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Flo-PSYC333 > Chap 1 - History > Flashcards

Chap 1 - History Flashcards

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1
Q

What is the definition of development?

A

All physical and psychological changes undergone during the lifespan

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2
Q

What is developmental psychology?

A

It is an interdisciplinary field of study devoted to understanding human growth throughout life

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3
Q

Why is knowing about developmental psychology important for parents?

A

It is important that parents know the milestones that their child is going through. They can then know what are the appropriate environments or rearing methods to better the child’s education & development.

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4
Q

Why is knowing about developmental psychology important for the field of medicine?

A

It is important to improve one’s quality of life by acknowledging the physical and mental processes of an individual

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5
Q

Why is knowing about developmental psychology important for social services?

A

It is important to acknowledge the importance of the social context as well as one’s personality over the course of life.

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6
Q

What is the nature/nurture debate? What is the conclusion?

A

Nature: looks at the biological and genetic aspects (hereditary info receive from parents) / argues for the stability of the genes (carrying same genes through whole course of life)
Nurture: looks at the influence of the environment / social forces influence our development after birth
Conclusion: psychological processes seem to have a bit of both

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7
Q

What is the continuous/discontinuous debate?

A

Continuous: process of gradually upgrading the same type of skills present from the start (smooth changes)
Discontinuous: context-dependent process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world suddenly emerge at specific times; involves stages (abrupt changes)

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8
Q

What is the same/distinct debate? What is the conclusion?

A

Same developmental milestones: arguing that milestones are universal, meaning that everyone goes through the same evolution
Distinct developmental context: arguing that there are certain variations in people’s development depending on the child’s education, the environmental influences, etc.
Conclusion: a bit of both

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9
Q

What is the current view about human development?

A

Idea that there are currently many different potential development pathways in physical, socioemotional, and cognitive domains.

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10
Q

What are the main physical development changes?

A

Going from crawling to walking, brain development, puberty, fine motor skills (writing), gross motor skills (jumping)

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11
Q

What are the main socioemotional development changes?

A

Friendships, awareness of self, stress coping, identity

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12
Q

What are the main cognitive development changes?

A

Language, moral reasoning, abstract thinking, creativity

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13
Q

What are the four main assumptions about human development?

A
  1. Lifelong development = changes in physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional areas
  2. Development is plastic at all age
  3. Development is multidirectional and multidimensional (growth or decline)
  4. Development is influenced by multiple forces (biological predisposition, environment, etc.)
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14
Q

What is meant by the idea that development is multidirectional and multidimensional?

A

Multidimensional means that it is important to acknowledge all dimensions, such as predispositions and environmental influences, and multidirectional means that it can grow or decline. For instance, having a negative lifestyle (drug use, cancer) may have a declining effect on your development.

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15
Q

What is another concept that comes with developmental plasticity? How could it be defined?

A

Resilience, being the ability to effectively adapt to stress and adversity. It is the ability not to develop a pathological condition in response to change.
The greater the plasticity, the greater the resilience.

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16
Q

What factors influence one’s resilience?

A

parenting styles, social support, intelligence

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17
Q

What is the age-graded influence?

A

It is the idea that events are strongly predicted by age (i.e learning how to walk in the first year of life, getting driver’s license at 16)

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18
Q

What is the history-graded influence?

A

It is the idea that although things change over time, people born at the same time tend to have similar ways of behaving and thinking (cohort effect)

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19
Q

What were the life conditions prior to the 17th century?

A

Poverty, high mortality, child labor and maltreatment

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20
Q

Who are the two main influential scientists in the 17-18th centuries? What period was that?

A

Scientific revolution

John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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21
Q

What was John Locke’s theory?

A

Idea that children born a tabula rasa (blank state), meaning that they are without any innate ideas, and so all the knowledge and experiences rely on the external environment. Hence, the molding of the individual is very important.

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22
Q

What was Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theory? What does it emphasize?

A

He believed in the inborn “innocence” of childhood, being that idea that children are born innately innocent & so they become corrupted overtime through the experiences of the world. They understand the difference between what is right and wrong very early on. His theory stresses the importance of having the right type of education and following the right moral reasoning.

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23
Q

What was the conception of lifespan in the 19th century?

A

The idea that childhood was a dependent life stage as it would be the only period where individuals could developed. Hence, they made sure that children were educated (mandatory primary schools)

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24
Q

What was the conception of lifespan in the 20th century? How were adolescence and adulthood (emerging and late) pictured?

A

They showed the importance of other stages of life (i.e adolescence known as “Storm and Stress”). Emerging adulthood was the newest life stage in which personal exploration took place . Indeed, it is the period in which people explored many aspects of their life (jobs, friends, partners) as they did not need to settle down yet. Late adulthood was also quite new since life expectancies were increasing.

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25
What is the definition of a theory?
A theory is defined as an organized set of ideas that allow to describe, explain, and predict behavior. They are debatable, but necessary to further knowledge.
26
What was Charles Darwin's theory of evolution?
The idea that all species if organisms arise and develop through natural selection of small inherited variations that increase individual's ability to survive, compete, and reproduce. Whatever works for survival will be passed on to future generations.
27
What was Charles Darwin's idea of survival of the fittest? What is a good example?
It is the ability to survive in specific environment due to traits that fit well the former. Any trait that increase the well-being of a specie. Ex: giraffes with long necks
28
How did Stanley Hall and Arnold Gesell viewed development? On what did they rely to test their hypothesis and what did they find?
They viewed development as genetically determined maturation processes unfolding automatically. They relied on behavioral observations and questionnaires of many individuals of all age to look at their social interactions and behaviors. They found that development is a universal process that we all go through.
29
How did Stanley Hall and Arnold Gesell name the adolescence period? Why?
They called it the "Storm and Stress" period since it is where everything (body, mind, morals) undergoes a transition.
30
How did Alfred Binet perceive development? What was his focus? How did he approach it?
Binet was interested in the development of mental abilities (memory, calculations, etc.). He conducted large scale studies in tested his participants with his "Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale."
31
How did Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale worked? What was it predicting?
There were different scales for different range of people (adults. vs kids). There was an "average" score, and the ones who scored below were believed to have learning problems. This scale was used to predict school achievement or learning problems.
32
What is Sigmund Freud's psychosexual theory? How did Freud study his theory?
The idea that we undergo psychosexual stages that lead to the development of our personality (and so explains how we feel, think, and behave). He tested his theory with case studies of individuals suffering from various issues.
33
Which period was perceived to be critical according to Freud? How did his stages work?
He believed that the main development chunk was in childhood. When reaching a new stage, children were expected to be able to perform given behaviors. Children who were either too restricted or not enough by their parents could run into problems and fixations stage.
34
What are the 3 different parts of personality? What do they represent?
1. Id: source of instinctual drives (pleasure) 2. Ego: mediator (reality) 3. Superego: morality, conscience, which is instilled by parents/caregivers
35
What is Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory? What is it derived by?
The theory states that human development is a product of interaction between individual's needs, abilities, societal expectations and demands. In other words, our behaviors are the results of our drives (needs) and the society's norms/expectations. It is derived by Freud's psychosexual theory (but has social evidences).
36
What was John B. Watson's perspective on development?
He believed that we acquire behaviors via association with various cues (classical conditioning). He looked at one's needs and unconscious processes.
37
What is Watson's most popular example of classical conditioning? What does it consist of?
Little Albert: he conditioned Albert, who initially loved rats, to be afraid of them as he paired the rat to a loud noise.
38
What was B.F Skinner perspective on development? How could behaviors be modulated?
He believed that behaviors change as a function of what follows the behavior (operant conditioning). Behaviors could be modulated through reinforcement (strengthened) and punishment (weakened).
39
What is traditional behaviorism?
It is the study of testable, observable, and measurable responses (tangible). It argues that mental concepts have no value in the science of psychology.
40
What is the point of view of traditional behaviorism on nurture?
Nurture is seen as a paramount --> affection is not helping to maintain the connection between the stimulus and the response (parents should never hug, kiss, or let their kids sit on their lap).
41
What is Albert Bandura's social learning theory? What is his famous experiment?
Children learn through their motivation to imitate others' behaviors (observation, modelling, reinforcement, or punishment) Booboo dolls experiments; exposure to aggressive behaviors + reward = increased likeliness to be aggressive
42
What is Jean Piaget's cognitive development theory? What was his focus?
Idea that children actively learn as they experience the world to achieve maturation. He focused on mental abilities, arguing that errors done by children would reflect the differences in their cognitive development. He looked at how children would develop through different milestones with observations and clinical interviews.
43
What are assimilation and accommodation? How do they differ?
Assimilation is the action of fitting the incoming information into our schemas and our mental capacity (our representation of the world). i.e if you see a dog similar to your schema of a dog, you'll consider it a dog. Accommodation is the action of enlarging our mental capacity to learn incoming information. It implies including new data that was not in your schema at all.. i.e. although it is not small and fuzzy, a tall black dog is still a dog
44
What is Lev Vygotsky's social development theory? What is the drive of our thoughts? What did he believe was the most important?
It emphasizes on sociocultural influences on cognitive development. For him, language is driving our thoughts. He believed in the importance of cognitive development and believed that it stems from social interaction.
45
What is Urie Bonfenbrenner's ecological model? What are the different systems involved and what do they consist of?
The idea that development occurs in complex systems of relationships affected by the environment. Environmental systems would shape individuals. Microsystem: parents, siblings, teachers Mesosystem: relationships among characters in the microsystem (parent/teacher interaction about child) Exosystem: involves social institutions affecting the child indirectly (i.e. school board) Macrosystem: broader levels (religion, beliefs, ideologies) Chronosystem: changes that occur over time
46
How come are there multidirectional forces in Brofenbrenner's ecological model?
The environment affects the child, but as the child grows up, it can also influence the environment.
47
What are the two principles shaping our development today?
1. our nature shapes our nurture | 2. we need the right nurture to fully express our nature
48
What is the person-environment fit? In what way is it useful?
It describes the interplay between one's temperament and environment. Idea that if you match both together, it may facilitate the child's development. While you want to increase skills in a child, you need to mind the interest of the child as well so that you don't run into conflict.
49
What is the difference between collectivist and individualistic cultures? What does it show?
Collectivist cultures are characterized by social harmony, well-being of the family (group), selflessness, and group success. Individualistic cultures are characterized by individual identity, independence, competition, and personal success. These differences show that cultural values may influence the child's development.
50
What is the difference between sex and gender?
Sex: biological anatomy of individual's reproductive system Gender: social role; what the person identifies with
51
What is the main idea behind gender roles?
Idea that different roles are expected from males and females (traditional) Mother: caring Father: money maker
52
What are the 4 common research methods?
1. Naturalistic observation 2. Controlled observation 3. Rating scales 4. Self-monitoring
53
What is naturalistic observation? Give an example. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this research method?
It is observing what is going on naturally in natural settings and NOT interacting. For instance, an aggressive preschooler observed in his kindergarten. + : naturalistic behaviors - : time consuming, observer's bias
54
What is controlled observation? Give an example. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this research method?
Observation in which the setting is more controlled; observing one's behavior in a lab setting. For instance, testing stranger anxiety. + : can look at behavior of interest, efficient - : less natural
55
What are rating scales? Give an example. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this research method?
Questionnaires working on scale. For instance, on a scale from 1 to 10, how aggressive do you consider yourself to be? + : practical, can get many reports - : poor desirability
56
What is self-monitoring? Give an example. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this research method?
Asking the participant to monitor their behaviors (journal, diary) i.e. beeper + : practical - : participant may lie
57
What is a correlation? What is it used for?
A statistical relation between two variables (can either be positive or negative). It is used to study variables just as they occur.
58
What is a research by experiment? | What is the main advantage of experiments?
Manipulation of the IV and observing its effect on the DV. It rules out other forces that could influence the DV (compared to correlation) + : Stronger inference about causality (although the effects of confounding variables)
59
What is meant by correlation does not equal correlation?
One variable does not cause the other one, you’re just looking at the association
60
What is a confound variable?
Variable that influence the relationship (i.e. eating habits, genes, depression) --> all these confounds should be acknowledged
61
What is a cross-sectional design? Give an example. What are its advantages and limitations?
Design that compares groups of different ages at the same period of time E.g. Beliefs about alcohol in 3 groups/cohorts (12 vs. 15 vs. 17 years of age); look at how they differ + : Easier to carry out (easy to recruit) / Less expensive / Less time (you assess each group only once) - : Cohort effect (i.e. The time where you’re born influences your beliefs and the ideologies, and so are the differences due to age or to different societal context) / Confounding effect of age and experience / Does not address individual differences
62
What is a longitudinal design? Give an example. What are its advantages and limitations?
Design that follows one group of individual over time E.g. Aggression trajectories in boys from 6 to 15 years of age (same group of boys followed overtime) + : No cohort effect / Assessing individual change - : More expensive / Time consuming / Attrition: overtime, participants may drop out of the study (they moved away, they’re no longer eligible, maybe they passed away?)
63
What is a sequential design? Give an example.
Repeated study of cohorts over time. | E.g. Changes of substance abuse of 7- vs. 8- vs. 9-graders over 3 years
64
What is the first and most important part of conducting research?
Need to make sure that your study has been approved by the ethics board/committee.
65
What are the important components of giving informed consent?
1. Making sure that participants understand all procedures 2. Deception at the end 3. Children must assent (and parent consent) 4. Voluntarism (can withdraw) 5. Full info/comprehension

Flo-PSYC333 (6 decks)

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