Unit 4 -Infancy and Development Flashcards
What is developmental psychology?
It examines our physical, cognitive, and social development across the life span
What does developmental psychology focus on?
1.) Nature vs nurture
2.) Continuity vs stages
3.) Stability vs change
What is assimilation?
- We assimilate new experiences, interpreting them in terms of our current schema
- Ex: A child learning the schema for dogs and calling a cat a dog and the mother corrects the child
What is accommodation?
- We accommodate our schemas to incorporate information from new experiences
- Ex: A child who previously learned the schema for dogs and called a cat a dog and the mother corrected her (assimilation) —> A child accommodating her schema by distinguishing the pets of family vs. friends by name
What was the 4 major stages of cognitive, development according to Piaget?
-Sensorimotor
- Preoperqtional
-Concrete information
- Formal operational
What is the sensorimotor stage?
- Birth to about 2 years old
-Experiencing the world thought their senses - Have stranger anxiety and lacks object permanence
What is the preoperational stage?
- 2 years - 6 or 7 years
- Representing things with words and images (symbolic thinking)
- Using intuitive rather than thinking
- Pretend play and egocentrism
What is concrete operational?
- 6 or 7 to 11 years
- Thinking logically,about concrete events
- Performing math
-Conservation and math
What is the rooting reflex?
- Helps newborns find food
- Stroke an infants cheek with your finger and they would turn their heads toward it and start sucking
What is the babinski reflex?
- Occurs when a person strokes a neonate’s food and they will fan the toes, then curl them back in
What is stepping?
- Occurs when a person holds a newborn up so the feet dangle and the child will make stepping-like motions
- Aids in motor development
What is the moro reflex?
- AKA, the startle reflex
- When startled, the newborn will extend all the limbs, then pull back and quiver
What is imprinting?
- Involving attachment and an emotional bond
- Formed during an early and critical stage of their development
- Occurs
What is identity?
- The process of defining oneself within a particular social category or group
What is habituation?
- A part of the learning process during which an organism learns to ignore a stimulus due to repeated exposure to it
What is egocentrism?
- The challenge that children have in considering another person’s viewpoint
- Occurs in Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development - the preoperational stage
What is the correct order of gestation (prenatal period)?
1.) Zygote (First two weeks)
2.) Embryo (when the zygote attaches to the uterine wall and lasts 2-8 weeks)
3.) Fetus (developing person)
What is a teratogen?
- ANYTHING that negatively affects the development of the embryo or fetus
What are some examples of teratogens?
- Drugs
- Mercury
- A serious illness
- Radiation
- Extremely hot water
What is maturation?
- An orderly sequence of biological growth that will unfold in its time unless under extreme conditions
- Has to be biologically based and it has to be universal
What does existing findings say about an infant’s motor development?
- Major milestones, such as crawling and walking, are thought to be sequentially universal and predominantly genetic
What is a heritability ratio?
- An estimate of the influence of genetics on the expression of a train as opposed to the influence of the environment
- Examines the influence of nature AND nurture
- Ex: Height (genetics and environmental factor of nutrition)
What is the nature-nurture controversy?
- Debate as to whether genes or environment play the biggest role in human development
What is the authoritative parenting style?
- Give their children responsibility but also allow them choices
- Children have the highest self-esteem/reliance/social competence
What is the authoritarian parenting style?
- Parents impose rules and expect obedience (unquestioned authority)
- Have a high level of control but a low level of warmth
- Children have less social skills and self esteem and tend to rebel without the rules
What is the permissive parenting style?
- Rarely enforce rules and submit to their children desires
- Children are more aggressive and immature
Harry Harlow conducted an experiment in which infant rhesus monkeys were placed in an enclosure with two artificial mothers. The first mother was made of cloth and provided contact comfort but no food. The second mother was made of wire and provided food but no contact comfort. What was Harlow’s conclusion?
The monkeys had an innate need for attachment developed through physical contact with the cloth mother
What did the Harlow monkey experiment challenge?
It challenged the behaviorist proposal that attachment developed through reinforcement as the wire mother was associated a primary reinforcer, food
What is secure attachment?
- Proposed by John Bowlby
- Popularized by Mary Ainsworth’s strange situation experiment on mother-child attachment
According to Erik Erikson, children who experience a secure attachment to their parent(s) are more likely to feel…
Basic trust
What is role confusion?
- A component of Erik Erikson’s theory that occurs typically during adolescence
- When a person searches for a greater sense of self as well as their own personal identity
What is stranger anxiety?
- Fear a child experiences when they are around unfamiliar people
- Typically part of the developmental process whether a child experiences secure attachment or not
What is crystallized intelligence?
- The ability to use prior skills and knowledge in current situations
- Continues to expand throughout adulthood
What forms the basis of the human attachment bond between an infant and a caregiver?
Contact Comfort
What is the overall theme of social development in childhood, according to Erik Erikson?
- Feeling confident in your ability to function in the world
What were Erik Erikson’s three childhood stages?
- Autonomy vs. shame: where toddlers learn to gain control over themselves
- Initiative vs. guilt: where preschoolers learn to set and pursue their goals
- Industry vs. inferiority: where elementary schoolers establish whether they are able to perform at the same level as their peers
What are the long-term differences between securely and insecurely attached infants?
- Securely attached infants have healthier relationships later in life
What is infantile amnesia?
- Not remembering
- Episodic memory (ability to remember specific events) doesn’t develop until age 3
What is the Sensorimotor stage?
- Birth to 2 yrs
- Babies use their senses and bodies to learn the basics of life on earth
- KEY TERMS: OBJECT PERMANENCE, STRANGER ANXIETY
What is the preoperational stage?
- 2yrs old to 6 or 7 yrs old
- Children make many generalizations and do not think in a logical way (use intuitave thinking)
- Represent things with words and images
- KEY TERMS: PRETEND PLAY, EGOCENTRISM
What is the concrete operational stage?
- 6 or 7 yrs old to 11 yrs old
- Thinking logically about concrete events
- Grasping concrete analogies and performing arithmetical operations
- KEY TERMS: CONSERVATION, MATHEMATICAL TRANSFORMATIONS
What is the formal operational stage?
- 12 yrs old to adulthood
- Abstract reasoning
- Thinking abstractly and strategically
- KEY TERMS: ABSTRACT LOGIC, POTENTIAL FOR MATURE MORAL REASONING
John is a five-year-old boy growing up in Alaska, where moose roam freely. He knows that moose are large, furry animals that live outside. When John visits his cousin on a horse farm, he first believes the large, furry horses are also called moose. However, he eventually notices the differences between horses and moose and develops a new schema for horses. What process did John use to modify his schema?
Accommodation
What is the zone of proximal development?
-Lev Vygotsky theory
- The theory that learning happens when children are in a place between what they can do by themselves and what they cannot do
- Children were “little apprentices”
What is conservation?
- The cognitive ability to determine that a certain quantity remains the same even though the shape, size, or container has changed
Mallory is entering adolescence and is withdrawing from her parents in favor of spending time and sharing her secrets with friends her own age and even a little older. She and her parents fight more often. What would a developmental psychology expert tell her parents is the likely cause of their daughter’s behavior?
It is normal and most teenagers do the same thing as they develop their own identities
According to Erik Erikson, what is the psychosocial stage of identity vs role confusion?
- Adolescence (13-21 yrs old)
- The central task of adolescence was forming a clear sense of self. Failing to do so leads to role confusion
According to Erik Erikson, what is the psychosocial stage of trust vs mistrust?
- Infants (birth - 18 months)
- About infants learning whether the world is a good or bad place
According to Erik Erikson, what is the psychosocial stage of autonomy vs shame?
- Toddlers (18 months - 3 years )
- What toddlers go through as they figure out how to control themselves (or not)
According to Erik Erikson, what is the psychosocial stage of integrity vs despair?
- Elders (65 yrs old +)
- Elders are looking back on their lives
What is adolescence?
-The time between sexual maturation or puberty, and independence
- Best described as the time b/w childhood and adulthood, set off by puberty
- The myelin grows more and more, but the frontal lobe lags behind (leading to irrational thoughts and reckless behavior)
What is the process of pruning?
- During adolescence
- The neural networks used in the brain are strengthened, while those that are not used are shut down over time
According to Erik Erikson, what is the psychosocial stage of initiative vs guilt?
- 3 yrs old - 5 yrs old
-During the preschool years, young children develop a sense of purpose which will drive them to be successful in future stages of their lives
According to Erik Erikson, what is the psychosocial stage of industry vs inferiority?
- Children (5yrs old - 13 yrs old)
- Children learn the pleasure of applying themselves to tasks, or they feel inferior
According to Erik Erikson, what is the psychosocial stage of intimacy vs isolation?
- Young adults (21 yrs old 40 yrs old)
- Young adults struggle to form close relationships and to gain the capacity for intimate love, or they feel socially isolated
According to Erik Erikson, what is the psychosocial stage of generativity vs stagnation?
- Middle-aged people (40 yrs old - 65 yrs old)
- Discover a sense of contributing to the world, usually through family and work, or they may feel a lack of purpose.
Who was the psychologist credited with discovering the life-span approach to developmental psychology?
Erik Erikson
What are secondary sex characteristics?
- Nonreproductive sexual characteristics like a woman’s breast or hips or a man’s deep voice or facial hair
