Exam 1: Themes in Development (Ch 1)

Question 1

Kauai Longitudinal Study:
Overall goal of study?
1. What did they do?
2. What was assessed?

Answer 1

Find out how biological and environmental factors influence children’s intellectual, social, and emotional growth.

Examined 698 children born in Hawaiian island of Kauai born in 1955 and studied their development for 40 years.

-Possible complications during prenatal + birth
-family interactions & child’s behavior at home
-Children’s academic performance & classroom behavior during elementary years
-Standardizeded IQ & personality tests

Question 2

Kauai Longitudinal Study:
3. Who did they speak with?
4. How did they obtain info?

Answer 2

Physician records: learn about complications during prenatal period and birth

Nurses/Social workers: observed family interactions & child’s behavior at home. They interviewed mom when child was 1 and 10.

Teachers: interviewed about child’s academic performance & behavior during elementary school years

Police/Family Court/Social Service Records: examined records involving children as victims or perpetrators

IQ & personality tests: at age 10 & 18

Interview: ages 18, 32, and 40 to get personal accounts of how they saw their own development.

Question 3

Kauai Longitudinal Study:
5. Findings?
6. Importance?

Answer 3

Results showed how biological and environmental factors combine to produce child development.

-Prenatal + birth complications -> more likely to develop physical handicaps, mental illness, and learning difficulties. The degree of these depends on home environment (parent’s income, education, mental health, combined with quality of relationship between parents). Age 2 (severe prenatal problems + harmonious middle class family) -> advanced in language & motor skills like normal children.
-By age 10, prenatal and birth issues related to psychological difficulties ONLY if children also grew up in poor conditions.

-PRENATAL ISSUES + ADVERSE FAMILY CIRCUMSTANCES (both biological and environmental challenges): developed serious learning problems by age 10. By age 18, police records, mental health problems, become unmarried parent…. however, 1/3 of these children showed resilience.

Question 4

Reasons to study development

Answer 4

1. Parenting- how to control child’s anger. Physical discipline such as spanking-made problem worse. Expressing sympathy in response to child’s anger allows better coping.
2. Teaching- can help anyone involved in the care of children.
3. Medicine
4. Understanding: human nature
5. Creating Change/ Choosing Social Policies: to make informed decisions that affect children. (Ex. does violet video games -> aggression? Preschool testimony in court? Head start. Back to sleep

Question 5

Who said this: “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-informed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to be any type of specialist I might select…”

Answer 5

John Watson (1930)

Question 6

In the Nature + Nurture debate, what side did John Watson take?

Answer 6

He believed everything was Nurture.

Question 7

The 7 Basic Questions about Child Development

Answer 7

1. How do Nature and Nurture together shape development? (nature and nurture)
2. How do children shape their own development? (The active Child)
3. In what ways is development continuous, and in what ways is it discontinuous? (Continuity/Discontinuity)
4. How does this change occur? (mechanisms of change)
5. How does the sociocultural context influence development? (The sociocultural context)
6. How do children become so different from one another? (Individual differences)
7. How can research promote children’s well-being? (Research and children’s wellfare)

Question 8

1. Nature and Nurture: How do they interact to shape development? This is the most basic question asked.

Nature refers to our ______ _____, specifically the _____ from our parents.

Nurture refers to the wide range of _______, both ____ and _______, that influence development.

Answer 8

Nature: biological endowment (born with), specifically genes inherited from parents.

Nurture: wide range of environments, both physical and social.

Question 9

Developmentalists now recognize that every human characteristic (intellect, personality, physical appearance, emotions) are created through ________ __________ of nature and nurture.

Answer 9

reciprocal interaction

Question 10

Genome

Answer 10

each person’s complete set of hereditary information

-Genome influences behaviors, experiences AND VICE VERSA

-Genome includes DNA and proteins that regulate gene expression by turning gene activity on or off. The proteins change in response to experience–without structurally altering DNA– can produce enduring changes in cognition, emotion, and behavior.

Question 11

Epigenetics

Answer 11

The study of stable changes in gene expression that are mediated by the environment.
(how experience gets under the skin)

Question 12

Methylation

Answer 12

A biochemical process that reduces expression of a variety of genes and is involved in regulation reactions to stress.

-Children born from stressed mothers have risk for depression because their gene activity is surpressed– therefore methylation influences behavior

Question 13

Genotype

Answer 13

genetic material inherited from parents

Question 14

Phenotype

Answer 14

Observable expression of the genotype and environmental influence, including bodily characteristics and behavior.

Question 15

Heritability is a statistical estimate of the proportion of the measured variance of a given _____ among individuals in a given population that is attributable to _____ differences among those individuals.

When is heritability the highest?

Answer 15

Trait among individuals in a given population.. attributable to genetic differences

Heritability is highest when most genes are shared.

Question 16

A common method in behavior genetics is ________/_______ studieds.

Answer 16

Family/kinship

Question 17

What did The Minnesota Twin Family Study measure?

Answer 17

Similarity in IQ based on Relatedness:
Lowest for strangers and very similar in identical twins living together. It is heavily based on genetics but living together slightly influences.

Question 18

Gene-Environment Interactions: when the effects of something in the ______ depend on _____ ______.

Answer 18

effects of something in environment depend on genetic variation

Question 19

Gene-Environment Interactions:

Norm of Reaction (also known as _______ __) is the variability in ______ that could arise from a particular _______ across different _______.

Answer 19

Norm of reaction/ Reaction Range: variability in phenotypes from a particular genotype across different environments

Question 20

Example of G x E

Answer 20

Gene x Environment: Child maltreatment and the variations on MAOA gene. (Caspi 2002)
-Maltreatment is associated with negative outcomes but is WORSE for children with a specific genetic variation

There are two groups based on MAOA activity. There are three levels of childhood maltreatment (none, probable, and severe). They measured antisocial behavior. Children with Low MAOA activity experiences worse antisocial behavior with increased maltreatment compared to high MAOA activity.

Question 21

Most phenotypes of interests to developmentalists are _____ in nature.

Answer 21

polygenetic (not one single gene responsible for it)

Question 22

Baby BOND

Answer 22

Changes in 1 yo HPA-axis functioning based on genetics, exposure to stress in utero, parenting.

This impacts temperament & attachment style

Question 23

2. The Active Child: How do children shape their own Development?

Answer 23

Increase in self-determination with age. However, infants are driving interactions.

Children shape their own development through their choice of where to look/ Attentional patterns (ex. Looking at mom- 1 mo)

Children begin to speak (9-15 months): use of language

Play contributes- spatial understanding and attention to detail required to complete puzzles.

Question 24

Piaget supported the idea that development was ______.

Answer 24

Discontinuous.

Question 24

3. Continuity/Discontinuity: In what ways is development continuous, and in what ways is it discontinuous?

Answer 24

Refers to the rate of change.

Continuous development: age-related changes occur gradually

Discontinuous Development: age-related changes include occasional large shifts so that children of different ages seem qualitatively different.

Can also refer to type of change.

Question 25

Stage Theories propose that development occurs in a progression of distinct ___________ (similar to tree or butterfly example?)

A child’s entry into a new stage involves relatively sudden, ______ changes that affect the child’s thinking or behavior in broadly unified ways. Move child from one ____ way of experiencing world to a different ____ way of experiencing it.

Answer 25

Age-related stages

Qualitative changes

Coherent way -> coherent way

Question 26

Theory of Cognitive Development was created by __________.

This theory focused on the development of ____ and ____.

Answer 26

Jean Piaget

thinking and reasoning

Question 27

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development holds between _____ and _____.

How many stages of cognitive growth do children go through?

Each stage is characterized by distinct ______ ____ and ways of ____ the world.

Answer 27

BIRTH -> Adolescence

4 stages

distinct intellectual abilities and ways of understanding the world.

Question 28

Stage Theories are grouped into _____, ______, and _____. Each of these theories proposes that children of a given ___ show broad _____ across many situations and children of different ___ tend to behave very _____.

Answer 28

Cognitive: Piaget, Siegler

Social/Emotional: Freud, Erikson

Moral: Kohlberg

Children of a given age show broad similarities across many situations and children of different ages tend to behave very differently.

Question 29

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution provides a useful framework for thinking about the ____ that produce change in children’s development.

Variation refers to ___

Selection describes ____

Answer 29

Mechanisms of change

Variation: differences in thought and behavior within and among individuals

Selection: the frequent survival and reproduction of organisms that are well adapted to their environment.

Question 30

How does change occur?

Answer 30

Interaction of genome and environment

Question 31

Development of effortful attention

Answer 31

Rothbart

Effortful attention: voluntary control of one’s emotions and thoughts. Includes inhibiting impulses, controlling emotion, and focusing attention.

Specific genes have been found to influence the production of key neurotransmitters associated with the quality of performance on tasks that require effortful attention.