Developmental Psychology

Question 1

What is Developmental Psychology?

Answer 1

Personal development throughout our lifespan

Question 2

Is development due to nature (genes) or nurture (learning/environment) or both?

Answer 2

Combo of nature AND nurture— nature vs nurture is an old school of thought

Question 3

What is Prenatal? What are the three stages of prenatal development?

Answer 3

1. Germinal period: 2 week period when the zygote begins dividing and moving towards the uterus, then eventually attaches itself to the uterus. Placenta also begins to form
2. Embryonic period: 2wks-8wks, embryo’s cells continue to specialize into various organs and structures of human infant
3. Fetal period: from 8wks-birth, tremendous growth and development period.

Question 4

What reflexes do infants possess?

Answer 4

Stepping, grasping, sucking (food), moro/startle (caused by sudden noise or movement), and rooting (head turns in direction of stroke on cheek for feeding)

Question 5

What are the differences in sensory systems development (eg. taste, touch, vision etc.) infants? How well are these developed in the infant?

Answer 5

Taste/touch/smell: well developed
Hearing: functional but not fully developed
Vision: least developed, cones take around 6 months to develop

Question 6

In general, what are the major abilities (milestones) during infant to childhood stages of development?

Answer 6

2-4m: raising head and chest
6-7m: sitting up w/o support
7-8m: crawling
8-18m: walking

Question 7

What is the Visual Cliff Experiment?

Answer 7

Experiment meant to determine if infants can perceive the world in 3 dimensions. Babies started on the shallow side of the table and their parents encouraged them to crawl across the deep side. 81 percent refused to crawl across the deep side, indicating very early signs of depth perception.

Question 8

Describe Harlow’s infant monkey study

Answer 8

Babies were taken from their mothers right after birth, were introduced to a wire mother with a bottle and a cloth mother for comfort. Monkeys spend majority of their time with cloth mother, indicating attachment is caused primarily by comfort rather than food source

Question 9

Describe and identify Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Answer 9

Sensorimotor: birth-2yrs, use senses and movement to explore, develop object permanence
Preoperational: 2-7yrs, can refer to objects and people with words, they can pretend
Concrete operational: 7-12yrs, understand conservation, can reverse their thinking, and can think logically and understand analogies about concrete events
Formal operational: 12-adulthood, use abstract reasoning, examine and test hypotheses, think about logical possibilities

Question 10

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development

Answer 10

1. Preconventional: consequences determine morality. Reward = good, punishment = bad
2. Conventional: conforming to society’s norms. Rules and laws
3. Post-conventional: morality decided upon by individual. May conflict with rules and social norms

Question 11

What is the Heinz dilemma?

Answer 11

A woman is dying and the drug to save her is available for 2000$ from a druggist. It only cost the druggist 200$ to obtain the drug. The wife’s husband only has 1000$ but the druggist refuses to give him the drug. Should the husband, Heinz, steal the drug?

Question 12

What is adolescence? What ages is adolescence defined by?

Answer 12

Adolescence occurs from 11yrs-early 20s. Biopsychs would define adolescence as beginning when puberty begins. Puberty lasts around 4 years