effects (FAE)

A

Prenatal exposure to alcohol can produce a variety of physical, behavioral, and cognitive symptoms that are largely irreversible. FAS is caused by heavy drinking throughout pregnancy and causes more severe symptoms than FAE, including growth retardation, skeletal and organ malformations, impaired motor skills, facial deformities, hyperactivity, and mental retardation.

51
Q

Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM)

A

SPM is one of several versions of Raven’s Progressive Matrices. It is a nonverbal measure of general intelligence for examinees ages 6 years and older and can be used with examinees who are non-English speaking or have a hearing or language impairment or physical disability.

52
Q

Identity Statuses

A

According to Marcia, identity development in adolescence involves four stages (statuses) that reflect the degree to which the individual has experienced an identity crisis and is committed to an identity - identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, identity moratorium, and identity achievement.

53
Q

Stages of Language Development

A

Children progress through predictable stages of language development. Milestones include (1) cooing at one to two months; (2) babbling at four to six months that initially includes consonant and vowel sounds from all languages but narrows to the sounds of the child’s native language by 9 months; (3) first words at 10 to 15 months; (4) telegraphic speech (two-word sentences) at 18 to 24 months; and (5) rapid vocabulary growth between 30 and 36 months.a

54
Q

Sensation and Perception in Infancy

A

Of the senses, vision is least developed at birth. However, infants prefer facial to non-facial images within a few days following birth; can discriminate the face of their mother or other caregiver from the faces of strangers by one month; detect basic colors by two or three months; have some depth perception by six months; and have visual acuity that comes close to the normal adult level (20/20) by one year. A newborn’s hearing is only somewhat less sensitive than that of an adult. Soon after birth, infants exhibit auditory localization (turning their head toward the direction of a sound), but this ability disappears between two to four months and then re-emerges and becomes fully developed by about 12 months.

55
Q

Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development

A

Piaget proposed that cognitive development involves four universal, invariant stages: (a) During the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), the child learns about the world through sensory information and motor activity. Key accomplishments are representational thought, object permanence, and deferred imitation. (b) The preoperational stage (2 to 7 years) is characterized by the development of the symbolic function, which leads to increased language use, symbolic play, and the ability to solve problems mentally. Thinking during this stage is limited by transductive reasoning, egocentrism, and an inability to conserve. (c) During the concrete operational stage (7 to 12 years) the child is able to conserve due to the development of decentration and irreversibility. Other accomplishments are transitivity and hierarchical classification. (d) The formal operational stage (12 years +) is characterized by the emergence of hypothetical-deductive reasoning, propositional thought, and renewed egocentrism.

56
Q

Seattle Longitudinal Study (Schaie et al.)

A

The Seattle Longitudinal Study found that a cross-sectional design is more likely to find early age-related declines in IQ because it is more vulnerable to cohort effects (confounding effects of educational and other differences between different age groups). It used a cross-sequential design (which combines cross-sectional and longitudinal methodologies) and found that, of the six primary mental abilities investigated, only perceptual speed declined substantially prior to age 60.

57
Q

Phenylketonuria (PKU)

A

PKU is a recessive gene disorder that causes severe mental retardation unless it is prevented by a diet low in phenylalanine.

58
Q

Larry P. v. Riles

A

The case of Larry P. v. Riles was brought by plaintiffs on behalf of African American children who were disproportionately enrolled in special education classes in the San Francisco school system. The court concluded that “IQ tests are racially and culturally biased, [and] have a discriminatory impact” on African American children and banned San Francisco public schools from using them to place them in special education classes.

59
Q

Psychosocial Development (Erikson)

A

Proposes that personality development entails successfully resolving different social crises at specific points throughout the life span, from birth to old age. Includes eight stages of development (“eight stages of man”): trust vs. mistrust; autonomy vs. shame and doubt; initiative vs. guilt; industry vs. inferiority; identity vs. role confusion; intimacy vs. isolation; generativity vs. stagnation; and integrity vs. despair.

60
Q

Nativist Theories of Language Acquisition

A

Nativist theories emphasize the role of innate, biologically determined factors. For example, Chomsky’s nativist approach proposes that humans have an innate language acquisition device (LAD) that enables children who have acquired sufficient vocabulary to combine words into novel but grammatically correct utterances.

61
Q

Piaget’s Constructivist Theory

A

According to Piaget, children actively construct their understanding of the world, and this ability depends on combination of biological maturation and experience. He also proposed (a) that cognitive development involves adaptation which consists of two complementary processes - assimilation (incorporation of new information into existing cognitive schemas) and accommodation (modification of current schemas to account for new information); and (b) that cognitive development involves four universal stages.

62
Q

Moral Development (Piaget)

A

Includes two stages: heteronomous (rules are unchangeable, the wrongness of an act depends on its consequences) and autonomous (rules are alterable by consensus, the wrongness of an act depends on the intentions of the actor). The heteronomous stage ranges from about 7 through 10 years of age and the autonomous stage begins around age 11.

63
Q

Adolescent Egocentrism

A

The formal operational stage of cognitive development involves a renewed egocentrism, which is characterized by an inability to separate one’s own abstract thoughts from those of other people. As described by Elkind, its signs include the imaginary audience and the personal fable.

64
Q

Crystallized/Fluid Intelligence

A

Horn and Cattell proposed that general intelligence can be described in terms of two types: Crystallized intelligence (Gc) refers to acquired knowledge and skills and is affected by educational and cultural experiences, while fluid intelligence (Gf) underlies the ability to reason and adapt to new situations and is relatively unaffected by experience. While Gc increases into the 20s and 30s and remains relatively stable thereafter, Gf peaks in the 20s and then begins to decline.

65
Q

Language Errors

A

During the course of language development, young children exhibit a number of language errors. For example, at around age three, children often use over- and underextensions. An overextension occurs when a child uses a word too broadly, while an underextension occurs when a child uses a word too narrowly.

66
Q

Malnutrition During Prenatal Development

A

Malnutrition during the first trimester of prenatal development can cause spontaneous abortion, neural tube defects, and structural abnormalities of the heart, kidneys, and other organs. When malnutrition is restricted to the third trimester, it can cause low birth weight and low brain size and weight due to smaller neurons, less extensive branching of dendrites, and reduced myelination.

67
Q

Moral Development (Kohlberg)

A

Is believed to be related to cognitive development and social perspective taking and to involve three levels that are each divided into two stages: preconventional (punishment and obedience and instrumental hedonistic orientations); conventional (good boy/good girl and authority/law and social order orientations); and post-conventional (social contract, individual rights, individual principles of conscious and universal ethical principles orientations).

68
Q

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (Carstensen)

A

An assumption underlying socioemotional selectivity theory is that social goals have two primary functions - knowledge acquisition and emotion regulation. It predicts that social goals correspond to perceptions of time left in life as being constrained or open-ended. According to this theory, older adults perceive time as constrained and, consequently, tend to prefer social partners who are emotionally gratifying.

69
Q

Signs of Attachment

A

Infants begin to exhibit signs of attachment at around six months of age: At six months, they exhibit social referencing - i.e., they “read” the emotional reactions of caregivers, especially in uncertain situations, and use that information to guide their own behaviors. At about the same age, they experience separation anxiety and respond with distress to separation from their primary caregiver(s); and, at about eight to 10 months, they begin to exhibit stranger anxiety.