Developmental Psychology Flashcards
What is a cross-sectional study?
Cross-sectional studies compare groups of subjects at different ages.
Longitudinal studies study what?
They compare as specific group of people over an extended period of time.
What do sequential cohort studies study?
Sequential cohort studies combine cross-sectional and longitudinal research methods. Several groups of different ages are studied over several years.
What does the nature side of the nature/nurture controversy argue?
Human capabilities are innate (present at birth) and that individual differences are therefore largely an effect of the person’s genetic makeup.
What does the nurture side of the nature/nurture controversy contend?
Human capabilities are determined by the environment and shaped by experience.
What is each specific trait controlled by?
Alleles, an alternative form of a gene. Each variation was represented by an allele that was either dominant or recessive.
What is a genotype?
The total genetic complement (genetic makeup) of an individual.
What is the physical manifestation of a genotype?
A phenotype.
Where are genes located?
On chromosomes.
How many chromosomes do sex cells have?
23 chromosomes.
How many chromosomes are in the nucleus of each cell in the body (besides sex cells)?
46 chromosomes or 23 pairs of chromosomes.
What percentage of genes in common are children said to have with each parent?
50%
What did R. C. Tyron study?
Inheritance of maze-running ability in laboratory rats. Published in 1942.
What did R. C. Tyron find in his study?
Tyron found that learning ability has a genetic basis. He bred “maze-bright” rats with “maze-dull” rats and found that the “maze-bright” rats increasingly perfomed better in each generation.
Why can family studies not distinguish between environmental and genetic factors?
Families share both genetics and environments. The results of family studies cannot distinguish between these factors.
What do family studies study?
Genetics between members of families. Schizophrenia, for example, is known to be 13 times more likely for children to develop if their parents have it. This was found through family studies.
What are monozygotic twins?
Identical twins. Twins that share 100 percent of their genes.
What are dizygotic twins?
Share approximately 50% of their genes.
What are arguments against twin studies?
The assumption that MZ and DZ twin share their environments to the same degree may not be valid. Researchers have found that MZ twins are treated more similarly by people than DZ twins and that MZ twins tend to imitate each other more than DZ twins do.
What are adoption studes?
They compare the similarities between the biological parent and the adopted child to similarities between the adoptive parents and the adopted child.
What did researchers find about adopted children’s IQ in relation to their adopted and biological parents?
Researchers found that that adopted children’s IQ is more similar to their biological parents’ IQ than to their adoptive parents’ IQ.
Who studied a group of children with high IQ’s (135 and above) with groups of children typical of the general population, to discover similarities and differences?
Lewis Terman.
What genetic disorder involves an extra 21st chromosome?
Down’s syndrome. Individuals with Down’s sydrome often have varying levels of mental retardation. Older parents have an increased risk of having children with Down’s syndrome.
What is Phenylketonuria (PKU)?
A genetic disorder and a degenerative disease of the nervous system. PKU results when there is a lack of the enzyme needed to digest phenylalanine, an amino acid found in milk. PKU is now tested in infants and was the first genetic disease that could be tested in large populations