Introduction Flashcards
Lecture 1
why are many interested in developmental psych
- how we grow and develop across life
- interested in understanding other people (i.e. true crime)
- often interested in how to better interact with kids
kids and santa: age of understanding
kids that found out Santa isn’t real at an older age tend to have more negative feelings towards it
3 main goals of developmental psychology
- describe
- explain
- apply
goal of dev. psych: describe
to identify what development looks like; to understand what humans at different ages do, think, feel, etc.
- the process of change; the process of stability that exists across ages; to understand what humans at different ages tend to do or think or feel
ex: about what a 3-year vs. 5-year old do w/ language –> How do different ages approach reading? What are the different steps in reading?
goal of dev. psych: explain
to determine what factors contribute to development
ex: In the process of learning how to read, what is it that helps kids get there? How do we explain how it is that a child learns how to read? What are the mechanisms at play?
goal of dev. psych: apply
to utilize findings for programs, policies, advice that can improve the lives of children and youth
- take our learning of what development is like and utilize them for programs, policies, or advice
ex: Taking knowledge of reading development and applying them to schools & programs
developmental stages and ages
prenatal: conception to birth
infancy: birth - 3
early childhood: 3 - 6
middle childhood: 6 - 11
adolescence: 11 - 18/19
“early/emerging adulthood”: 19/20 - 25
adulthood: 25
main approaches to studying development
- stage approach
- domain approach
studying development: stage approach
using stages or ages
looking at different stages of time
- @ UBC: we tend to divide classes by stages of development
- Our class: focuses on early, middle and adolescence
studying development: domains
different domains and how they overlap
a. Physical: how do we change across different ages b. Cognitive: how thinking, memory, attention, language change across age c. Social & emotional: changes in emotion, feelings, motivations, etc. + social dynamics and relationships w/ other people - They all interact w/ each other; it's hard to disentangle one development w/ the other
our class: looks at domains
domain: puberty example
Physical changes: growth in the body; the way it appears and physically interacts with the world changes
- BUT: also impacts social development, romantic & sexual interests, peer interactions,
Cognitive changes: how we think about the world, other people, etc.
themes in developmental psychology
- nature and nurture
- developmental change
- the role of context
nature and nurture
Nature:
- When we develop, do we enter the world with innate tunings and biases?
- Are you who you are at birth?
- Is there an innate tuning there
OR:
Nurture:
- Is who we are determined by our experiences + our interactions w/ the world?
nature and nurture: john locke
VERY NURTURE
Tabula rasa: we’re born a blank slate
- there’s no writing on us
- Experiences etch onto us
nature and nurture: John Jacques Rousseau
- “noble savages”: we are born innocent
- Born w/ innate ideas about good and bad
- There’s a tuning already, and we develop according to our specific nature
nature: present definition
biological endowment; genes
- Genes, chromosomes, etc.
- 23 pairs of chromosomes, made up of longs strands of DNA –> genes –> proteins –> development
the question: how does nature impact development?
biological endowment
how we get chromosomes and genes
nurture: present definition
physical & social environment
- tend to talk about everything beyond your biological
- Physical, social, culture, people around you, parenting, etc.
- Air pollution, the weather of where you grew up, etc.
- Schooling
nature vs nurture: current view
not just nature OR nurture, but rather how they interplay with each other
- What are the ways they interact?
Ex: intelligence - how do the environment interplays with genetics?
epigenetics
ways gene expression can be changed by things other than DNA
- Genes don’t always automatically create proteins; the recipe doesn’t always get made
- The recipe & the oven have to get turned on
There are a lot of things that determine if that gene is turned on or off
epigenetics: influences
Impacts on whether a gene is turned on or off
- Your diet (what you eat)
- Medication
- Environment
continuous change
continual, gradual development
- Growing in size and complexity but it’s the same thing
- Gradual, continual change and growth
discontinuous change
- stage theory
across different periods of development, it looks qualitatively different - How it interacts as it develops changes
- Different stages = intersection w/ the world in qualitatively different ways
- Changes in quality
continuous change example
vocabulary growth
- growing in amount + quality
discontinuous change example
many psychology propositions introduce stages
- Ex: moral development - the way you think about right and wrong isn’t just increasing in quantity, it’s increasing in quality
- Later in development, we change to think about right and wrong based on intention vs. when we’re infants
mechanisms of (developmental) change
- biological processes
- experiences
- timing of experiences
mech of dev. change: biological processes
genetic changes; is it underlied by biology?
mech of dev. change: experiences
do we think of right and wrong because of what our parents taught us? Because of our experiences?
mech of dev. change: timing of experiences
experiences that need to happen at certain times
- If you get that experience at a different time, it’s unlikely to cause the same change
sensitive periods (timing of experiences)
time in which change/learning is optimal to occur
- ex: language acquisition
the role of context
- family
- peers
- school
- community
- SES
- culture
- time period
Are there aspects of development that are universal? That everybody develops in the same way? Or does context matter?
context: Bronfenbrenners
- there are different levels of context
- different things impact you
