Midterm Quiz Flashcards
What are the six principles of life span development by Baltes 1999?
- Development is lifelong
An all of life process. It is not just focused on childhood, adulthood or old age
Changes in development can occur later in life, without having been established at birth. The early events of one’s childhood can be transformed by later events in one’s life - Development is multidimensional
A dynamic interaction of factors influence development: biological, cognitive, and socioemotional changes - Development is multidirectional
Development of a particular domain is not strictly linear
Development involves growth and decline (gains & losses) - Development is plastic
A great deal of within-person variability can occur in human development
There are many possible developmental outcomes & the nature of human development is much more open and pluralistic than originally implied by traditional views - Development is contextual
Developmental psychology cannot ignore social contexts and their differences (e.g., growing up urban or rural)
Development occurs in a historical context which also influences how we grow - Development is multidisciplinary
So many aspects of life-span development that no single disciplinary approach would suffice
What is Nature vs Nurture and describe it?
Involves the debate about whether development is primarily influenced by nature or nurture
This debate was actually labeled in the 19th century by Francis Galton, an English anthropologist, cousin of Darwin, who thought that intellectual ability can be inherited (nature)
Contrastingly JOHN LOCKE claims child is born as a blank slate, meaning every characteristic can be shaped by experience.
Galton nature
Locke Nurture
Define Organicism and Mechanism
Organicism
Values qualitative developmental change
Emphasises the organism’s own role and control in creating these changes
Changes depend on what is learned in a previous stage, not just frequency of behaviour/thought
Mechanicism
Values quantitative developmental change.
Emphasises the things outside of the organism’s control in creating these changes
Change depends on external or Internal factors that the organism does not necessarily learn from; they just ‘switch on’
Identify the theories of development
Psychodynamic theory
Organisimic
Psychosocial theory
Organisimic
Behvaiour and social learning theory
Mechanistic
Ethologial Theory
Organismic
Evolutionary Developmetnal theory
Organismic
Bioecological theory
Organisimic
Life course theory
Organismic
Dynamic systems theory
Mechanistic
Piagetian Theory
Organismic
Vygotskys sociocultural theory
Organismic
Define the critical and sensitive periods
CRITICAL PERIOD
The period of time during which a particular ability can be learned
SENSITIVE PERIOD
A time of heightened ability to learn
What is the Psychodynamic theory?
Id;
dominates infants’ behaviour
Ego;
emerges as we develop, our drives come into conflict with reality.
Superego;
develops as we begin to internalise our parents’ values
Freuds strucutre of mind
ID
EGO
SUPEREGO
What is Eriksons Psychological theory?
Infancy: Trust vs mistrust
Toddler: Autonomy vs shame and doubt
Preschool-age: Initiative vs guilt
School-age: Industry vs inferiority
Adolescence: Identity vs identity confusion
Young adulthood: Intimacy vs isolation
Middle age: Generativity vs stagnation
Older adulthood: Integrity vs despair
What are the levels of Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological Model of Development?
Microsystem
Immediate setting in which a child lives
Refers to family, peers & school
The individual is viewed as an active force, forming bidirectional relationships with those around them
Mesosystem
Refers to the relationship among microsystems, such as home, school, neighbourhood and child care centre
Exosystem
Broad social settings that provide support for the development of children & adults e.g. community health services, parks, recreation centres, local govt, extended family
Macrosystem
Overarching ideology, values, laws, regulations and customs of a given culture
Chronosystem
How aspects of time impact development
What is the Dynamic Systems Theory ?
E.g. Bertalanffy, 1968; Sameroff, 1983; Thelen & Smith, 1994
Human beings and their environments can be thought of as a collection of systems.
A number of elements which are organised in some fashion.
E.g. the child’s mind, body, and social worlds connect to form a dynamic integrated system
How was the Dynamic systems theory tested?
Newborn stepping reflex
Disappears and later re-emerges
Traditional view of development postulated that this process was under the control of genetic factors
Thelen & Fisher (1982)
Demonstrated that reflex ‘disappears’ because of changes in other aspects of the infant’s physiology
Understood from a dynamic systems perspective: As changes are made to the system, behaviours are reorganised in a dynamic fashion. Previously observed patterns of behaviour can be brought back by changing the effects of the constraints which altered the behaviour
What are the research designs in Developmental Psychology?
Correlations
correlations are an addition method for studying development (age is a natural form of ratio data perfect for looking at relationships).
Non-experimental research method, which means that psychologists cannot infer cause-and-effect
Microgenetic Designs
Microgenetic designs do not refer to genetics. It is a high intensity observation method.
A psychologist will observe a behaviour in a child repeatedly and attempt to measure even the tiniest changes to give as full of a picture of development at a micro-level as possible.
Aim is to try to identify when and how a new behaviour emerges in a child as a result of development.
What are the Ethics ?
Confidentiality & Anonymity
Confidentiality, the requirement to keep data collected depersonalised from the child and private, is naturally an issue; this is the same for adults as well.
Children may reveal or present with issues that need to be referred outside of your research. In the UK, this is known as safeguarding.
Define the EEG?
A number of sensors (electrodes) are placed on the head, and they pick up tiny changes in electrical activity generated by neural activity in the brain.
Possible to measure the synchronised firing of large groups of neurons at specific frequencies
These small signals are then amplified and can be analysed.
What are event related potentials?
ERPs are specific waveforms of neural electrical activity that are derived from the EEG
What is the Habaituation paradigm?
Habituation:
method used to assess abilities of infants in which a stimulus is presented repeatedly until the infant’s attention decreases significantly.
When baby has stopped looking.
Then a novel stimulus is presented and the increase in attention is measured (dishabituation).
What is the violation of expectation paradigm?
Babies will look longer at something that surprises them or is unexpected.
Baby will stare longer if someone is thtowing up and down and ball is suspended in the air.
Where you observe if a baby will look longer at something.
Intermodal Prefeerential looking paradigm (IPL)
In the IPL paradigm, looking behaviour in response to an auditory stimulus is assessed
What are the issues of the Preferential looking and habituation programme?
Infants have a prefernce for stimuli
Infamts dishabituation is not a direct measure of all mental processes.
Infanta looking reflects competing preferences for novelty and familiarity.
What are Binocular depth cues?
how we can process depth using two eyes
Whart are the two types of binocular depth cues?
Convergance
A form of depth perception which uses how eye muscles focus on images
Retinal Disparity
A form of depth perception which compares the images from two eyes side-by-side
What is the main emphasis of gibsons bottom up direct theory of perception?
People are truly seeing what they think they see
What is visual constancy?
Refers to idea that although image on retina is constantly changing but we know.
So we know object hasnt changed.
What is Bower (1965) study 1?
To know Bower used operant conditioning to study size constancy in infants.
What are the two key words from Piagets theory of cognitive development?
Assimilation:
The process of using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation.
Accommodation:
The process of when an existing schema does not work in a new situation and so the schema must be changed.
What is the sensorimotor stage?
Main milestone is the sensorimotor stage where its 0-2 years, object permamnence and seperation anxiety develop during this stage.
What is Piagets defintion of ego centricity?
Child’s tendency to think only from their own perspective.
Tested with a ‘three mountains task study’.
What is piagets definition of conservation?
Pre-operational thinking was limited by the inability to conserve. What he meant was that children did not have the knowledge that quantity remains the same despite changes in appearance.
What was piagets and Vygotskys theories of development?
Piagets
Children learn as scientists
Vygotsky
Children learn as apprentices
What did Vygotsky say about children talking to themselves?
Piaget said egocentric speech is useless
Vygotsky believed children’s speech to themselves gave children’s the means to reflect on their own behaviour, organize behaviour, and control their behaviour.
Vygotsky termed it private speech.
Children learn through social interaction and language
Vygotsky.
What is Vygotskys zone of proximal development (ZPD)?
The difference between the child’s current developmental level, measured by the tasks they were able to achieve on their own, and their ability to do it with help.
Vygotsky also
