Developmental Psychology Flashcards

Question

Baillargeon et al (1985)

Answer 1

• Should look longer at the impossible event ̶ If they find it surprising • Drawbridge and solid box ̶ Experimental condition (box behind the drawbridge) ̶ Control (box next to the drawbridge) Conclusion: ̶ Infants expected the screen to stop against the box ̶ Infants understood the box continued to exist Infants as young as 5m show object permanence

Answer 2

Only indicates limited awareness of events (i.e. perceives a difference) Or perceptual preference for novelty, but not understanding Do looking preferences really tell us about what babies know? (see Schöner and Thelen, 2006)

Answer 3

Presented 6m olds with small (required 1 hand grasp) and large (2 hand grasp) objects ̶ Each object made identifying sound ̶ Infants made appropriate grip to reach for objects in darkness ̶ Authors conclude this is based on mental representations

Answer 4

• Differences in motor patterns in adults for planned actions (Marteniuk et al., 1987) ̶ Precise actions = slower approach • 10m infants encouraged to throw ball or fit it into a hole ̶ If motor patterns determined by ball properties, should find no difference ̶ If determined by upcoming action, should find a difference ̶ Reaching action slower for precise action (Mental representation of that action, same as adults with slower approach for precise task)

Answer 5

• Toy out of reach on a cloth • Cloth and toy blocked by a barrier • 9-month old children performed sequence of actions to get toy • Many on the 1st attempt ̶ Novel, planned actions ̶ Mental representation of the world used to organise behaviour (Piaget argued they’d only be able to do this through trial-and-error but they did it on 1st attempt)

Answer 6

̶ Some infants saw adult make facial gesture, some saw neutral expression ̶ Day later, those who saw gesture were more likely to perform it to a neutral face Shows they have that mental representation of that gesture in past

Answer 7

̶ Experimenter performed series of actions with objects ̶ Both ages more likely to reproduce observed actions than those who did not see them • Even after a FOUR MONTH DELAY!

Answer 8

Infants saw series of actions with puppet and had to repeat after a 24hr delay • Additional 6m-olds given 6 repetitions of actions ̶ 6m now score significantly higher than control ̶ Evidence of deferred imitation in 6m-olds

Answer 9

• 6m, 9m, 24m tested using puppet paradigm, 24hr delay • Varied the context during retrieval (auditory and visual) ̶ Full flexibility/generalization not achieved until 12m

Answer 10

the study of physical, cognitive, social, emotional and behavioural changes throughout the life span

Answer 11

gradual process

Answer 12

discrete age specific stages

Answer 13

3 types of influences on development - normative age-graded influences - e.g. puberty, starting school Normative history-graded influences -e.g. wars, natural disasters Non-normative life events - e.g. death of a parent, serious injury

Answer 14

different participants, different ages, same time, cost effective, quick, but effected by individual differences and cohort effects

Answer 15

same participants, different ages, different times, high attrition rate, time-consuming, biased sample, original research question still viable at study completion?

Answer 16

different participants, same ages, different historical time, time consuming, danger of research question becoming obsolete

Answer 17

different and same participants, different and same ages, different and same historical times, high attrition rate, time consuming, question may become obsolete

Answer 18

100% identical

Answer 19

50% identical

Answer 20

child's temperament affects interaction with their parents

Answer 21

information about environment picked up by sensory receptors and transmitted to brain

Answer 22

interpretation by the brain of this input - how we understand the events, objects and people in our environment

Answer 23

poor at birth, rapid increase in first 6 months near adult levels by 1 year

Answer 24

younger than 2 months, cannot track moving objects smoothly 1 month: focus on limited features of shape, particularly outside edges 2 months: start to focus on internal features

Answer 25

new-borns can distinguish between white and red, but not other colours around 1 month, look longer at brighter, bold colours by 4 months close to adult ability

Answer 26

preference tests habituation tests conditioning

Answer 27

present two stimuli at the same time, measure how long infant looks at each, does infant look at one more than the other (they can tell a difference between the two)

Answer 28

shown interesting stimulus repeatedly (infant loses interest eventually - habituation), change to a different stimulus, infant shows renewed interest and looks again (dishabituation), if so, the infant can tell the difference

Answer 29

repeatedly reward target behaviour, infant becomes habituated to stimulus, stimulus is altered (example: HAS procedure)

Answer 30

found 1-15 week olds prefer looking at complex patterns

Answer 31

added controls for complexity found at 1 month old there was no difference in looking times found at 2 months they looked longer at the 'natural face'

Answer 32

used moving stimuli instead of static new-borns tracked schematic face more than other two

Answer 33

replicated effect with new-borns by 3 months, no longer track face more why does this preference vanish?

Answer 34

CONSPEC - early system (subcortical structures) biases infants to orient towards faces CONLEARN - later taken over by more mature system (visual cortex) and more precise recognition

Answer 35

preference for mother's face disappeared when outside of face and hairline masked new-borns use outer features to identify

Answer 36

found that infants could use both outer and inner features

Answer 37

6-month infants could discriminate between monkey faces and human faces 9-month infants and adults could only discriminate between human faces if exposed to monkey faces, 9-month olds could discriminate

Answer 38

adults poorer at discriminating faces of other races compared to own race (Tanaka et al. 2004) 3 month olds show preference for own race faces (Kelly et al. 2005)

Answer 39

fathers for primary caregivers = preference for male faces

Answer 40

ongoing development of face-specific perception mechanisms, continue to develop into late child and adolescence face perception gets better because of increased exposure/ experience with faces

Answer 41

face perception matures early (4-5 years) performance increases later as general cognitive mechanisms improve

Answer 42

William's syndrome - process unfamiliar faces atypically, prolonged face gaze

Answer 43

face blindness caused by damage or abnormalities in right fusiform gyrus

Answer 44

face blindness from birth, appears to run in families, different degrees of severity, might not even be able to recognise their own face

Answer 45

'phonemes' or sound segments

Answer 46

system of meaning - 'morphemes'

Answer 47

rules by which words/ phrases are arranged

Answer 48

how language is used in different contexts or genres

Answer 49

Evidence of fetal reactions from 20 weeks preference for 'uterine' version of mothers voice after birth Neonates prefer sounds produced by the mother

Answer 50

From 1-2 months - cooing and laughing 6-10 months - canonical babbling, include more vowels and consonants, combine these in a way that can sound like words, scream for attention, some sounds preserved for primary caregiver or other familiar individuals 10+ months - modulated babbling, add stress and intonation patterns, overlaps with meaningful speech period

Answer 51

usually around 9-12 months something that acts as a consistent label for something e.g. 'mama' 'holophrases' condense meaning

Answer 52

a few months after first words roughly 20 words at 18 months to then over 200 words at 24 months mainly nouns - labels of objects, people some action, state, function words

Answer 53

Adjust to different contexts Differences in communication to different listers as young as 2 years Take into account the listeners perspective comes at around 4 or 5 years Master a lot of conventions of different genres at roughly 3 years – for example ‘once upon a time’ = telling a story

Answer 54

whole object constraint – words refer to whole object rather than parts of objects

Answer 55

generalise to other objects that are the same shape rather than other attributes, aids early noun learning

Answer 56

• Sensitive to syntactic and semantic correspondences from early age • Extract meaning of new words from syntactic clues Number of ‘noun phrase’ arguments or participants Mary kicked the ball (transitive: subject + object) Tom is sleeping (intransitive: subject, no object)

Answer 57

Referential words: used in a variety of contexts (mapped on to mental representation) Context-bound words: only specific context (mapped onto global construction of the event, gradually analysed into individual categories e.g. people, objects)

Answer 58

 Nativist theories – Chomsky’s ‘Innate Language Acquisition Device’ (LAD)  Constructivist or cognitive theories – Piaget and the ‘cognitive-hypothesis’  Cognitive-functional linguistics

Answer 59

Born with basic language production/comprehension capacity Human language has universal features – phonology, syntax, ‘deep structures’ Innate knowledge of basic grammar rules LAD perceives regularities in heard utterances - LAD generates hypotheses about regularities, hypotheses are tested against new utterances

Answer 60

 Children learn quickly, and learning governed by rules, sequence of language acquisition similar  Systematic mistakes (logical errors) – no adult is modelling these kinds of mistakes, but they are still saying these  Correct order very early on

Answer 61

 Cognitive and language development are interdependent  Language development reflects stages of cognitive development – cognitive abilities enable understanding and use of language, rules come from wider cognitive system not LAD  Similarities in language driven by similarities in experience and development

Answer 62

 First words about familiar objects and activities – usually dynamic objects a child can hold  First words appear around the same time as object permanence – also around the time symbolic play emerges  Words about present emerge before words about future or past – appear around the time children understand time concepts BUT – what about effect of social environment?

Answer 63

 No universal, innate grammar  Acquire language gradually – gradual building up of grammatical structures  Syntax develops out of experience and social interaction – no ‘general category of verb’, but rather on a verb-by-verb basis, can’t generate verb combinations they haven’t heard already  Adult discourse is key

Answer 64

 Observational and experimental studies – early vocabularies include more nouns; toddlers find creative use of verbs difficult but not nouns  Example: Tomasello et al. 1997 – taught 4 novel ‘verbs’ and ‘nouns’ with no context clues, 18-23 months children could produce plurals of nouns, could not produce past tense of verbs  Does it depend on language? (e.g. verb-final languages? Japanese)

Answer 65

Distinctively different than adult speech A-C hugher in pitch, greater range of pitch, simpler meaning More nouns, concrete words Expanded vowels – easier to discriminate sounds? Babies prefer IDS (ManyBabies Consortium)

Answer 66

 Scaffolding meaning to infants – help them to understand  Expansion and re-casting – better at sentence imitation and used more complex grammar (Nelson et al, 1987)  Parental coaching can impact positively  Social economic impact on language development – language processing and vocabulary lower in lower SES children (Fernald et al. 2012)  ‘The Word Gap’? – lower SES children hear fewer words per hour than in higher SES?

Answer 67

• Extreme deprivation from 20 months to 13 years old • No one spoke to her, and she was actively stopped from trying to communicate • Recovery – first few months she started recognising words, then 1 and 2-word utterances • Never able to master more complex language processes

Answer 68

Numerosity, counting, arithmetic

Answer 69

Gelman and Gallistel (1978) • 5 principles govern counting: – One-to-one principle – Stable-order principle – Cardinal principle – Order irrelevance principle – Abstraction principle

Answer 70

One and only one tag or “counting word” for each item in the set

Answer 71

Tags must be used in the same way • ex: 1,2,3 vs.1,3,2

Answer 72

The tag of the final object in the set represents the total number of items • Ex: Knowing the word ‘two’ refers to sets of two entities

Answer 73

result the same regardless of order you count items in

Answer 74

Can count anything these principles can be applied to any collection of objects (including intangible objects) – Not “labeling” (like the label “cat”) - nothing about the item makes it a number 1 just gets tagged as number 1

Answer 75

Children monitor performance of a “puppet” Very high accuracy on correct trials – One-to-one: 100% – Stable-order: 96% and higher (+) – Cardinal: 96% + High accuracy on incorrect trials – One-to one: 67% + (3yrs); 82% + (4yrs) – Stable-order: 76% + (3), 96% + (4-5) – Cardinal: 85% + (3), 99% + (4-5) Pseudo-errors detected as peculiar, but not incorrect (95% and higher accuracy) – Even able to articulate why in some cases – Show understanding of order-irrelevance Older children performed better, BUT Success rates not affected by set size – even for young children

Answer 76

• Children as young as 3 understand the principles – Even though they can’t articulate them • Understanding demonstrated even in set sizes too big for children to count • Children show IMPLICIT knowledge of these principles

Answer 77

Testing order-irrelevance and cardinality in 5-7-year-olds All but 1 child could recount in the opposite direction BUT, only 45% of 5yr-olds, and 87% of 7yr-olds were successful in prediction task Conclusion: – Understanding of order-irrelevance develops with age – Young children’s understanding of principles overestimated

Answer 78

Child asked to give ‘N’ number of items • Up to ‘4-knowers’ called ‘subset’ knowers – Only know how a subset of numbers work • Switch to CP-knower – Can solve flexibly across sets, not restricted – Really understand how counting works, evidenced across a variety of tasks

Answer 79

knowledge comes from experience, develops gradually

Answer 80

innate understanding of some aspects of number concept, “core knowledge”

Answer 81

• Pre-test trials: no difference in looking times to 1 or 2 objects • Test trials: Infants looked longer at the “incorrect” result – 1+1 group looked longer at 1, than 2 puppets – 2-1 group looked longer at 2 than 1 puppet

Answer 82

• 2 Hypotheses: 1. Infants compute precise results of simple additions/subtractions 2. Infants expect arithmetical operation to result in numerical change (no expectation of size/ or direction of change) • Experiment 3: – 1+1=2OR3 – Infants preferred 3 in the trials, but not pre-test trials

Answer 83

• 5-month olds can calculate precise results of simple arithmetical operations • Infants possess true numerical concepts – Suggests humans innately possess capacity to perform these calculations • Replicated with larger sets (ex: 10 v. 5; McCrink & Wynn, 2005)

Answer 84

3 Experiments – Replications of Wynn (1992) exps 1 & 2 – Subtraction counterpart to Wynn’s Exp 3 • 3-1=1or2 Controls for possibility that preferred answer is always greater number of items • Results – No systematic preference for “incorrect” versus “correct” Conclusions Earlier findings of numerical competence not replicated – Review of literature = inconsistent results Infants’ reactions are variable – Numerical competencies not robust Gradual and continual progress in abilities with age

Answer 85

• Children as young as 3 seem to have implicit knowledge of counting principles • Evidence of innate abilities – Numerosity (from habituation studies) – Arithmetical operations • How robust are the above? – Also evidence for gradual accumulation of this knowledge – Born with limited ability, which then expands with age/experience? (Carey, 2009) • Task and procedure have large impact on results and age at which we see these abilities

Answer 86

Nativist view dominant – Born with some innate ability,which expands with age/experience?(ex:Carey,2009) – This in born ability shared with other animals? BUT Experience/culturestillimportant! – Cross culturally: Language,counting practices impact representation and processing of number (ex. Gobel et al., 2011) – Within-cultures: Number talk from parents predicts CP knowledge,related to later performance in school (ex. Gunderson & Levine, 2011)

Answer 87

Children fail these tasks because of other cognitive limitations – Memory – Problem-solving – Attention – Metacognition

Answer 88

• 3 memory stores and control processes that operate on them – Flow of information between 3 memory stores – Strategies for encoding, retrieving, maintaining info in short-term/working memory and long-term memory

Answer 89

– Encoding limitations • Don’t encode appropriate info – Computational limitations • Don’t have strategies in LTM to apply – Retrieval limitations • Retrieve inappropriate strategy – Storage limitations – Work-space limitations • Both above to do with working memory restrictions

Answer 90

4-5-year-old children in 5 trials Some evidence of ability: success on 1st trial Information processing limitations affect performance on subsequent trials Hypothesis: retrieval problem Children retrieving the wrong information (influenced by last response) Most recent item in working memory=info about token frequency – Children successful on all trials!

Answer 91

Ability to identify most crucial aspects of a task increases with age - pinpoint relevant and ignore irrelevant Found 3-4 years opened all boxes but 9-10 years focused on appropriate boxes

Answer 92

Comparing 7-8 with 9-10-year-olds on eye-tracking test (focus on relevant/ inhibit irrelevant) Baseline (told animals didn’t matter to task) and critical trials (told to focus on particular colour) Recognition test: asked whether they’d seen an image before Distractibility test • Similar pattern in both age groups – Looked more overall at task relevant stimuli – Relationship between encoding strategies and performance • Younger children more affected by distractors • Evidence for continuous development

Answer 93

– “help the boy remember when he got the puppy” – All 10 yr olds able to come up with appropriate retrieval strategy – Only 1⁄2 of 5yr olds could do so

Answer 94

– Asked 6, 8, & 11-y-olds to learn 24 images – Later shown just the 8 cue cards with categories – Older children more likely to use cue cards as aid – Younger children also used them less systematically

Answer 95

• Awareness of own cognitive limitations • More aware of memory capacity with age – Ex:younger children unrealistic about number of items can recall (Flavelletal.,1970) • More aware of usefulness of memory strategies – Older children able to come up with more and better memory aids than younger (Ringel & Springer, 1980)

Answer 96

Ability to infer/extrapolate novel info using: – Scripts: sequence of actions appropriate for specific context – Schema: what is known about scene, place, object • Young children use these,but do so less flexibly than older children and adults – Ex: Nelson & Gruendel,1981(restaurant script) – Ex:Blades & Banham,1990(kitchen schema)

Answer 97

- children better at remembering chess positions than adults – Adults better at digits – Role of experience (all chess players)

Answer 98

difference between actual performance and potential performance – How the child learns with help of others – At level beyond existing skill (but not too far)

Answer 99

Learning is the result of the interaction between a child and a more knowledgeable individual – Culture provides the context within which interactions take place – Language provides the means through which meanings are shared

Answer 100

How knowledge is passed from expert adult to novice child – Recruitment: engage interest of child – Reduction of degrees of freedom: reduce number of acts required, simplify – Direction maintenance: keep motivation up – Marking critical features: highlight relevant features – Demonstration: modelling solutions

Answer 101

Humans have evolved special social-cognitive skills (ex: theory of mind, social learning, communication, cooperation, imitation, teaching)

Answer 102

– 16 infants each in 6 age groups (9, 12, 15,18, 21,& 24 months) – Compared “No-rouge” & “Rouge” conditions Recognise themselves from 21 months

Answer 103

After 3 years

Answer 104

Sticker unobtrusively placed on head Videos and photos taken of 2-4-yr-olds Showed them videos/photos after delay Older 3 & 4 yrs: reached for sticker Younger children did not • Could label photo or video correctly • DID remove or touch sticker when presented with mirror

Answer 105

internal representation of a social being (18m) other people, using labels

Answer 106

Gradually unfolding in the first and second year Familiarity • Different behaviour to familiar vs strange adults (7-9 months) • Familiar vs. strange peers (10-12 months) Age • Discriminate children and adults by 6-12 months • Use verbal age labels by 18-24 months Gender • Discriminate between female and male strangers (9-12 months) • Use verbal gender labels around 19 months

Answer 107

Positive and negative affect only after birth From a few months on basic “primary emotions” (joy, interest, anger, sadness) 7 months: fear responses, anger vs. pain – Izard et al (1987) 2- 8 months 2-3 years “secondary emotions” (embarrassment, pride, shame) – EX: Fear + Anger = Hate, envy

Answer 108

Found that infants can discriminate emotions early on - 10 weeks

Answer 109

Gauge response from care-giver before reacting - looking at caregiver and figuring out how to react based on them Wary reactions to strangers and unknown situations - more positive when mother reacts positively Visual cliff experiment

Answer 110

When we’re young we have people around us who can help to regulate our emotions • Learn to regulate emotion – Switch from external to internal management • Emotion regulation and coping mechanism – Achieve well-being • Emotion regulation and social competence – Accuracy in recognizing emotions = better acceptance by peers

Answer 111

• Precursors to this understanding: – Self-awareness (18-20 months) • verbally express emotional states (2yrs) – Capacity for pretence (2-3yrs) • Pretend something in world is something else – Distinguishing reality from pretence (3-4yrs) • Combine these to start understanding other peoples’ emotions, desires, beliefs Have to be aware of your own states to be able to understand others

Answer 112

Other people have a mental representation of the world that is different from our own (beliefs, feelings, etc) Crucial to success in social world Not innate, develops with age

Answer 113

Where will Maxi look for the chocolate? – Only answered correctly over 4yrs (5-8yrs) Has been argued to be too complicated, story too long for memory

Answer 114

Sally-Anne Task – 4-yr-olds solve! – 3-yr-olds do not

Answer 115

Actually pencils and children are shown thus them under 4 years presume other children will know what’s inside as well 4 years and over solve this

Answer 116

– 2yrs + use words about internal states (want) – 3yrs + use cognitive terms (know, remember)

Answer 117

3yrs have difficulty understanding 2 representations of an object at the same time

Answer 118

what it looks like and what it is l can be different example: sponge that looks like a rock for example

Answer 119

– Very few 2yr olds – Minority 3yr olds – 4+ yrs usually passed

Answer 120

VoE experiments: In some conditions, 15 month olds could correctly predict behaviour on false belief task Evidence they may have ToM earlier

Answer 121

Measured activation in motor cortex of adults (activated when the actor has false belief that ball is in the box) 6-month-old infants showed the same brain activity Authors conclude: infants make action prediction based on the agent’s beliefs

Answer 122

Children who perform better on false belief tasks tend to have better language abilities Children with caregivers who use more mental state terms earlier perform better

Answer 123

Make sure child can see both interpretations • “What will Ann see?” • 5yr olds could not give a good answer • Even some 8yr olds had trouble Ambiguous so the right answer would be ‘I don’t know’

Answer 124

Osterhaus & Bosacki (2022) Review from middle childhood on – Found very diverse definitions – But,most studies relying on same 4-5 tests – Individual diffs in AToM related to inhibition and language skills NOT empathy

Answer 125

Conceptual change between 3-5years – Develop concept of (meta) representations – mental states aren’t direct reflections of reality, but can be inaccurate – Evidence: differences between 3-& 4-yr-olds on traditional false-belief tasks • Understanding develops gradually – Do not suddenly acquire concept – “realist” tendency over rides understanding of beliefs – Other cognitive abilities mask understanding – Evidence: tasks reduce complexity/cognitive demands show success at younger ages; ongoing development and perhaps some decline on certain measures with older age

Answer 126

– Around first birthday, helping behaviour emerges – Rapidly increases in toddler/preschooler period, and then slowly thereafter into early adulthood – At least into late adolescence – Shift to act according to moral principles, rather than for selfish motivations or to gain approval

Answer 127

Explicit scaffolding (encouragement and praise) increases prosocial behaviour in infants

Answer 128

Observing helpful behaviour increases prosocial behaviour in infants

Answer 129

older children only affected by experimenter influence, not peer influence

Answer 130

Observe spontaneous, naturally occurring behaviour (directly or through reports)

Answer 131

14-36 months Mothers report responses to events in which negative emotions expressed Increase in empathic responses with age

Answer 132

Parents asked to report on helping behaviour and motivations in 1-4-year-olds Helping increased with age

Answer 133

24 18-month-olds Experimental condition: looked at object and child, verbalized problem Control: neutral face toward object Children more likely to help in experimental condition for most tasks – Immediately in most cases – eye-contact and verbal announcement unnecessary – Restricted by ability to interpret goal/need

Answer 134

Parenting styles and response – secure attachment = higher empathy – Parents who are empathic, respond sensitively, encourage empathy • Perspective-taking ability • Ability to regulate emotions • Cross-cultural differences – Values placed on cooperation vs. competition, individualism vs. support

Answer 135

How we reason or judge whether an action is right or wrong

Answer 136

Observedhowchildrenunderstood“rulesofthegame”,correspondsto“rules of society” – 3-stages of understanding • Premoral (Up to 4 years): rules not understood • Moral realism/Heteronomous (4 to 10): rules come from higher authority, cannot be changed • Moral subjectivism/Autonomous (10+): rules mutually agreed by players, can change Dilemma method: which child is naughtiest? – Up to 9/10 years, children judge based on amount of damage, not motive or intention

Answer 137

English & Spanish children – Confirmed Piaget’s findings

Answer 138

Developed 3 levels of reasoning, each with 2 stages Preconventional Conventional Postconventional

Answer 139

Expanded upon Piaget’s concepts – Across the life-span, not just childhood – Much more intense study of over 30 years • Participants presented with stories of “dilemmas” – Crucial aspect was why something was or wasn’t wrong

Answer 140

Concerned with authority, obey rules to avoid punishment

Answer 141

Weigh the risks and benefits – Recognize others might have different interests – Action determined by one’s needs

Answer 142

focus on interpersonal relationships – Being good=having good motives – Living up to what is“expected”of you • Approval/disapproval of others important

Answer 143

focus on society as a whole – Performing one’s duty to maintain social order

Answer 144

importance of functioning society AND individual rights – Usually not until 20+ yrs, and not everyone!

Answer 145

Following universal ethical principles When law violates principle, act in accordance to principle

Answer 146

Reason in relation to self,little understanding of shared rules – Seek pleasure, avoid punishment – Children under 9,some adolescents, adult “criminal offenders”

Answer 147

Importance of rules, expectations, conventions of society – Most adolescents and adults

Answer 148

Understanding of moral principles underlying laws

Answer 149

"We shouldn't consider war..." • "because it would hurt our economy..."(Stage1) • "because we'll have more money for domestic issues..."(Stage2) • "because we don't want to appear too militaristic..."(Stage3) • "because war is killing and killing is against the law..."(Stage4) • "even though the situation is bad,war is damaging to people and property and society agrees that is bad..."(Stage 5) • "although atrocities have been committed,it would be an even greater atrocity to wage war..." (Stage 6)

Answer 150

Dilemmascriticizedforbeingtooartificial,andnotreliable – Clinical interview method too subjective ** Better scoring system (Colby et al. 1987) • CulturalBias – Snarey (1985) review of studies in 27 cultures • Similar progression through stages 1-4, but Stage 5 only found in urban societies • Biased toward cultures favouring individualism ** Approaches which take into account the diversity of values within cultures • Gender bias – All original participants male – Stages reflect specifically “male morality” • Gilligan (1982) – Criticized both Piaget and Kohlberg of negative views of “female morality” – Argued females more concerned about impact behaviour has on others – “people before principles” (female) vs. “principles before people” (male)

Answer 151

• Chromosomal abnormalities – Genetic mutation • Down syndrome (extra copy of chromosome 21) • Prenatal factors – Damage while in womb (oxygen deprivation, maternal infection, malformation of brain) • Ex: Cerebral Palsy • Unknown combination – Genetic, environmental, psychological, neurological

Answer 152

– A: Impairments in social interaction (lackofeye-to-eye contact,failure to develop peer relations) – B: Impairments in communication (language delay,lack of varied make-believe play) – C: Restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviour (narrow interests,ritualistic or compulsive behaviours)

Answer 153

• Diagnosed and defined using behavioural criteria – Some signs appear early (12-18months) – Typically around 3+years, but can go undiagnosed • Increase recently in numbers,largely due to better diagnostic material and understanding of impairments • Develop mental outcomes highly variable – Why so much variability in terms of what develops, when, and in whom?

Answer 154

Executive Functioning (EF)=an umbrella term – ex: planning, organising, inhibition, impulse control,s ustaining attention – Can repetitive, restricted behaviours be explained by impairment in executive control? • early difficulties in EF might play role in developmental outcomes • Correlation between EF and ToM Weak Central Coherence – Central coherence = TD people have tendency to process incoming info globally – WCC = bias for featural or local information, details – Proposed to explain certain aspects of ASD(Frith&Happe,1994) • Ex: Islets of ability,excellent rote memory, preoccupation with parts of objects – Superiority in detail, rather than deficit in global?

Answer 155

Sally-Anne false belief task • ASD with mental age >4 • TD children aged 4 • Down’s syndrome with mental age >4 • RESULTS: – 80% of TD & DS solved – Only 20% of ASD group • Perner et al(1989) – Similar results with Smarties task

Answer 156

More natural, complex challenge than false belief tasks (Happe, 1994) Participants read short story and are asked why a character say something they don’t mean literally (white lie, pretend, joking, idioms) Even those who passed 2nd order ToM tasks were impaired – Too vocabulary-loaded?

Answer 157

Designed to address ToM abilities beyond those of a 6-yr-old – Choose between correct emotion and “foil”(ex:concerned vs. unconcerned) • Autistic group significantly impaired compared to TD group and Tourette Syndrome group • Is it really measuring ToM? – Test has been criticized, particularly by autistic people What about the whole face/ body language?

Answer 158

e.g.Milton, 2012; Mitchelletal, 2021 – Autistic and non-autistic people have different social communication styles – Breakdown in mutual understanding

Answer 159

Physical changes – Sexual maturity – Growth spurt (5-6cm per year in childhood, 9-10cm in adolescence) • Brain development – “remodeling of the brain” • areas affecting emotional regulation, response inhibition, planning – Increase white matter, decrease grey matter • Psychological changes? – Risk-taking, moodiness, aggression? – Transition from childhood to adulthood

Answer 160

Theory of psychosocial development – Different “conflict” at each stage which must be resolved successfully (Ex: trust vs. mistrust in 1st year) • Identity Crisis in adolescence – What is an identity? “a subjective sense as well as an observable quality of personal sameness and continuity, paired with some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared world image” – “Psychosocial moratorium” - trying different things to figure out who you are

Answer 161

Identified 4 identity “statuses” – Diffusion: haven’t started thinking about it seriously (no identity crisis or commitment) – Foreclosure: formed commitment without having explored possibilities – Moratorium: still considering alternatives – Achievement of identity: been through crisis and reached a solution