TEST 2 Flashcards
Developmental Psychology
study of how people change over lifespan, birth through old age
Changes of interest in developmental psych
physical, social, cognitive
How can stages of life be defined?
Age, life transitions, critical periods
Genotype
genetic material passed down
phenotype
Traits displayed, environment and genetic
Epigenetic
study of cell mechanisms that control gene expression, can be triggered by internal and external facotrs
Gene
Unit of DNA on a chromosome
Prenatal development is
When single-celled zygote develops into full-term fetus
Epigenetics
Combination of gene expression and factors that affect gene expression
Zygotic period
First two weeks after conception, rapid cell division and implantation
Embryonic period, length and highlights
Weeks 3-8, amniotic sac, umbilical cord, placenta, teratogen damage
Fetal Period
2 months post conception- birth
Teratogens
Harmful agents or substances, radiation, toxic chemicals, viruses and bacteria, drugs
What is happening in fetal period? 6 month and birth?
Used neural connections are strengthened,
6 months- fetus brain activity is similar to newborns and sleeps
Birth- neurons still growing, brain at 1/4 size
Development during infancy and childhood
Physically helpless, equipped with reflexes and sensory capabilities for survivala
Rooting
When babies cheek is turned, open mouth and turn head
Sucking
sucking in response to oral stimulation
Babinski
Fanning when curling toes when foot is stroked
Grasping
Baby grips finger so tightly they can be lifted
Stepping
Moving legs as if trying to walk
Newborn senses are focused on
people, 6-12 inches from face, prefer mother
Temperamental qualities
Inborn predispositions to consistently behave and react in certain way
Reactivity
High reactive infants react more dramatically to new experiences, strangers and objects, low are calmer and bolder
Cultural differences in Infant sleeping
US- babies have their own beds
Mayan and others- babies sleep w mom for 2-3 years
Harlow Research
Showed that not just human children suffered from lack of care, all primates seek contact comfort
Ainsworth attachment research
Emotional bond that forms between infant and caregivers within 1st yr of life
Ainsworth strange situation
Child and mom interact, mom leaves, stranger enters, baby is uncomfortable, mom comes back, baby is comfortable
Securely attached infants
Explore the room when mom is present, become more shy and upset when mom is gone
Insecurely attached infants
Less likely to explore environment with or without parents
Two types of insecure attachment
- Anxious and avoidant (anxious-baby is desperate for mom)
Cognitive development
- Children progress through 4 distinct cognitive stages, each marks a change in their perception of world
How does Piaget define 4 stages of Cognitive development?
Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational
Sensorimotor stage
Birth-2 yrs
-infants do not understand that when an object isn’t present then it doesn’t exist, by end they have object permanence
Object permanence
object exists even when out of room
Preoperational stage
Increasing capacity for symbolic thought, (imagination) symbolic play and deferred imitation, child does not have conservation
Conservation
Idea of pouring milk into different shaped glasses, child doesn’t understand amount of milk does not change
Concrete Operational stage
- Understand conservation, less egocentric, inability to reason abstractly or hypothetically
Formal Operational stage
- Adolescence to adulthood
- logical thinking develops, new cognitive abilities develop
Strength and Criticism of Piaget’s theory
Strength= infants, children use different cognitive abilities to construct their “world”
Weakness= underestimation of cognitive abilites of infants and overestimation of degree of achievement of formal operational thought processes
Adolescence
Transition from Childhood to adulthood, starts at 11 or 12, sexual maturity reached
Description of Early-Maturing boys
Successful in sports and popular with peers, more susceptible to risky behavior
Events for early-maturing girls
More negative feelings about arrival of puberty, higher rates of teenage pregnancy, unwanted attention
What Brain spurt occurs prior to puberty?
A wave of gray matter production, neuronal size, complexity and connections increase, 2nd round during teens, frontal lobe growth and functioning
Brain development occurs.. and last part to develop fully is
Back to front, prefrontal cortex
What hormonal changes occur in the adolescent brain?
Hormonal changes increase limbic system activity, emotionality, and impulsivity.
Gray matter changes in adolescent brain
Grat matter decreases from age 5 to 20 years
Social Development in adolescense
Parent- adolescent relationships are positive, while friends and peers are most influential
Identity Formation: Erikson’s theory
Divides lifespan into 8 psychosocial stages, each has different crisis and drive
Infant (psychosocial stage)
Trust vs mistrust, warm feelings to caregivers, anxiousness towards externals
Toddlerhood (psychosocial stage)
Autonomy vs. Doubt, caregivers can either discourage or encourage self-sufficiency and self-esteem
Early childhood (psychosocial stage)
Initiative vs guilt, learns initiative of activities and social responsibility, Parental control can stifle child’s spontaneity and social learning
Middle/late childhood
Industry vs Inferiority, child develops sense of pride and competence in daily activities, Negative experiences w parents/peers can lead to inferiority
Adolescence
Identity vs role confusion, self-definition develops, may also feel confusion and pressure about self
Young adulthood
Intimacy vs isolation, develop feeling of connectedness with peers, Fear of rejection may lead to rejection
Middle adulthood
Generativity vs. stagnation, adult expresses unselfish concern for next generation, can feel boredom and lack of meaningful accomplishments
Late adulthood
Ego integrity vs. despair, strong sense of self-acceptance, can experience regret or dissatisfaction,
Development of Moral reasoning, Lawrence Kohlberg
There are distinct levels of moral development, based on degree of conformity to societal standards
Moral Development stage 1
Preconventional, guided by punishment and obedience
Stage 2 of Moral development
Conventional level, guided by conforming to social rules, and expectations
Moral development stage 3
Postconventional level, moral reasoning guided by internalized legal and moral principles
3 main parenting styles
Authoritarian, permissive, authoritative
Authoritarian
Demanding but unresponsive to their child’s needs or wishes
Permissive
Warm and accepting to children, few rules and do not punish children
Authoritative parenting
Warm, responsive and involved with child, also set clear standards and expect children to follow
Emerging adulthood
Late teens to late 20s, marriage is postpones after education is complete and career begun. Not universal
Physical changes in adulthood
Influenced by genetic heritage and life experiences, physical strength peaks, by 40s strength and endurance decline over time
Effect of childcare on attachment and development
quality of childcare is important to forming secure attachment in childhood
Late Adulthood
Less sleep, life satisfaction can increase or decrease depending on activities maintained
Kubler-Ross stages of dying
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, depression, acceptance
Conditioning vs learning
Learning is a change in behavior or knowledge as result of experience compared to process of learning associations between environmental events
Classical conditioning
Process of learning associations between stimuli, repeating neutral stimulus with response stimulus
- Reflexive response!!!
Unconditioned stimulus
Natural stimulus that reflexively elicits response without the need for prior learning
Unconditioned response
Unlearned, reflexive response that is elicited by unconditioned stimulus
Conditioned stimulus
Formerly neutral stimulus that acquires capacity to elicit reflexive response (bell)
Conditioned response
Learned, reflexive response to conditioned stimulus
How does timing affect conditioning?
Conditioning is most effective when conditioned stimulus is presented immediately before unconditioned stimulus
Stimulus generalization
occurrence of a learned response to the OG stimulus and to similar stimuli
Stimulus discrimination
Only respond to specific stimulus, discriminate against similar bell noises
Higher order conditioning
- Conditioned stimulus from one learning trial functions as the unconditioned stimulus in a new conditioning trial
Extinction
Gradual weakening and apparent disappearance of conditioned behavior, presenting stimulus without UCS
Spontaneous recovery
Reappearance of a previously extinguished conditioned response after a period of time without response to the conditioned stimulus
Operant conditioning
Learning of active, voluntary behaviors that are shaped and maintained by consequences
Law of effect
first step in understanding how active, voluntary behaviors can be modified by their consequences
Order in Behavior
Beliefs, emotions or motives do not explain behavior, operant– behavior that operates upon environment
Operant conditioning
changing probability that response will be repeated by manipulating the consequence of response (reward or punishment)
Positive and negative reward
- All reward increases behavior! positive is addition of stimulus, negative is removal of bad stimulus
primary reinforcer
Stimulus that is naturally reinforcing for given species, food water, etc
Secondary reinforcer
Stimulus that has acquired reinforcing value by being associated with primary reinforcer, money awards
Punishment
Presentation of stimulus or event following a behavior
Positive and negative punishment
Positive is addition of punishing stimulus, negative is removal of desirable stimulus
Discriminative stimulus
specific stimulus that increases the likelihood of a particular response
- grandma might bring cookies if you ask nicely, gma is DS
Continuous reinforcement
Every time they do activity, receive reward
Partial reinforcement
Reward only sometimes provided upon completion of activity
Extinction in operant conditioning
Gradual weakening and disappearance of conditioned behavior
Learned helplessness
exposure to inescapable and uncontrollable aversive events produces passive behavior
Latent learning
Learning just by seeing something
Observational learning
Learn through watching and imitating behaviors of others
Mirror Neurons
Brain cells that become activated both when individuals perform a motor act and when they observe the same motor act done by another individual
Memory
group of related mental processes that are involved in acquiring, storing and retrieving information
Encoding
Transforming info into a form that can be entered and retained
Storage
Retaining info in memory for later use
Retrieval
recovering stored info for conscious awareness
Sensory memory
registers a great deal of info from environment for brief period, continuous
Short-term memory
Temporarily holds all info you are currently thinking about or consciously aware of
Long-term memory
Long-term storage of info, potentially for a lifetime
Echoic memory
Auditory sensory memory, brief memory, 3-4 seconds, hearing speech as continuous words
Visual sensory memory
Visual sensory memory, brief memory of image/icon, 1/4 to 1/2 second
Duration of short term memory
Lasts up to 20 seconds, retained longer through maintenance rehearsal
Chunking
Grouping relating items together
Capacity of short-term memory
7 +-2
Working memory
Involves temporary storage and active, conscious manipulation of info needed for complex cognitive tasks
3 concepts of working memory
Phonological loops, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive
Long-term memory
Once encoded, unlimited amount of info stored in long-term memory
Elaborate rehearsal
Focusing on meaning of information
Self reference
Applying information to self
Visual imagery
using vivid images to enhance encoding
Procedural memory
How to perform different skills
Episodic/auto biographical memory
Memory of specific events
semantic memory
General knowledge, facts
Explicit/declarative memory
memory that can be consciously recollected
Implicit memory
Memory without awareness, motor skills, actions
Implicit memory does not rely on
Hippocampus
Earlies memory
Earliest autobiographical memories are between ages 2 and 4
Clustering
Related items clustered tg to form higher order categories
Priming
Enhanced ability to think of a stimulus as a result of a recent exposure to stimulus
Tip of tongue experience
Sensation of knowing that specific info is stored by not being able to retrieve it
recall
Retrieving memories without cues
Cued recall
LTM that involves remembering item of info in response to retrieval cue
Recognition
Test of LTM that involves identifying correct info from series of possible choices
Serial position effect
Tendency to remember items at beginning and end of list better than beginning or end of list
Encoding specificity principle
Retrieval is more likely to be successful when conditions of info retrieval are similar to conditions of encoding
Context effect
Tendency to remember info more easily when retrieval occurs in same setting you learned information
Flashbulb memories
Recall of specific details or images surrounding a significant, rare or vivid events
Why do we forget?
encoding failure (never learned) prospective memory error (failure to remember what needs to be done in future
Decay theory
New memory formed, creates distinct structural or chemical change in brain, fade over time
interference theory
memories interfering with memories, not forgetting bc of time, retroactive or proactive
Retroactive interference
New memory interfering with remembering old information, backward-acting
Proactive interference
Old memory that interferes with remembering new information, forward-acting
Motivated forgetting
Occurs when an undesired memory is held back from awareness
Imperfect memories
Memory details change over time, without awareness details can be added, subtracted or downplayed
misinformation effect
Post-event can distort eyewitness recollection of OG event
Source confusion
true source of memory can be forgotten, memory attributed to wrong source
Schemas
schemas are pathways/things you remember often, can be helpful in integrating new memories and experiences, can also distort memories
Amygdala
Located next to hippocampus, responds strongly to emotional events and helps remember them
amnesia
severe memory loss
retrograde amnesia
inability to remember past episodic information
Anterograde amnesia
loss of memory caused by inability to store new memories
Dementia
progressive deterioration and impairment of memory, reasoning, and other cognitive functions as result of disease
Alzheimer’s disease
Progressive disease that destroys the brain’s neurons, gradually impairing memory, thinking, language and other cognitive functions
