Exam 1 Flashcards
What are the unique contributions of mothers and fathers?
Correlational design:
Advantages/Disadvantages
Advantages: Estimates the strength and direction of relationships among variables in the natural environment.
Limitations: No determination of cause-and-effect relationships.
Natural (quasi) Experiement:
Advantages/Disadvantages
Advantages: Permits a study of the impact of natural events that would be difficult or impossible to simulate in and experiment
Disadvantages: Lack of control over natural events or the participants to be exposed to them prevents the investigator from extablishing definitive causal relationships - just gives meaningful clues
How do field experiments solidify what we know via lab experiments?
pg. 26
What is Social Competence?
“the ability to achieve personal
goals in social interaction while
simultaneously maintaining
positive relationships”
(Rubin & Rose-Krasnor, 1992)
What is the value of using multiple research methods to investigate an aspect of human development?
What is the essence of the controversies regarding the major developmental issues?
The difference between correlation and causation, and how research approaches may or may not
help determine causal relationships
Hart’s “Combating the myth” article (four erroneous views regarding parental influence)
- Married heterosexual parents (mothers and fathers) are not essential for children.
- Fathers and mothers don’t make unique contributions.
- There is no evidence that parenting is reflected in child behavior outside of the home.
- Genetics and peers matter, not parents.
Freud’s Psychosexual Theory:
Contributions and Criticisms
Contributions: unconscious motivation- the vast majority of psychic experience lay below the level of conscious awareness. Focused on importance of early experiences for later development. Emotion development - powerful emotions and the important role they play in our lives.
Criticisms: not much evidence that oral, anal, and genital conflicts predict one’s later personality. His evidence was based on small number of emotionally disturbed adults.
Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development:
Contributions/Criticisms
Contributions: captured many of the central issues of life in his 8 psychological stages (Table 2.2, pg. 42), especially concerning topics such as emotional development of infants, self-concept in childhood, identity crisis in adolescence, and the influence of friends on social and personality development.
Criticisms: Vague about the causes of development. What kinds of experiences needed? His is really a descriptive view and does not explain how or why this development takes place.
Behaviorism (Social Learning)
Contributions/Criticism
Watson: Behaviorism
Skinner: Operant-Learning (rewards/punishments)
Bandura: Cognitive Social Learning (observational)
Contributions: provides a wealth of information about developing child/adolescent, precise and testable - experiments, can understand how and why of behavior - and use behavior modification
Criticism: oversimplified account of social and personality development, individuals follow different patterns for development even within same environment, can’t simulate natural environment for accurate experiments, don’t pay enough attention to cognitive development
Erikson’s Stages of Development and what each represents
Basic trust vs mistrust: needs met or not
Autonomy vs shame and doubt: self-care, becoming independent or not
Initiative v. guilt: taking more responsibility - conflicts with family cause feelings of guilt
Industry v. Inferiority: compares self to peers
Identity v. role confusion: who am I?
Intimacy v. Isolation: friendships/love
Generativity v. stagnation: productive work/family or remain stagnant
Ego integrity v. despair: reflect back on life
Piaget’s Theory
Contributions / Criticisms
Contributions:
-children are inherently curious and actively adapt to social environments.
-They have a cognitive scheme, or pattern of thought to make sense of their environment
-they assimilate and accommodate new experiences when they get into disequilibrium.
*Piaget pinned the term “EGOCENTRISM” meaning that kids can’t take another’s perspective. In adolescence this turns into an “IMAGINARY AUDIENCE” when they feel they are the center of everyone’s thoughts and criticisms. They also create a “PERSONAL FABLE” and believe that they and their way of thinking is completely unique in relation to everyone else.
Criticisms:
Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment - Basic elements
Child views video of “model” hitting doll - either rewarded/punished/no consequences, Then child left alone in room with doll/props, children viewing punished model least likely to copy model, children viewing rewarded/no con. model - more likely to copy behavior, Did children just learn more from rewarded model?, No - when children offered reward for reproducing behavior each of the 3 conditions was remembered with the same accuracy. Children learn by observation.
