Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Critical period
A limited period usually in early life in which child need to be exposed to a particular skill to be learnt. If experiences do not occur in this time there may be significant disruption or difficulty in development
Sensitive period
A period of time in early life when child is most sensitive to certain types of learning
What are the Critical periods
Pregnancy- foetal development
Attatchemt t- seven months to three years
Suggested around 17 years second language acquisition
What is nature
Genetics hormones biology
Eg parents in and alteration of genetic material - genetic syndrome
Nurture
Environment and social interaction
Eg- provision of opportunities for learning and cultural experiences
Prenatal exposure to toxins
Birth trauma preterm birth
Maternal warmth and interaction
Transactional approach
Development is determined by interaction between the child social context and immediate environment
Nature vs nurture with monozygotic and dizygotic twins
Monozygotic twins who have been brought up in the same environment had an iq correlation of 89% when not brought up in same environment had 76% correlation
Dizygotic twins brought up in same environment had 55% correlation and when not brought up together bad 35%
Biological sibling brought up together had 47%
Adoptive sibling brought up together had 0.02%
Methods in developmental psychology
Infants do notnunderstand complex instructions and can’t provide feedback easily distracted infancy cognition assessed by :
Preferential looking technique which is the innate predisposition to respond to novel stimuli when presented with multiple stimulu will gaze at most interesting suggests discrimination ability
Habituation paradigm - familiarised to a stimulus until bored
Preferential sucking technique - for non - visual attraction to a stimuli increases sucking behaviour
Preferental looking task preference for faces
John Bowlby
Worked with bits experiencing adjustment problems
Believed children are preprogrammed to form attatchments important for survival eg fear of strangers
Innate behaviours help ensure proximity and contact with attatchemnt figure
One primary attachment (mother)
Critical/ sensitive periods for forming attatchements
Failure to initiate attatchemnts leads to serious negative consequences eg attatchemnt quakity
Bowlby- 4 stages of attachment
Phase 1( birth-2m) - pre-attatchement infant interact socially with everyone no particular caregiver preference
Phase 2( 2-7m) - early attatchemnt - infant begins to discriminate between caregivers and develops strong preference for primary caregiver
Phase 3 ( 7m 2-3y) child shoes seperation anxiety in absences of primary caregiver and stranger anxiety as child gets older attachment figure becomes resource and marked in phase 4
Phase 4: partnership(2-3y) interactions with primary caregiver act as prototype for future relationships via development of internal working models
Ainsworth attatchemtn styles
Insecure avoidant- avoids primary caregiver, no signs of separation anxiety, okay with strangers, little interest when mother leaves, mother and stranger able to comforts infant
Secure - uses caregiver as base to explore, seperation anxiety, avoidant of stranger when alone, friendly when mother present, happy on mothers return
Insecure ambivalent - child clings to primary caregiver no seperation anxiorty stranger anxiety approaches mother but resists contact cries more explores less
Intercation between maternal sensitivity and child temperament
Infant irrationality x maternal sensitivity = infant attatchemnt style
