Developmental Psychology Flashcards
Newborns
Newly born babies
Infancy
The period from birth to around about the second year of your life
Adolescence
The period of development that begins with the onset of sexual maturity (11-14) and lasts until the beginning of adulthood (18-21)
Developmental Psychology
The study of continuity and change across the life span
Nature vs. Nurture
The naive distinction about whether development is genetically determined or dependent on the environment.
What did the ‘human genome project’ find?
That there appear to be only a few genes at work despite the complexity of the human body. It seemed to support the epigenetic stance - our genes can be influenced by our environment.
Canalization
The idea of development as constrained epigenetics
Waddington’s developmental paths
Prenatal stage
The stage before birth - begins at conception
Zygote
a cell that is formed when an egg and a sperm combine
Each human egg cell contains ___ chromosomes.
Each human egg cell contains 23 chromosomes.
Germinal stage
The two-week period that begins at conception. During this time, the fertilized egg (now called a zygote, and consists of a single cell) makes it way down the fallopian tube, and begins to have cell reproduction. Eventually, the single celled zygote becomes a multi celled ball that attaches itself to the wall of the uterus around the end of the second week, which constitutes the beginning of the embryonic stage.
Embryonic stage
A period which lasts from the second week until about the eigth week. During this stage, the zygote continues to divide and its begin to differentiate, forming a blastocyst (ball of cells).
Blastocyst
Cluster ball of embryonic cells
Embryonic disk
Three-layered flattened structure that emerges from the blastocyst
Epigenetic Landscape
Waddington’s epigenetic landscape is a metaphor for how gene regulation modulates development. Among other metaphors, Waddington asks us to imagine a number of marbles rolling down a hill. The marbles will compete for the grooves on the slope, and come to rest at the lowest points. These points represent the eventual cell fates, that is, tissue types. Waddington coined the term chreode to represent this cellular developmental process.
Innate abilities do not develop: True or False?
False
Abilities present at birth are innate abilities: True or False?
False
If you know how to speak English, but produce an ungrammatical sentence, that is a failure of…
Performance
Endorem
Embryonic disk layer that goes on to form the internal organs
Mesoderm
Embryonic disk layer that goes on to form the skeletal muscles
Ectoderm
Embryonic disk layer that goes on to form the skin and the nervous system
What determines the sex of the baby?
Testosterone - Only embryos that have one X and one Y chromosome produce this hormone
Fetal Stage
The period that lasts from the ninth week until birth
How does the brain begin to form in a fetus?
The brain begins to form as a portion of the ectoderm transforms into the neural tube, from which the forebrain and midbrain emerge at one end, while the other becomes the spinal cord
Neural Tube
The cylindrical structure of the embryonic central nervous system
Cells within the neural tube begin dividing to produce neural cells around which week of life? (Cowan, 1979)
Around the third and fourth week of life
The process of forming neural cells is called?q
Neurogenesis
Neurogenesis continues until which week after conception? (Rakic, 1995)
Around 18 weeks after conception
Placenta
The placenta (also known as afterbirth) is an organ that connects the developing fetus to the uterine wall to allow nutrient uptake, provide thermo-regulation to the fetus, waste elimination, and gas exchange via the mother’s blood supply, fight against internal infection and produce hormones to support pregnancy. The placenta provides oxygen and nutrients to growing babies and removes waste products from the baby’s blood. The placenta attaches to the wall of the uterus, and the baby’s umbilical cord develops from the placenta.
What did Stein et al. 1975 find?
That food deprivation (e.g. WWII Nazis emposed food embargo on Dutch cities) during the first six months of pregnancy caused the children to have physical problems (as well as psychological problems - Neugebauer, 1999 and Susser 1999)
Teratogens
Agents that damage the process of development