PSY101 - Chapter 5: Developing Through the Lifespan

Question 1

Nature vs. Nurture

Answer 1

Genetic inheritance and experience influencing development.

Question 2

Development Process

Answer 2

Gradual/continuous or a series of stages - used to believe was stages, now more gradual.

Question 3

Personality and Intellectual Traits

Answer 3

Stable or changing.

Question 4

Conception

Answer 4

Sperm cells surround an ovum, one penetrates the egg, chemical events occur that fuse them into a single cell.

Question 5

Prenatal Development: 40 Days

Answer 5

Spine is visible and the arms and legs are beginning to grow.

Question 6

45 days

Answer 6

Embryo is an inch long and proportions change.

Question 7

End of second month: Fetal Period

Answer 7

Facial features, hands, feet formed.

Question 8

15 weeks

Answer 8

Fetus is able to squeeze hands, frown, smile, etc.

Question 9

Fourth Month

Answer 9

3 ounces, fits in the palm of the hand.

Question 10

24 weeks

Answer 10

Can feel movement.

Question 11

27 weeks

Answer 11

Responds to light.

Question 12

32-33 weeks

Answer 12

deep sleep cycles begin and reacts to mother’s voice (prefers whatever language the mother uses.

Question 13

Teratogens

Answer 13

Harmful agents (viruses or drugs) that increase risk to problems later in life. 
Mothers who smoke during pregnancy increase risk of ADHD in children.

Question 14

Alcohol as a Teratogen

Answer 14

Crosses the barrier to the placenta + depresses central nervous system of fetus.
In rats, causes baby to want to drink, also affects the environment around baby (abusive parents, etc.)
Hippocampus becomes smaller, more likely to be in trouble w/ law.

Question 15

Prenatal Nutrition

Answer 15

Has impact on things like IQ.

Question 16

William James

Answer 16

Though kids are born with tabula rasas.
-Wrong, kids are born with automatic responses ideally suited for survival. (turns head to search for nipple, turn head toward a human voice, facial recognition, mother’s smell after a week) Will recognize mother’s voice right away after birth.

Question 17

Habituation

Answer 17

Form of learning that occurs when an organism shows a decrease in response to some stimulus after repeated presentation of the stimulus.
-Newborns are sensitive to novelties in their environment.

Question 18

Maturation

Answer 18

Brain development that is biologically programmed; neural networks grow increasingly more complex.

Question 19

Motor Development

Answer 19

Babies roll over, then sit, then crawl, then walk (around a year old).
Genes guide motor development.
–Identical twins will walk on the same day.
–If a parent spoke later than average, the child will also.

Question 20

Cognition

Answer 20

Refers to all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating. Learning

Question 21

Infantile Amnesia

Answer 21

Our earliest memories seldom predate our third birthday.

Question 22

Jean Piaget

Answer 22

Core idea: the child’s mind develops through a series of stages, the driving force of cognitive development is our unceasing desire to make sense of our experiences.
–Focused on children when they answered questions incorrectly.

Question 23

Schema, Assimilation and Accomodation

Answer 23

Schema: a mental model of something in the world.
Assimilation: the process of interpreting experiences in terms of our schemas.
Accommodation: the process of adjusting schemas.

Question 24

Object Permanence

Answer 24

The awareness that objects continue to exist when not perceived.

• -Piaget thought that this capability emerges suddenly around 8 months.
• -Developmental Psychologists now believe it emerges gradually. (A not B: object under a washcloth)

Question 25

Sensorimotor competence

Answer 25

Karen Wynn: infants are capable of primitive math.
–Infants look longer at things they don’t understand: outcome with 2 objects still in the box when one has been taken away because it doesn’t fit what they think should happen.

Question 26

Preoperational

Answer 26

Basic mental operations and egocentrism

1. Piaget believed that until ~7 children are incapable of basic mental operations.
   - -Can’t grasp concept of ‘conservation’: pouring amount of liquid into a larger glass does not mean there is more liquid.
2. Also noticed children are egocentric and cannot perceiving the world from another’s point of view (could not say what someone sitting across from them would see around the dinosaur volcano).

Question 27

Concrete Operational

Answer 27

Children grasp the concept of conservation and mental ability to understand mathematical transformations.

Question 28

Formal Operational

Answer 28

By age of 12, reasoning has expanded from concrete to encompass abstract thinking. Children become capable of hypothetical thinking and deducing consequences (if this, then that).
–Critics think Piaget underestimated children’s competence: in specific domains, children are capable of abstract thought much earlier than 12 years: Hikaru Nakamura achieved chess master near 10th birthday.

Question 29

Social Development: Origins of Attachment

Answer 29

Bond that keeps infants close to their caregivers is tactile, not based on nourishment.
–Harry and Margaret Harlow studied monkeys (terry cloth mother or wooden cylinder mother).

Question 30

Attachment Differences

Answer 30

Secure: parents always respond to child’s crying.
Insecure: parents sometimes respond.
Avoidant: Parents never respond.
–Mary Ainsworth studied attachment using the strange situation paradigm.

Question 31

ADOLESCENCE

Cognitive Development: Developing Morality

Answer 31

Lawrence Kohlberg proposed that moral reasoning develops through a series of stages.

• Preconventional morality: children obey rules to avoid punishment and gain rewards.
• Conventional morality: adolescents follow rules simply because they are rules.
• Postformal morality: judge actions based on a well-developed set of ethical principles.

Question 32

Forming an Identity

Answer 32

Diminishing parental influence and growing peer influence.

Question 33

ADULTHOOD

Physical development

Answer 33

1. Physical abilities peak in the mid-20s.
2. Presbycusis: loss of sensitivity to high-pitched tones, developed later in life.
3. Fatal accident rate jumps over age of 65.
4. Alzheimer’s Disease: neurological disease which strikes 3% by age of 75 (loss of brain cells/deterioration of neurons that produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine).

Question 34

Cognitive Development: Aging and Intelligence

Answer 34

Fluid intelligence declines with age: abstract intelligence, recently acquired info.
Crystallized knowledge increases with age: knowledge gained over time, accumulated info.

Question 35

Aging and Intelligence: physical activity

Answer 35

Increases cognitive functioning in older adults, as well as keeping a healthy weight.

Question 36

Well-Being Across the Life Span

Answer 36

Successful Aging: positive outlook and activity and social networks with the right genes will ensure a successful aging process.