U.1: Psychological Development

Question 1

define psychological development.

Answer 1

Is an individual’s changes in functioning across multiple domains, including the lifelong growth across emotional, cognitive, and social domains.

Question 2

what are the three types of development?

Answer 2

• Cognitive
• Emotional
• Social

Question 3

what is cognitive devleopment?

Answer 3

Refers to the continuous, lifelong development of the ability to think, comprehend, and organise information from the internal and external environment. A gradual and lifelong process.

Question 4

what is attachment?

Answer 4

The close social and emotional bond of affection that develops between an infant and their primary caregiver.

Question 5

what are the four types of attachments?

Answer 5

• Secure
• Insecure Resistant
• Insecure Avoidant
• Disorganised

Question 6

explain secure attachment

Answer 6

• balance between dependence and exploration
• uses caregiver as a safe base
• shows distress when caregiver departs
• enthusiastic when caregiver returns
• approx 65% of 1 year olds
• leads to self-esteem and trusting relationships

Question 7

explain insecure-avoidant attachment

Answer 7

• Infant does not seek closeness or contact with caregiver
• Treats caregiver like a stranger
• Rarely cries when caregiver leaves the room
• Ignores them upon return
• May be due to neglect or abuse
• Approx 20% of 1-yr-olds

Question 8

explain insecure-resistant attachment

Answer 8

• Anxious even when caregiver near
• Very upset when separated from caregiver
• When caregiver returns, infant cries to be picked up but squirms to be free
• Possibly due to caregivers not responsive to infant’s needs
• Approx 12% of 1-yr-olds

Question 9

explain disorganised attachment

Answer 9

• Infants in Strange Situation showed contradictory behaviours when separated or reunited with caregiver
• Linked to maltreatment, hostile caregiving, post-natal depression, mother’s unresolved trauma
• Can also be found where none of those factors are present
• Disorganised attachment is a risk factor for mental health disorders

Question 10

what influences attachment?

Answer 10

• Genetics
• Temperament
• Early Life Experiences

Question 11

how does genetics influence attachment?

Answer 11

• British psychiatrist John Bowlby (1969) proposed that all infants have an inborn ‘primary drive’ to form an attachment with a caregiver and that mothers are the best caregiver
• Bowlby - infants use genetically inherited abilities to get near main caregiver (crying, smiling, gazing, vocalising, clinging)
• However, a more widely held view is that humans may inherit a capability to form an attachment, but the type and quality is influenced by many factors

Question 12

how does temperament influences attachment?

Answer 12

• Our characteristic way of reacting to people, objects, events
• Thomas, Chess & Birch (1970):
  
  • Easy - usually content and happy;
    adaptable; regular sleeping & feeding
    habits
  • Difficult - irritable; irregular habits;
    react negatively to change
  • Slow-to-warm up - inactive; moody;
    slow to adapt but mild response
• Infant’s temperament influences caregiver’s responsiveness and attitudes

Question 13

how does early life experiences influence attachment?

Answer 13

• First 6-7 months are important for attachment
• Sensitivity and responsiveness of the caregiver
  
  • To ways the baby communicates
  • Identify cause of crying and respond
  • Attitude towards parenting
  • Post-natal depression
• Demographic factors
  
  • Income
  • family size
  • Education etc

Question 14

how does the stages of cognitive development operate?

Answer 14

The stages operate in a linear fashion, meaning that in order to progress to the next stage, a child must first meet the requirements of the previous stages.

Question 15

what is assimilation?

Answer 15

A cognitive process that involves taking a new concept and fitting it into or making it part of a pre-existing mental idea or structure.

Question 16

what is accommodation?

Answer 16

A cognitive process that involves changing or adjusting existing ideas to deal with new situations.

Question 17

what is schema?

Answer 17

Our pre-existing mental ideas relating to a given concept that help us organise and interpret new information.

Question 18

what are the stages of cognitive development?

Answer 18

• Sensorimotor
• Pre-operational
• Concrete
• Formal

Question 19

what is sensorimotor stage?

Answer 19

• Birth to two years
• Infants construct their understanding of the world by starting to coordinate sensory (eg. vision, touch) experience with motor (movement) abilities.

Question 20

what is preoperational stage?

Answer 20

• Two to seven years
• Children are increasingly able to internally represent events and think symbolically.
• This symbolic capacity can be used quite imaginatively! “Playing pretend”

Question 21

what is concrete operational?

Answer 21

• Seven to twelve years
• Thinking revolves around existing knowledge and direct experiences – thinking is concrete.
• Capable of mental operations

Question 22

what is formal operational?`

Answer 22

• Twelve years and beyond
• More complex and hypothetical thought process become evident, and thinking becomes increasingly sophisticated.
• Able to mentally juggle and think logically about ideas that are not concrete
• Formal scientific reasoning

Question 23

what is schemata?

Answer 23

Mental structures/frameworks that organise past experiences.

Question 24

what is social development?

Answer 24

The process by which behaviours and habits are created.

Question 25

what is cognition?

Answer 25

Refers to the mental operations involved in the acquisition and use of knowledge.

Question 26

what are the two sensorimotor stage accomplishments?

Answer 26

object permanence:
The understanding that objects continue to exist (are permanent) even if they cannot be detected by the senses (seen or touched)
goal directed behaviour:
- The ability to perform and successfully complete a sequence of actions with a particular purpose in mind.
- This requires identifying a purpose, planning how to achieve it, and acting accordingly.

Question 27

what is egocentrism?

Answer 27

• The tendency to perceive the world solely from one’s own point of view.
• At the end of the pre-operational stage, children will gradually shift to decentered thinking, becoming able to think about situations from multiple perspectives.

Question 28

what is animism?

Answer 28

• The belief that everything that exists has some kind of conscious awareness.
• Linked to egocentrism

Question 29

what is transformation?

Answer 29

• The understanding that something can change from one state (form or structure) to another
• The ability to conceptualise transformations

Question 30

what is centration?

Answer 30

• The tendency to centre attention on a single aspect of a problem or object

Question 31

what is reversibility?

Answer 31

• The ability to mentally follow a sequence of events or a line of reasoning back to its starting point.

Question 32

what are the two concrete operational accomplishments?

Answer 32

Conservation:
- The understanding that certain properties of an object remain the same even when its appearance changes shapes.
Classification:
- The ability to organise information (things or events) into categories based on common features that set them apart from other categories

Question 33

what are the five types of accomplishments for pre-operational stage?

Answer 33

• Ego-Centrism
• Animism
• Transformation
• Centration
• Reversibility

Question 34

what is emotional development?

Answer 34

The continuous, life-long development of skills that allow individuals to control, express, and recognise emotions in an appropriate way.