Human development Flashcards
Separation anxiety usually diminishes by which age?
3 years
Attachment
Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby. He suggested that children have an innate tendency to form relationships (attachments) with people around them to increase their chance of survival.
The term ‘bonding’ is sometimes used synonymously with attachment, but the two are different. Bonding concerns the mothers feelings for her infant and differs from attachment.
Children normally single out a primary caregiver (usually but not always the mother) from about 1-3 months. Bowlby referred to the primary care giver as the ‘principle attachment figure’. He referred to other attachments as ‘subsidiary attachment figures’. He referred to the child’s bias towards a single figure as ‘monotropy’.
Initially, babies show a positive response to strangers (between 14-18 weeks), this is normally replaced by stranger anxiety at around 8 months.
When an infant is separated from their main carer it is common for them to become anxious (aka separation anxiety). ‘Separation anxiety’ is most common when an infant is 10 - 18 months and usually diminishes by year three.
The quality of a persons early attachments appears is associated with their adult behaviour. Poor attachments tend to lead to withdrawn individuals who struggle to form relationships, where as good attachments are associated with socially competent adults who are able to form healthy relationships. Attachment behaviour tends to be stable over the lifetime.
Specific attachment does not seem to take place before 6 months. The time from 6 months to 36 months is known as the critical period. During this time a child is most vulnerable to interruptions in its attachment.
Attachments are divided into secure and insecure types. Insecure types are further divided into avoidant and ambivalent types.
Bowlby also proposed the idea of an ‘internal working model’. This is held to be the product of attachment experiences and represents a persons view of the external world.
Harlow’s monkeys
The importance of the need for closeness over food was demonstrated in an experiment by Harlow known as ‘Harlow’s monkeys’.
Harlow’s experiment involved giving young rhesus monkeys a choice between two different ‘mothers.’ One was made of soft terrycloth, but provided no food. The other was made of wire, but provided food from an attached baby bottle.
Harlow removed young monkeys from their natural mothers a few hours after birth and left them to be ‘raised’ by these mother surrogates. The experiment demonstrated that the baby monkeys spent significantly more time with their cloth mother than with their wire mother.
Menarche tends to occur in which Tanner stage?
Tanner stage 4
On average, puberty lasts for 3-4 years.
Clinically the onset of puberty is announced by the appearance of secondary sex characteristics, in particular the appearance of breasts in females, testicular enlargement in males, and pubic/axillary hair in both sexes. These features evolve from appearance to adulthood and are rated into 5 stages according to Tanner’s criteria.
Thelarche refers to the onset of secondary breast development.
Menarche refers to the onset of the first period. This typically occurs in Tanner stage 4.
Thelarche generally precedes menarche by around 2 years.
Pubarche is the onset of public hair. Pubarche is usually preceded by the appearance of the breast bud.
The pubertal growth spurt occurs during stages 3 to 4 of puberty in most boys and is completed by stage 5 in more than 95% of them.
In girls, pubertal growth spurt occurs during stages 2 and 3.
Precocious puberty is puberty that occurs earlier than usual. It is more common in girls than in boys.
Adolescent girls reach puberty today at earlier ages than were ever recorded previously. Nutritional and other environmental influences may be responsible for this change. For example, the average age of the onset of menstrual periods in girls was 15 in 1900. By the 1990s, this average had dropped to 12 and a half years of age.
Identify the virtue developed during each of the following stages of psychosocial development
industry vs inferiority: competence
integrity vs despair: wisdom
intimacy vs isolation: love
Stranger anxiety typically occurs at what age?
8 months
Which of the following is true regarding Levinson’s theory of human development?
stages are based on age ranges rather than developmental events
In 1977, Daniel Levinson wrote an article titled ‘The Mid-Life Transition: A Period in Adult Psychosocial Development’.
He proposed a developmental theory consisting of universal stages or phases that extend from the infancy state to the elderly state. He suggested that a person evolves through a relatively orderly sequence throughout the adult years.
His model was based on biographical interviews of 40 men in America.
A particularly unique feature of Levinson’s theory is that it is age-based rather than event based. Levinson asserted that there is low variability in the ages when periods begin and end (a maximum of two to three years from the norm)
The model proposed a ‘life sequence’ which consists of a series of alternating stable (structure-building) periods and cross-era transitional (structure-changing) periods (lasting about 5 years). This is illustrated below (note the figure does not accurately reflect Levinson’s later stages)..
Levinson key points:
- Stages extend into late adult life
- Age-based rather than event based theory
- Life sequence consists of alternating stable and cross-era
transitional periods
- 5 stages
- Transitional periods typically last 5 years
- Development takes place in a defined order
Raven’s Progressive Matrices tests for which of the following?
Intelligence
The Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPM) test, is a non-verbal test of general intelligence. In each test item, one is asked to find the missing pattern in a series. Each set of items gets progressively harder, requiring greater cognitive capacity to encode and analyze.
There are 3 different tests for different abilities:-
1. Coloured Progressed Matrices (younger children and special groups)
2. Stanford Progressive Matrices (average 6 to 80 year olds)
3. Advanced Progressive Matrices (above average adolescents & adults)
Which of the following is not a recognised risk factor for linguistic developmental delay?
Being an only child
A number of risk factors are associated with delayed speech and language (Nelson 2006):-
- Family history
- Male gender
- Twins
- Lower maternal education
- Childhood illness
- Being born late in the family order
- Young mother at birth
- Low socioeconomic status
- The most reliable risk factor is thought to be a positive family history.
Regarding Ainsworth’s strange situation procedure, which of the following is true?
it is done with children aged 12 to 18 months
Psychologist Mary Ainsworth devised a test called the ‘Strange Situation procedure’ in order to investigate and classify attachment in children between the age of 12 to 18 months.
The procedure consisted of seven steps, 2 separations and 2 reunions. It takes place within one room, in the following sequence and is observed throughout.
The child’s attachment is then classified into 1 of 3 styles
Which of the following developmental theorists proposed a 5 stage model of human development based around the concept of a ‘life sequence’ consisting of a series of alternating stable and cross-era transitional periods?
Levinson
Levinson key points:
Stages extend into late adult life
Age-based rather than event based theory
Life sequence consists of alternating stable and cross-era transitional periods
5 stages
Transitional periods typically last 5 years
Development takes place in a defined order
Which of the following proposed a theory of cognitive development?
Piaget
The four main developmental models you need to be aware of are:-
Freud’s theory of psychosexual development
Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
Kohlberg’s theory of moral development
Which of the following created the Adult Attachment Interview?
Mary Main devised the Adult Attachment Interview. She listed four categories of attachment in adults. Interestingly these categories correspond to those of the strange situation.
This suggests that the attachment style you develop as a child remains with you. A later study found the distribution of adult attachment styles correlated with those of the strange situation meaning that 70% of children and adults have secure attachment. Also of note is that attachment styles seem to be passed on to subsequent generations.
The test of attachment called the strange situation procedure was devised by which of the following?
Ainsworth
Regarding attachment theory, which of the following is true?
attachment behaviour tends to be stable over the lifetime
Attachment theory was developed by John Bowlby. He suggested that children have an innate tendency to form relationships (attachments) with people around them to increase their chance of survival.
The term ‘bonding’ is sometimes used synonymously with attachment, but the two are different. Bonding concerns the mothers feelings for her infant and differs from attachment.
Children normally single out a primary caregiver (usually but not always the mother) from about 1-3 months. Bowlby referred to the primary care giver as the ‘principle attachment figure’. He referred to other attachments as ‘subsidiary attachment figures’. He referred to the child’s bias towards a single figure as ‘monotropy’.
Initially, babies show a positive response to strangers (between 14-18 weeks), this is normally replaced by stranger anxiety at around 8 months.
When an infant is separated from their main carer it is common for them to become anxious (aka separation anxiety). ‘Separation anxiety’ is most common when an infant is 10 - 18 months and usually diminishes by year three.
The quality of a persons early attachments appears is associated with their adult behaviour. Poor attachments tend to lead to withdrawn individuals who struggle to form relationships, where as good attachments are associated with socially competent adults who are able to form healthy relationships. Attachment behaviour tends to be stable over the lifetime.
Specific attachment does not seem to take place before 6 months. The time from 6 months to 36 months is known as the critical period. During this time a child is most vulnerable to interruptions in its attachment.
Attachments are divided into secure and insecure types. Insecure types are further divided into avoidant and ambivalent types.
A 12 year old girl approaches her parents and asks them if they are planning on having anymore children. She is wondering what effect a sibling would have on the family. What Piagetian stage is she currently at?
Formal operational
The formal operational stage is charcterised by the ability to conceptualise ideas that cannot be seen, touched, smelled etc. Essentially this means the ability to hypothesise and deal with abstract thoughts.
A ‘circular reaction’ is a behavior that produces an event (thumb brushes mouth, kicking moves a rattle) that leads to repetition of the behavior.
Primary circular reactions involve only the infants own body.
Secondary circular reactions are like primary, only the behavior involves external objects (e.g. shaking a rattle).
Tertiary circular reactions involve experiments with the different kinds of effects the same behavior can have (e.g. bouncing a ball down stairs then bouncing lots of other things down stairs).
Stage of Preoperational Thought (2 to 7 Years)
In the preoperational stage, children use symbols and language more extensively. They are unable to think logically or deductively, and events are not not linked by logic.
During this stage, children also use a type of magical thinking, called ‘phenomenalistic causality’, in which events that occur together are thought to cause one another (e.g., thunder causes lightning). In addition, children use ‘animistic thinking’, which is the tendency to ascribe life to inanimate objects.
The ‘semiotic function’ emerges during the preoperational period. This enables children to represent something such as an object, an event, or a conceptual scheme with a signifier (symbol). That is, children use a symbol or sign to stand for something else.
Stage of Concrete Operations (7 to 11 Years)
In the concrete operational stage, egocentric thought is replaced by operational thought, which involves dealing with a wide array of information outside the child. Therefore, children can now see things from someone elses perspective.
Children in this stage begin to use limited logical thought and can serialise, order, and group things into classes on the basis of common characteristics. ‘Syllogistic reasoning’, in which a logical conclusion is formed from two premises, appears during this stage. For example , all horses are mammals (premise); all mammals are warm blooded (premise); therefore, all horses are warm blooded (conclusion).
‘Conservation’ is the ability to recognise that, although the shape of objects may change, the objects still maintain or conserve other characteristics that enable them to be recognized as the same. For example, if a ball of clay is rolled into a long, thin sausage shape, children recognize that each form contains the same amount of clay.
‘Reversibility’ is the capacity to understand the relation between things, to realize that one thing can turn into another and back again (e.g. ice and water).
Stage of Formal Operations (11 through the End of Adolescence)
This stage is characterized by the ability to think abstractly, to reason deductively, to define concepts, and also by the emergence of skills for dealing with permutations and combinations. Young people can grasp the concept of probabilities.
‘Hypotheticodeductive Thinking’, the highest organization of cognition, enables a person to make a hypothesis or proposition and to test it against reality. Deductive reasoning moves from the general to the particular and is a more complicated process than inductive reasoning, which moves from the particular to the general.
Key Piagetian concepts
- Schema - This is a category of knowledge and the process of obtaining that knowledge.
- Assimilation - The process of taking new information into an existing schema.
- Accommodation - Altering a schema in view of additional information.
Which of the following would lead you to suspect a diagnosis of Turner syndrome?
Turner syndrome occurs when one of the two X chromosomes that are found in females is completely or partially missing. It therefore only occurs in females. The process tends to occur randomly (can be either from the father or the mother) and does not predict additional risk in future siblings.
This may seem odd as you will be aware of the process of X-inactivation (Lyonization) whereby one X chromosome is inactivated in each cell. This might lead you to suspect that having only one X chromosome is okay. The reason having just one X chromosome is an issue is that in X-inactivation not all genes are inactivated in the inactivated X chromosome.
Features include:-
Short stature
Webbed neck
Broad chest (widely spaced nipples)
Gonadal dysfunction (amenorrhoea and infertility)
Congenital heart disease (cardiac malformation in approx 1/3 of cases)
Hypothyroidism
Girls with Turner syndrome typically have a reasonably normal intelligence (mean full scale IQ of 90), however, they may have difficulty with nonverbal, social, and psychomotor skills.
