Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Nature and Nurture
When genetic inheritance interacts with experiences to influence development
Developmental Psychology
Study of physical, cognitive, and psychological changes
-focused on childhood
Longitudinal research
Studies the same participants over a long period of time
Problems with longitudinal research
-expensive
-long wait times
-attrition (drop outs)
Cross sectional research
Studies groups of participants of different ages at the same time
Problem with cross sectional research
Cohort effects (differences in experience)
Habituation
Decreased response to stimulus after repeated presentations
Eg. Wearing perfume day after day
Zygote
Fertilized egg that develops into an embryo
Embryo
The developing human organism (2 weeks after fertilization)
Fetus
Developing human organism (9 weeks after conception to birth)
Teratogens
Chemicals or viruses that reach the embryo or fetus and cause harm
FAS
Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children cause by alcohol consumption during pregnancy
Cognition
Mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating
Jean Piaget
Belief that intelligence develops qualitatively (in stages) as well as quantitatively
Sensorimotor stage
(birth to 2 years)
Learn to coordinate sensory experience and motor behaviour
Object permanence
Awareness that things continue to exist when not perceived
Preoperational stage
(age 2 to 7 years)
Language is more sophisticated but still have trouble with mental manipulation of information
Conservation
Properties of mass, volume, and numbers remain the same despite changes in form
Egocentrism
Difficulty perceiving things from another point of view
Concrete operational stage
(age 7 to 11)
Children gain mental operations to think logically about concrete events
Formal operational stage
(age 12)
Children can think abstractly and logically
Attachment theory
An attachment to whoever provides an infant with food
Eg. Harlow’s monkeys
Conclusion of Harlow’s Monkey experiment
Comfort and security creates attachment not just association with feeding
Who identified attachment theory
John Bowlby
Theory of mind
People have different thoughts and feelings that might guide their behaviour
