Human Development (Ch 9) Flashcards
What is developmental psychology?
examines how humans change over the course of their lives and considers which changes are shared across people and which are different, aims to understand how people grow and adapt within their cultures to become part of society
Conception is when..
a sperm unites with an egg to create a zygote
Two important aspects of brain development
- specific areas within the brain mature and become functional
- regions of the brain learn to communicate with one another through synaptic connections
What is myelination?
It is the brain’s way of insulating its wires, nerve fibers are wrapped with a fatty sheath which increases speed of transmitted signals
What is synaptic pruning?
The brain’s ability to preserve connections by eliminating neurons that aren’t needed
What is plasticity?
The brain’s ability to reorganize itself in response to its environmental experiences
How does nutrition affect brain development?
without adequate nutrition, the brain will be less sophisticated and less able to process complex information, solve problems, or develop advanced language skills
True or false: Experiences such as stress, neglect, and exposure to violence can influence the development of human brains
True, stressful life experiences can lead to a wide range of mental and physical health disorders later in life
What are teratogens and what do they do?
Teratogens are agents that harm the embryo or fetus and can lead to premature birth, birth defects, medical problems, (alcohol can lead to alcohol spectrum disorders)
Dynamic systems theory
views development as a self-organizing process in which new forms of behavior emerge from the process of an organism repeatedly engaging and interacting with its environment and cultural contexts
What information tells us that infants are born prepared to learn?
they are born with a preference to people over things, categorizing people, and their brain has specific neural circuits for identifying biological motion and inanimate object motion and identify faces and facial movement
Visual acuity
ability to distinguish differences among shapes, patterns, and colors
(increase in visual acuity is due to the development of the visual cortex and development of the cones in the retina)
What is Memory
the ability to retain explicit memories
What is attachment?
strong, intimate, emotional connection between people that persists over time and across circumstances- building blocks of a successful social life
- very important to survival in many other species
- first stages in which a person learns how to communicate with others, and establish stable relationships
What months do infants start to understand the difference between their attachment figures and strangers
8-12
What hormone is responsible for attachment, social behaviors, and maternal tendencies?
Oxytocin
Important aspects of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
Viewed children as qualitatively different from adults and active learners
Children think the way they do because their views of how the world works are based on sets of assumptions that are different from those held by adults
Proposed that children form new schemes as they develop (ways of thinking)
Two learning processes:
Assimilation: a new experience is placed into an existing schema
Accommodation: a new scheme is created or an existing schema is dramatically altered to include new information that would otherwise not fit
Piaget’s four stages of development
- sensorimotor (0-2 years): differentiates self from objects, begins to act intentionally, achieves object permanence (realizes that things continue to exist even when no longer present to the senses)
- Preoperational (2-7 years): learns to use language and to represent objects by images and words, thinking is egocentric, classifies objects by a single feature
- Concrete Operational (7-12 years): can think logically about objects and events, achieves conservation of number, mass, and weight, classifies objects by several features and can order them in a series along a single dimension
- Formal Operational (12 years old): can think logically about abstract propositions and test hypotheses systematically, becomes concerned with hypothetical, the future, and idealogical problems
Why did people say that Piaget underestimated Children’s Cognitive Abilities?
- his framework leaves little room for differing cognitive strategies among kids and cultures
- many children move back and forth between stages if they are working on tasks that require carrying skill levels
- underestimated the age at which certain skills develop
What did Vygotsky focus on?
Role of social and cultural context in the development of cognition and language
What is the theory of mind?
The ability to infer what another person is feeling or thinking , coincides with the maturation of the brain’s frontal lobes
What is prosocial behavior and when does it occur?
Voluntary action performed with the intent of benefiting another person; after 1 year of age
What is Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development?
three main levels of moral reasoning:
1. preconventional: people classify answers in terms of self-interest or pleasurable outcomes
2. conventional: response conforms to the rules of law and order or focus on others’ dissaproval
3. postconventional: responses center around complex reasoning about abstract principles and the value of all life
Inequity aversion
dislike of unfairness, begins at 19 months and strengthens throughout childhood
puberty
onset of sexual maturity and thus the ability to reproduce; increases hormones to stimulate physical changes
- the brain also reorganizes itself during puberty, refining synaptic connections and grey matter is increased
Who proposed the theory of psychosocial development?
Erik Erikson
What are the stages of Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development?
- infancy (0-1): trust vs mistrust
- toddler (1-3): autonomy vs shame/doubt
- preschool (3-6): initiative vs guilt
- childhood (6-12): industry vs inferiority
- adolescence (12-18): identity vs role confusion
- young adulthood (18-29): intimacy vs isolation
- middle adulthood (30-50s): generativity vs stagnation
- old age (60s +): integrity vs despair
Dementia
dramatic loss in mental ability, causes thinking, memory, and behavior to deteriorate progressively
Alzheimers
Memory related neurotransmitter acetylcholine is very low in people with Alzheimers
