Konsepter Flashcards
Age periods in developmental psychology
Prenatal -> birth Infancy and toddlerhood -> 2 years Early childhood -> 6 years Middle childhood -> 11 years Adolescence -> 18 years Early adulthood -> 25 years
Werner’s view of development
Development refers only to changes which increase the organization of functioning within a domain. It consists of integration (of more basic behaviors into new, higher level structures) and differentiation (the ability to make more distinctions among things).
Gesell’s “maturation” view of development
Development is the result of genetics. This is referred to as maturation. He focused on describing the norms of children’s development, and on when children typically acquire a given behavior and how these behaviors are affected by environmental influences.
Watson’s view of development
Development is the result of learning - behaviorism.
Piaget’s view of development
Organismic approach - focused on the mental development and the balance between shaping and adapting.
Vygotsky’s view of development
Focused on social context and the gaining of mental tools like language.
Baltes’ principles of life-span development
- Development is life-long
- Development is multidimensional and multidirectional
- Development involves both gains and losses, growth and decline
- Development is plastic
- Development is affected by culture and historical time period
- Development is multidisciplinary
Baltes’ three-factor model of contextual influences on development
- Normative age-graded influences (biological and environmental factors similar for persons in the same age group)
- Normative history-graded influences (biological and environmental factors that are associated with specific historical time periods)
- Non-normative life events (unusual occurrences that have a major effect on the individual)
Canalization
The extent which our biological programming can be altered by environmental factors. Highly canalized abilities are relatively unaltered by changes in the environment. Language is an example of a highly canalized ability.
Catch-up growth
Rapid recovery of physical growth after a period of deprivation with the establishment of normal environmental conditions.
Theory
An interconnected logical system of concepts that provides a framework for organizing and understanding observations. Aims to understand and predict some aspect of the world. Can be formal or informal. Theories are frameworks to interpret and integrate new information.
Formal theory
An interconnected set of hypotheses, definitions, axioms, laws; each is an explicit concept which fits the overall theory. Should be logically consistent and free of contradictions, and fit empirical observations. Should be ass simple as possible and cover a reasonable range of phenomena. No such theories exist in human developmental psychology.
Informal theory
Organized set of intuitions and expectations; less rigorous than formal theories.
Miller’s three domains of developmental theories
- Must describe change within a domain
- Must describe changes in relationships between domains
- Must explain how the changes take place
Organismic theories of human development
Views change as reorganization of previous forms, not simply a change in the quantity of a behavior. Focused on qualitative changes. The organism brings the changes about.
Mechanistic theories of human development
Focused on quantitative changes in behavior. Outside factors bring the changes about.
Psychodynamic theory of human development
- Based on Freud’s theories
- Forces in the individual are responsible for that person’s behavior
- Focus on the formative nature of early experience
- Focus on biologically-based drives
- Development is the result of a balance between unconscious and conscious drives.
- Development is discontinuous and occurs in stages.
- Five stages: oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital stages.
- Development is shaped by the conflict between a person’s urges and society’s restrictions.
- Criticism: focus on males, lacks empirical support, too much focus on sex and aggression
Psychosocial theory of human development
- Erik Erikson
- Emphasis on social and cultural factors instead of sex and aggression
- Life-span perspective
- Three systems interacting: the ego, the somatic, and the societal system
- Development is discontinuous and occurs in stages
- Eight stages, each marked by a crisis
- trust/mistrust, 2. autonomy/shame, 3. initiative/guilt, 4. industry/inferiority, 5. identity/identity diffusion, 6. intimacy/isolation, 7. generativity/stagnation, 8. integrity/dispair
- Criticism: not coherent, difficult to test empirically, proposes no mechanism of how one moves to the next stage
Havinghurst’s developmental task theory
- Developmental tasks are critical tasks that occur in certain periods in our lives
- Success in handling one task leads to happiness and further success
- Three sources of tasks: physical maturation, personal sources, and societal pressures
- Six age periods
- Criticism: focused on white middle class Americans
- Praised for practicality
Behaviorist theories of development
- Watson
- Classical conditioning
- Behaviorism
- Children can be moulded into anything
- Little focus on biological factors
- Skinner
- Operant conditioning: reinforcers and punishers
Bandura’s social learning theory
- A variant of behaviorist views
- Children learn through modelling as well as conditioning
- Observational learning
- Children imitate those who are warm and powerful and have valuable characteristics or objects
- Focus on self-efficiacy which is developed through observation and receiving comments on behavior
- Focus on environment, easy to test, clearly defined variables (the models)
- Criticism: pays too little attention to socioeconomic factors
Ethological perspective on human development
- The adaptive value of behavior and its evolutionary history
- Roots in natural selection theory
- Imprinting
- Critical periods
- Bornstein: sensitive periods
- Criticism: sources of behavior is hard to find since we cannot go back in time to study evolution
Critical period
A time when an organism is biologically prepared to acquire a certain behavior - the tendency is pre-programmed, but it needs environmental triggers to occur
Imprinting
Rapid acquisition of “following behavior” that occurs in animals
Sensitive period
A time when a child is especially responsive to environmental influences
Evolutionary developmental theory
- Study of genetic and ecological mechanisms that govern the development og social and cognitive competences common to all human beings
- General approach
- Growing perspective in research
Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model
- Research in natural environments to get more genuine observations
- The environment is dynamic
- Individual at the center of a system consisting of four layers
- Macro, exo, meso, micro
- The chronosystem: all aspects of time
- The levels interact and affect each other
Life course theory of human development
- The life course is the sequence of socially defined, age-graded events and roles that the individual enacts over time
- Our lives are largely defined by social context
- Cultural expectations to certain ages vary
- Four interdependent principles: lives are situated n historical time and place, affected by social timing, interdependent, and humans have agency
- Much in common with the bioecological model, but more focused on the social environment and not centered around the individual
Dynamic systems theory of human development
- Humans develop within systems
- Integrated dynamic system that connects mind, body and social environment
- A change in one area results in a general state of flux, and thus the child must reorganize their behavior
- Metatheory that can be widely applied, but also a specific theory of development
- Development as truly epigenetic
- Often study children in transition periods
- Interindividual differences as well as intraindividual differences exist in development
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
- Children as active participants
- Intelligence is an adaption to enhance survival chances
- We want to make our knowledge fit reality
- Cognitive development is a process of revision
- We search for equilibrium between cognitive structures and the world
- Development is discontinuous, and consists of four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational
- Criticism: not enough focus on social and cultural factors
Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of development
- Children as active participants
- Emphasis on the social environment
- Children gain knowledge and skills through social interactions
- Development is continuous
- Development first occurs interpersonally and later intrapersonally
Information processing accounts of development
- The human mind is an information encoder
- Transforming input to useful output
- Digital computers are used to understand cognitive development
- Requires mapping of information modesl
- Open to empirical tests in general
- Stress the importance of identifying underlying mechanisms to development
Surveys
Questionnaires or interviews with a representative sample of the population. Best suited for finding broad patterns
Observational methods
Naturalistic or laboratory setting, useful for studying behavior in an organic or controlled setting. Less validity due to the reactions to being observed
Specimen record
Everything that happens in a fixed time period is recorded
Event sampling
Behavior is measured whenever a particular event occurs
Time sampling
A predetermined behavior is recorded during a set period of time
Interviews
First hand information is obtained, gains much information, information gained from interviews with children may be less accurate due to cognitive limitations and social desirability effects
Third-party reports
Can get different perspectives from teachers, parents etc, show similarities or variances across contexts. Third parties may be biased
Psychophysiological methods
Can identify feelings in young children that cannot self report, and provide an understanding of how brain development underlies development of behavior. Physical signs can be hard to interpret and attribute correctly. Methods include EEG and fMRI
Cross-sectional research design
Useful for studying group differences. Children of different ages are compared. Efficient and quickly conducted, but vulnerable to cohort effects and cannot address individual development
Cohort effects
Variations in the characteristics of an area of study (such as the incidence of a characteristic or the age at onset) over time among individuals who are defined by some shared temporal experience or common life experience, such as year of birth
Longitudinal research design
Studies individual development, investigates causal relationships, demands much time and effort, and can be affected by practice effects. Vulnerable to attrition (subjects dropping out, leaving the remaining group less representative)
Time-lag research design
Seeks to identify cultural changes by comparing generations, does not study individual development
Microgenetic research design
Fine-grained analysis, detailed info from a short time period, used for rapidly occurring development, vulnerable to practice effects
Stages of prenatal development
Zygote -> 2 weeks
Embryo -> 8 weeks
Foetus -> birth
Age of viability
When a foetus is 22-26 weeks it has a good chance of surviving a premature birth
Teratogens
Environmental risks to the unborn baby, including drugs, maternal stress, radiation and toxins
Apgar scoring system
Used to assess an infant’s health after birth - reflexes, heart rate, etc
Psychosocial dwarfism
Results from extreme emotional deprivation or abuse
Menarche
The first menstruation
Spermarche
The first ejaculation
Gross motor development
Motor skills which help children get around in their environment, such as crawling and walking
Fine motor development
Smaller movement sequences like reaching and grasping
Prereaching
Poorly coordinated attempts at reaching for an object. Lasts until 2 months
Directed reaching
More coordinated and accurate reaching, from 3 months to around 9 months
Ulnar grasp
Directed reaching - a primitive form of grasping where the infant’s fingers close agains their palm, the fingers acting as a whole.
Pincer grasp
Using the index finger and thumb in an opposable manner, leading to a more coordinated and finely-tuned grip. Occurs around the end of the first year
Range of reaction theory
Genes determine a range of possibilities within environmental contexts. Criticised for being too deterministic
Polygenetic inheritance
A trait affected by more than one gene
Nativist theory of perception
meaningful perceptual structures (independent of how we perceive them) exist in the world - the structures do not need to be created or constructed from the sensations we receive via our senses. Perception is simply the process of detecting the information available in these structures. This view is known as the theory of direct perception.
Gibson’s theory of perception
Perceptual development is an active cognitive process in which we interact selectively with the array of possibilities afforded to us by the environment. Central to this theory is the notion of affordances. Affordances are perceived by exploiting invariances in the visual environment (aspects that do not change).
Constructivist theory of perception
Our perceptions are often constructions, the result of prior knowledge used to guide our current interactions with the environment. This view emphasizes the interaction of the individual with the environment, leading to a construction of our understanding of the world.
Piaget’s (constructivist) theory
- Perception does not develop, rather it is enriched by the emerging structures of our intelligence.
- Piaget made a distinction between perception and perceptual activity, with perception being the initial, immediate sensations via modalities such as vision, and perceptual activity being the “correction” of our initial impressions by our intellect.
- Piaget’s theory is more a theory of the cognitive processes by which children and infants come to interpret perception, than a theory of perception itself.
- Piaget also believed that perception gave us direct knowledge of the environment, but he thought this knowledge was prone to error.
- Knowledge = perception + perceptual activity.
Affordances
The properties of objects that offer the individual the potential to interact with the object in a variety of ways.
Compound invariants
Perception of relationships among stimuli that specify complex affordances - relationships among objects give more information than simply picking up a single object.
Preferential looking techniques.
One of the most common techniques is to try to figure out the infants preferences - what they like to look at for longer periods of time, for example. A stimulus is introduced, and then the researcher looks out for changes in the rate, duration or intensity of the gazing/listening etc.
If a child prefers to look at one thing above another, the researchers can know that the child perceives a difference between the two stimuli. Infants’ preferences tell us what sorts of stimuli their perceptual systems can distinguish, and how their perceptual systems are designed (for example designed to attend to movement rather than non-movement). This method has limitations: an infant may be able to discriminate between stimuli but not show any preference.
Habituation studies
Once a stimulus has become familiar and loses its novelty, we become bored of it and stop attending to it. When the stimulus display alters to once again become novel (new) we show a release from habituation, and attend to the stimulus again. Habituation studies allow us to contrast different stimulus conditions and see if the infant detects changes in them, measured by the amount of time they attend to the stimuli.
The rooting reflex
The tendency to search for objects which touch them on the cheek, helping them locating their mother’s nipple.