Midterm 1 Flashcards
three time frames in developmental psychology
evolution of human species, history of cultural group, ontogeny of individual
ontogeny
your individual developmental path from being a zygote to becoming an elder
phylogeny
evolution of a species
all humans are at the same level of phylogeny, but…
we can vary in ontogeny
biogenetic law (recapitulation theory)
your ontogeny reflects/mirrors something that happened in the evolutionary past when we became the modern species of Homo sapien
Haeckel believed that all fetuses of all species looked similar, thus…
proving we were all the same at one point
homo evolutionary timeline
ancestral primate; lorises, pottos, and lemurs; tarsiers; new world monkeys; old world monkeys; hominoids –> gibbons, orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, humans
humans split from chimpanzees…
~7 million years ago; there was some creature that caused us to differentiate in evolution from chimpanzees and that creature was more similar to the chimpanzee than we are today
developmental psychology
looks at full ontology; development continues throughout your entire lifespan; also deals with issues of anthropology, biology, and philosophy
different cultures affect…
how we develop
experiment
research in which a change is introduced in a person’s experience and the effect of the change is measured
ecological validity
extent to which behavior studied in one environment is characteristic of the behavior exhibited by the person in a range of other environments
clinical method
questions are tailored to the individual and content of question depends on the answer to the preceding one; clinical interview
naturalistic observation
observe people in their natural environments
naturalistic observation pros and cons
pros: real life scenarios
cons: influence by being observed (social expectations); causal factors not understood (no scientific control)
experiment pros and cons
pros: can isolate variables and factors to determine the effect
cons: potentially artificial situation (ecological validity)
clinical method pros and cons
pros: can learn what they are thinking and their reasoning; can probe/challenge children’t thinking and reasoning
cons: cannot be used with very young children since they cannot talk very well yet
effects of the industrial revolution
farm work transitioned to factory work/schooling, death rate dropped, birth rate dropped; emergence of the nuclear family
Freud’s 3 structures
super-ego, id, ego
super-ego
reflects societal expectations and morality
id
reflects instincts
ego
juggles the super-ego and the id; negotiates for them
John B. Watson
behaviorist; believe development is the product of learning alone; what you teach the baby largely forms the outcome; the Little Albert experiment
B. F. Skinner
development seen as the creation of a sculpture: you begin with a lump of clay and gradually the sculpture is formed as you shave away and shape the material; the end product has unity and integrity of design, but there is no one moment in which it appeared; the Skinner box with rats