Human Development Flashcards
What is Development? + Ontogenic Development
- Sequence of age-related changes that occur as a person progresses from conception to death
Ontogenic Development : The course of development of an individual through the lifespan (Breugelmans, Chasiotis, & Sam, 2012)
Explain Prenatal Development
- Extends from conception of birth (encompasses 9 months of pregnancy)
- Divided into 3 phases : Germinal Stage, Embryonic Stage & Fetal Stage
Explain the Germinal Stage of Prenatal Development
- Encompasses the first 2 weeks after conception
- Zygote is created through fertilisation, becomes a microscopic mass of multiplying cells that migrates along the mother’s fallopian tube to the uterine cavity
- Cell mass begins to implant itself in the uterine wall on the 7th day
- During implantation, placenta begins to form
Placenta : A structure that allows oxygen and nutrients to pass into the foetus from the mother’s bloodstream and bodily wastes pass out to the mother
Explain the Embryonic Stage of Prenatal Development
- Lasts from 2 weeks til the end of the 2nd month
- Most of the vital organs and bodily systems begin to form
- Arms, legs, hands, feet, fingers, toes, eyes and ears are discernible
- Period of great vulnerability as most major structural birth defects result from problems that occur here
Explain the Fetal Stage of Prenatal Development
- Lasts 2 months through birth
- First 2 months of the fetal stage bring rapid bodily growth as muscles and bones begin to form
- Organs continue to grow and gradually begin to function
- During final 3 months (6 months), brain cells multiply at a brisk pace, a layer of fat is deposited under the skin to provide insulation
- Respiratory and digestive systems mature
List the Environmental Factors and Prenatal Development
- Nutrition
- Stress and Emotion
- Drug Use
- Alcohol Consumption
- Maternal Illness
- Environmental Toxins
- Fetal Origins of Adult Disease
Explain 1. Nutrition as an Environmental Factor of Prenatal Development
- Maternal nutrition is important because the foetus needs a variety of essential nutrients
- Poor nutrition increases the risk of birth complications and neurological deficits
Explain 2. Stress and Emotion as an Environmental Factor of Prenatal Development
- A mother’s emotional reactions to stressful events can disrupt the hormonal balance that fosters healthy prenatal development
- Associated with increased stillbirths, impaired immune responses, heightened vulnerability to infectious diseases etc.
Explain 3. Drug Use as an Environmental Factor in Prenatal Development
- Most drugs pass through the placenta (slip through the membranes)
- Recreational drugs, prescription medicine and tobacco can cause problems for foetuses and newborns
Explain 4. Alcohol Consumption as an Environmental Factor of Prenatal Development
- Alcohol consumption during pregnancy carries serious risks
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome : A collection of congenital (inborn) problems associated with excessive alcohol use during pregnancy
- Heart defects, hyperactivity, microcephaly (small head), delayed motor development, impaired cognitive development etc.
Explain 5. Maternal Illness as an Environmental Factor of Prenatal Development
- The placenta screens out many infectious agents
- Diseases (Measles, rubella, syphilis and chickenpox) and HIV virus that can cause AIDS can be transmitted to a foetus and cause damage
- Transmission of AIDS can occur through the placenta during delivery or through breastfeeding
Explain 6. Environmental Toxins as an Environmental Factor of Prenatal Development
- Exposure to environmental toxins can cause impairments
- Prenatal exposure to air pollution has been linked to impairments in cognitive development at age 5
Explain 7. Fetal Origins of Adult Disease as an Environmental Factor of Prenatal Development
- Events during prenatal development can cause vulnerabilities decades later
- Adverse events can ‘program’ the fetal brain in ways that influence vulnerability
- Linked to schizophrenia (usually emerges in late adolescence/early adulthood)
Define Motor Development
- The progression of muscular coordination required for physical activities
- Basic motor skills include grasping/reaching, sitting up, walking, running etc.
Explain Maturation
- Development that reflects the gradual unfolding of one’s genetic blueprint
What are Developmental Norms?
- Developmental norms indicate the typical (median) age at which individuals display various behaviours and abilities
- Group averages
Cultural Variations and its Significance on Human Development
- Dynamic interplay between experience and maturation in motor development
- Relatively rapid motor movement has been observed in some cultures that provide special practise in basic motor skills (Kipsigis people of Kenya)
Explain Attachment in Early Emotional Development
- Close emotional bonds of affection that develop between infants and their caregivers
- First important attachment usually occurs with the mother (main caregiver)
What is Separation Anxiety in Early Emotional Development
- Emotional distress seen in many infants when they are separated from people with whom they have formed an attachment
Explain the Theories of Attachment
- Behaviourists have argued that attachment develops because mothers are associated with the reinforcing event of being fed
- Harry Harlow (1958, 1959) disproved this theory with his studies of attachment in infant rhesus monkeys
- John Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) argued that infants are biologically programmed to emit behaviour (smiling, cooing, clinging) that adults are programmed to respond to affectionately and protectively
Explain the Patterns of Attachment (Ainsworth et al., 1978)
1. Secure Attachment : Infants play & explore comfortably with their mother present, become visibly upset when she leaves, quickly calmed by her return
2. Anxious-Ambivalent Attachment (Resistant Attachment) : Infants appear anxious when their mothers are near, protest excessively when she leaves, but are not particularly comforted when she returns
3. Avoidant Attachment : Infants seek little contact with their mothers, are often not distressed when she leaves
Explain Day Care & Attachment
- When mothers are sensitive to their children, the amount & quality of day care tends to to be unrelated to attachment security
- Decreases in attachment security have been seen when mothers are relatively insensitive and their children experience low-quality day care
Explain Culture & Attachment
- Attachment is a universal feature of human development
- The factors that promote secure attachment and its associated outcomes vary across some cultures
E.G Secure attachment is not the norm in societies where dire economic circumstances undermine the ability of parents to provide sensitive care
Explain Language Development and Fast Mapping
- Is determined by biological maturation (more than personal experience)
- Toddlers typically can say between 3-50 words by 18 months
Fast Mapping : Process by which children map a word onto an underlying concept after only one exposure
E.G A child uses contextual clues to infer that ‘yellow’ is related to the colour of a banana
Explain Overextension and Underextension
Overextension : Mistake in language learning that occurs when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a wider set of objects/actions than it is meant to
E.G Child uses ‘ball’ for anything round
Underextension : Mistake in language learning that occurs when a child incorrectly uses a word to describe a narrower set of objects/actions than it is meant to
E.G Child uses ‘doll’ to refer to a single, favourite doll
Explain Telegraphic Speech & Overregularisation
Telegraphic Speech : A child’s early sentences which consists mainly of content words
- Telegraphic because they resemble old-fashioned telegrams, nonessential words omitted
E.G ‘Eat bread’ instead of ‘I want to eat bread’
Overregularisations : Occur when grammatical rules are incorrectly generalised to irregular cases that do not apply
E.G ‘The girl goed home’, ‘I hitted the ball’
What is Erikson’s Stage Theory?
- Erikson’s theory of personality development asserts that people evolve through 8 stages over the life span, which each stage bringing a psychological crisis involves confronting a fundamental question
What are the first 4 stages of Erikson’s Stage Theory?
1. Trust VS Mistrust (Infancy, 0-1 Years) : When infant’s needs are adequately met, attachment is formed, trusting towards environment
2. Autonomy VS Shame & Doubt (EC, 1-3 Years) : Child takes personal responsibility for feeding, dressing, bathing, acquires sense of self-sufficiency/autonomy
3. Initiative VS Guilt (Preschool, 3-6 Years) : Children who are able to learn to get along well with siblings & parents develop a sense of initiative & self-confidence
4. Industry VS Inferiority (School Age, 6-12 Years) : Children who are able to learn to function effectively in the social spheres of neighbourhood and school where productivity is highly valued develop a sense of competence
What are the last 4 stages of Erikson’s Stage Theory?
5. Identity VS Role Confusion (Adolescence, 12-18 Years) : Working out a stable concept of oneself as a unique individual and embracing an ideology/system of values that provide a sense of direction
6. Intimacy VS Isolation (Young Adulthood, 18-40 Years) : Developing the capacity to share intimacy with others, promotes empathy and openness
7. Generativity VS Self-Absorption (Middle Adulthood, 40-65 Years) : Acquire a genuine concern for the welfare of future organisations, results in providing unselfish guidance to younger people
8. Integrity VS Despair (Late Adulthood, 65+ Years) : Avoid the tendency to dwell on the mistakes of the past and on one’s imminent death, find meaning and satisfaction
Explain Piaget’s Stage Theory
- Proposes that children’s thought processes go through a series of 4 major stages
- Stage theory of cognitive development
Explain the First Stage of Piaget’s Theory (Sensorimotor)
- Development ability to coordinate sensory input and motor responses
- Gradual appearance of symbolic thought (children can use mental symbols to represent objects)
- Learn the concept of object permanence
Object Permanence : Develops when a child recognises that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible
Explain the Second stage of Piaget’s Stage Theory (Preoperational, 2-7 Years)
- Symbolic thought continues (Type of thinking in which symbols/internal images are used to represent objects, persons and events that are not present)
Conservation : Awareness that physical quantities remain constant in spite of changes to shape/appearance
Irreversibility : Inability to envision reversing an action
Centration : Tendency to focus on just one feature of a problem, neglecting other important aspects
Egocentrism : Limited ability to share another person’s viewpoint
Animism : Belief that all things are living
Explain the Third Stage of Piaget’s Theory (Concrete Operational, 7-11 Years)
- Mastery of decentration (able to focus on more than 1 feature of a problem simultaneously
- Reversibility (Able to mentally undo an action)
- Mastery of conservation
- Decline in egocentrism
- Not limited by centration, can work successfully with hierarchical classification problems
Hierarchical Classification problems : Organisation of objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences between the groups
Explain the Fourth stage of Piaget’s Stage Theory (Formal Operational, 11 Years)
- Able to apply operations to abstract concepts
- Enjoy the contemplation of abstract concepts, hypothetical possibilities related to abstractions (justice, love, free will etc.)
- Thought processes are systematic, logical and reflective
Explain Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
- Children’s cognitive development is fuelled by social interactions with parents, teachers and older children who can provide invaluable guidance
- Language acquisition plays a crucial role in fostering cognitive development
- Children use private speech to plan their strategies, regulate their actions and accomplish their goals
- As children grow older, private speech is internalised and becomes the normal verbal dialogue that people have with themselves
Explain James Marcia’s (1966, 1980, 1994) 4 different Identity Statuses
- According to Erikson, the main challenge of adolescence is the struggle to form a clear sense of identity
1. Identity Diffusion : A state of rudderless apathy, with no commitment to an ideology
2. Identity Foreclosure : A premature commitment to visions, values and roles
3. Identity Moratorium : A delay of commitment to experiment with alternative ideologies and careers
4. Identity Achievement : Arrival at a sense of self and direction after some consideration of alternative possibilities
Explain Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
- Focuses on moral reasoning rather than overt behaviour
- Individuals progress through a series of 3 levels of moral development (each level has 2 sublevels, yields total of 6)
Explain the First Level of Kohlberg’s Moral Development Theory (Preconventional)
- Younger children think in terms of external authority
STAGE 1 : Punishment Orientation
- Acts that are right are determined by positive consequences, wrong acts determined by punishment
STAGE 2 : Naive Award Orientation
- Right and wrong is determined by what is rewarded
Explain the Second Level of Kohlberg’s Moral Development Theory (Conventional)
- Older children see rules as necessary for maintaining social order
- ‘Internalise’ these rules not to avoid punishment but to be virtuous and win approval from others
- Relatively inflexible moral thinking
STAGE 3 : Good Boy/Good Girl Orientation
- Right and wrong is determined by close others’ approval/disapproval
STAGE 4 : Authority Orientation
- Right and wrong is determined by society’s rules and laws (viewed as absolute guidelines that should be enforced rigidly)
Explain the Third Level of Kohlberg’s Moral Development Theory (Postconventional)
- Working out a personal code of ethics
- Acceptance of rules is less rigid and moral thinking shows some flexibility
STAGE 5 : Social Contract Orientation
- Right and wrong determined by society’s rules which are viewed as fallible rather than absolute
STAGE 6 : Individual Principles and Conscience Orientation
- Right and wrong determined by abstract ethical principles that emphasise equity and justice
What are the basic terminologies in Physiological Changes
Primary Sex Characteristics : Structures necessary for reproduction (Penis, Testis, Ovary, Vagina, Uterus)
Secondary Sex Characteristics : Physical features that distinguish one sex from the other but are not essential for reproduction
E.G Facial hair & broader shoulders in men, breast growth & wider hips in women
Puberty : Stage during which sexual functions reach maturity, marks beginning of adolescence
Menarche : First occurrence of menstruation
Spermarche : First occurence of ejaculation
Explain Neural Development
- Immaturity of the prefrontal cortex may explain why risky behaviour peaks during adolescence
- Prefrontal cortex is the last area of the brain to fully mature (crucial to cognitive control and emotional regulation)
- Elevated sensitivity to reward is attributed to the early maturation of the subcortical dopamine circuits that mediate pleasure
- The brain’s early-maturing reward system overpowers the late-maturing prefrontal cortex
- Susceptibility to peer influence may also contribute to adolescent risk taking
Explain Emerging Adulthood (Jeffrey Arnett, 2000, 2006, 2015a)
- Arnett characterises emerging adulthood as an “age of feeling in-between”
- Central feature of this stage is the subjective feeling that one is in between adolescence and adulthood
- Period of instability and changes as struggles with identity issues continue
Discuss Transitions in Family Life (Adjusting to Marriage)
- Most commonly reported problems are difficulties balancing work and marriage and financial concerns
- Cohabitation prior to marriage has gradually become the norm rather than the exception
- One major source of conflict in many new marriages is the negotiations of marital roles in relation to career commitments
Explain Transitions in Family Life (Adjusting in Parenthood)
- Majority of married couples continue to have children
- Parents exhibit lower marital satisfaction than comparable nonparents
- Mothers of infants report the steepest decline in marital satisfaction
- When youngsters reach adolescence, gradual realignments occur in parent-child relationships
Explain Aging and Physiological Changes
- People experience many physical changes as they progress through adulthood
- Hair tends to thin out, become gray
- Proportion in body fat tends to increase
- Farsightedness and seeing difficulties in low light become more common
- Hearing sensitivity becomes more noticeable
Menopause : Ending of menstrual periods, accompanied by a loss of fertility
Explain Aging and Neural Changes
- The amount of brain tissue and the brain’s weight decline gradually in late adulthood
Dementia : Abnormal condition marked by multiple cognitive deficits that include memory impairment
Alzheimer’s Disease : Accounts for 60-80% of all cases of dementia
- Profound and widespread loss of neurones and brain tissue occurs in the hippocampal region (plays a role in memory)
Protective factors that diminish vulnerability include regular exercise, lower cardiovascular risk factors & frequent participation in stimulating cognitive activities
Explain Aging and Cognitive Changes
- Numerous studies report decreases in older adults’ memory capabilities
- Speed in learning, solving problems and processing information tends to decline with age
- Evidence supports the notion that high levels of mental activity in late adulthood can delay the typical age-related declines in cognitive functioning
Explain Aging and Cognitive Changes
- Numerous studies report decreases in older adults’ memory capabilities
- Speed in learning, solving problems and processing information tends to decline with age
- Evidence supports the notion that high levels of mental activity in late adulthood can delay the typical age-related declines in cognitive functioning
Explain Death and Dying (Kübler-Ross’s 5 Stages of Confronting Death, 1969, 1970)
- Anxiety about death typically declines from early to late adulthood
1. Denial : Initial stage where the person refuses to accept the reality of the situation
- Acts as a defence mechanism to buffer the immediate shock
2. Anger : Individual becomes frustrated and angry when they realise that denial cannot continue
3. Bargaining (with God for more time) : Attempts to negotiate a way out of the pain
4. Depression : Reality of the situation sets in, individual understands the loss’s impact, deep sadness and regret occurs, causes one to withdraw from life
5. Acceptance : Individual comes to terms with the reality of the situation, understands that life must go on and begin to adjust to the new reality
Explain Death and Dying (5 Patterns of Grief Reactions of Bereaved Spouses)
(Bonanno, Wortman, & Neese, 2004)
Bereavement : Individuals must cope with bereavement when a friend/spouse/relative dies
1. Absent Grief (Resilient Pattern) : Low levels of depression before and after the spouse’s death (Most common pattern)
2. Chronic Grief : Low pre-loss depression followed by sustained depression after the spouse’s death
3. Common Grief : A spike in depression shortly after the spouse’s death and a decline in depression over time
4. Depressed-Improved : High pre-loss depression followed by a relatively quick and sustained decline in depression after the spouse’s death
5. Chronic Depression : High levels of depression both before and long after spousal death
