Human Development Flashcards
What is developmental psychology? What three things does it focus on?
Psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout our lives.
- Nature and nurture
- Continuity and stages (what parts of development are gradual and continuous? what parts change abruptly in separate stages?)
- Stability and change ( what traits persist through our lives? How we change with age?)
What are zygotes? What does it go through from 2 weeks?
The fertilized egg
Goes through a two week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo
The zygote’s inner cells become what?
The embryo, the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month
What forms the placenta? What does it do?
The zygote’s outer cells
It is the life link that transfers nutrients and oxygen from the mother to the embryo
What is a fetus?
The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth
Latin for offspring or young one
What are the durations for each: zygote, embryo, and fetus
Zygote: conception to 2 weeks
Embryo: 2 to 9 weeks
Fetus: 9 weeks to birth
What are teratogens?
They are agents such as chemicals and viruses that can damage the embryo or fetus
What is fetal alcohol syndrome? (FAS)
Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by heavy drinking during pregnancy
Signs can include an out of proportion head and abnormal face features
What is fetal alcohol syndrome? (FAS)
Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by heavy drinking during pregnancy
Signs can include an out of proportion head and abnormal face features
What is the rooting reflex?
It is an involuntary muscle response to stimulation of their mouth or cheek, helps them find the nipple.
What is habituation?
A decrease in responsiveness due to over stimulation.
What is maturation?
The orderly sequence of biological growth, enable orderly changes in behavior
When do you have the most of your brain cells?
The very first day you were born
Where is brain growth most rapid from ages 3-6
The frontal lobes, which enable rational planning
What are the last areas of the brain to develop?
The association areas linked with thinking, memory, and language
Who is a very important developmental psychologist?
Jean Piaget
What is cognition?
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating
According to Piaget, what is the driving force behind our intellectual progression?
Our struggle to make sense of our experiences.
What are schemas?
Concepts that organize and interpret our experiences
What two concepts did Piaget propose to explain how we use and adjust our schemas?
Assimilate: we interpret our experiences in terms out our current understandings (schemas)
Accommodate: adapting our current understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.
What are the four stages of cognitive development Piaget came up with?
Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Concrete operational
Formal operational
What is the sensorimotor stage?
Begins from birth to age 2, babies take in the world through their senses and actions/motor activities
What is object permanence?
The awareness that objects continue to exist even when not perceived
What is the preoperational stage?
Begins from age 2 to about 6 or 7, a child learns to use language, but is still too young to perform mental operations
Also egocentrism is prescribed
Ex.: a preoperational child wouldn’t understand why milk being poured in a tall, narrow glass seems like “more” than compared to being in a shorter, wider glass.
What is conservation?
The principle that quantity remains the same despite changes in shape.
What is symbolic thinking?
When you represent things with words and images
What does egocentric mean?
Difficulty taking another’s point of view
Ex.: a child makes themself “invisible” by putting his hands over his eyes
What is the theory of mind?
People’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states and what these behaviors might predict
Better def tbh: you are able to take another’s perspective and acknowledge others have feelings
What is the concrete operational stage?
Begins from 6 or 7 to 11 years old, children gain the mental operations enabling them to think logically about concrete events.
What is the formal operational stage?
Begins at age 12, children begin to think logically about abstract concepts
According to Vygotsky, why do children increasingly think in works and use words to solve problems by age 7?
They internalize their culture’s language and rely on inner speech.
What is the difference between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s emphasis on children’s cognitive development?
Piaget emphasized how the child’s mind grows through interaction with the physical environment
Vygotsky emphasized how the child’s mind grows through interaction with the social environment
What is the zone of proximal development?
The zone of what a child is able to do with and without assistance
Ex.: when learning to ride a bike, it’s the developmental zone in which a child can ride with training wheels or a steadying parental hand.
What is stranger anxiety?
Begins by about eight months of age, infants, display fear of strangers
What is attachment?
Attachment is an emotional tie with another person
It is shown in young children who seek closeness with their caregivers and show distress on separation
Describe Harry Harlow‘s experiment on the attachment of monkeys
Harry Harlow separated, infant monkeys from their mothers shortly after birth and raise them in individual cages which included a cheese cloth, baby blanket. When their blankets were taken away, the monkeys became distress, the intense attachment to the blanket, contradicted the idea that attachment derives from the association with nourishment.
Then Harry Harlow created two artificial mothers, one being a bare wire cylinder with a wooden head and an attached feeding bottle and the other, a cylinder wrapped with terry cloth. The Monkees preferred the comfy cloth, mother.
Besides body contact, what else is important in forming an attachment?
Familiarity
What is the critical period?
It is an optimal period when certain events must take place to facilitate proper development.
Ex.: Fro goslings, ducklings, or chicks, the critical period falls in the hours shortly after hatching, for the first object they see is normally their mother. From then on, the young ones follow her and her alone.
Konrad Lorenz explored this rigid attachment process, called imprinting. What is imprinting?
Imprinting is the process by which certain animals form strong attachment during an early life critical period.
Lorenz wondered what would the ducklings do if he was the first moving creature they observed? What they did was follow him around everywhere; where ever Lorenz went, the ducklings were to follow.
Do human children imprint?
Children do not imprint. However, they do become attached during a less precisely defined sensitive period.
Describe Mary Ainsworth’s two types of attachment.
Secure attachment- when infants were in their mother’s presence, they played comfortably, happily exploring their new environment. When the mother leaves, they become distressed. When she returns, they seek contact with her. After, they go back to playing independently
Insecure attachment- infants display anxiety or avoidance of trusting relationships. They are less likely to explore their surroundings. They may even cling to their mother. When she leaves, they either cry loudly and remain upset, or seem indifferent to her departure and return.
What is temperament?
Temperament is a person’s characteristic emotional reactivity and intensity.