Introduction Flashcards
what is developmental psychology?
From conception to death
- Life-span developmental
Developmental psychology = discipline that aims to understand changes that happen over time in cog, emotional and behav functioning of indv due to genetic and env influences
what do developmental psychologists aim to examine?
human behav across lifespan and adopt range of perspectives
adult expectations about having children
Cultures, subcultures, indv fam heritage
Need for economic help
Primary ties and affection
Stim and fun
Expression of self
Adult status/social identity
developmental framework
Biology (e.g. genes, brain, neuropsych functioning)
Indv context (e.g. personality chars, thoughts, emotions, temperament)
Fam (e.g. parent-child r’ships, siblings) – one of most imp factors
Society (e.g. per r’ships, friendship v rejection)
Culture (e.g. poverty, ethnicity, immigration)
developmental framework - biology
Tissue maturation in the foetal brain
Maturation alters development of the child – at different ages children can think in different ways
developmental framework - the indv context - temperament
surgency
neg affectivity
effortful control
surgency
Activity level
Approach towards others, pos anticipation
High intensity pleasure
Impulsivity
Lack of shyness
Smiling and laughter
neg affectivity
Anger/frustration
Discomfort in reaction to sensory stim (e.g. bothered by light)
Slow rate of recovery from distress/arousal , difficult to soothe
Fearfulness, unease, worry, nervousness
Sadness in response to disappointment
effortful control
Ability to maintain attentional focus
Able to inhibit or supress responses
Pleasure of enjoyment in response to low-intensity stim (e.g. enjoys sitting on parent’s lap)
Perceptual sensitivity to low-intensity stim (e.g. notices even little specks of dirt on objects)
developmental framework - the indv context - cog and emotional development
Cog development (e.g. Piaget, Vygotsky, theory of mind)
Moral development (e.g. Kohlberg)
Emotional development (e.g. attachment)
Self-reg (e.g. emotion reg, cog control)
developmental framework - family
Baumrind’s typology of parenting styles
- Warmth – how affectionate parent is
- Level of expectations, maturity demands – e.g. expect children to do well at school
- Clarity and consistency of rules, control
- Communication between parent and child
styles of parenting
authoritative
permissive
authoritarian
neglecting
authoritative
most optimal style of parenting
High in all 4
permissive
Low in maturity demands, control and communication but high in affection
Found to be linked to anx and depression
authoritarian
Low in affection and communication and high in the rest
neglecting
Links with antisocial behaviour, early sexual activity, less achievement at school
Monitoring is very critical
developmental framework - society
Can have pos and neg experiences
How friendships develop
stages of friendship
reward-cost stage (7-9) years
Normative stage (10-11 years)
Empathetic stage (12-13 years)
types of people
popular
controversial
neglected
rejected
popular
High on ‘liked most’
Low on ‘liked least’
controversial
High on ‘liked most’
High on ‘liked least’
neglected
Low on ‘liked most’
Low on ‘liked least’
rejected
Low on ‘liked most’
High on ‘liked least’
influences from parents and peers
Lots of influences work together
Use of marijuana
If best friends were non-users but parents were users
- 17% adolescents smoked
If best friends users but parents not
- 56% adolescents smoked
- Peer r’ships v imp – influence r’ships
When both best friends and parents users – same experience – influences work together
- 67% smoked
developmental framework - culture
Yale Human Relations Area Files (data avail on several areas of human activity, e.g. marriage, death rituals, child birth activities)
Universal transition points during 2nd year of life, around ages of 6/7 years and at time of puberty
Why?
- 2 – age when children become autonomous
- 6 and 7 – start using language – don’t really know answer
psychopathology models
Medical model
Behavioural model
SL model
Cog models
Psychoanalytic models
Family systems models
medical model
Puts emphasis on organic dysfunctions
Emphasises diagnoses (same for physical illness)
Env factors (e.g. high levels of stress and neg life events) can alter bio
env effects on children’s cortisol levels
N = 167 school-aged maltreated children (abuse and neglect), N = 204 low income normal treated children
Maltreated children with internalising (emotional) problems had higher cortisol levels (known as stress hormone) compared to normal treated children
Cortisol = stress hormone – increases with neg experiences
Maltreated had more emotional problems and behavioural problems
Int – internalising – depression and anx – internalises worry and sadness
Ext – externalising – ADHD, aggression etc – main focus outside of indv
Neg env can change biology – increases stress hormones
behavioural model
Puts emphasis on learning principles – every behav can be learned, maintained, changed/eliminated by learning principles
Use exps – very controlled conditions
consequences
focus on freq/intensity of maladaptive behav
using exps
Conditioning
- Infants generalise past experiences to new situs
Habituation
- Infant’s capacity to habituate to familiar stim begins in prenatal period and helps infant to learn
- Explains how babies learn
Statistical learning
- Infants learn likelihood that event will follow another
- Associate events – can make predictions and understand what is happening in env
consequences
Reinforcement (reward for the desired behaviour)
Punishment (aversive stim after undesired behav)
Avoidance (can have pos and neg consequences)
Imitation (/modelling) – social referencing
focus on freq/intensity of maladaptive behav
Behav deficit (e.g. autism, learning difficulties) – occurs at lower level than usually expected in given society
Behav excess (e.g. OCD, hyperactivity) – behav occurs at much higher level than expected
SL model
Puts emphasis on indvs as active agents in their env from v. young age – think about how to respond to given situ
Infants tested during 1st weeks of life show preference for patterned stim over plain (Fantz, 1961)
Face stim resembled human face and prefer to look at this
SLT
Reciprocal determinism, a process in which a person and his/her env influence each other – mutual influence
Emphasise cog processes (e.g. problem solving, internal representations of r’ships)
Self-efficacy affects whether an indv expects a given outcome and whether he/she behaves in way to achieve desired outcome – how confident behav will produce particular outcome – more effort when they believe behav will produce outcome
Indv as active agent
cog development
see diagram
examples of cog mechanisms
processes
strats
metacognition
knowledge
processes
basic level
Object recognition, memory, making associations between events
Processes change as children grow – can become more sophisticated – elaborate - more info
strats
Children develop range of strats to problem solve – e.g. reach toy out of reach – to memorise material
By using variety of strats children adopt new situs more effectively
metacognition
o Reflection – e.g. why did they get a certain mark in one module but a diff mark in another – advanced cog strat
knowledge
Children who know topic well in better position to learn and remember new material – building up in their knowledge
Children can also form analogies between old and new material
psychoanalytic models - Erickson’s theory of psychosocial development
see diagram
Follow stages and meet tasks at each stage
1) Can trust others but judge it as well – difficulties with trust if don’t develop at this stage – very important stage
2) Good sense of self-control if good encouraging env – punishment – may feel shame
3) Learn lots from their parents – model behaviour - imitation – internalise parents’ beliefs – disapproval = chronic sense of guilt – not doing well enough
4) Rejected – struggling academically – sense of inferiority
5) Have to make lots of decisions – social decisions – have to have a sense of identity – who they are and what they want – chronic sense of confusion about identity – become competent and confident adults
If not resolved may have problems in future
family systems models
Family = system
Families have tendency to keep structure even in times of change (termed homeostasis)
Families have subsystems (marital subsystem, parent-child r’ships, siblings)
Fam members can participate in diff r’ships at the same time
rigid boundaries v enmeshment
Fam subsystems work well when have clear boundaries (e.g. subsystems clearly differentiated, fam members have clear roles and expectations and have space to meet indv needs)
Rigid boundaries (e.g. strict role differentiation) can lead to alienation/difficulty at communicating feelings – don’t feel free to express feelings/own ideas
Enmeshment – emotional overinvolvement – (fam members don’t differentiate among one another) – attempts of individuation perceived by other members as threat to fam and can result in anx – disrupt coherence of fam’s system
dysfunctional family systems
see diagram
chars of psychopathology models
Organisational perspective
Continuity v discontinuity
Developmental pathways
Transactions
Multifinality and equifinality
the organisational perspective
Development = hierarchical – increases in complexity and organisation (e.g. Piaget’s theory) – first 2 years – individuality – adolescence – think like scientists
‘Stage-salient issues’ need to be addressed for development to move on to next stage – Erickson’s theory good example
Stage-salient effects (whether resolved or not) are move forward to next stage – can lead to strengths/vulnerabilities
continuity v discontinuity
Is development ‘more of the same’ / ‘marked by qual changes’
Rutter – Romanian Adoption Team (1998) – studies development of Romanian orphan children adopted into UK
Age of children when adopted sig in cog development – earlier = more pos cog development
update on Romanian adoptees study
A recent update on the Romanian adoptees: Do the effects of early severe deprivation on cognition persist into early adolescence? Findings from the English and Romanian adoptees study (2006)
Cognitive outcomes at age 11 of 131 Romanian adoptees from institutions were compared with 50 U.K. adopted children. Key findings were of both continuity and change:
(1) marked adverse effects persisted at age 11 for many of the children who were over 6 months on arrival.
(2) there was some catch-up between ages 6 and 11 for the bottom 15%.
(3) there was a decrease of 15 points for those over 6 months on arrival, but no differentiation within the 6-42-month range.
(4) there was marked heterogeneity of outcome but this was not associated with the educational background of the adoptive families. The findings draw attention to the psychological as well as physical risks of institutional deprivation.
developmental pathways
N = 526 male Ps – 1-year birth cohort
Ratings of conduct problems – 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21 and 26 years
Life-course persistent subtype had worst health outcomes (more psychiatric problems, poorer physical health) at 32 years
transactions
Transactional model 91975) theorises that there are ‘bidirectional links’ between parent’s and child’s behav
considering the behav of parents
Examples of parent driven effects
- Parents’ use of proactive parenting longitudinally associated with decreased levels of behav problems among children (Denham et al., 2000)
- Remote and disengaged father-infant interactions at 3 months predicted increased child behav problems at 1 year when controlling for both parent’ depression and other imp chars (Ramchandani et al., 2013)
considering the behav of children
Anderson, Lytton and Romney (1986) found that, compared to control boys, boys with conduct disorder elicited more demands and neg responses when interacting with own mothers, mothers of other children with conduct problems and mothers of control children
multifinality (Cicchetti)
diagram
equifinality
Risk factors don’t act in isolation
Can diff risk factors lead to same outcome? – need studies that look at diff outcomes and risk factors
