DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Flashcards
the main themes of developmental psych?
NATURE VS NURTURE CONTINUITY VS DISCONTINUITY ACTIVITY VS PASSIVITY MECHANISMS OF CHANGE UNIVERSALITY VS CONTEXT SPECIFICITY INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES RESEARCH AND CHILDRENS WELFARE
NO CAT ACTUALLY MEOWS UNTIL I ROAR
What did Urie bronfenbrenner bring to developmental psych?
- that it could vary from culture to culture, from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and from home to home.
- Bronfenbrenner formulated a model to describe environmental influences on development – a Bio-Ecological Model.
State the bio ecological model
Microsystems Meosystems Exosystems Macrosytems Chronosystems
How did bronfenbrenner explain his system?
Bronfenbrenner conceptualizes the environment as a set of nested structures, each inside another.
Each structure emphasizes a different level of influence.
The environmental forces at each level vary in effect on each child.
There is complex interconnectedness among the levels, which are called systems.
Psychoanalytic theories of developement
Freud’s theory of psychosexual development and Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development
Learning theories of development
Watson and classical conditioning
Skinner and operant conditioning
Social learning theory and Bandura
Cognitive development theories
Piaget’s cognitive development theory
Vgotkskys sociocultural theory
information processing perspectives
Systems theories of development
Gottlieb and ethological and evolutionary theories
Bronfenbrenner and his bioecological model
Freuds psychoanalytic theory
.emphasised on early experiences and the discovery of ones unconscious
.there are 3 basic structures of personality; the id, the ego and the superego
Id, Superego and the ego
id - ruled by the pleasure principle and stands for ‘untamed passions’
superego - controls behaviours and develops morally
ego - stands for reason and good sense
Five stages to Freuds theory
oral 0-18 months anal18-36 months phallic 3-6 years latency 6-11 genital 11+
Erik sons theories of psychosocial development
his stages are characterised by a crisis or a task that individual must resolve to proceed into the next task otherwise their progression will be impeded
Eriksons stages (8)
trust vs mistrust (to develop trust 0-1)
autonomy vs shame (1-3 to feel supported not punished or ashamed)
initiative vs guilt (4-6 children learn from parents need a healthy balance)
industry vs inferiority (6 - puberty)
identity vs confusion (adolescence to early adulthood - one must understand themselves to progress happily)
intimacy vs isolation
generativity vs stagnation
integrity vs despair
weakness of both freud and eriksons theories?
they are testifiable
what is the main assumption of learning theories in development?
emphasise on the role of others and what is taught and internalised
Watson’s classical conditioning
- believed that childrens development is determined by their social environment e.g. parents
- proved this with his experiment Little Albert where he conditioned him to fear white fluffy objects by banging symbols to scare him
Skinners operant conditioning
- he believed that behaviour was under environmental control and changes in ones development are in response to contingencies of reinforcement
- we are reinforced to gain rewards and avoid ppunishment
Bandura
-demonstrated that children learn a response and reproduce this behaviour/he showed this through his BOBO doll experiment
What is vicarious reinforcement?
the tendency to imitate when the behaviour was rewarded
What is reciprocal determinism?
a person’s behavior both influences and is influenced by personal factors and the social environment.
who are the cognitive theorists in development?
Piaget
Vygotsky
Information processing
assimilation and accomodation
assimilation - the individual deals with a new event by incorporating it into existing structures
accommodation = the individuals structures change to deal with a new event
Piaget’s stages of development (cog.)
sensori motor stage (0-2) by 2 years old they are performing internal actions and object permanence
- the pre operational stage (2-7 years old they begin to develop tools for logic thought where operations are internalised and can be manipulated and transformed and thus returned to their original form refer to the mountain task (egocentrism - all about their perception))
- concrete operations - logical thoughts are concreted/ decantation: freed from dependence on perceptually important features. they too can now reverse an action back to its point and develop the skill of conservation (samueal and bryant) )
- formal operations; they can now isolate variables, mentally manipulate
criticisms of piaget
little emphasis on the role of adults and environmental factors
underestimates young children’s reasoning abilities
Vygotskys theory in basic (sociocultural)
- cognitive growth is socially mediated activity/learning through others with knowledge
- importance of society and culture
- adults in society help the child by engaging them in meaningful activities
Information-processing theory
sees the human as a computer with an input and output/the mind is always changing
-info flows in - is operated on and flows out with answers and solutions etc
systems theories of development
ethology - evolution (e.g. predators)
- darwinism
- certain genes predispose individuals to behave that enhances survival
define imprinting within the systems theory
- is a process in which newborns of many species become attached to the mother at first sight and stay near
Gottlieb (studied evolution in psychology) - systems theories of development
- developed the epigenetic psychobiological systems perspective which assumes that development is the product of interacting biological and environmental forces
- genes do not dictate how development occurs they only participate along with environmental factors
how do genes and environment interact to produce particular outcomes?
through EPIGENESIS
What is heritability
a statistic that describes the proportion of observed variance in a population
- change in the variety within environments will alter the heritability environments
example of heritability
her edibility of number of fingers on one hand;
1) genetic determination of number of fingers on one hand is high
2) heritability (variance) of numbers being other than 5 is very low
nature/nurture and the 3 key elements of development
1 - genotype
2 - phenotype
3 - environment
1 - the genetic material and individual inherits
2 - phenotype - the observable expression of the genotype e.g. brown hair
3 - environment is all other aspects of than the genetic material itself that can play a role in our development
describe the four genotype/phenotype relations that impact our development
1 = transmission of chromosomes and genes from parents to offspring 2 = relationship between child's genotype and phenotype 3 = impact of environment on child's phenotype e.g general home environment (parents could smoke?) 4 = the child as the source of their own development
Scarr and McCartney 1983 and their three types of genotypes
PASSIVE, ACTIVE AND EVOCATIVE
Passive genotype
- eg parents who are musical will encourage their child to play lots of instruments and be involved in it
evocative genotype
a childs internal attributes that have been passed on will affect behaviour of others towards them. For instance smiley babies will gain more attention than a moody crying baby
active
children actively seek out environmental niches that are most compatible with genetic predisposition e.g if they are shy they will seek out quite areas
Rochesters longitudinal study
The role of social and family environmental factors in predicting child cognitive and social-emotional competence was further evaluated using a multiple risk index. Children with high multiple environmental risk scores had much worse outcomes than children with low multiple risk scores.
Ruttes gene-enviornment interdependence study 2007
Emphasis on investigating processes through which genes influence development
wanted to see how not what
he found variations in heritability according to environment
Rutters four main varieties of gene-environment interdependence
1 - epigenetic effects of environments on genes- effects of environment can affect our genes e.g. induced chemical changes from the environment can change ones brains structure
2 - variations in heritability according to environmental circumstances
3 - gene-envrionmental correlations - our genes will determine where we place ourselves in the enviornment e.g. a risky personality will hang out in risky places
4 - gene - envrionmental interactions eg genes and environment operate on same pathways
Dunedin longitudinal study on gene -envrionment interactions
DNA evidence indicated no main gene effect on relation between childhood maltreatment and later antisocial behaviour
What does g stand for?
general intelligence
What were the two types of intelligence that Cattell came up with?
1- crystallised intelligence which is factual knowledge about the world, word meanings and arithmetic etc.
2 - fluid intelligence which is the ability to think on the spot and drawing inferences - people who are good at maths have strong fluid intelligence because they can draw inferences and understand relations that are not concepts in our daily lives
Thurston’s seven primary mental abilities
.word fluency .verbal meaning .reasoning .spatial visualisation .numbering .rote memory .perceptual speed
- supported as performance on various tests of a single ability tend to be more similar than dissimilar
- precise and complex
how may others see intelligence?
- a compromise of many information processing tasks that involve reasoning, problem solving, generating strategies etc - the better you are at all of these the more intelligent you will be seen as
John carroll’s three stratum theory ->
- consists of a hierarchical integration of general intelligence, eight generalised abilities and many specific processes (that in order)
measuring intelligence in children is hard as it changes as one develops - what was the WISC
the Wechsler Intelligence test for children which is used for 6 year olds and above
- it is divided into 2 main sections VERBAL (crystalised) and PERFORMANCE (fluid)
limitations of the WISC
- culturally bias
- scoring errors
- no attention to other forms of intelligence
it is no longer in place
Stability of IQ scores
- scores are stable from the age of 5 and onward
- a childs IQ at 5 can correlate with their IQ at 15
genes and environment on the development of intelligence
- about 50% of the variation in IQS among Euro-Americans is attributable to genetic variation
- IQS of adopted children increasingly correlate with their biological parents as the children get older
- brain connections correlated with heredity develop and exert stronger influence as a child gets older
- boys tend to be better at scientific/mathematic problems whereas girls are better with language
race, ethnicity and intelligence
-it is a fact that IQ scores differ among groups e.g. the average IQ of a euro-american is 15 points higher than an african american
gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences
looks at how children are smart not how smart they are and an emphasise that everyone should know to teach the child in the way they know best e.g. a child with good spatial skills might learn best through charts and graphs whereas a child high in social skills might learn best through discussion and group work
Sternberg’s theory of successful intelligence - thought there is a degree to which people succeed in life which depends on three abilities
- analytic - linguistic, maths, science
- practical - the ability to reason about everyday problems and knowledge/the ability to resolve conflicts
- creative - the ability to reason effectively in novel circumstances
conc. on intelligence
THERE IS NO SINGLE CORRECT THEORY ON INTELLIGENCE
- a variety of theories however reveal the different ways in which people are intelligent
Development of ‘the sense of self in infancy’
.ability to contorl objects develops at 2-4 months
.ability to control own leg movements at 3-5 months
.by 8 months, infants respond in a distressed way when separated from their mother
.by the age of 1 year infants show joint attention with others to objects in the environment
.by 18-20 months a child can recognise themselves in the mirror
-by the age of 2 the child can use language such as me or i to refer to themselves
.by the age of 3 they will feel embarrassed signifying that they are aware of how others view them
the sense of self in childhood - stages
.by 3-4 they can understand self in terms of concrete observable characteristic e/g/ I have blue eyes or i love my dog
.by elementary school the child can compare oneself to another “he can run faster than i can”
.in elementary school, self concept is based on relationships with others and the sense of low self esteem is common if others view them negatively
the self in adolescence stages
. a concern with social acceptance
. egocentric/ they create a “personal fable” e.g. “you don’t know how i feel” - they are unique
-try to understand themselves “who am i?”
-imaginary audience
Harter 1999
looked into different stages of oneself
Erik son’s theory of identity in adolescence 1968
- for an individual to progress to other stages the adolescent must resolve the crisis of identity vs identity confusion
1- identity = the choice of over what you commit yourself to
2. identity confusion = an incomplete sense of self
3. identity foreclosure = committing yourself to an identity without considering the choices involved
4 negative identity = an identity that represents the opposite of what is valued by people around the adolescent e.g. a ministers daughter who is promiscuous - some may choose this to gain attention
5. psychosocial moratorium = a time out period where the adolescent can explore what they really want
James Marcia’s further expansion on Eriksons theory of identity
1980
- measured identity status categories
1. identity diffusion status = no firm commitments
2. foreclosure status = identity is based on choices of others without testing the waters
3. moratorium status = various choices are explored but nothing is confirmed
4. identity achievement status = an autonomous choice is made based on what they have explored and liked
factors that can affect identity formation
- ethnic identity
- parental control
5 components to ethic identity
- ethnic self identification
- ethnic constancy
- ethnic role behaviours
- ethnic feelings and preferences
during adolescence ethnic minority adolescents may be torn between what they want and what they should be wanting - family pressure
Jean Phinney 1997 on ethnic identity
there are phases that someone who is involved in an ethnic identity crisis or minority
1 - diffusion/foreclosure = have not yet examined ethnicity and are not interested
2 - identity search/moratorium - become curious
3 - ethnic identity achievement = aware and committed to their group
self esteem in minority children
minority children are more likely than others to live poverty with consequent effects on self esteem . Self esteem is higher for Euro-Amrican children than for african american children until age 10 and then the pattern reverses due to racial pride
Sagi, IJzendoorn and Koren-Karie in 1991 wanted to test attachment in US, israeli, japanese and german children. They wanted to see if the sensitivity-security hypothesis extends to non western cultures in 2002 Posada and colleagues looked further into this - explain method
Looked at
- maternal care-giving behaviour
- infants attachment behaviour
“Analyses of the relations between security and domains of maternal care-giving behaviour at home … indicated that sensitive responding to an infant’s signals and communications, being accessible, accepting … were significantly associated with infant’s security”
Van IJzendoorn and Kroonenberg 1988 what did they show about variation in attachment style within cultures ?
that variation in attachment style within cultures was 1.5 times greater than between cultures
Chen et al 2004 - problem solving using analogies/cultural differences
270 undergrads - 152 chinese 118 american
- students solved 6 insight problems with two target problems being statue or cave
- found that the americans solved the question about the cave and the chinese could solve the question based on the statue as these were stories that were included in their childhood/culture
Vygotskys theory of higher mental functions
- the cultural context sets the agenda for the development of specific sorts of thinking competencies
- thinking is the internalisation of socially transmitted competencies
- Social process involves the development from intrasubjectivity and intersubjectivity
Define intrasubjectivity and intersubjectivity (Vygotsky)
Intra = the individuals PRIVATE understanding Inter = the shared understanding
Vgotsky and zone of proximal development and scaffolding in terms of an individuals learning
Z.P.D = dynamic assessment is key for a tutor/mentor/coach to led the child through a more competent interaction
Scaffolding = coaching and tutoring is providing support that is both temporary and adjustable around the individuals abilities
Fiske 2002 on development and culture
“A culture is a socially transmitted or socially constructed constellation consisting of things such as practices, competencies, ideas, schemas, symbols, values, norms, institutions, goals, constitutive rules, artefacts, and modifications of the physical environment.” (Fiske, 2002)
features of pre operational stages according to piaget
centration - focusing on one central/striking feature
states vs transformations - making judgements from end states
non reversible thought - does not return mental action back to its starting point
ego-centrism - thinking only about what they see and not thinking about the eyes of others
good logical thought improvements during concrete operations
coordinate states and transformations
- decentration
- conservation
- reversibility
define hypothetic deductive reasoning
- can isolate variables
- mentally manipulate
plato thought that
the child learns best with discipline and through self control. The child is born with innate knowledge
aristotle thought that
knowledge comes from experience
john lock thought that
knowledge comes from learning as the child is born a tabula rasa
roseau thought that
the child should be given maximum freedom to be happy and develop in a healthy way
bronfenbrenner thought that
all characteristics are embedded in our environment
cross sectional design
looks at individuals of different ages at one point in time
- this is good because you can get a large sample
- but this is bad because of cohort effects
longitudinal design
looks at one group of people across time
- this is good because it can show development over time
- this is bad because of drop out rate
sequential design
looks at a group of ages across a span of time
- regardless of cohort effects it shows continuity vs discontinuity
- complex
microgenetic deisgn
multiple observations over a short span of time
- shows learning as it occurs in the moment
- complex
