Developmental Psychology Flashcards
What is developmental psychology?
explaining the nature and processes involved in human development from infancy to adulthood
How does developmental occur? 2 ways
Continuous:
- development from childhood through adulthood
- Children are not qualitatively different from adults, they simply have less knowledge
In stages:
- Development from childhood to adulthood through a succession of stegs
- Children and adults are qualitatively different in psychological terms
What is nature and nurture?
Nature: development is a product of genetic inheritance
Nurture: development is a product of experience and environment (tabula rasa ‘blank slate’)
What is behaviourism? and its key principles
explained by only focusing on behaviour and the environment in which it occurs (B F Skinner)
- Reinforcement (positive or negative)
- Shaping behaviour
- Successive approximations (e.g. babies speaking to get parents attention)
- The value of comparative psychology
What is nativism? Noam Chomsky
- Genetically determined behaviour
- Innate knowledge of language
- Same mechanisms underline both child and adult behaviour
What is evolution/ ethology in terms of development? Konrad Lorenz
- Imprinting- describes the process of attachment of baby animals with the first thing they encounter at birth
- Critical period (10-30 hours)
- Biological preparedness- a genetically determined readiness to learn specific skills (e.g. walking)
- Maturational unfolding and stages- a genetically determined developmental progression
Evolution & Attachment: Bowlby and Ainsworth
- They suggested attachment is a natural process under maturational control
- Disruption of this process can have detrimental consequences (Separation distress from 8 months old)
- Long-term separation may lead to slower development (emotionally and physically)
What is constructivism? Piaget
- Knowledge is actively generated by the individual rather than transmitted by another person through one’s gernes
- Development as a product of nature and nurture
- Occurs in stages
- Egocentrism- difficulty taking on board another persons’ perspective
What are Piagetian stages of development?
- Sensori-motor (0-2 years) – failure to determine between self and surroundings
- Pre-operational (2-7 years) – mental imagery without principled thought
- Concrete operational (7-12 years) – principled thought confined to real-life problems
- Formal operational (12 years upwards) – principled thought applied to abstract problems
1st stage: Sensorimotor stage (0-2yrs)
Lack of mental imagery= ability to imagine the existence of things even when they are not directly accessible to the senses.
Solipsism = failure to distinguish between the self and the rest of the universe.
Don’t have object permanence = understanding that things continue to exist even when we can’t sense them directly.
At 18-24 months the infant is able to conceive the existence of an object independently of self and thus is no longer in a state of solipsism.
The infant understands there is “self” and there is the “world” – process through acquisition of mental imagery.
2nd stage: Preoperational stage (2-7 years)
- Mental imagery without principle thought
- Egocentrism: difficulty taking another person’s perspective
- Operational intelligence: the process of solving a problem by working through logical principles
- Failure to decenter: broaden attention to the various aspects of a problem instead of fixating on just one
- Conservation: understanding that changing the form or location of an object foes not change its mass, volume or amount. The child gives an intuitive answer instead of working out the correct response based on operational thought
3rd stage: Concrete operational stage (7-12 years)
- Children give the correct answer in conversation tasks and are able to provide logical justifications to their answer
- However, this is confined to real-life problems and they struggle to apply principle thought to abstract problems
- Justifications include: compensation, inversion and identity
4th stage: Formal operational stage (12 years onwards)
- Systematic logical thinking and reasoning
- Abstract thinking
Issues with Piaget’s stages of development: - Margaret Donaldson (1926-2020)
challenged Piaget’s theory and findings. Argued that Piagetian task did not make ‘human sense’ and showed that when problems are re-phrased, children are able to pass conservation tasks much earlier than previously thought (e.g. Naughty teddy version: the teddy moves the objects so a third-party was involved)
Issues with Piaget’s stages of development: - Inference by elimination: (Rai & Mitchell 2006
the 4-year olds could appreciate that the unfamiliar name belongs to the unfamiliar character. This suggests a level of logical reasoning well beyond what Piaget would have expected
Issues with Piaget’s stages of development: - Inter-cognitive conflict (Russell 1982)
asked two children which pencil was longer and both children said the same. But when the person was moved, the children both said that the one further away from them was longer. Dominance influenced the pairs’ decision
- Young children are capable of making logical inferences
Key ideas of Vygotsky: Social transmission and social constructivism
- Emphasised the role of the environment in development and argued that cognitive abilities are socially constructed
- Proposed that learning is motivated by a need to interact with others
- Suggested the role of culture and language are fundamental for development
What is Linguistic relativity,
Zone of proximal development and Scaffolding?
Linguistic relativity: language shapes the culture and culture shapes the language
Zone of proximal development: in order to learn something, the child needs to be cognitively ready
Scaffolding: the parent creates support structures to aid children’s learning
Contrasting views of development: Piaget vs Vygotsky
Piaget’s View
- Stress the internal control of cognitive development
- Personal discovery
- Child engages in active learning and searchers for understanding
- Learning driven by own curiosity
Vygotsky’s view
- Stresses external influences of cognitive development
- Social construction
- Mentors aid in guiding through steps of learning
- Learning motivated by need for social interaction
Issues with developmental research
- Relying on subjective interpretation
- Cannot assume children perceive instructions like adults
- Tasks are too arbitrary and out of context
What is adolescence?
- Period between childhood and adulthood
- Period of physical changes related to general maturity (Puberty)
- Age between 10-19 according to WHO (World Health Organisation)
- Different answer depending on time and culture
Is adolescence a distinct stage in development? 3 reasons
- Specific behaviours (e.g. risk-taking, peer influence and self-consciousness) – universal across cultures
- Adolescent period in non-human animals – during that period, animals exhibit similar behaviours to human adolescents (e.g. risk taking, novelty seeking)
- Evident across history (e.g. ‘lacking in sexual self-restraint, passionate and impulsive’ – Aristotle 384-322 B.C.)
Overview of adolescent egocentrism
(Elkind 1966)
- Ability to engage in abstract thinking, recognise other people’s mental states and perspectives
- Egocentrism in childhood: oblivious to other people’s views
- Egocentrism in adolescence: aware of other people’s view but assume own views are universal
What are the 6 features of Elkind’s adolescent egocentrism?
- Focus on mental life becomes excessive – awareness that can reflect upon thoughts and feelings. Become more aware of one’s own inner world and extreme preoccupation with one’s thoughts and feelings
- Imaginary audience – a false belief that others are scrutinising you and are observing everything about you the way you do. Could be negative or positive (adolescent as the centre of attention)
- Illusion of transparency – feeling that everyone knows what you are thinking/feeling. Overestimate the degree that others can ‘read’ you and illusion that inner states and feeling ‘leak out’ and can easily be detected
- Self consciousness – individuals feel shame or seek privacy due to the constant feeling of being observed or criticised
- Personal fable and private god – belief that one is special/chosen and feeling that are placed on earth to fulfil a special mission. Preferential relationship with a private god that will protect one from harm
- Risk-taking – Involved in risk-taking behaviours and assume one cannot be harmed as they have a special status (substance abuse, dangerous activities and unprotected sex)
How do we move into adulthood from adolescence?
- Experience stands in contrast with our ‘theory’ – that people are overly interested in us, etc.
- A clash between inner beliefs or predictions and reality
How does adolescent egocentrism develop according to Elkind (1967)?
Become more aware of one’s own inner world
Realisation that thoughts are thoughts not reflection of reality
Thoughts come into focus as an object of reflection
Excessive focus on one’s own mental life
Research support for self-consciousness? Somerville et al (2013)
- 69 pp’s completed fMRI scanning and during the scan the pp’s were told that the camera was embedded in the scanner
- Camera cycled through 3 settings (off, warming up, on)
- When camera was ‘on’ pp’s were told that a peer of same age and sex was monitoring the camera feed
- Adolescents reported greater feelings of embarrassment compared to children and adults and heightened levels of physiological responses
- Greater brain activation in areas thought to be related to social cognition so adolescents were more self-conscious compared to other age groups
Research support for focus on mental health? Weil et al (2013)
- Investigated how metacognitive ability develops in adolescence
- 56 pp’s performed a perceptual task and after each trial they were asked to rate how confident they were that they chose the right answer
- Ability to identify accuracy levels in the perceptual task increased with age
- Metacognitive ability may relate to increased egocentricity, sense of self and developing self-awareness
Research support for personal fable? Alberts et al (2007)
- 119 students and measures personal fable (invulnerability & speciality) and risk-taking
- Personal fable scores increased with age
- Males scored higher than females in invulnerability dimension of personal fable
- Significant positive correlation between personal fable and risk-taking
Research support for imaginary audience? Galanaki & Christopoulos (2011)
- Numerous studies critique the imaginary audience theory
- Are adaptive coping mechanisms used by adolescents in their attempts to deal with the stressful developmental ai of separation- individuation
- Females might be more likely to have stronger social pressures, experience objectification, have more extreme focus on mental health issues
Why do adolescents engage in more risk-taking behaviours than children and adults? Social influence on risk perception (Knoll et al 2015)
- 563 pp’s were presented with some risk scenarios and asked to rate how risky those were
- Pp’s were then shown rating of other people for the dame scenarios and then were asked to re-rate the risk scenarios
- Initial ratings: children rated scenarios more risky compared to the other age groups. Adolescents and adults did not differ in risk ratings
- Social influence: all age groups influenced by others’ ratings (children influenced by more adult ratings, adolescents were more strongly influenced by other adolescent ratings)
Why do adolescents engage in more risk-taking behaviours than children and adults? Peer influence on risk taking (Gardner and Steinberg 2005)
- Pp’s completed a driving stimulation game alone or in the presence of a peer (adolescents, youth and adults)
- Alone condition: all age groups took similar risks
- Peer condition: adolescents and young people took more risks compared to alone. Adult performance was the same
- Findings consistent with the idea that peer acceptance and fitting in may play a crucial role in risk-taking behaviour in adolescents
- Findings in line with real world data
Risk-taking and the limbic system
- Adolescents show higher risk-taking behaviour than children and adults
- Show higher sensitivity to reward than adults
- Limbic system: collection of structures in the brain related to emotion, memory, feelings of pleasure, reward
- The dual system model (Steinberg 2010): adolescent characteristics such as risk-taking and sensitivity to reward are due to these brain development changes
What is IQ?
Intelligence Quotient is an index of an individual’s intelligence score
(WISC – Wechsler intelligence scale for children, WASI – Wechsler adult scale for intelligence)
Who are 5 key figures in intelligence?
- Francis Galton: reasoned that intelligence is a product of natural selection and is genetically determined. Saw potential in theory of evolution for planned human betterment (could lead to selective breeding)
- Binet & Simon: developed 1st IQ tests to measure student abilities for education purposes
- Lewis Terman & Maud Merril: devised the Stanford-Binet scale. Did a longitudinal study on ‘gifted children’. Highly intelligent individuals are healthy/ stable and not weak/ a misfit
- Lewis Terman: used alpha and beta test on soldiers to test their abilities during WW1 and promoted selective breeding to create desirable characteristics (Eugenics)
- Cyril Burt: advised British government to use aptitude tests to determine what children should go to grammar school (research suggested than social class was determined hereditary levels of intelligence)
- Other issues: discriminate against less privileged racial, ethnic or social groups (Cultural bias)
Genotype vs phenotype
- Genotype: genetic make-up of an organism
- Phenotype: refers to the observable physical properties of an organism with environmental influences
