Unit 1 - Development Chapters 2 and 3

Question 1

Psychological Development

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Cognitive Development

Answer 2

The continuous, lifelong changes in our thought processes as we age. More sophisticated production of thought as well as the ability to comprehend and organise information from the internal and external environment.

• Learning a second language.
• Learning your times tables.
• Understanding that others have a different perspective to your own.

Question 3

Emotional Development

Answer 3

The continuous, lifelong changes in skills that allow individuals to control, express, and recognise emotions in an appropriate way.

. Learning how to appropriately express emotions, such as anger.
* Recognising your own emotions.
* Understanding how others around you feel.

Question 4

Social Development

Answer 4

The continuous, lifelong changes in skills that allow individuals to effectively and appropriately interact with others.
Learning how to have conversations with others.
* Learning how to appropriately communicate with your work colleagues.

Question 5

Hereditary factors

Answer 5

factors that influence development and are genetically passed down from biological parents to their offspring

Examples of inherit traits are hair colour, eye colour, blood type.

Question 6

Genetic predisposition

Answer 6

refers to the increased likelihood to develop certain traits, including diseases, if certain conditions are met.
Examples: depression, Alzheimer’s or schizophrenia
Does not guarantee that you will develop these traits.

Question 7

Environmental factors

Answer 7

factors that influence development and arise from an individual’s physical and social surroundings
Environment
Experiences
Geography
Social circle

Example: parents teach their children what is right and wrong; important skills

Question 8

Environmental factors that shape development

Answer 8

Education
socioeconomic status
cultural expectations
social groups
Jobs
Experiences/events
Where you lived
Religion

Question 9

Hereditary and environmental factors on development

Question 10

Biopsychosocial model

Answer 10

he biopsychosocial model is a holistic, interdisciplinary framework for understanding the human experience in terms of the influence of biological, psychological, and social factors.

Question 11

Biological factors

Answer 11

Internal genetic and/or physiologically based factors.
Can be innate (passed down)
Can come about later in life
Examples:
Diseases, hormones, nutrition, genetic predispositions

Question 12

Psychological factors

Answer 12

Internal factors pertaining to an individual’s mental processes, including their cognition, affect, thoughts, beliefs and attitudes.
They are an individual experiences within their mind
Examples:
Attitudes/beliefs
Emotions
Personality
Coping skills
Thoughts
Self-esteem

Question 13

Social factors

Answer 13

External factors relating to an individual’s interactions with others and their external environment, including their relationships and community involvement.
Personal relationships
Experiences within a greater society
Examples:
Cultural norms
Socioeconomic status
Education
Physical/family environment
Attachment style

Question 14

Biopsychosocial approach to mental wellbeing

Answer 14

refers to an individual’s current psychological state, involving their ability to think, process information, and regulate emotions.

ability to function day-to-day
stable patterns of mood
ability to cope with and overcome pressures of life (aka. resilience)

Question 15

Psychological development: Attachment theory

Answer 15

Refers to the strength of an emotional bond between an infant and their primary caregiver.

Question 16

Biopsychosocial approach to psychological development

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Psychological development

Answer 17

Developmental periods are general in nature.
May be slight differences between the developmental rate of each person.
Developmental models use broad periods to capture windows of growth

Question 18

Emotional development

Answer 18

Emotional development: refers to the continuous, lifelong development of skills that allow individuals to control, express, and recognise emotions in an appropriate way.

Emotions: Refer to temporary feelings which arise from personal experiences, usually occurring as an unconscious response.

Question 19

Emotional development - Theory of Mind

Answer 19

an individual’s ability to attribute and understand mental states, beliefs, experiences, and emotions of oneself and others.

Question 20

Emotional intelligence

Answer 20

an individual’s ability to monitor their own and others’ emotions and use this information to guide their thoughts and behaviours

Question 21

Ainsworth’s Attachment theory

Answer 21

Attachment specifically refers to the bond between an infant and their primary caregiver.

The development of attachment during infancy impacts a child’s emotional development and can have consequences later in life.
It can enhance or reduce the ability to understand/express emotions (within oneself and other people)

Question 22

Secure Attachment

Answer 22

the needs of infant being consistently met by primary caregiver.
Infant feels calmed by the presence of caregiver when they feel distressed.

can lead to a healthy development to trust others and feeling secure to express your emotions

Question 23

Insecure Attachment

Answer 23

Primary caregiver inconsistently meets the infant’s needs or consistently ignoring their needs,
Leads to infants not seeking comfort from the caregiver or being overly desperate for comfort from their caregiver when they experience distress.

> Can lead to unhealthy emotional development of: craving or rejecting affection, increased feeling of anxiety and the inability to express emotion appropriately.

Question 24

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development

Answer 24

Operates in a linear fashion.
An individual must satisfy their current stage of cognitive development to progress to the next stage.
Piaget viewed cognitive development as a process of adaptation to the external environment around an individual

Question 25

Adaption

Answer 25

taking in, processing, and using new information to adapt to changes in the world around us. Happens through two processes (assimilation and accommodation).

Question 26

Assimilation

Answer 26

Gathering new information and fitting it into a pre-existing mental idea (a child calling a zebra a horse)

Question 27

Accomodation

Answer 27

Changing a pre-existing idea to fit new information that has been gathered (the child begins to understanding difference between zebras and horses and thus calls a zebra a zebra).

Question 28

Piaget - Sensorimotor

Answer 28

Age range: 0-2
Developments in cognition:
Object permanence (objects exist even when they cannot be seen)
Goal directed behaviour (exhibit a behaviour to receive a reward)

Question 29

Piaget - Preoperational

Answer 29

Age range: 2-7
Developments in cognition:
Move beyond being ecocentric (not understanding perspective of others).
Overcome centration (focusing on one feature/characteristic of object at a time)
Begin to understanding reversibility (objects change and then return to original form)

Question 30

Piaget - Concrete operational

Answer 30

Age range: 7-12
Developments in cognition:
Conservation: The properties of an object remain consistent, even if appearance of this object changes (water bottles)
Classification: Grouping of objects/concepts into categories, based on common features (sweet fruit)
Simple mental operations (maths)

Question 31

Piaget - Formal operational

Answer 31

Age range: 12+
Developments in cognition:
Produce abstract thoughts (considering concepts that are not physical such as love)
Ability to use reason and logic
Logic: objective consider a problem and all possible solutions.
Reasoning: using logic to process a concept and come to a conclusion.

Question 32

Maturation

Answer 32

Maturation is the biologically programmed process of growth that has a fixed sequence and facilitates all aspects of our development as we grow.
Our brain has its own developmental ‘map’ which is determined at conception.

Question 33

Plasticity

Answer 33

Plasticity refers to the brain’s ability to physically change shape in response to experience and learning.

Question 34

Maturation and plasticity

Answer 34

These terms can be connected to previous learning about nature vs nurture.
Maturation is an innate process that is determined before birth. (biological factors - nature)
Experiences aid the maturation process occurring (nurture).

Question 35

Critical periods

Answer 35

Critical periods are the narrow, rigid developmental periods in which a specific function or skill must be learnt.
If these functions are not acquired during their critical periods, they may never develop, or may not be fully functional.
A significant factor to this period is the level of brain plasticity.

A very critical period of development for animals is right after birth. New born animals are exposed to their mothers to be imprinted. This period allows for the mother to encourage survival as they will provide protection.

Question 36

Critical and sensitive - differences

Answer 36

Main difference is flexibility.
Critical is less flexible and sensitive has more flexibility.
Critical - Skills must be learnt during this periods
Critical - Start and finish suddenly
Sensitive - Window provides optimal development period, but can be learned later.
Sensitive - Start and finish more gradually.

Question 37

Typical Behaviour

Answer 37

Activities that are consistent with how an individual usually behaves.

Question 38

Atypical Behaviour

Answer 38

Activities that are unusual or unnatural according to how an individual usually behaves.
With atypical behaviour, you really need to consider how an individual usually behaves, before you can label it atypical

Question 39

Typical and atypical behaviours

Answer 39

It can be quite hard to determine whether a behaviour is typical/atypical because an individual’s behaviour is personal, and dependent on circumstances.
Therefore, to understand the typicality of a behaviour, we need to use psychological criteria.

Question 40

Psychological criteria

Answer 40

Standards against which a judgement can be made about a person’s behaviour and abilities, to help understand others’ behaviour.

Question 41

Cultural perspectives

Answer 41

Cultural perspectives are the influence of society and community on one’s thoughts.

Definition: Each culture and ethnic group within that culture has its own set of norms about what is considered acceptable behaviour.
This means that behaviour that clearly violates a social norm in one culture or ethnic group may not do so in another.

Question 42

Cultural perspectives

Answer 42

The different customs, beliefs and traditions (of the culture)
The different rules and etiquette (of the culture)
The attitudes towards and the importance of mental health (within the culture)