Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
The scientific study of how people change physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally from infancy through old age.
Stages
Distinct segments of an organism’s life with sharp differences or discontinuities between them.
Qualitative Development
As a person develops, their psychology changes abruptly from one stage to the next and they seem to have very different characteristics than they had before.
Quantitative Development
As a person develops, they change gradually and continually across time.
Maturation
A series of biological growth processes that enable orderly growth relatively independently of experience.
Cross-Sectional Design
A methodological approach to studying development that compares participants of different age groups to one another.
Cohort Effect
An effect or difference due to the members of an age group (or age cohort) sharing a common set of life experiences. Is a key disadvantage for cross-sectional research studies.
Longitudinal Design
A methodological approach to studying development that tracks participants across time and compares each participant at different time points. Key disadvantage is that it requires a lot of time and resources.
Attrition
When participants withdraw from a study before it has finished. Is a key disadvantage for longitudinal research studies.
Sequential Design
A methodological approach to studying development that tracks multiple age groups across time and compares different age groups to one another as well as compares participants to themselves at different time points.
Cognitive Development
Changes in all of the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Schemas
Concepts or mental models that represent our experiences. A flexible concept or framework that helps us to make sense of information by organizing and interpreting it.
Assimilation
In Piaget’s theory, the process of using an existing schema to interpret a new experience.
Accommodation
In Piaget’s theory, the process of revising existing schemas to incorporate information from a new experience.
Sensorimotor Stage
Birth to 2 years. Children develop knowledge through their senses and actions but cannot yet think using symbols, namely language. During this stage, children learn that objects continue to exist even when the objects are hidden. World is taken in through sensations and motor experience (no symbolic thought).
Preoperational Stage
2 to 7 years. Children master the use of symbols but struggle to see situations from multiple perspectives or to imagine how situations can change. During this stage, children classify objects, but only according to a single feature, such as colour or shape. The development of capacity for symbolic thought, the world is represented with words, sounds, gestures, and images. Language develops. Imaginative/pretend play. Unable to manipulate symbolic schemas (perform operations) ex. difficulty with understanding conservation.
Concrete Operational Stage
7 to 12 years. Children become capable of using multiple perspectives and their imagination to solve complex problems, but they are able to apply this thinking only to concrete objects or events.
Formal Operational Stage
12 years and up. Adolescents become able to reason about abstract problems and hypothetical propositions.
Object Permanence
The awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are temporarily out of sight. Piaget believed that infants can only think about the physical world and object permanence doesn’t develop until 8-12 months. Current understanding, it develops as early as 3.5 months.
Violation-of-Expectation Method (VOE)
Takes advantage of the fact that people are surprised by things they don’t expect. Measures how long infants will look at something that is unexpected.
Neural Proliferation
The creation of new synaptic connections.
Synaptic Pruning
The trimming back of unnecessary synapses according to a “use it or lose it” principle (connections that get used are maintained and unused connections are eliminated).
Myelination of Axons
The process of insulating axons in myelin which speeds their conductivity and allows information to move more rapidly through the brain and body.
Social Referencing
A process of using others’ facial expressions for information about how to react to a situation.
Separation Anxiety
A powerful indication that the infant has formed an attachment to the caregiver.
Attachment
The strong, enduring, emotional bond between an infant and a caregiver.
Imprinting
A mechanism for establishing attachment early in life that operates according to a relatively simple rule of attaching to the first moving object an organism sees.
Temperament
A person’s characteristic patterns of emotion and behaviour that are evident from an early age and argued to be genetically determined.
Childhood
The period of life spanning the end of infancy (about age 2) and the start of adolescence.
Symbolic Representation
The use of words, sounds, gestures, visual images, or objects to stand for other things.
Operations
In childhood, the manipulation of schemas. Involve imagining how things like people or objects might be different than they are or imaging the consequences of some event without needing to see it happen ex. how puzzle pieces might fit together or performing mental arithmetic.
Conservation
The idea that the physical properties of an object such as mass, volume, and number remain constant despite superficial changes in the object’s shape or form (the principle that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape or form).
Concrete Operational Period
In Piaget’s theory, the period of development from age 7 to 12 during which a child becomes capable of transforming and interrelating schemas to solve complex problems but is able to apply this thinking only to concrete objects or events.
Egocentrism
In Piaget’s theory, the difficulty that preoperational children have with thinking about how objects or situations are perceived by other people.
Theory of Mind
The understanding that we and other people have minds, that these minds represent the world in different ways, and that these representations can explain and predict how others will behave.
Sociocultural View of Development
Lev Vygotsky’s proposal that the child’s mind grows through social interaction with knowledgeable others.
Scaffolding
A process of promoting cognitive development by actively challenging and supporting children as they attempt things that are beyond their current capabilities.
Gender Socialization
The process by which people internalize social expectations and attitudes associated with their perceived gender.
Gender Schema
A mental representation for the concept of gender that includes assumptions about how people with different genders are supposed to think, feel, and act.
Gender Constancy
A person’s gender identity is consistent regardless of how they may act or dress (ex. acting like a body won’t turn a girl into one).
Authoritarian Parents
Are low on responsiveness and highly demanding. They provide minimal emotional support yet impose strict rules and standards for behaviour. Expect absolute obedience. Children must follow the rules out of respect for the parent’s authority, so they see no need to explain the rules. Failure to follow the rules, for any reason, may lead to severe punishment.
Permissive Parents
Are high on responsiveness and low on the demanding scale. These parents are very warm and attentive to their children, but they set few rules and restrictions. They indulge their child’s needs and wishes, leading to a very unstructured daily life without strict time frames (ex. bedtime). Because there are so few rules, punishment is rare. Require very little of their children, like doing chores or schoolwork. In these households, anything goes.
Authoritative Parents
Are both very responsive and very demanding. They establish and enforce clear rules and structure, but they explain their reasoning. They are also flexible in response to their children’s opinions and reasonable requests. Rules can be bent when the circumstances require it and open discussion allows children to play an active role in determining the rules of the household including consequences for misbehaviour. Give their children responsibilities along with coaching required to meet those responsibilities with independence and maturity. Best parenting style.
Disengaged Parents
Are neither responsive nor demanding. These parents impose few rules and responsibilities, but they are also relatively insensitive to their children’s needs. Disengaged parenting may emerge when parents are too overwhelmed by other concerns to focus on child rearing, leading to neglect.
Adolescence
The period of transition between childhood and adulthood.
Puberty
The period of sexual maturation during which males and females become capable of reproduction.
Primary Sex Characteristics
Body structures such as ovaries, testes, and external genitalia that make sexual reproduction possible.
Secondary Sex Characteristics
Nonreproductive body structures such as hips, torsos, voices, and body hair that make the body look more “adult”.
Gender Intensification
Pressure to conform to gender stereotypes.
Preconventional Stage
In Kohlberg’s theory, a period in moral development in which people make moral judgments based on self-interest such as avoiding punishments and gaining rewards.
Conventional Stage
In Kohlberg’s theory, a period in moral development in which people make moral judgements based on caring for others and upholding social roles and rules.
Postconventional Stage
In Kohlberg’s theory, a period in moral development in which people make moral judgments based on ideals and broad moral principles.
Erikson’s 8 Psychosocial Stages
1) Infancy (0 to 1.5 Years-Old)
—> Developmental Task (forming attachment to mother which lays foundation for later trust in others).
—> Psychosocial Crisis (trust vs mistrust)
2) Early Childhood (1.5 to 3 Years-Old)
—> Developmental Task (gaining some basic control of self and environment ex. toilet training and exploration).
—> Psychosocial Crisis (autonomy vs shame and doubt)
3) Preschool (3 to 6 Years-Old)
—> Developmental Task (becoming purposeful and directive).
—> Psychosocial Crisis (initiative vs guilt)
4) School Age (6 Years-Old to Puberty)
—> Developmental Task (developing social, physical, and school skills).
—> Psychosocial Crisis (competence vs inferiority)
5) Adolescence
—> Developmental Task (making transition from childhood to adulthood, developing a sense of identity).
—> Psychosocial Crisis (identity vs role confusion)
6) Early Adulthood
—> Developmental Task (establishing intimate bonds of love and friendship).
—> Psychosocial Crisis (intimacy vs isolation)
7) Middle Age
—> Developmental Task (fulfilling life goals that involve family, career, and society, developing concerns that embrace future generations).
—> Psychosocial Crisis (generativity vs stagnation)
8) Later Years
—> Developmental Task (looking back over one’s life and accepting its meaning).
—> Psychosocial Crisis (integrity vs despair)
Social Identity
A sense of identity that is rooted in group memberships.
Emerging Adulthood
The period between adolescence and adulthood, roughly the ages of 18 to 25, when people take time to finish schooling, gain financial independence from their parents, and establish careers and families.
Social Clock
A set of norms that govern the typical timing of life milestones like marriage, parenthood, and retirement.
Menopause
The natural end of menstruation occurring in middle adulthood.
Alzheimer’s Disease
A degenerative brain disorder characterized by the progressive and widespread loss of nerve cells leading to memory problems, disorientation, and eventually total helplessness.
Socioemotional Selectivity Theory
Laura Carstensen’s theory that our perception of how much time we have left in life leads us to value emotional over informational goals.
Germinal Stage
0 to 2 weeks when the zygote is formed (a single egg is fertilized by sperm).
Implantation
Attachment of the zygote to the lining of the uterus.
Blastocyst
Consists of inner and outer layers of cells (forms embryo (inner layer) and placenta (outer layer)).
Embryonic Stage
2 to 8 weeks when an embryo is formed (neural tube (will become the brain and spinal cord later), formation of head, facial features, arms, and legs). The brain, spinal cord, heart, and lungs are still developing. A heartbeat is detectable with an ultrasound. Most vulnerable to harmful external effects.
Fetal Stage
8 weeks to birth when a fetus is formed. Skeletal, organ, and nervous systems develop and become more specialized.
Motor Systems
Allows the fetus to move.
Sensory Systems
Allows the fetus to respond to stimuli.
12 Weeks
Differentiations between cerebral hemispheres, cerebellum, and brainstem.
28 Weeks
Cortex develops gyri and sulci (the brain’s surface, lumps and bumps). Myelin production.
40 Weeks
Newborn brain has virtually all neurons of adult brain but more synapses (pruning).
Teratogens
Environmental agents that interfere with typical development, drugs (ex. Thalidomide), pollutants, and disease (ex. measles and AIDS). The strongest effects occur during the embryonic period.
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Can lead to learning disorders, behavioural difficulties, and differences in facial structure. Even light alcohol consumption affects the developing fetus.
Synaptogenesis
Forming of new synaptic connections (occurs at tremendous speed).
Synaptic Pruning
Loss of weak connections.
Critical/Sensitive Periods
A period of time when neural development is strongly dependent on, or influenced by, experience (ex. importance of early exposure to visual information).
Blakemore and Cooper (1970)
Found that kittens exposed to only vertical or horizontal stripes could not detect objects or contours aligned in the opposite way.
Rooting Reflex
Stroke the cheek of an infant and they will move their head towards the hand, seeming looking for something to suck.
Moro Reflex
Startle response to a loud noise, sudden movement (arches back, throws back head, flings out arms and legs, and pulls arms back inward in hugging motion).
Grasping Reflex
When something touches the infant’s palms, the infant grasps it tightly.
Motor Development
Raise Head → Roll Over → Sit Up → Crawl → Stand → Walk → Run
(variability in timing)
Maturation
Children develop abilities biologically in genetically determined time frames.
Auditory System
Well developed by birth.
The Cat in the Hat Study
Babies have a preference to The Cat in the Hat if their mother read that story when they were in the womb.
Pacifier Study
Babies prefer their mother’s voice more than another person’s.
Visual System
Not well developed by birth. 1/40th of visual acuity of adults. Can detect colour at 2 months and depth at 4 months.
Social Preferences
Newborns prefer to look at objects around 8 to 12 inches away (distance between feeding infant’s face and caregiver). They look towards voices and prefer face-like displays.
Scale Errors
When children try to use objects that are way too small for them (ex. trying to sit in a car made for a barbie).
The Sally-Anne Test
Sally takes a marble and hides it in her basket. Sally leaves and Anne takes the marble and puts it in her own box. When Sally returns, where will she look for her marble? Children will say that Sally will look in Anne’s basket because they can’t understand that Sally and Anne have different information.
Reversibility
Things can be changed and then returned to their original state (ability to reverse operations).
Researchers Today Believe (Human Development)
That development is a more continuous process and that children express their mental abilities and operations at earlier ages than Piaget believed.
Pre-Conventional Morality
Also known as pre-moral. Occurs when under 9 years-old. Self-interested morality. Children obey to avoid punishment and children obey to obtain reward.
Conventional Morality
Also known as role conformity. Occurs during adolescence. Regards social conventions as moral guides. Uphold laws and rules because they are rules. Possible approval of actions that maintain social order.
Post-Conventional Morality
Also known as self-accepted moral principles. Occurs during adulthood. Affirms people’s agreed upon rights. Follows what one perceives to be basic ethical principles. Estimated that few individuals reach this stage (20-25%).
Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Theory (Gender Bias)
Studies were conducted exclusively with men/boys. Women are more likely to consider compassion and social relationships in moral judgments (so they are considered to be at a lower level).
Criticisms of Kohlberg’s Theory (Cultural Bias)
Research was mostly focused on North American samples. More concrete forms of morality may develop in cultures that have more face-to-face encounters (so they are considered to be at a lower level).
Harry Harlow and John Bowlby
Emotional bonding is an innate, powerful need in its own right.
Harlow
Rhesus monkeys separated from mothers prefer terrycloth “mother” vs wire “mother” regardless of who provides milk.
Bowlby
Orphans fail to thrive (undersized, disengaged) without emotional security provided by maternal care.
3 Functions of Attachment
1) Proximity Maintenance
2) Safe Haven
3) Secure Base
Proximity Maintenance
Seeking and sustaining physical closeness.
Safe Haven
Returning for comfort and reassurance when in need of support.
Secure Base
Using the attachment figure as a foundation for confident play and exploration.
Strange Situation
Mary Ainsworth. Mom and child are in the room. Another adult enters. Mom leaves. Mom returns. Both mom and stranger leave. Both return.
Attachment Styles
Characteristic pattern of relating to others based on history with caregiver and temperament (can I count on my attachment figure to be available and responsive when I need them?).
Secure
Infants trust a responsive caregiver, feel comfortable to explore (secure base), minor distress, and easily comforted.
Ambivalent
Insecure. Infants cling to inconsistent caregiver, do not explore, protest extremely, and are not easily comforted.
Avoidant
Insecure. Infants appear detached from unresponsive caregiver, do not appear distressed, ignore caregiver, but have an elevated heart rate.
Disorganized
Insecure. Infants alternate between wanting to get away and wanting to be comforted.
Secure Adult Attachment
More commitment, trust, and intimacy. Less conflict, jealousy, negative emotion, and etc. Better relationship quality, satisfaction, and outcomes.
Insecure Adult Attachment
Relationships on “hard mode”.
Anxious Adult Attachment
Jealous, clingy, controlling, and over-perceive conflict.
Avoidant Adult Attachment
Lack of support, emotional, and physical infidelity.
Erikson’s Psychosocial Development
Development as a lifelong process that progresses through eight stages. Each stage has a key challenge (psychosocial crisis) to resolve. How we resolve these can impact personality development.
