Test 3 - 'Lifespan Psychology' Flashcards
Lifespan psychology
It considers the developmental changes that occur at various times in our lives. These encompass biological and physical changes, cognitive changes, and social and emotional changes.
Maturation
A predetermined biological sequence of behaviours which occur at certain ages.
Cognitive development
The development of mental abilities throughout the lifespan.
Emotional development
The learning of types of emotions and how to deal with them throughout the lifespan.
Perceptual development
It occurs as infants grow and explore their environment. It is the selecting, organising and interpreting of the sensations that are sent to the brain from the senses.
Preferential looking technique
A technique used to determine if infants could distinguish one stimulus from another by the length of time they looked at it.
Habituation
When a person (usually an infant) stops looking at a stimulus due to loss of interest.
Dishabituation
The shifting of interest and attention from and old stimulus to a new stimulus.
Dominant genes
The gene that displays its characteristic rather than its paired recessive gene.
Recessive genes
A genes whose characteristic will only be displayed if the paired gene is also recessive (not dominant)
Accommodation
Piaget’s term when new situations, objects or information are encountered and the persons schema is wither modified or a new schema is created.
Assimilation
According to Piaget, is the process where new experiences are combined with existing schema.
Schema
A term used by Piaget to describe a cognitive or mental plan that is a guide for related actions and perceptions.
Developmental norms
indicate the average age that a certain behaviour or skill will be achieved. They are based on the mean age of a large sample. When a child learns to ride a bike.
Gross motor skills
such as walking, kicking a ball, are skills that use large muscle groups.
Fine motor skills
such as holding a pen correctly, use small muscle groups.
Neonate’s vision at birth
- A newborn is unable to use visual accommodation because the nerves, lens and the eye muscles that control the adjustment of the lens to focus are still developing.
- Visual acuity has not been fully developed because the fovea, a structure in the eye is still immature. It is also not clear because the parts of the brain are too immature to send clear messages.
- Colour vision develops as the infant gets older. At two to three months of age, infants can discriminate between some colours and at four months, their colour vision is similar to an adults.
Piaget’s theories
Sensorimotor: Birth - 2
Preoperational: 2-7
Concrete operational: 7-12
Formal operational: 12+
Sensorimotor
Infants learn about their world through their senses (hearing, seeing) and by actions (motor) such as grasping or pulling.
- Object permanence: infants understand that an object still exists when it is no longer seen.
Preoperational
Children continue to develop, and they use symbols, images and language to represent their world.
- Symbolic thinking
- Animism
- Egocentrism
- Centration
- Seriation
- Conservation
- Irreversibility
Concrete operational
Children can perform basic mental problems that involce physical objects
Formal operational
Children are able to think logically and methodically about physical and abstract problems.
Criticisms of Piaget’s theory
Other psychologists suggest that some people never reach formal operations.
Piaget neglected many important cognitive factors such as motivation, memory span and impulsiveness.
Piaget focused on the things that children did wrong to formulate his theories.
Piaget underestimated social influences on development.
Depth perception
Depth perception is the ability to accurately judge 3D space and distance, using cues in the environment.
Gibson and Walk produced an experiment that consisted of a small table covered with glass. On one side of the table was a ‘shallow side’, with a checkerboard pattern directly below the glass. On the other side was the ‘deep side’ with the checkerboard pattern placed a metre below the glass. Gibson and Walk found that 27 infants out of 36 who moved off the centre of the board crawled out on the shallow side at least once. Three infants crept off the edge onto the deep side and many of the infants crawled away from their mother who was calling them from the deep side, while others cried because they realised they couldn’t get to their mother without crossing the cliff.
Down syndrome
- They have an extra chromosome (chromosome 21).
- The extra chromosome is due to a mistake in cell division and growth at conception. It can result in mild or moderate intellectual disability, growth and motor skill development.
Fragile X syndrome
A defective single gene on the X chromosome. It causes the breaking of the X chromosome.
It affects females less because they have 2 X chromosomes.
• High chance of mental retardation
Alzheimer’s disease
A single gene on chromosome 14 is responsible in most cases, and a single gene on chromosome 21 in others.
It is characterised by progressive brain deterioration that leads to substantial loss of memory and other cognitive abilities.
Fantz’s study
Infants were placed in a ‘looking chamber’, which had two visual displays on the ceiling above their head. Observing through a peep hole, the experimenter was able to determine the length of time an infant preferred to look at a visual display.
Fantz found that two-to-three week old infants preferred and looked longer at complex patterns.
Sampling techniques
- Random sample
- Stratified random sample
- convenience sample.
Random sample
Every member of the population has an equal chance of selection.
Advantages: give a representative sample
Disadvantage: difficult to achieve.
Stratified random sample
Dividing the population into categories and selecting at random in proportions equivalent to population
Advantages: Eliminates the effect of the variable on which the sample is stratified.
Disadvantage: time consuming
Convenience sample
Picking whoever is available at the time.
Advantages: quick, easy, cheap
Disadvantages: Bias in sample
Population
The group of people about which we wish to draw conclusions.
Sample
The members of the population that have been chosen to take part in the research. (amount of people)
Ethics
- Role of the experimenter
- Participants rights
- Confidentiality
- Voluntary participation
- Withdrawal rights
- Informed consent
- Deception in research
- Debriefing
Role of the experimenter
The researcher must always act in a professional manner, making sure that the best interests of the participants, and of society in general are met.
Participants rights
Researchers must always maintain respect for the participants.
Confidentiality
Participants must not be identified in any way in terms of test results, their involvement in the study or any other confidential data.
Voluntary participation
Participants have the right to refuse to take part in a study.
Withdrawal rights
Participants have the right to leave a study at any stage, regardless of the possible effects on the result.
Informed consent
Participants must be given information about a study before they agree to take part.
Deception in research
This is only permitted if the results would be confounded if the participants had much information before taking part in the study. The participants must not suffer any distress.
Debriefing
occurs after the completion of the study and participants are told the results and conclusions of the study.
Mean
the average of all scores, calculated by adding up all the scores and dividing that total by the number of scores.
Mode
the most commonly occurring score in the dataset.
Median
the score that occurs exactly halfway between the lowest and the highest score.
Are the five senses developed at birth?
No, because the neonate has not be born fully developed and so it takes time for the body to mature and be able to function to its fullest potential.
Lifespan stages
Infancy: 0-2 years old Childhood: 2-12 years old Adolescence: 12-20 years old Early adulthood: 20-40 years old Middle Age: 40-65 years old Old Age: 65+
What ages do emotions develop?
According to Bridges in 1931, basic human emotions such as anger, fear, and joy are learned by 2 years of age. Some researchers believe that infants can express emotions from 10 weeks of age.
Nature vs nurture debate
It considers the biological or genetic influences that determine who we are and how we behave. It questions whether a person is born ‘bad’ or are the product of their environment.
