Midterm

Question 1

What is the continuous developmental perspective?

Answer 1

A process of gradual augmenting of skills over time

Question 2

What is the discontinuous developmental perspective?

Answer 2

A process of new ways and skills emerging at particular times; belief in stages of qualitative changes during periods of development

Question 3

What are age-graded influences on development?

Answer 3

Events that are strongly related to age and therefore fairly predictable in when they occur and how long they last

• Puberty
• Menopause

Question 4

What are history-graded influences on development?

Answer 4

Influences on lifespan development that are unique to a particular historical era and explain why people born around the same time (called a cohort) tend to be alike in ways that set them apart from people born at other times.

• Boomers vs. Millennials

Question 5

What are nonnormative influences on development?

Answer 5

Events that are irregular: They happen to just one person or a few people and do not follow a predictable timetable.

• I.e., Susie experienced a traumatic car crash

Question 6

What are the names and age ranges of the major periods of human development?

Answer 6

• Prenatal
  -Infancy and Toddlerhood (0-3)
  Early childhood (3-6)
• Middle childhood (6-12)
• Adolescence (12-20)
• Young adulthood (20-40)
  -Middle age (40-65)
  -Late Adulthood (65 and up)

Question 7

Summarize Freud’s Psychoanalytic Perspective

Answer 7

People move through stages based on conflicts between their biological drive and social expectations. Parents’ management of their child’s sexual and aggressive urges early in life greatly affects their development.

Question 8

What are Freud’s Psychosexual Stages?

Answer 8

Oral: If your food need weren’t met, you did not see others as reliable or dependable later in life

Anal: Children gaining independence when able to retain or expel feces correctly (potty training). If issues with potty training, expressed through rigidness in adulthood or extreme messiness.

Phalic: If child was shamed or discouraged from forming close relationship with opposite sex parent, they will form their values and way of life only on same sex parent and not both.

Latency: Friendships and socializing

Genital: Unhealthy marriage and family life if unhealthy sexuality

Question 9

What are the Id, ego and superego?

Answer 9

Id: basic biological needs and desires.

Ego: the conscious, rational part of personality, emerges in early infancy to redirect the id’s impulses so they are discharged in acceptable ways.

Superego: conscience, develops as parents insist that children conform to the values of society. Develops between ages 3-6.

Question 10

What are the stages in Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory? There are 8!

Answer 10

• Basic Trust vs. Mistrust: Infancy (1-2)
  If baby can trust that parent will keep them safe, they will not see the world as a scary place and are more likely to trust others
  The opposite is true if parent does not provide safety
• Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt - Early childhood (2-4)
  Parents allow/encourage kid to self-discover, they feel confident
  If they don’t, child learns to have shame
• Initiative vs. Guilt - Preschool (4-5)
  If parents encourage kid to ask questions (why do I do what I do) and learn basic principles, kid is more likely to follow their interests
  If held back/told what child is doing is silly, child develops guilt
• Industry vs. Inferiority - School age (5-12)
  We learn that there are differences between us and we wonder if we can make it in this world. If we receive recognition from teachers, we become hardworking.
  If we get too much negative feedback, we feel inferior and lose our motivation
• Identity vs. Role Confusion - Adolescence (13-19)
  Going through identity exploration. If parents let us explore, we solidify our identity.
  If they push us to conform to their views, we feel lost
• Intimacy vs. Isolation - Early Adulthood (20-40)
  As young adults, we learn who we are. We let go of old relationships to better fit in. We ask ourselves if we can love.
  If we can form intimate relationships, we’re happy.
  If we can’t, we end up feeling isolated and lonely.
• Generativity vs. Stagnation - Adulthood (40-65)
  We become comfortable, use our leisure time effectively, and start contributing to society
  If we think we’re able to lead the next generation, we’re happy
  If we did not resolve some conflicts earlier, we become pessimistic/experience stagnation
• Ego Integrity vs. Despair Maturity (65-Death)
  We grow older, slow down, and start to look back at our lives
  If we think we did well, we’re content
  If not, we experience despair and become grumpy/bitter

Question 11

What are Piaget’s Stages of Development? There are 4!

Answer 11

Stage 1: Sensori-Motor Stage (Birth to 2 yrs)
Peek-a-boo = appearing/reappearing
They then learn object permanence (knowing that something is hiding under something)

Stage 2: The Pre-Operational Stage (2-7)
Think about different size glasses holding the same amount of liquid
Unable to take perspective of other person when viewing a 3D map

Stage 3: The Concrete Operational Stage (7-11)
Able to tell that different size glasses hold the same amount of liquid
Reasoning (glass/hammer/feather)

Stage 4: Formal Operational Stage (11+)
Able to follow rules that are against what is real (hitting feather with glass=break)

Question 12

What is Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Development?

Answer 12

Culture (values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social group) is transmitted to the next grneration; understands cognitive development (Piaget) as a socially mediated process

Question 13

What is Behaviorism?

Answer 13

directly observable events—stimuli and responses

-Ex: Pavlov’s dog experiment (conditioning)

Question 14

Developmental Social Neuroscience is devoted to studying _____

Answer 14

the relationship between changes in the brain and emotional and social development.

Question 15

Developmental Cognitive neuroscience is devoted to studying ____

Answer 15

the relationship between changes in the brain and the developing person’s cognitive processing and behavior patterns.

Question 16

What is informational processing theory?

Answer 16

the human mind might be viewed as a symbol-manipulating system through which information flows (like digital computers)

Question 17

What is Evolutionary Developmental Psychology?

Answer 17

It seeks to understand the adaptive value of species-wide cognitive, emotional, and social competencies as those competencies change with age.

Examples of questions asked:
What role does the newborn’s visual preference for facelike stimuli play in survival? Does it support older infants’ capacity to distinguish familiar caregivers from unfamiliar people? Why do children play in gender-segregated groups?

Question 18

What is Cognitive Development Theory?

Answer 18

Piaget’s theory!

Children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate the world.

The mind adjusts to fit the environment

Question 19

What is a sensitive period?

Answer 19

a time that is biologically optimal for certain capacities to emerge because the individual is especially responsive to environmental influences.

Question 20

What is resilience and what are some factors?

Answer 20

The ability to adapt effectively after threat across one’s lifespan.

Factors:
- Personal characteristics: Intelligent, easygoing, sociable, socially valued talents
- Warm parental relationship
-Social support outside the immediate family
- Community resources and opportunities

Question 21

What is considered “preterm”?

Answer 21

Babies born three weeks or more before the end of a full 38-week pregnancy or who weigh less than 5½ pounds (2,500 grams) have for many years been referred to as “premature.”

Question 22

What are some of the health risks associated with preterm births?

Answer 22

Brain abnormalities, delayed physical growth, frequent illness, sensory impairments, poor motor coordination, inattention, overactivity, language delays, low intelligence test scores, deficits in school learning, and emotional and behavior problems

Question 23

What are teratogens?

Answer 23

Negative environmental agents that cause damage during the prenatal period. Examples:
- Drugs
- Tobacco
- Alcohol
- Radiation
- Pollution
- Infectious diseases

Question 24

Why do babies cry?

Answer 24

• Form of commuication
• Physical need
• They hear another crying baby
• Pain or illness (abnormal crying)
• Emotional need (soothing/comforting)

Question 25

What are the five state of infant arousal?

Answer 25

1. Quiet alertness - minimal time
2. Waking activity and crying
3. Regular sleep
4. Irregular sleep (breathing irregular, limb movements)
5. Drowsiness

Question 26

What are some interventions for preterm infants?

Answer 26

• Isolette: enclosed bed with filters for air and controlled temperature
• Tube feeding, respirator, meds through needle
• Stimulation (rockers, auditory stimulation such as womblike sounds, mom’s voice, music)
• Parent training to recognize and address baby’s needs

Question 27

What are some newborn reflexes?

Answer 27

• Eye blink in response to bright light
• Rooting – head turns toward stroked cheek
• Sucking when finger placed in mouth
• Moro makes embracing motion when loud noise of head drops

Question 28

What is the impact of IPV on pregnant women?

Answer 28

IPV significantly contributes to stress. High stress can result in a colicky or irritable baby.

Question 29

How does TV time affect development in infancy and toddlerhood?

Answer 29

• Toddlers demonstrate poorer performance after viewing a video than viewing a live demonstration
• Increased TV watching = negative language progress, attention, memory, and reading difficulty in early school years

Question 30

What does social development look like during infancy and toddlerhood?

Answer 30

• Infants: cooing, babbling, joint attention, first words, then two-word phrases

Question 31

Summarize Bowlby’s Ethological Theory of Attachment

Answer 31

An infant’s emotional tie to caregivers promotes survival; internal working model for expectations for future relationships

Question 32

What is the Zone of Proximal Development?

Answer 32

a range of tasks that the child cannot yet handle alone but can do with the help of more skilled partners.

Question 33

How is language development supported during infancy?

Answer 33

Parents constantly fine-tune the length and content of their utterances in IDS to fit children’s needs—adjustments that enable infants and toddlers to join in and that foster both language comprehension and production

Respond to coos and babbles with speech sounds and words.

Encourages experimentation with sounds that can later be blended into first words. Provides experience with the turn-taking pattern of human conversation.

Question 34

What are the attachment styles and what do they look like in children?

Answer 34

Secure: These infants use the parent as a secure base. When separated, they may or may not cry, but if they do, it is because the parent is absent and they prefer her to the stranger. When the parent returns, they convey clear pleasure—some expressing joy from a distance, others asking to be held until settling down to return to play—and crying is reduced immediately.

Insecure - Avoidant: These infants seem unresponsive to the parent when she is present. When she leaves, they usually are not distressed, and they react to the stranger in much the same way as to the parent. During reunion, they avoid or are slow to greet the parent, and when picked up, they often fail to cling.

Insecure-resistant: Before separation, these infants seek closeness to the parent and often fail to explore. When the parent leaves, they are usually distressed, and on her return they combine clinginess with angry, resistive behavior (struggling when held, hitting and pushing). Many continue to cry after being picked up and cannot be comforted easily.

Insecure - Disorganized: This pattern reflects the greatest insecurity. At reunion, these infants show confused, contradictory behaviors—for example, looking away while the parent is holding them or approaching the parent with flat, depressed emotion. Most display a dazed facial expression, and a few cry out unexpectedly after having calmed down or display odd, frozen postures.

Question 35

What are some cognitive development/improvements in early childhood?

Answer 35

• Advances in cerebral cortex, cerebellum (balance), reticular formation (attention), amygdala (processing emotion), hippocampus (memory), and corpus callosum (coordination)

Question 36

Summarize Piaget’s preoperational stage (early childhood)

Answer 36

Question 37

Describe gender stereotyping in early childhood

Answer 37

Question 38

Describe executive functioning in early childhood

Answer 38

Improved: inhibition, working memory, flexibility of thinking, and planning—

Question 39

Psychosocial development during early childhood?

Answer 39

• Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt - Early childhood (2-4)
  Parents allow/encourage kid to self-discover, they feel confident
  If they don’t, child learns to have shame
• Initiative vs. Guilt - Preschool (4-5)
  If parents encourage kid to ask questions (why do I do what I do) and learn basic principles, kid is more likely to follow their interests
  If held back/told what child is doing is silly, child develops guilt

Question 40

Peer relationships in middle childhood

Answer 40

• Physical aggression declines, but verbal and relational aggression continues (and is more harsh)
• Empathy increases

Question 41

What is a social constructivist classroom?

Answer 41

A classroom grounded in Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, in which children participate in a wide range of challenging activities with teachers and peers, with whom they jointly construct understandings. Distinguished from traditional and constructivist classrooms.

Children tend to do better in this setting