Exam 1 Review

Question 1

What major contributions did Larmarck make?

Answer 1

Species change over and they progress to a higher form which is an inheritance of acquired characterisitics which is an example of changes passed down to succeeding generations (Ex: giraffe–>giraffe neck)

Becoming better organisms

Question 2

What major contributions did Mathus make?

Answer 2

More offspring are born than can survive or reproduce–organisms engage in a “struggle for existence”=formation of a new adaption (Too many species-die out)

Question 3

What major contributions did Charles Darwin make?

Answer 3

Contributory to evolutionary theory–species adapt through a process of natural selection and sexual selection as well as classical fitness

Question 4

What major contribution did Hamilton make?

Answer 4

He thought in terms of inclusive fitness which measures an organisms reprouductive success by helping their kin survive and reproduce

Question 5

What major contribution did Trivers make?

Answer 5

Reciprocal Altriusm–basis of adaptations among nonkin/among social relationships

Parental Investment Theory–basis of sex differences in having offspring

Parent-Offspring Conflict–basis for understanding conflict over distribution of family resources

Question 6

What are the 3 characteristics of natural selection (survival selection)?

Answer 6

Variation: Characteristics differ within and across species (ex: wing length, defensive ability)

Inheritence: only some variations are passed down–deformities are not passed down–only inherited variations are passed

Selection: Characteristics serve a purpose for survival or reproduction, in which inherited variations are advantageous

Question 7

What are the 2 types of sexual selection?

Answer 7

Intrasexual competition: same sex competes for attention of the opposite sex

Intersexual competition: one sex drives mating by choosing partners particular characteristics/qualities

Question 8

What is Classical fitness?

Answer 8

Darwins thought about classical fitness meant that it measures an organisms reproductive success by the number of offspring they produce

Question 9

What is inclusive fitness?

Answer 9

Hamilton thought in terms of inclusive fitness measures an organism’s reproductive success by helping their kin survive and reproduce

Question 10

What does adapt mean?

Answer 10

Inherited/reliably developing characteristics that occured through the process of natural selection

We develop adaptations based on where we live, adaptations are species-typical, adaptations are created by the process of selectin and if advantageous they will pass onto the next generation

Question 11

Explain the characteristics of Evolved Psychological Mechanisms (EPMs).

Answer 11

EPMs are problem specific and have solve the problem of survival and reproduction

Interpret small bits of information

Rely on environment input, must be triggered, and input signals and adaptive problem like surviving

Include decision making rules about what to do

Result in in particular output–output is directed toward solutions for specific adaptive problems

Question 12

List the 4 classes of Adaptive Problems and their theoritcal componants.

Answer 12

1) Survival & Growth: differential reproduction dirves natural selection (ex: climate, weather, food shortages, toxins, diseases, parasites, predators, etc.)
2) Mating: Adaptations to unequal distribution of costs in parenting for men and women (females typically invest more in offspring and will be more selective about mating)
3) Parenting: Children and parents will have conflicts; children want more from their parents can give which leads to optimal allocation of resources

4) Living in Society: Altrusium (concern for others) evolves when genetic relatives help their kin
Reciprocal Altruism: adaptations for providing benefits to non-relatives can evolve as along as the delivery of such benefits is reciporacted at some point in the future

Question 13

Describe the 3 componants of the human psyche.

Answer 13

Id: Raw part of personality and is the source of all psychic energy
Libido: operates on the pleasure principle (impulese like going restroom) which seeks instant grafticiation, includes primitve instincts and is unconscious.

Ego: Rational and reasonable part of the personality (develops around 2-3 yrs of age toddler years) Operates on the reality principle which leads to delayed gratification that requires psychologically healthy and have ego strength which can go into preconscious, unconscious, and preconscious.

Superego: You need to behave according to the parental/cultural expectations (develops 5-6 yrs of age) which operates on internalized of caregivers’ rules and includes the ego ideal but in morality and show in the preconscious “thought”

Question 14

List the 5 Psychosexual stages.

Answer 14

1) Oral Stage: Birth to 1 yr old
Critical period: incorportaing objects in mouth
Pleasure: ingestion related pleasure (breastfeeding, and pacifers)
Crisis: Weaning
Fixation: Oral behaviors

2) Anal Stage: 1-3 years old
Critcal period: Acquiring personal power and control
Pleasure: Elimination of body wastes
Crisis: Potty training
Fixation: Order and control/disorder and rebellion

3) Phallic Stage: 3-6 years old
Critcal period: Development of sex-role identification
Pleasure: self-stimulation/genital play
Crisis: pursuit of a love relationship with the opposite sex parent
Oedipus Complex (boys)
Castration anxiety
Resolves through identification with father to form masculing identity
Electra Complex (girls)
Penis envy
Results in identification with mother to form feminine identity
Fixation: Sexual deviancy, poor relationship outcomes

4) Latency Stage: 6 years old-purberty
Critical period: developing friendships, genedered personalities
Pleasure: Learning social, athletic, and intellectual skills
Crisis: None
Fixation: NOne

5) Genital Stage: Purberty+
Critical Stage: mature sexuality and establishing adult romantic partners
Pleasure: Genitals, sexual experiences, relationships, partners
Crisis: conflict between sexual maturity and societal constraints (Detachment from parents and attachment to partner)
Fixation: Immature sexuality

Question 15

What are some of the common defense mechanisms and provide examples?

Answer 15

1) Repression: keeping harmful memories buried in the unconscious (ex: fail to remember an event)
2) Regression: returning to an earlier stage in life because it was “easier back then”
3) Projection: Attribute to problem to others: “The other guy has the problem!”
4) Reaction formation: one perceives their feelings to be unacceptable (Father may be jealous at the mother’s attention to a newborn infant and will become over protective with the infant)
5) Displacement: Taking fustrations out on someone else

Question 16

Define ego identity, crisis, and competance.

Answer 16

Ego identity: sense of self through society
Crisis: a challenge
Competenence: success

Question 17

List the 8 psychosocial development stages.

Answer 17

oStage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust (ages birth to about 1)
Parallels Freud’s oral stage: Need for pleasure (Freud) vs. continuous care from parent/caregiver (Erikson)—Erikson placed a lot of importance on infancy; trust is necessary for successful future development across the entire lifespan
Source of conflict: Parent/caregiver
Crisis: Balancing trust and mistrust
• Strength: Feelings of trust
• Failure: Mistrust
Bottom line for healthy development: A baby needs to balance trust because a baby cannot just trust everyone.

oStage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Ages 1-3)
Parallels Freud’s anal stage: Freud and Erikson stressed the of importance self-control through potty training
Source of conflict: Parents
Crisis: Balancing self-expression and self-control
• Strength: self-sufficiency
• Failure: Shame and doubt
Bottom line for healthy development: Learning to balance self-expression and self-control is necessary for one’s pride

oStage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt (Ages 3-6)
Parallels Freud’s phallic stage: Freud and Erikson stress the importance of children learning society’s [sex] roles
Source of conflicts: Family members
Crisis: Engaging in a social world
• Strength: Initiating actions/developing responsibilities
• Failure: Guilty feelings of irresponsibleness
Bottom line for healthy development: Social skills (skills deemed appropriate by the culture) are formed as children try to master adult like behaviors

oStage 4: Industry vs. Inferiorly (Ages 7-12)
Parallels Freud’s Latency Stage: Children pursue social and intellectual activities
Source of Conflict: Neighborhood, school
Crisis: Mastering knowledge, intellectual, skills cooperation
• Strength: Competence
• Failure: No sense of mastery
Bottom line for healthy development: Parents, teachers, adults, etc. must challenge children to help foster a sense of industry, in which children feel like they accomplish something worthwhile and satisfactory while earning adult recognition

oStage 5: Identity vs. Identity Diffusion (Ages 12-18)
Parallels Freud genital stage: Genital maturity (Freud) and identity (Erikson)
Source of conflict: Peer groups, leadership models
(Identity) crisis: identity-finding out who you are, what you are about, and where you are going in life—Erikson also placed a lot of importance on identity crisis cause they are in the process of exploration “soul searching” Who are you? What are you about? Where are you going in life?
• Strength: Awareness of unique self
• Failure: Inability to identify your role, confusion
Bottom Line for healthy development: Resolution of identity crisis.

oStage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation (Ages 20-30)
Goes beyond Freud
Source of conflict: Cooperation with partner in friendship, recreation, production, sex
Crisis: Form positive/close relationships with others
• Strength: Developing relationships
• Failure: Fear of or superficial relationships
Bottom line for healthy development: This time for change allows individuals’ new opportunities to develop close relationships. One’s identity must be determined to have a healthy relationship.

oStage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation (Ages 20-50)
Goes beyond Freud
Source of conflict: Sharing child rearing, dividing labor, household responsibilities
Crisis: The need to be productive in work and with family
• Strength: Sense of life contribution
• Failure: No contribution
Bottom line for healthy development: Confidence in one’s ability (ex: industry, identity, intimacy) allows individuals to be successful in adult tasks set by society.

oStage 8: Integrity vs. Despair (ages 50 and beyond)
Goes beyond Freud
Source of conflict: Finding oneself within humanity, generations
Crisis: Requires lifetime successful conflict resolutions; sense of peaceful satisfaction in ones life
• Strength: Sense of life accomplishments
• Failure: Regret over lost opportunities/ accomplishments
Bottom line for healthy development: An earlier lifetime of successful conflict results in peaceful satisfaction with an individual’s past.

Question 18

What did Ivan Pavolv discover?

Answer 18

Experiments comprise psychology’s founding landmarks –> salivating dog experiment: distinguished between innate (unconditioned and learned (conditioned) reflexes

Question 19

What did John B. Watson discover?

Answer 19

Questioned: Can classical conditioning be applied to children’s behavior and to human beings? (Littel Albert experiment)
Argument: It is possible to produce any behavior by controlling one’s environment
Bottom line: Classical conditioning happens in human/shape emotions

Question 20

What did Edward T. Thorndike discover?

Answer 20

Followed Watson’s footsteps: Puzzle Box Experiment
Argument: Conditioned responses were not involved in the cat’s learning to escape because there was no conditioned stimulus for that behavior
Bottom line: We have a goal-oriented behavior–not based on stimuli

Question 21

What did B. F. Skinner discover?

Answer 21

Skinner employed Thorndike’s law of effect
Formulated principles of operant conditioning: One learns by operating on the environment learning its consequences
Key discovery: Environmental responses increase or decrease behavior with reinforcement/punishment (learning from consequences of behavior)

Question 22

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 22

oClassical Conditioning
Learning occurs when something new becomes associated with something already known
Focuses on reflexes/physiology, which involves involuntary behavior (S –> R or stimulus –> response)

Question 23

What is operant conditiong?

Answer 23

The environment shapes our behavior
Learning associations are between a behavior and its consequences, RC or responseconsequence
Involves applying reinforcement or punishment after a behavior
•Focuses on strengthening (reinforcement) or weakening (punishment) voluntary behaviors

Question 24

What definitions are part of schdeule of reinforment?

Answer 24

Either contiunous or intermittent–impacts how an organism responds
Behaviors: reinforcement happens after a certain amount of behaviors
Time: reinforcement happens after a certain amount of time

Question 25

Define Direct reinforcements and vicarious reinforcement.

Answer 25

Direct: •Individual observes the model getting a consequence for a behavior •Individual then assumes he/she will get the same consequence for performing the same behavior Vicarious: •Individual observes the model and assumed the model received an unobserved benefit for a behavior •This assumption is based on what the individual observed and the interpretation made of ambiguous events

Question 26

Define Self-Efficacy.

Answer 26

``` oComplex form of observational learning in which we have that belief we can learn how to control our lives while producing positive outcomes oSelf-efficacy influences: Effort and investment Perseverance and motivation Choices and aspirations ```

Question 27

What are Schemes?

Answer 27

Mental structures of how we understand the world We organize information, concepts, and knowledge, and represent behaviors and actions Earliest schemes include our innate reflexes and actions (ex: sucking, grasping, hitting) Then, schemes become more advanced from infancy to adulthood (ex: getting a job) Bottom line: The advancement of schemes signals advanced cognitive development

Question 28

How does assimilation, accomadtion, equilibration, and disequilibration interplay with schemes?

Answer 28

oAssimilation Adding to and using existing scheme Occurs when you act upon a stimulus or something already understood—a thought that already exists oAccommodation Altering/modifying existing scheme when they no longer work We change what we understand based on responses to new stimuli oEquilibration Balances assimilation and accommodation (balances the knowledge we already acquired (assimilate) and new information (accommodation) We need to be balanced as part of our mental development oDisequilibration Mental discomfort

Question 29

What are the Piaget's four stages?

Answer 29

1) Sensorimotor Stage: Birth-2 years of age •Development of action knowledge and action patterns (ex: focus on physical exploration of the world) 2)Preoperational Stage: 2-7 years of age •Development of a child’s “thoughts” (symbolic thinking, mental reasoning, and concepts) (ex: focus on mental exploration of the world) Centration: Children concentrate on one thing and ignore the rest Conservation: The quality of something may remain constant in different situations; children have not yet mastered conservation Transformation: A child views things in isolation Egocentric thought: Children think their thoughts are the only thoughts Intuitive Thought: Children always ask “WHY?!” Bottom line: In this stage, children’s intuitive thought prepares them for sophisticated reasoning 3) Concrete Operational Stage: 7-12 years of age •Development of abilities allow children to classify/quantify objects (active use of logic) (ex: focus on reasoning about the real world) Conservation: Children have mastered conservation through the use of logic (children remain concrete in their thinking) Decentering: Children are less egocentric and take other views/situations into account Bottom line: In this stage, children have a hard time reasoning or answering why 4) Formal Operational Stage: 12-15 years of age •Cognitive ability to operate on ideas (ex: focus on hypothetical, deductive, and abstract reasoning) Adolescents consider problems abstractly rather than concretely Adolescents use formal reasoning This type of thinking doesn’t officially develop until adolescents are about 15—but, this type of thinking may not even fully develop in adults! Bottom line: At the end of this stage, adolescents can actively seek to understand their world through justification

Question 30

What does Vygotsky mean by tools?

Answer 30

oWhat we learn is a set of cognitive tools •Tools are ways of thinking about and solving problems •Tools are “shared” or distributed in cultural contexts •Individuals adapt to their culture by learning tools/habits of mind

Question 31

What does zone of proximal mean and scaffolding?

Answer 31

oZone of Proximal Development (ZPD): Children can learn difficult tasks through the assistance of other/experience people Children learn best when they work with a more knowledgeable other (ex: parents, teachers, mentors) •More advanced learners provide scaffolding to help novices complete tasks they would not be able to do their own •Scaffolding: initially give strong support, but lessen as learner becomes more capable •ZPD is constantly moving as learners master new tools/skills

Question 32

What are Vygotsky's major elements of language and development?

Answer 32

Language as a cognitive tool: •Self-talk (private speech): Children talk to themselves out loud •Inner speech: Children talk to themselves mentally (Development of self-regulation) Socail activity leads to cognitive development: •Internalization: We learn about cultural tools •Appropriation: Using/adapting tools in our own way for specific needs

Question 33

What Bronfenbrenner's PPCT model stand for?

Answer 33

Process: Interactions between the child/individual and the environment •Family, caregivers, friends, & teachers Person: An individuals’ personal/biological characteristics (ex: a person changes the environment by being in it) •School, home, work Context: Development is influenced by levels of the environment—microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem. •Local gov., community, parent’s workplace Time: AND, development is influenced by passage of time-chronosystem •Events (historical changes/transitions

Question 34

Relation between the developing person and the immediate environment that contains the person is what environmental system?

Answer 34

Microsystem--(ex: Sophia lives includes her home environment and her interactions with her parents, brothers, and sisters. School is also part of her microsystem, which includes her school interactions with her teachers and other students.)

Question 35

Interrelations among 2 or more settings that contain the developing person is called what environmental system?

Answer 35

Mesosystem--Ex: Sophia’s parents have a close relationship with her teacher. Her parents always attend conferences and volunteer in the classroom. Sophia’s learning is impacted by the coordination between home and school

Question 36

Embrace social structures. These structures do not contain the "developing person" but they do impact the settings of where the person is..is called what enivronmental system?

Answer 36

Exosystem--(Ex; Sophia’s mom’s job requires that she travel often and her dad’s job requires that he work long hours. This affects the amount of time her parents have to support her through transitions in her life.)

Question 37

Incluedes, micro-, meso, and exosystems. Does not include specific contexts that affect one's life, but rather to societal "blueprints" for one's culture/subculture is called what environmental system?

Answer 37

Macrosystem--(Ex; Sophia lives in the United States which encompasses an individualistic culture. Therefore, she values being independent and self-reliant.)

Question 38

Underlies all previous systems. Encompasses change (or consistency) over time in the characteristics and environment within which an individual lives is called what environmental system?

Answer 38

Chronosystem--(Ex: Sophia’s family experiences living through a very destructive tornado. This affects Sophia’s and her family’s feelings of safety and her family decides to move.)