human development Flashcards
nature vs nurture?
influence of HEREDITARY vs ENVIRONMENT
at which age is a person considered to be in childhood?
between ages 11-14.
what is a teratogen?
anything that may cause harm to an embryo or fetus
there are two important aspects of early brain growth: maturity and communication. what occurs during maturity?
myelination, nerve fibres are wrapped with fatty sheath which increases the speed with which the fibres are able to transmit signals
between a child who has experienced severe trauma in childhood and a child who did not, which of the two will likely have a bigger brain and why?
the child who did not experience the trauma is likely to have a bigger brain since brain development is hindered by sensory deprivation as a kid.
newborns have motor reflexes that aid survival. can you name all three and give a small description?
grasping reflex - a baby will hold onto a finger
rooting reflex - a baby will turn toward a nipple and suck if it comes near their mouth
sucking reflex - a baby will suck on something near their mouths
what is the dynamic systems theory?
new forms of behaviour emerge from the process of an organism repeatedly engaging and interacting with its environment and cultural contexts.
habituation technique in infants?
infants are presented with a series of pictures of the same race to them, and then they will switch to a pic of a new race and the babies will look at the new one for a longer time
an experiment by rovee-collier was conducted where a mobile hanging over a crib was attached to infants’ ankles with a ribbon. infants learned that kicking their feet moves a mobile because one foot is attached to the mobile by a ribbon. if we were to move the ribbon, the baby would still kick. what do we call this?
the memory-retention test. children use what they already know to process new information.
the inability to remember events from early childhood, developed by Freud, is…
infantile amnesia
what exactly is an attachment?
a strong, intimate, emotional connection between people that persists over time and across circumstances.
who architected the “attachment theory”?
john bowlby
the strange-situation test was developed by mary d. salter in response to the study of attachment behaviours in humans. she classified three sort of attachment styles, which are?
secure, insecure, anxious.
a child is inconsolably upset when an attachment figure leaves and will both seek and reject caring contact when they return? what do we classify this as?
an insecure/ambivalent child.
jean piaget devised an influential theory about the development of thinking. he proposed that children form new _____ as they develop.
SCHEMES - ways of thinking based on personal experience
define assimilation under piaget’s theory
assimilation is when a NEW experience is placed in an EXISTING scheme
define accomodation under piaget’s theory
a NEW scheme is created or an existing one is DRAMATICALLY ALTERED.
from when does the sensorimotor, the first stage of development, begin?
from birth until about age 2.
at this stage, thinking in children becomes more logical, but is still very limited. a child may struggle with abstract or hypothetical concepts?
concrete operational stage
humans have an innate ability to understand that others have minds and that those minds have desires. what did david premack and guy woodruff call this?
theory of mind.
children learn to predict when their caregivers, siblings, and friends will be angry, sad, embarrassed, and so on. seeking to comfort a person who is upset is known as what?
prosocial behaviour = any voluntary action performed to benefit another person.
lawrence kohlberg tested moral reasoning skills by asking people to respond to hypothetical situations. these levels include:
the preconvential level, where a person responds based on self-interest and pleasurable outcomes
the conventional level, where people respond in adherence to societal norms (with the law)
postconventional level, where people respond abstractly and responses center around complex reasoning.
