Developmental psychology

Question 1

Cross-sectional design

Answer 1

Research design that examines people of different ages at a single point in time

Question 2

Cohort effects

Answer 2

Effects observed in a sample of participants that result from individuals in the sample growing up at the same time

Question 3

Longitudinal design

Answer 3

Research design that examines development in the same group of people on multiple occasions over time

Question 4

Infant determinism

Answer 4

The assumption that extremely early experiences—especially in the first three years of life—are almost always more influential than later experiences in shaping us as adults

Question 5

Gene-environment interactions

Answer 5

The impact of genes on behaviour depends on the environment in which the behaviour develops

Question 6

Nature via nurture

Answer 6

Genetic predispositions can drive us to select and create particular environments, leading to the mistaken appearance of a pure effect of nature

Question 7

Gene expression

Answer 7

Some genes ‘turn on’ only in response to specific environmental events

Question 8

Zygote

Answer 8

Fertilised egg

Question 9

Blastocyst

Answer 9

Ball of identical cells early in pregnancy that have not yet begun to take on any specific function in a body part

Question 10

Embryo

Answer 10

Second to eighth week of prenatal development, during which limbs, facial features and major organs of the body take

Question 11

Foetus

Answer 11

Period of prenatal development from the ninth week until birth after all major organs are established and physical maturation is the primary change

Question 12

Obstacles to normal foetal development

Answer 12

1. exposure to hazardous environmental influences (teratogens)
2. biological influences resulting from genetic disorders or errors in cell duplication during cell division
3. premature birth

Question 13

Infant reflexes

Answer 13

Automatic motor behaviours

Question 14

Primary sex characteristics

Answer 14

Physical features, such as the reproductive organs and genitals, that distinguish the sexes

Question 15

Secondary sex characteristics

Answer 15

Sex-differentiating characteristics that do not relate directly to reproduction, such as breast enlargement in females and deepening voices in males

Question 16

Cognitive development

Answer 16

Study of how children acquire the ability to learn, think, reason, communicate and remember

Question 17

Key features of cognitive developmental theories

Answer 17

1. Stage-like changes in understanding vs continuous changes in understanding.
   Stage-like are sudden spurts in knowledge followed by periods of stability while continuous are gradual/ incremental
2. Domain-general vs domain-specific account.
   Domain-general accounts propose that changes in children’s cognitive skills affect most or all areas of cognitive function in tandem. In contrast, domain-specific accounts propose that children’s cognitive skills develop independently and at different rates across different domains, such as reasoning, language and counting.
3. Differing views of the main source of learning.
   Some models emphasise physical experience (moving around in the world), others social interaction (how parents and peers engage with them), and still others biological maturation (innate programming of certain mental capacities)

Question 18

Jean Piaget (1896–1980)

Answer 18

Stage theorist who proposed that children’s development is marked by radical reorganisations of thinking at specific transition points—stages—followed by periods during which their understanding of the world stabilises.
He believed that the end point of cognitive development is the achievement of the ability to reason logically about hypothetical problems.
Piaget’s stages are domain-general, slicing across all areas of cognitive capacity. Thus, a child capable of a certain level of abstract reasoning in mathematics can also achieve this level in a spatial problem-solving task.
Cognitive change is a result of children’s need to achieve equilibration: maintaining a balance between our experience of the world and our understanding of it and therefore match their thinking with their observations

Question 19

Assimilation

Answer 19

Piagetian process of absorbing new experience into current knowledge structures

Question 20

Accomodation

Answer 20

Piagetian process of altering a belief to make it more compatible with experience

Question 21

Piaget 4 stages of cognitive development

Answer 21

1. Sensorimotor - Birth to 2 years (No thought beyond immediate physical experiences)
2. Preoperational - 2 to 7 years (Able to think beyond the here-and-now, but egocentric and unable to perform mental transformations)
3. Concrete operational - 7 to 11 years (Able to perform mental transformations but only on concrete physical objects)
4. Formal operational - 11 years to adulthood (Able to perform hypothetical and abstract reasoning)

Question 22

Object permenance

Answer 22

Understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view

Question 23

Egocentrism

Answer 23

Inability to see the world from others’ perspectives

Question 24

Conservation

Answer 24

Piagetian task requiring children to understand that despite a transformation in the physical presentation of an amount, the amount remains the same

Question 25

Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) theory of cognitive development

Answer 25

Interested in how social and cultural factors influence learning

Question 26

Scaffolding

Answer 26

Vygotskian learning mechanism in which parents provide initial assistance in children’s learning, but gradually remove structure as the children become more competent

Question 27

Zone of proximal development

Answer 27

Phase of learning during which children can benefit from instruction

Question 28

Contemporary theories of cognitive development & relation to Piaget and Vgotsky

Answer 28

1. General cognitive accounts.
   Several modern theories resemble Piaget’s theories in that they emphasise general cognitive abilities which are acquired, rather than innate knowledge. Contemporary theorists share Piaget’s commitment to general cognitive processes and experience-based learning. Nevertheless, they differ from Piaget in regarding learning as gradual rather than stage-like.
2. Sociocultural accounts.
   These theories emphasise the social context and the ways in which interactions with caretakers and other children guide children’s understanding of the world. Some sociocultural theorists emphasise experience-based learning; others, innate knowledge. But along with Vygotsky, they share a focus on the child’s interaction with the social world as the primary source of development.
3. Modular accounts.
   Like Vygotsky’s theory, this class of theories emphasises the idea of domain-specific learning—that is, separate spheres of knowledge in different domains. For example, the knowledge base for understanding language may be independent of the ability to reason about space, with no overlapping cognitive skills between them.

Question 29

Theory of mind

Answer 29

Ability to reason about what other people want, feel and think

Question 30

False-belief task

Answer 30

Used to test the theory of mind.
Children hear a story (often accompanied by illustrations ) about a child who stores a special treat in one place, but a third party (such as the child’s mother), unbeknownst to the child, moves the treat to another place.
Researchers then ask the child where the child in the story will look for the treat when he returns. Children who pass this task understand that although they know where the treat is actually hidden, the child in the story holds an incorrect belief about the treat’s location. Those who fail the task believe that if they know where the treat is, the child in the story must know, too

Question 31

Stranger anxiety

Answer 31

Fear of strangers developing at eight or nine months of age. It generally increases up until about 12 to 15 months of age, and then declines steadily

Question 32

Contact comfort, Harlow (1958)

Answer 32

Positive emotions afforded by touch.

Question 33

Attachment styles as defined in the ‘Strange Situation’ experiment Mary Ainsworth (1978)

Answer 33

1. Secure attachment (about 60 per cent of infants in Western cultures). The infant reacts to mum’s departure by becoming upset, but greets her return with joy. In essence, the infant uses mum as a secure base: a rock-solid source of support to which to turn in times of trouble
2. Insecure-avoidant attachment (about 15–20 per cent of infants in Western cultures). The infant reacts to mum’s departure with indifference, and shows little reaction on her return.
3. Insecure-anxious attachment (about 15–20 per cent of infants in Western cultures). The infant reacts to mum’s departure with panic. He then shows a mixed emotional reaction on her return, simultaneously reaching for her yet squirming to get away after she picks him up (for this reason, some psychologists refer to this style as ‘anxious-ambivalent’).
4. Disorganised attachment (about 5–10 per cent of infants in Western cultures). This rarest of attachment styles was not included in the original classification, but was added later. Children with this pattern react to mum’s departure and return with an inconsistent and confused set of responses. They may appear dazed when reunited with her

Question 34

Erik Erikson (1902–1994) 8 stage model of human development

Answer 34

1. Infancy - Trust vs mistrust (developing general security, optimism and trust in others)
2. Toddlerhood - Autonomy vs shame and doubt (developing a sense of independence and confident self-reliance
3. Early childhood - Initiative vs guilt (developing initiative in exploring and manipulating the environment
4. Middle childhood - Industry vs inferiority (Enjoyment and mastery of the development tasks of childhood)
5. Adolescence - Identity vs role confusion (Achievement of a stable and satisfying sense of role and direction)
6. Young adulthood - Intimacy vs isolation (development of the ability to maintain intimate personal relationships)
7. Adulthood - Generativity vs Stagnation (Satisfaction of personal and familial needs supplemented by interest in the welfare of others and the world)
8. Ageing - Ego integrity vs despair (recognising an adjusting to ageing and the prospect of death)