exam1 Flashcards
What is the definition of developmental psychology?
The scientific study of the patterns of growth, change, and stability that occur from conception through death
What are the domains of development in developmental psych?
physical, cognitive and socio-emotional
What is physical development?
changes in the body and brain
What is cognitive development?
changes in thought, intelligence and language
What is socio-emotional development?
changes in relationships, emotions and personality
As developmentalists, what do we study?
age related changes
What is critical thinking?
process of conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing and/or evaluating information
What are the 5 components of critical thinking?
actively open-minded thinking, search is thorough for the question, inference, split-mind, and confidence
What is empiricism?
All knowledge comes from the senses and experience (tabula rasa)
What is nativism?
children have innate knowledge of the world (born with knowledge rather than from experience)
What is evolutionary psychology?
How natural selection works
What is adaptation?
an individuals ability to adjust to changes and new experiences
What is natural selection?
conditions genes to make it difficult for some individuals to survive long enough to reproduce while others have selected genes to spread in the population
What is evolution?
Individuals within a species differ; some are better at adapting making them more likely to survive and pass along their characteristics
What is the difference between quantitative vs qualitative
Continuous vs discontinuous
What is the difference between nature vs nurture?
genetics vs environment
What is the difference between active vs passive child?
Children actively influencing their development through characteristics vs children simply being at the mercy of the enviornment
What is the difference between critical and sensitive periods?
A critical period is a time when something must occur to ensure normal development. A sensitive period is when a particular development is most likely but doesn’t have to occur at that time
What is comparative research?
Comparing two or more things to discover something about one or all of the things being compared
What is the biological perspective? (ecological, evolutionary)
Believes behavior to be a consequence of our genetics
What is the psychodynamic perspective?
Contends that childhood experiences are crucial in shaping adult personality
What is the learning perspective? (AKA behaviorism)
How environment and experience affects a person’s actions
What is the social cognitive theory?
considers behavior and development a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the person, environment and behavior
What are the three components of the social cognitive theory? (AKA reciprocal determinism)
Modeling, observation, vicarious reinforcement
What is vicarious reinforcement?
behavior changes after seeing reward or punishment
What is the cognitive perspective?
Focuses on all internal mental processes like learning, how we acquiring knowledge, thinking, language development, attention and memory
What is the contextual perspective?
Focuses on environmental influences, their interaction with the child and relationships between the child and the physical, cognitive and social worlds
What are the systems theories?
dynamic: focuses on behavior during transitions
ecological: Focuses on individuals relationships with communities and the wider society
What are the properties associated with the scientific method?
Describe, explain, predict, influence
What is external validity?
results of a study can be generalized to and across other situations, people, stimuli and times
What is internal validity?
one is confident that the cause and effect relationship is not due to confounds
What is test-retest reliability?
similar scores across different times and situations
What is interrater reliability?
consistency of two different researchers getting the same results using the same measure
What does operationalize mean?
identifies how to specifically define and measure all research variables
How are constructs measured?
questionnaires or tests with multiple items
What is naturalistic observation?
observing subjects in their natural environment