Human Development Flashcards
What is developmental psychology?
• Study of how behavior changes over the lifespan
What is post hoc fallacy?
- False assumption that because one event occurred before another, it must have caused the event
- Another form of correlation vs causation
What is cross-sectional design?
- Research designs that examine people of different ages at a single point of time
- Does not account for cohort effects
What is the cohort effect?
- Effect observed in a sample of participants that results from individuals in the sample growing up at the same time
- Cohort are sets of people that grew up during one time period
- Confounds cross-sectional because it does not show the effects of aging but rather the era someone grew up in
What is a longitudinal design?
- Research design that examines development in the same group of people on multiple occasions over time
- Allows examination of developmental changes
- Costly, time consuming, risk of attrition that increases with time
- Not experimental, so no cause/effect results
Describe the influence of early experiences on children
- Early input has significant impact on brain development
* Influences in infancy are rarely reversible
What is infant determinism and what is the truth behind this myth?
• Myth
o Assumption extremely early experiences (<3 yrs) are more influential than later experience
• Truth
o Early experiences affect physical, cognitive, and social development
o Later experiences often off set early negative experiences/deprivation
o Brain continues to change in response to experiences throughout childhood
What is childhood fragility and what is the truth behind this myth?
• Myth
o Children are delicate and easily damaged
• Truth
o Children are resilient
o Extremely negative effects can have long lasting effects, but they recover amazingly well
What are the effects on genes in terms of childhood development?
Gene – Environment Interaction
• Effects of genes depend on the environment in which they are expressed
Nature via Nurture
• Tendency of individuals with certain genetic predispositions to seek out and create environments that permit the expression of these predispositions
Gene Expression
• Activation or deactivation of genes by environmental experiences throughout development
What are the 3 stages of prenatal development?
Germinal Stage
• Blastocyst – ball of undifferentiated cells
Embryonic Stage
• Embryo develop about week 2 when cells begin to differentiate
Fetal Stage
• Begins at week 9 as heart begins to beat
Describe basic brain development
- Begins 18 days after fertilization
- Continues to grow into early adulthood
- Rapid proliferation between day 18 and 6 months
- About month 4, neurons start to sort themselves out
What are teratogens?
- Environmental factor that can exert a negative impact on prenatal development
- Include drugs, alcohol, chicken pox, x-rays, smoking etc.
- Effects depend on type, time, and amount of exposure
- May have specific or generalized effects
Why are infant reflexes important?
• Fulfill important survival needs
What are coordinating movements?
• Trial and error that leads to coordinated movements
• Motor behaviours
o Bodily motion that occurs as a result of self initiated force that moves the bones and muscles
• Milestones include sitting, standing, walking, etc.
o Timeline may vary, order usually doesn’t
• Physical maturation and cultural parenting practices effect when milestones are achieved
Describe physical maturation in adolescence
- Transition between childhood and adulthood, usually as teenagers
- Time when body reaches full maturity
- Pituitary gland stimulates growth
- Reproductive organs release androgens
What changes occur during puberty?
• Primary sex characteristics o Reproductive organs and genitals • Secondary sex characteristics o Sex differentiating characteristics not directly related to reproduction • Menarche o Onset of maturation o Tends to be after physical maturity reached • Spermarche o First ejaculation o Not tied to physical maturation
Describe physical development in adults
• Physical peak in early 20s
• Middle adulthood sees decrease in muscle, increase in body fat, and decrease in sensory processes
• Fertility decreases and birth defects increase in women in 30s and 40s
• Menopause
o End of menstruation and reproductive years in women
• Men see decrease in sperm and testosterone, increase in ED, and increase in children with developmental disorders
• Strength training and increased physical activity can counteract declines with age
What is cognitive development?
• Study of how children acquire the ability to learn, think, reason, communicate, and remember
What are the basics of Piaget’s cognitive development theory?
• Children’s understanding of world is different than adults
o Rational thoughts based on limited experiences
• Children actively seek information and observe consequences
• Stage like and domain general
o Radical reorganizations followed by plateaus
o Change marked by equilibration
Balance between our experiences and our thoughts about it
• Children check new info against current schemes and adjust when needed
What are assimilation and accommodation as described by Piaget?
Assimilation
• Process of absorbing new experiences into current knowledge structures
• Cognitive skills and world views remain unchanged
• Reinterprets info into what she already knows
Accommodation
• Alteration of a belief to make it more compatible with experience
• Drives the stage change
What are the 4 stages of development as per Piaget?
Stage 1 – Sensory Motor Stage
Stage 2 – Preoperation Stage
Stage 3 – Concrete Operations Stage
Stage 4 – Formal Operations Stage
What is the first stage of development according to Piaget?
Stage 1 – Sensory Motor Stage
• About 0-2 years
• New info based on physical experiences
• Lack object permanence
o Understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view
• Lack deferred imitation
o Ability to perform an action observed earlier
• Milestone for stage change
o Mental representation
o Ability to think about something absent from immediate area
What is the second stage of development according to Piaget?
Stage 2 – Preoperation Stage
• About 2-7 years
• Ability to use representations of experience
o Example language, drawing, playing house etc.
• Hampered by egocentrism
o Inability to see the world from others perspectives
• Inability to perform mental operations
o Cannot change the representations
• Fail conservation tasks
o They don’t understand despite a transformation in the physical presentation of an amount, the amount remains the same
What is the third stage of development according to Piaget?
Stage 3 – Concrete Operations Stage
• About 7-11 years
• Ability to perform mental operations for physical events
• Can pass conservation tasks
• Can perform organizational tasks requiring mental operations on physical objects
What is the fourth stage of development according to Piaget?
Stage 4 – Formal Operations Stage
• Emergence of adolescence
• Hypothetical reasoning beyond here and now
• Ability to manipulate variables to conclude to a problem
• Begin to think about abstract questions like meaning of life
What are the cons of Piaget’s theory on development?
• Development is more continuous
• Horizontal Decalage
o Piaget’s word for cases where some domains increase faster than other
o Makes it difficult to falsify
• Difficult to replicate tasks less dependent on language
• May have been culturally biased
What are the pros of Piaget’s theory on development?
- Viewing children as not just little adults
- Learning as an active not passive practice
- Occam’s razor by thinking of domain-general
Describe Vygotsky’s theory on development.
• Interested in social and cultural influences on learning
• Scaffolding
o Parents provide initial assistance in children’s learning but gradually remove structure as children become more competent
• Zone of proximal development
o Phase of learning during which children can benefit from instructor
• No domain-general stages
Describe physical reasoning
• Understanding info about solid objects adult take for granted
What is the concepts and categories landmark of early development?
- Learn to organize objects by kind
- New studies without tasks show infants at 5 months may have object permanence
- Infants may be able to categorize (birds vs dogs etc.)
- As children learn, they make connections between categories
What is the self concept and concept of others landmark of early development?
• Sense of self as an individual is gradual from toddler-preschool years
• Even infants recognize themselves
• Mirror recognition at ~18 months
• Theory of mind
o Ability to reason about what other people know or believe
• Children recognize parents know something they don’t, but don’t realize others may not know what they know until ~4-5 years
o May be due to set up at tests
o Ability to understand other’s perspectives increases with age
What is the numbers to mathematics of others landmark of early development?
• Don’t innately learn to count
• Base numbers doesn’t imply knowledge
o Easier to match same quantity with similar objects than different
Describe the cognitive changes in adolescence
• Frontal lobes don’t fully develop until adolescence or early adulthood
o Responsible for planning, decision making, and impulse control
• Issue with impulsiveness may also have cultural influences
• Many that take chances understand the risks but don’t care
Describe the adolescence attitudes towards knowledge
- Not having absolute answers difficult for teens/college students
- Assimilate the “it depends” answer into their personal schema
Describe cognitive function in adults
• Many aspects of cognition decline with age, usually moderately
• Decline in processing speeds
• Brain volume decreases, especially with cortex and hippocampus affecting memory
o Cued recall and recognition doesn’t seem to change
o Memory used day to day doesn’t seem to decline
o Crystallized intelligence tends to stay
What is stranger anxiety?
- Develops at 8-9 months, increases to 12-15 months, then declines
- Fear of strangers
- Found across cultures
- May be to keep safe as it coincides with crawling and getting into trouble
What is temperament and what are the different temperaments in infants?
• Temperament o Basic emotional style that appears early in development and is largely genetic in origin and shaped by environmental influence o Easy 40% of children Adaptable and relaxed o Difficult 10% Fussy and easily frustrated o Slow to warm up 15% Disturbed by new stimuli but gradually adjust o 35% don’t fit easily into a category • 10% behavioral inhibition o Scaredy cats o Increased inhibition at risk for anxiety disorders as adolescence o Decreased inhibition at risk for impulsive behaviour later
What is attachment?
• Strong emotional connection we share with those to whom we feel closest
Describe imprinting
- Studied in geese and have critical period of ~36 hours to form this bond
- Mammals have a softer imprinting and a sensitive period less specific to the geese to make this bond
- Adopting from Romania’s overcrowded orphanages over 6 months often leads to emotional problems and failure to make attachments
What is contact comfort?
- Positive emotions afforded by touch
* Shown to help form close bond with caregivers
Describe the test that was used for attachment styles, the issues with it and the types of attachment styles
• Strange situation
o Mom and baby in an unfamiliar room, plays with baby and toys, stranger comes in, mom leaves baby in room with stranger and returns, does this twice
• Stats for north American infants as there are cultural differences
• Mono-operation bias
o Drawing conclusions on basis of only a single measure
• Not reliable
o Can change quickly
o Different reactions between mom and dad
• Reaction of parents reaction of infants
Secure Attachment
Insecure-Avoidant Attachment
Insecure-Anxious Attachment
Disorganized Attachment
What is secure attachment?
- 60 %
- Upset at departure, joy at return
- Mom is solid source of support
- Generally, grow up well adjusted
What is insecure-avoidant attachment?
- ~15-20%
* Indifference at departure, little reaction on return
What is insecure-anxious attachment?
• 15-20%
• Panic at departure, mixed emotions on return
o Reach for mom then struggle to get away
• More likely to be disliked and mistreated by peers later
What is disorganized attachment?
- ~5-10%
* Inconsistent and confused set of responses at departure and return
Describe the various parenting styles
Parenting Styles and Late Adjustment
• Temperament may influence parenting styles
• Only valid for individualistic cultures, like Canada or US
Permissive
• Lenient, allow for freedoms
• Discipline sparingly and show lots of affection
Authoritarian
• Strict, little opportunity for free play and exploration
• Punishment when children don’t respond appropriately to demands
• Show little affection
• Better outcomes in collectivist cultures
Authoritative
• Supportive with firm limits
• Best adjustment for Canadians
Uninvolved
• Ignore both positive and negative behaviours
• Tend to fare worst in Canada
Average Expectable Environment
• Environment provides children with basic needs for affection and discipline
• Matters more than actual parenting style
Describe the role of the father in childhood development
- Fathers less at tentative and spend less time (even when both parents are home)
- More time in physical play and children tend to choose dad to play
- Children benefit from warm healthy relationship with dad
