lecture 1

Question 1

what id development

Answer 1

• Development the systematic continuities and changes in an individual that occur between conception and death

Question 2

historical views of kids and childhood

Answer 2

• Nature vs. Nurture Argument
• Plato: children born with innate knowledge
• Aristotle: knowledge was a rooted experience
• Locke: infants are a blank slate
• Rousseau: children born with innate sense of justice and morality

Question 3

origins of new science

Answer 3

• Darwin’s ideas started interest in the origin of human behavior in children and the changes in behavior over time
• Detailed, systematic observation of kids kept
• Child development research used to promote healthy development and optimize development
• Research was thriving in the 60s
• Now applied dev science used in other areas to help society, have healthy kids, etc.

Question 4

biological theories of development

Answer 4

• Dev determined mostly by biology
• Maturational theory → dev reflects the natural unfolding of a biological plan
• Ethology theory → many behaviors viewed as adaptive bc survival value (ex. babies born to do certain things like crying)
• Critical period → time when a kid is ready and able to learn something (not too early or late)
• Imprinting → forming an emotional bond btwn child and first moving object

Question 5

psychodynamic theories of development

Answer 5

• Conflict must be resolved for a kid to develop
• Freud psychosesual theory
  o 3 components of personality (id ego superego)
  o Experiences have an enduring effect on development
  o Kids experience conflict between what they want and what they should do
• Eriksons psychosocial theory
  o Stages defined by a unique challenge
  o Involves a crisis that must be resolved

Question 6

learning developmental thoery

Answer 6

• Emphasized the importance of experience in development
• Pavlov studied classical conditioning
• BF skinner studied operant conditioning
• Rewarding behavior is much better than punishing, if ou are going to punish then you should reward also
• Other theories suggested that kids can learn by observing others
• Banduras social cognitive theory holds that kids actively interpret events and respond based on perceptions
• Kids develop a sense of self efficacy through experience that influences behavior

Question 7

cognitive developmental theory

Answer 7

• Development reflects kids efforts to understand the world
• Kids = little scientists who develop and revise theories with experience
• Jean piaget developed 4 stage sequence that characterizes kids changing the understanding of the world

Question 8

contextual perspective

Answer 8

• Development determined by immediate and more distant environments that influence each other
• People and institutions form a culture – knowledge skills and attitudes of a group
• Lev vygostsky thought that adults convey to kids the beliefs, customs and skills of culture

Question 9

themes in chold development

Answer 9

• Early dev related to later but not perfectly
• Dev always jointly influenced by heredity and environment
• Kids influence their own development
• Dev in different domains is connected

Question 10

early dev related to later

Answer 10

• Continuity-discontinuity issue
• Continuous view: kids stay on the same path of dev
• Discontinuous: kids can change paths at any point
• Dev not perfectly predicable or completely flexible

Question 11

development influenced by heredity and environment

Answer 11

• Nature-nurture issue
• Both interact to influence development
• Goal of child development is to understand how heredity and environment interact to determine kids development

Question 12

kids influence own development

Answer 12

• Active passive kid issue
• Kids once viewed as passive recipients of environments
• Now believed that kids interpret their experiences and actively influenced the experiences they have
• Parent child relationships are bi-directional