Psychology Ch. 1 & Ch. 2 – Flashcards
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What is human development?
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Scientific study of processes of change and stability throughout the human life span.
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What are the four goals of the scientific study of human development?
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description, explanation, prediction, & intervention (modification of behavior)
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Apply explanation to language.
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To explain how children acquire language and why some children learn to speak later than usual.
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Apply description to language.
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To describe when most children say their first word or how large their vocabulary is by a certain age, developmental scientists observe large groups of children and establish norms, or averages, for behaviors at various ages.
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Apply prediction to language.
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To predict future behavior, such as the likelihood that a child will have serious speech problems
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Apply intervention in language.
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To intervene in development, for example, by giving a child speech therapy.
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List at least six disciplines involved in the study of human development?
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Anthropology, Biology, Genetics, Family science, Education, History, Medicine, Sociology and Psychiatry
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Identify the three domains of development.
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Physical, Cognitive, & Psychosocial
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How are the three domains of development interrelated?
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For example, a child with frequent ear infections may develop language more slowly than a child with out this physical problem. They are all interwoven.
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Name the 8 periods of the lifespan and describe the age range for each period.
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Prenatal Infancy and toddler-hood Birth to age 3 Early Childhood 3 - 6 years old Middle Childhood 6 - 11 years Adolescence 11 - 20 years Young Adulthood 20 - 40 years Middle Adulthood 40 - 65 years Late Adulthood 65 years and older
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What is social construction?
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An idea about the nature of reality that is widely accepted by members of a society at a particular time, on the basis of shared subjective perceptions or assumptions.
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What is emerging adulthood?
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An exploratory period in the early to mid-twenties.
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Discuss the influence of heredity and environment plus the role of maturation on development?
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Today can measure more precisely the roles of each. Many contemporary theorists are more interested in finding ways to explain how they work together.
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Heredity
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Inborn traits inherited from biological parents.
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Environment
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The world outside the self-beginning in the womb and the learning that results from experience.
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Ethnic group
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A group united by ancestry, race, religion, language,or national origins which contribute to a sense of shared identity.
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Culture
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A society's total way of life, including its customs, traditions, laws, knowledge, beliefs, values, language.
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What is the prediction from the Census Bureau of the US with respect to racial/ethnic minorities by year 2050?
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By 2050, 62% of the nations children are projected to be members of what are now minority groups. Largest influx are immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa. Shifted from Europe and Canada.
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Define the nuclear family and the extended family.
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A two generational kinship, economic, and household unit consisting of one or two parents and their biological children, adopted children, or stepchildren.
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How does socioeconomic status affect development?
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Harm done by poverty may be indirect through its impact on where families live, on parents' emotional states and parenting practices and on the home environment they create.
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Normative
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Maturational events such as puberty and menopause, social events such as marriage and parenthood.
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Non-normative
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Unusual events that have a major impact on individual lives. Typical events that happen at an atypical time of life such as marriage in the early teens or the death of a parent when a child is young.
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Critical period
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Specific time when a given event or its absence has a specific impact on development.
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What is meant by plasticity in development?
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Range of modifiability of performance, affected by the environment and our genes, and resilience.
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Summarize the seven principles of Baltes's life-span developmental approach.
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Development is lifelong. Development involves both gain and loss. Relative influences of biology and culture shift over the life span. Development involves a changing allocation of resources. Development shows plasticity. Development is influenced by the historical and cultural context.
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Define a developmental theory and a hypothesis.
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Coherent set of logically related concepts that seeks to organize, explain and predict data.
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Reactive
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Mechanistic model of development - People are like machines that react to environmental input. This type of research seeks to identify and isolate the factors that make people behave or react to what they do. Behaviorism is an example of such a theory.
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Active
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Growing organisms that set their own development in motion. They initiate events, they do not just react. Impetus for change is internal. Types of theories that support this model are the humanistic theories such as Carl Rogers and Maslow.
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Describe the psychoanalytic perspective of development
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View of development is shaped by unconscious forces. Believed people are born with the biological drive that must be redirected so as to live in society.
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What person is responsible for the original psychoanalytic perspective?
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Sigmund Freud
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What is each stage of the psychoanalytic perspective?
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Oral, anal, phallic, latency, & genital
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Oral
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12 - 18 months - Baby's chief source of pleasure involves mouth-oriented activities.
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Anal
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12 - 18 months to 3 years - Child derives sensual gratification from withholding and expelling feces.
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Phallic
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3 to 6 years - Child becomes attached to parent of the other sex and later identifies with same-sex parent.
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Latency
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6 yrs. To puberty - Time of relative calm between more turbulent stages.
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Genital
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puberty through adulthood - Reemergence of sexual impulses of phallic stage, channeled into mature adult sexuality.
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What are the eight stages of Erikson's theory of development?
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Infant, toddler, preschooler, school-age child, adolescent, young adult, middle aged adult, & older adult.
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1. Infant
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(Hope) - Basic Trust vs. Mistrust
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2. Toddler
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(Will) - Autonomy vs. Shame
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3. Preschooler
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(Purpose) - Initiative vs. Guilt
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4. School-Age Child
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(Competence) - Industry vs. Inferiority
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5. Adolescent
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(Fidelity) - Identity vs. Identity Diffusion
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6. Young Adult
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(Love) - Intimacy vs. Isolation
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7. Middle-aged Adult
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(Care) - Generativity vs. Self-absorption
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8. Older Adult
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(Wisdom) - Integrity vs. Despair
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What is Erikson's basic tenet with regards to developmental stages?
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Basic tenet is a crisis that must be resolved and satisfied for healthy ego development. There is a positive and negative tendency.
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Behaviorist theory of development
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Observed behavior as a predictable response. View the environment as more important than genetics. People and animals react to conditions in the environment that they find pleasing, painful or threatening.
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Classical conditioning
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A kind of learning in which a person of animal learns a response to a stimulus that did not originally evoke it. It occurs in three stages. The neutral stimulus eventually produces a conditioned response.
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Operant conditioning
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Individual learns as a consequence of the environment changing in response to something done.
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Positive reinforcement
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Reinforce behavior when child or animal does something right.
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Negative reinforcement
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Reinforce behavior by yelling no, taking away privileges, time-out.
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Extinction
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A principle of behavior that states when a behavior is no longer reinforced, it will be become extinct.
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Shaping
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Gradual reinforcement of a behavior until it becomes the desired behavior.
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What are the four stages of Piaget's cognitive stage theory?
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Sensorimotor stage, pre-operational, concrete operations, & formal operations
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Pre-operational
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( 2 to 7 years) Child develops representative system, use of symbols to represent people, places and events. Thinking not logical.
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Sensorimotor Stage
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(birth to 2 years) Infant gradually able to organize activities through sensory and motor activity.
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Concrete Operations
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( 7 - 11 years) Child can solve problems logically if they are focused on the here and now. Cannot think abstractly.
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Formal Operations
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(11 through adult) Person can think abstractly, deal with hypothetical situations, and think about possibilities.
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8. How did Piaget arrive at his theory of development?
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Jean Piaget studied children's cognitive development by observing and talking with them in many settings, asking questions to find out how their minds worked.
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Longitudinal Research
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Study designed to assess changes in a sample over time. Data collected on same person over a period of time.
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Cross-sectional
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Data are collected on people of different ages at the same time.
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What is naturalistic observation?
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Method in which behavior is studied in natural settings, without intervention or manipulation.
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What ethical problems may arise in research on humans?
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Informed consent, avoidance of deception, protection of participants from harm and loss of dignity, privacy and confidentiality, right to withdraw from study.
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Who is Victor the wild boy?
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A naked savage boy who lived alone in France. He had no experience of human nurture. Language was difficult.
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What did the Victor the wild boy case study prove?
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The study proved that nature won out over nurture. That the change in environment could not overcome Victor's basic imperfection.
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Who was the founder of behaviorism?
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John B. Watson
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What does new research demonstrate about babies?
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They are born with likes and dislikes.
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What is habituation?
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Too much of the same thing, quickly looses it's appeal. Decrease in response in any stimulus.
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What researcher contributed the most to understanding children from a cognitive perspective?
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Jean Piaget
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What is object permanence?
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The understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched.
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Describe the experiment that demonstrated symbolic thought in young children?
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Symbolic thought is the understanding that a symbol represents something else.
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At what age did children show that they understood symbols?
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Children understand symbols at around age 3.
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According to temperament studies, what percentage of children are outgoing?
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10% - 15%
