Child Development

Question 1

What is developmental psychology?

Answer 1

the scientific study of age-related changes in behaviour, thinking, emotion & personality

Question 2

What are the 3 big questions in developmental psychology?

Answer 2

Change & continuity, sources of development (nature vs nurture) and individual differences (culture, parenting).

Question 3

What are the 2 different types of changes, and what do they mean?

Answer 3

Qualitative and quantitative. The former looks at discontinuity, where a child stops crawling and learns to walk. The latter looks at continuity, where a child grows taller in height, or bigger in size.

Question 4

According to Jean Piaget, what are the 4 stages of children’s cognitive development?

Answer 4

Sensorimotor (up to 2 years), pre-operational (2 - 7 years), concrete operations (7 - 12 years) and formal operations (12 years & up).

Question 5

Describe the sensorimotor stage.

Answer 5

Birth to 3 months: look at visual stimuli and turn their heads to noise.

3 - 5 months: follow moving objects with their eyes and will stare at where these objects disappear, but not search for them.

5 - 8 months: can grasp, manipulate and anticipate future positions of objects.

8 - 12 months: search for hidden objects in the last place they successfully found the object, even if the object is clearly somewhere else in view.

12 months: search for objects where they were last seen.

They also form schemas and learn representational thought.

Question 6

What is schema formation?

Answer 6

It is the formation of a mental set of rules, helping us understand current and future experiences. It includes assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation: new experiences forced to fit into pre-existing schema (rabbit being called dog)

Accommodation: schema adapting to include new experiences (recognising that rabbits are different animals from dogs)

Question 7

What is representational thought, and how is it useful?

Answer 7

It is the ability to form mental representations of others’ behaviours, and is developed near the end of the sensorimotor stage. It allows imitation, deferred imitation (those from the past), symbolic play and use of words to represent objects.

Question 8

What does a child learn during the pre-operational stage?

Answer 8

From 2 - 7 years, this stage allows them to:

1) think logically & symbolically
2) rapidly improve language abilities
3) count
4) manipulate objects through conservation and egocentrism

Question 9

What is the principle of conservation?

Answer 9

It is the idea that certain objects maintain their characteristics (height, volume, size, weight) despite apparent changes.

Question 10

What is egocentrism?

Answer 10

It is a child’s belief that others see the world in exactly the same way they do.

Question 11

What does the concrete operations stage include?

Answer 11

From 7 - 12 years, children can:

1) perform logical analysis
2) empathise with others (lowered egocentrism)
3) understand complex cause-effect relations

Question 12

What happens during the formal operations stage?

Answer 12

From 12 years upwards, children can engage in:
1) abstract reasoning
2) metacognition

but only if they’re exposed to principles of scientific thinking

Question 13

Piaget overestimated children’s abilities. True or false?

Answer 13

False. He underestimated them.

Question 14

What is the effect of occlusion?

Answer 14

Relating to the habituation procedure, infants at 4 months-old understand this concept as they lose interest in things they have been exposed to repeatedly.

Question 15

What does the Visual Cliff illustrate?

Answer 15

It shows that by the time children can crawl, they understand depth. Pre-crawling infants can even discriminate b/w 2 sides of the cliff.

Question 16

Contrary to Piaget’s belief that children could only conserve numbers at 6 years old, 6 months old were capable of this ability. True or false?

Answer 16

True.

Question 17

How do babies react to faces as they develop?

Answer 17

Newborn babies prefer faces to scrambled ones. At 3 weeks, they imitate facial expressions. At 9 months, they look in the direction of their mother’s gaze.

Question 18

How do children fare in terms of egocentrism, compared to Piaget’s beliefs?

Answer 18

Piaget believed they only deviated from egocentrism at 7 years old. However, children under 1 will turn to look in the direction of mother’s gaze, 2.5 - 3.5 year olds will bend down to talk to those younger, or turn books around so adults can read the book too. 3 - 4 year olds can pass the diorama task if relevant.

Question 19

How does the broccoli vs crackers study demonstrate children’s theory of mind?

Answer 19

14 month olds gave the experimenter what they liked (crackers), whilst 18 month olds gave what the experimenter liked (broccoli). This demonstrates empathy and understanding of others’ minds.

Question 20

Why do babies still engage in the A-not-B error, if they know the object is not there?

Answer 20

They have difficulty overriding a motor habit.

Question 21

In what 3 ways are children’s emotional development categorised?

Answer 21

Expression: basic emotions present early on, needs time for complex emotions

Empathy

Emotional regulation: display rules like social cues, cultural norms, etc. determine the degree to which certain emotions need to be regulated, and children learn to self-soothe over time rather than relying on parents

Question 22

How do children understand not to do wrong?

Answer 22

Fear of consequences, internalisation of rules and the Principle of Minimal Sufficiency (punishment harsh enough to alter behaviour, but kind enough to refuse dismissal of child)

Question 23

What is Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development, and what are the 3 different levels?

Answer 23

Studying boys aged 10 - 17 years, he presented them with morally ambiguous scenarios. There are 3 levels: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional.

Pre-conventional level: obey authority & avoid punishment (Stage 1) + instrumental hedonism, fulfillment of needs and pleasure (Stage 2).

Conventional level: social system has an interest in people’s behaviour. Wanting to be regarded as good people (Stage 3) to maintain good relations + maintaining social order through laws and moral rules that must be obeyed (Stage 4).

Post-conventional level: moral rules have underlying principles applicable to all situations & societies. Social contracts (Stage 5) where authority figures can be fallible, human rights precede laws + universal ethical principles (Stage 6) where laws are justified by abstract ethics

Question 24

What is the difference between genetic and morphological sex?

Answer 24

Genetic sex is one’s biological sex assigned at birth, whilst morphological sex is how much you present as a certain sex.

Question 25

Are gender roles the same as gender stereotypes?

Answer 25

Gender stereotypes can fuel and cement gender roles, which are cultural expectations of how men and women should behave. Stereotypes are beliefs about the differences in the traits of males and females.

Question 26

How does gender develop until 5 years old?

Answer 26

At 18 months, there begins gender-typed preferences.

At 3 years, children understand their own gender, have preferences for diff toys and friends and have limited abilities to assign gender in pictures.

At 5 years old, they have gender constancy.

Question 27

What role does testosterone play in gender difference?

Answer 27

Gandelmaan, Vom Saal and Reinisch (1977): prenatal exposure to testosterone caused “male-like” behaviour in female mice.

Ward (1972): male mice deprived of testosterone = female-like

Increases spatial ability.

Question 28

Are men and women both equally biologically aggressive?

Answer 28

No, men are more physically aggressive whilst women are relationally aggressive.

Question 29

What is congenital adrenal hyperplasia?

Answer 29

It is when the female clitoris enlarges such that it looks like a micropenis lmao

Question 30

What did Montemayor discover about the effect of the environment on gender diff?

Answer 30

Boys fared better on games labelled for boys, and girls fared better on female-labelled games. They enjoyed it better if the game was gender appropriate or neutral.

Question 31

How did Morrongiello & Dawber (1999) explore parents’ treatments of sons vs daughters?

Answer 31

Both fathers & mothers reacted the same way; promoted risk-taking for boys and perceived vulnerability of girls.